Regina Spektor - begin to hope

year 2006 review: Begin to hope finds anti-folk chanteuse Regina Spektor taking a small step away from piano balladry into the brave new world of the pop song. And what pop songs they are. Spektor's voice takes the foreground over sparse arrangements of guitars, strings, some electronic beats, and yes, piano. Her singing, if you can believe it, is even better than it was on Soviet Kitsch : intimate, playful, and full of jazzy phrasings. She slips effortlessly into falsetto and scat in a manner reminiscent of Joni Mitchell. "Hotel Song" finds Spektor singing whispery and smooth over humming organs and a muted snare drum. In "On The Radio," she sings about hearing G'N'R's "November Rain" while plucked strings and synth arpeggios go noodling on behind her. This is an album full of surprises, not the least of which is how lovely the effect is overall.

Duran Duran - Astronaut

year 2004 review: As the premier ambassadors of the image-conscious, party-loving British New Romantic set in the early 1980s, Duran Duran duly conquered the pop world, with millions of teenage girls in their hook-filled thrall. After three albums, however, the original lineup splintered, and the band's profile began to fade. Two decades down the line, all five members of DD's vintage lineup finally reunited for Astronaut. Unlike the group's more "mature" '90s offerings, 2004's Astronaut eschews "adult alternative" trappings in favor of a return to their earlier bold, fun-loving sound, a move that couldn't have been better timed, considering the concurrent '80s-revival craze. Accordingly, Nick Rhodes's synthesizers buzz and zoom with reckless abandon, providing bright color and underlining the dance-rock beat. Guitarist Andy Taylor largely tones down the frantic fretboard exercises of his post-Duran days, opting for a chunkier, riff-oriented approach reminiscent of the glory days, and Simon LeBon comes off as every inch the rock star, his swagger, insouciance, and signature vocal style utterly undiminished by time. Astronaut appeared on the horizon as an alert to '80s-worshipping young bands that the men who wrote the book were back in action.

Faithless - To All New Arrivals


Off the back_their extremely successful greatest hits album, Forever Faithless (1.2 million sales), Faithless release_their nevv studio album, To All New Arrivals. A classic ‘the morning_after the night before’ album: melodic, but sonically_pushes the boat out. And in true_Faithless style, they’re not afraid of experimenting, or to say what_they think. It’s a big, warm, passionate album. Faithless_have teamed up vvith some amazing artists on this album (Cat Power, Robert Smith, One Eskimo, Dido), vvith the first_single to be released from the album, Bombs featuring Harry Collier. This track is hugely confident & emotionally alive, lush and emotional with hard hitting brutally honest lyrics.