LEWIS CAPALDI: Broken By Desire To Be Heavenly Sent (EMI)
Verdict: Superstar in the making
PAUL SIMON: Seven Psalms (Legacy)
Verdict: Finely crafted song-suite
Has there ever been a singer whose personality is such a contrast to his music? It’s certainly hard to think of anyone like Lewis Capaldi.
Known for his self-effacing banter, the Scot is one of the funniest men in pop. Yet his songs, at least on his 2019 debut Divinely Uninspired To A Hellish Extent, can be workaday.
Those flicking through his second album in search of the irreverence he displays away from the studio are in for a letdown. His new record picks up where the last one left off: lots of earnest ballads with instantly hummable hooks.
Lewis, 26, admits to feeling anxious ahead of today’s release. Given that second albums are notoriously difficult, that’s understandable.
The fact that his debut exceeded all expectations by being the UK’s biggest seller two years running won’t have calmed his nerves, but you’d be hard pushed to detect any jitters from the performances here.
Lewis, 26, admits to feeling anxious ahead of today’s release. Given that second albums are notoriously difficult, that’s understandable
It helps that the three singles released ahead of the album have all raced to the top of the charts. Those songs — Forget Me, Wish You The Best and Pointless — are also the first three tracks on Broken By Desire… and, despite their pessimistic themes, they represent a strong start: similar to his debut, but bigger and better.
The onus is on Capaldi’s voice, which has acquired a tougher, raspier edge since 2019. He often starts a song in an appealing lower register, before opening up to hit the higher notes with real conviction. Wish You The Best and Haven’t You Ever Been In Love Before? build to big, Hey Jude-like climaxes.
Songs of love and loss remain his stock in trade. Four years ago, he declared himself ‘a slave to the heartache’, and he’s still in thrall to misery here. His voice cracks with emotion on Any Kind Of Life (‘I can’t explain the carousel of my constant pain’). How This Ends is similarly melodramatic.
There are a few upbeat tracks to add variety. Heavenly Kind Of State Of Mind is rock-orientated, although its lyrics set a predictably low bar in terms of his ideal date: ‘You’re the only one who doesn’t hate me… that’s enough.’ Leave Me Slowly, co-produced by big guns Max Martin and Mutt Lange, adds a funky edge.
But it’s when he addresses his own wellbeing that Capaldi begins to bridge the gap between the two sides of his character — personality and performer. Love The Hell Out Of You lapses into dubious therapy-speak (‘you brought resounding techniques for my grounding’), but The Pretender looks convincingly at the pitfalls of fame.
On How I’m Feeling Now, there’s also a sense that the man and his music are in perfect harmony. ‘I won’t lie, I’m a mess,’ he admits. ‘But I’ll get there.’ Building on his debut, but without breaking new ground, this should still secure superstar status for the unassuming Scot.
He might be best known for standards such as The Sound Of Silence and Mrs. Robinson, but Paul Simon has never been afraid of taking chances. He broke fresh ground by combining South African township rhythms with Western pop on 1986’s Graceland and, more recently, revisited his back catalogue with a chamber music sextet.
Paul Simon has never been afraid of taking chances. He broke fresh ground by combining South African township rhythms with Western pop on 1986’s Graceland
On his last album of original material, 2016’s UK chart-topping Stranger To Stranger, he enlisted the help of Spanish flamenco players, Latin American percussionists and the Italian dance artist Clap! Clap!
But even by his bold standards, his latest album is audacious. A continuous piece of music lasting 33 minutes and consisting of seven interwoven segments, Seven Psalms sets his instantly-recognisable voice against delicate acoustic arrangements and his wife Edie Brickell’s backing harmonies.
The singer, 81, looks to the Old Testament for inspiration, but the melodies and lyrics are his own.
Inspired partly by his dreams and written in the wee small hours, the album begins, on The Lord, by praising The Almighty for all that’s good in the world. As the tempo quickens, Simon switches to holding God responsible for pain and suffering, too, including the Covid virus. He even adds, wryly: ‘The Lord is my record producer.’
There are nods to his legacy. There’s a passing reference to his 1977 single Slip Slidin’ Away. My Professional Opinion — which takes gentle aim at the artistic process and decides the only individual whose opinion really matters is God — revisits the bass harmonica of Simon & Garfunkel’s The Boxer.
The mood is melancholy and mystical, but the writing is rich and astute. The Sacred Harp, with Brickell’s voice to the fore, tells of ‘two hapless hitchhikers’ on the road of life.
Seven Psalms ends with a playful take on mortality. ‘I’m not ready, I’m just packing my gear,’ sings Simon. Heaven, it seems, can wait.
- Lewis Capaldi plays festivals this summer (lewiscapaldi.com).
KESHA: Gag Order (RCA)
Verdict: Kesha opens up
American Kesha Sebert is barely recognisable from the party girl who announced herself with the hedonistic Tik Tok in 2009. Back then she called herself Ke$ha and, in one song, boasted of brushing her teeth with Jack Daniels. These days, she cuts a far more reflective figure.
The singer, 36, is in a legal battle with her former producer Dr. Luke, whom she sued, claiming sexual and emotional abuse
New album Gag Order takes the confessional template of 2017’s Rainbow and amplifies it with raw lyrics and otherworldly arrangements that combine electronics and stripped-back folk. It was made with Rick Rubin, a producer with a knack for encouraging artists to be open and honest, and Kesha sticks to the brief.
The singer, 36, is in a legal battle with her former producer Dr. Luke, whom she sued, claiming sexual and emotional abuse. Those claims were dismissed by a court, and Dr. Luke (who denies any wrongdoing) countersued, alleging defamation and breach of contract. Gag Order doesn’t mention the case, but there’s a sense of catharsis at play.
‘All the doctors and lawyers cut the tongue out of my mouth,’ she sings on Fine Line. The notion of being muzzled extends to Gag Order’s album sleeve, which features a disturbing picture of Kesha with a plastic bag over her head.
It’s a challenging listen at times, largely on account of some meandering musical passages. But there’s lightness amid the gloom, not least on The Drama — a song about being reincarnated as a house cat — and closing ballad Hate Me Harder, on which Nashville-raised Kesha sings with an attractive, Tennessee twang.
A bootylicious blockbuster from Queen Bey herself
LIVE: BEYONCE (Principality Stadium, Cardiff)
Verdict: Sci-fi soul spectacular
When she released last summer’s Renaissance album, Beyonce was at pains to stress it was merely Act One.
The first night of her UK stadium tour was staged amid a bouncing sea of crop tops, glitter and pink stetsons
The onus was predominantly on the music — a euphoric celebration of disco, funk and house — with surprisingly little sign of the filmed extras that often accompany her big records.
She’s now adding Act Two — the Renaissance live show — and it’s safe to say we now have the visuals to go with the songs.
The first night of her UK stadium tour was staged amid a bouncing sea of crop tops, glitter and pink stetsons . . . and that was just her fans (the so-called BeyHive), who had packed the streets of Cardiff in their thousands beforehand.
The show itself featured a mammoth stage and LED screen, brassy band, automated moon buggy, dancers . . . and the spectacle of a bootylicious Beyonce singing while suspended above the crowd, mounted on a gravity-defying glass horse. Underpowered it was not.
At the heart of a mesmerising two-and-a-half-hour blockbuster performance, though, was Queen Bey herself. On a night dominated by songs from Renaissance and 2011’s career-defining 4, the record that augmented her R&B heritage with broader soul styles and 1980s-influenced pop, she dazzled, reiterating her vocal range, versatility and charisma.
The evening was divided into a series of chapters. The first began with the singer making a diva-like entrance, rising from a trapdoor in a silver ballgown. The mellow pop-soul ballads that followed — Dangerously In Love, 1+1 — came with the whiff of a Vegas residency. ‘How y’all doin’?’ she inquired, with a Texas twang.
From there, the show morphed into the world’s biggest nightclub. Moving between a sci-fi themed stage and circular walkway, Beyonce delivered a string of high-wattage crescendos, each one seemingly more potent than the last.
It was as if she’d recreated Studio 54 . . . on the Starship Enterprise.
There were some traditional soul moments — a sultry cover of Maze’s 1981 hit Before I Let Go; a Love On Top singalong; an extended Crazy In Love with a jazz-funk coda.
Given the length of the set, momentum was occasionally lost in the video interludes during the star’s many costume changes. Those did, at least, allow the rest of us a breather. And the highlights will live long in the memory.
- The tour continues tomorrow at Murrayfield Stadium, Edinburgh (livenation.co.uk)
***
Read more at DailyMail.co.uk