ROCK/POP

Latest CDs reviewed

IGLU & HARTLY

& Then Boom ***

Mercury

All aboard the Iglu & Hartly rollercoaster! From LA via Boulder, Colorado, this white commercial hip-hop/pop act aren't so much a throwback to the 1980s as The Buggles magically transported from a sound stage at The Kenny Everett Show to a bunker in late 1990s downtown Detroit, where they're forced to listen to Eminem demo tapes. The results, stylistically, are what you'd imagine goes down at the after-parties of various Salesmen of the Year events: Gareth Cheeseman types jacking up on cheap champagne and getting jiggy with the karoake machine, aiming to distil into one seamless soundbite the twin spirits of Van Halen and Vanilla Ice. How uncool is that? In fairness, vocalist/rapper Jarvis Anderson almost fits the sweatshirt/ string-vest combo, but this is more good-time cartoon antics than slices of real-life drama. In its own peculiar way, though, harmless, mindless fun. www.igluandhartly. com TONY CLAYTON-LEA

Download tracks: Violent and Young, Out There

METALLICA

Death Magnetic Universal ****

The last time Metallica troubled the charts it was with the touch-feely St Anger (2003), recorded while the band were in psychotherapy mode and desperately trying to salvage the dynamic of a group that had rewritten the metal handbook. They were also still feeling the fall-out from their preposterous reaction to Napster (threatening to haul their own fans into the courtroom) and at the time seemed like a busted flush.
 
Hiring producer du jour Rick Rubin seemed like a gamble, but the band had to do something dramatic to retain their elevated status in metal land.

On Death Metallic they've, delivered in spades by returning to their late 1980s heyday with a ferocious assault that is as raucous as it is controlled. All Nightmare Long and The Day That Never Comes display just how James Hetfield has got his growl back and how guitarist Kirk Hammett has a whole new bag of tricks to play with. Their best album in well over a decade. www.missionmetallica.com BRIAN BOYD

Download tracks:All Nightmare Long, The Day That Never Comes

BLITZEN TRAPPER

Furr Sub Pop ****

Furr is Blitzen Trapper's fourth album, but their first on the indiefriendly Sub Pop Records (Postal Service, The Shins). Inspired by an out-of-tune piano with missing keys found outside their studio space, Furr has a lived-in sound that's been honed since 2007's Wild Mountain Nation. Evoking the atmosphere of Wilco, Neil Young and Tom Petty (especially on Gold for Bread), it sounds both retro classic and freshly baked. The album is so lovingly stuffed with influences that you have to strongarm it shut. This creates a wacky vintage blanket effect, resulting in something as unique as Fleet Foxes. Theirs is alt.country that's like a tall glass of cold water on a blistering day: joyous, soulful, dusty and refreshing. www.blitzentrapper.net DEANNA ORTIZ

Download tracks:Furr, Black River Killer, God and Suicide

LADYHAWKE

Ladyhawke Modular ***

Soft-rock, electro-pop and stadium disco are the ingredients in Pip Brown's Ladyhawke satchel. Like quite many of today's would-be pop middleweights, the New Zealander is ever so slightly in thrall to the 1980s. While her record label has yet to hire a stylist to suggest that shoulder-pads, dramatic eye-liner and hair arranged by a windmachine are the way to go, Brown adopts a Machiavellian, magpie-like approach to the sounds of the decade that never seems to go away. You'll hear the weirdest traces of Pat Benatar, Cyndi Lauper and Stevie Nicks in her tones, all of which swirl about a very 2008 grabbag of hipster electro. When she applies these colour-cards to a devilishly good-looking song such as Paris Is Burning, you're ready to pump your fists in the air. But there's just not enough of those moments here to see her make the jump from would-be to bill-topper quite yet. www.myspace.com/ladyhawkerock JIM CARROLL

Download track:Paris Is Burning

THE NEW YEAR

The New Year Touch and Go **** Matt and Bubba Kadane have been making music for nearly 20 years. Whether it's been as Bedhead or The New Year, they've favoured a laidback, all-the-time-in-the-world approach to birthing a new album. Reluctant to even give this latest offering a name, its eponymous stance reinforces the understated arc of what they're about. From the slow build of the opener, Folios, their focus is on crafting layers, and weaving off in unexpected directions. Wages of Sleep gets its weary point across with piano, but guitar/drum/vocals make up the bulk of an album that sounds variously like slowed-down Slint (The Door Opens), early Weezer (The Company I Can Get) and an echo of The Spinto Band. After a handful of listens, these 10 tracks reveal themselves to be potential classics, and linger in the same way favourite, familiar albums do. www.myspace.com/thenewyear SINÉAD GLEESON

Download tracks:The Door Opens. Folios

THE FIERY FURNACES

Remember Thrill Jockey ***

You'd expect nothing less from the Friedberger siblings. After exhibiting plenty of quirky, creative flights of fancy on previous releases (one album even featured their granny in a starring role), the band's latest turn is a 51-track double live album. Not even Genesis or Yes in their most outlandish pomp would have attempted something like that, so it's probably just as well that most FF tracks whizz by at around the two-minute mark. Recorded at various shows from 2005 onwards, Remember reflects the band's  restless urge for reinventing and recasting the melodies from their back-catalogue whenever the mood takes them. Naturally, there are times when this remodelling just doesn't work and the song all but falls apart on them, but there are enough bright spots here to convince fans and perhaps even tempt newcomers to vote FF.  www.thefieryfurnaces.com JIM CARROLL

Download tracks:Single Again, Whistle Rhapsody