From St. Vincent to Lucy Rose: these are this week’s pop and jazz albums

St. Vincent makes you scream for life

‘Hell is near’ says Annie Clark aka St. Vincent at the beginning of her seventh album. The American is looking for an auditory blow. With whimsical guitars, industrial buzzing tones and angular percussion from Dave Grohl, among others, she creates an at times dystopian sound against the canvas. Death and sadness are the basis of her new songs, including the lamented electronics innovator Sophie who receives an honorary salute. But gradually the darkness gives way to light, and Clark’s chilled heart thaws.

“I forgot people could be so kind in these violent times”, she sings in an angelic voice in ‘Violent times’, which gets a lot of warmth from generous wind instruments. Too much mascara sometimes sucks the soul out of Clark’s funky art rock, but this time she scrapes away unnecessary layers in her desire for sound innovation. An alien reggae rhythm gives ‘So many planets’ a more frivolous edge than the post-apocalyptic theme calls for, ‘Sweetest fruit’ is pure pop. Anyone who reads the dramatic album title correctly will discover a thrilling tribute to life. (tbh)

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Nobody makes music like Zinger

Can a Flemish brass band play the role that soul wind instruments play in American music? Zinger’s debut album raises that question. Nine years after its victory over De Nieuwe Lichting, the West Flemish quintet packs in the harvest of years on a baroque debut album that relies on qualities that are not readily available on the market: ensemble playing, live singing, complex song structures. The single ‘Out of Time’ showed how inventively the band breaks through the boundaries of pop and rock and the album offers colorful songs, such as ‘Low end’ and ‘Digger’.

Pieter Deknudt likes to let his expressive tenor travel emotionally in a music hybrid that alternates solemn melancholy with euphoric acceleration. You can sometimes think of Beirut, dEUS and Arcade Fire, but Zinger above all has its own sound, which can really pound with bombardon and a fanfare drum as a rhythm section, makes everyone sing along in ‘Nobodies unite’, but very tranquil in ‘Rear mirror kid’. takes hold. A courageous, stylistically very rich record. (corporate corporation)

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Lucy Rose’s new R&B outfit looks great on her

Lucy Rose knows what suffering is. On her previous album she sang away her mental malaise, this time the British songwriter deals with the excruciating back pain after the birth of her son. Her pregnancy left her with osteoporosis and eight broken vertebrae. Movement was impossible, breathing was painful. She wrote new songs with her baby on her lap, like the cute cries on ‘Interlude II’.

“I blame myself for being so weak, but this brave body is still carrying me”, she sings in the title track. Rose’s music does not feel corny or depressing, on the contrary. She composed songs at the piano, which gives her folky style of yesteryear more verve. Producer Kwes, who previously showed his skills with Solange and Loyle Carner, carefully adds new colors from hip-hop and R&B. Sweeping synths, scratching violins and lusty horns increase the fun in ‘Over when it’s over’ and the boisterous closing track ‘The racket’. A beautiful ode to perseverance. (tbh)

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Uninhibited life force of Leyla McCalla

Like Rhiannon Giddens, Leyla McCalla is one of those African-American musicians who links the search for her roots to her own emancipation. The album title is a reference to a historic speech by black activist Frederick Douglass, who indicated that every struggle requires sacrifices. McCalla’s ‘sacrifice’ is her unrest: both musically and psychologically she searches for who she is. “I am trying to be free… I’m trying to find me”, she opens straight away, on this fifth album, which is her most eclectic and personal. McCalla, who is classically trained and also plays banjo, delves into her Caribbean and African roots, and connects Brazilian polyrhythms and Ghanaian highlife guitars with American avant-garde, which expresses her ambiguous sense of life. Most of the songs are stylistically unheard. The horny ‘Take me away’ seems to span four continents and ‘Tree’ is a moving parable about love and death, which starts off just as sweetly as it later goes off the rails. So much imagination and life force on this beautiful album! (corporate corporation)

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Robin Verheyen Trio: Taxi Wars without Tom Barman, with just as much energy

Take Tom Barman away from Taxiwars and you are left with the Robin Verheyen Trio, with Verheyen on sax, Nicolas Thys on double bass and Antoine Pierre on drums. Even as a trio they guarantee fascinating jazz, less rock-oriented, but just as fiery and energetic.

The trio went to Stoumont, in the Ardennes, and performed an excellent set in Zabonprés (an old stable, which was first converted into a restaurant and is now also used as an occasional jazz club), which can also be seen on YouTube. ‘Roscopaje’, a song by Verheyen that is also in the Taxiwars repertoire, gets an equally intense reading here – it has become a real classic. And the trio also delves into the repertoire of Thelonious Monk, with his ‘Let’s cool one’ and ‘Blue Monk’, while ‘Onkish’ by Verheyen himself is also very reminiscent of the brilliant jazz composer. In the only standard (‘I’m getting sentimental about you’) they slow down for a moment. Strong jazz from a trio of top performers. (pdb)

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Taylor Swift had her heart broken so we can learn from it

Of The tortured poets department Taylor Swift releases her first breakup album in more than a decade. As a specialist in the genre, she shows how even a star of her caliber can fall into romantic traps. (ndl)

Read the full review here.

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Pearl Jam makes a stand against the (sun)set

Like any band with many miles on the clock, Pearl Jam is looking for the fire of its great days. On Dark matter sound Eddie Vedder and co. fresh and decisive. But is it also their best album ever, as they claim? (tbh)

Read the full review here.