The Capes - Taste

Riding the wave of the current British pop revival, we have The Capes from South London. Their American debut is a mini-LP called Taste. Full of catchy songs that remind me of The Kinks at times, though I have to admit that the upbeat songs are much better than the slower ones. Check out Galaxy Fraulein and Regional Heats.

Marjorie Fair - Self Help Serenade

My dictionary defines wistful as "having or showing a feeling of vague or regretful longing". A year ago I received a Capitol Records sampler which had a song, Waves, by the band Marjorie Fair and wistful is the first word that came to my mind. I wanted to write that I am a sucker for wistful songs but I tried to think of some but didn't come up with many. Baker Street for sure. Diamonds and Rust probably. Saturnine and In the End perhaps. After that, things get less vague as we leave wistful and go right into sad songs. Wistful songs make me want to take a drive down streets with someone special (or even better: just thinking about them) and keep going. I did that last week with Waves playing over and over again. I'm weird that way, I suppose.

So Marjorie Fair have recorded this five-star song (see the video here) on their debut album, Self Help Serenade, and it is released only overseas for a year (and it was recorded in 2002). It is coming out in July here in the states but what a drag for a band living in Los Angeles to not have their debut album available in their own country. Well, we have reached a point where you don't have to wait for the U.S. debut next month because the album is showing up reasonably priced at Amazon and on eBay. Okay but what's the album like, right? I'd classify it as a mellow rock album. Stare, sounds pretty mellow to you, doesn't it? I wish the band success. They have waited a long time for it.

The Fortunes - The Singles

One of the nice things about not listening to oldies radio stations is that you can be truly and pleasantly surprised when you hear a song that you haven't heard in a while. Such was the case a few months ago when I was in a store and heard Here Comes that Rainy Day Feeling Again. I hadn't heard that song in a long time. It's nothing deep or meaningful, just a nice song to hear. I did some digging and found out that it was recorded by The Fortunes, a British Invasion-era band that weren't huge but they did have a few hits, including one I really like, You've Got Your Troubles. The best way to go for these guys is to get The Singles, a 24-track collection that has a lot of fun stuff on it (including the original version of Seasons in the Sun). Nothing that changed the world, just some enjoyable Britpop. Beware of their singles on iTunes, though. Those K-Tel oldies albums usually have re-recorded versions of songs rather than the originals.

Sandy Denny - A Boxful of Treasures

My introduction to Sandy Denny came when I bought Led Zeppelin's fourth album and listened to The Battle of Evermore. I had to know more about the lady singing with Robert Plant. Her albums were mostly still in print at the time and I was lucky to find the ones that weren't fairly quickly in the used record stores I haunted. My goodness, what a voice! Beautiful and earnest, delicate and strong. She had a quality that I have not yet heard in another singer (Sandy died in 1978, several years before I discovered her). She was a folk singer at heart but calling her simply a folk singer is such an understatement. Anyway, you get the idea: I'm a huge fan. So much so that I bought the first box set devoted to Sandy back in the eighties...then I bought it again when it was released on CD several years later. So I have one Sandy Denny box set and along comes A Boxful of Treasures. Do I buy a second box set? It has lots that I don't have but lots that I do have. I finally bite the bullet and get it. Honestly, if I would have heard the live version of Whispering Grass that is on the box when I was trying to decide, I would have snatched this thing up a long time ago. Some of the "treasures" are for-fans-only recordings, to be sure, but there is plenty of great stuff here.

Now, I'm a realist. Unless you're already a Sandy Denny fan, you're not going to buy this box set. Fair enough. You owe it to yourself, though, to introduce yourself to the lady's works. Check out the No More Sad Refrains anthlogy which has Sandy solo, as well as with Fairport Convention and Fotheringay. From the exquisite Fotheringay to Nothing More and the folksy John the Gun, British folk music has never sounded better.

I also recently picked up It Suits Me Well - The Songs of Sandy Denny by Vikki Clayton. Not to take anything away from Vikki, who does a wonderful version of John the Gun, but the funny thing about tribute albums is that they often highlight just how special the original artist was.

Death From Above 1979 - You're a Woman, I'm a Machine

How about a drum & bass combo with a real drummer and a real bass player but they rock out and the bass playing sounds like Lemmy? That's what you get with Death From Above 1979: a bass player and a drummer who sings (with the occasional synth thrown in for texture). That's the band, folks. Speaking of minimalism, the singing reminds me of Jack White when he's really rocking but with even more energy. The sound is different, it's noisy, it's modern, but it really works at times on their debut album, You're a Woman, I'm a Machine. Check out Turn It Out and Little Girl.

Steve Howe - Turbulence

The problem with instrumental rock guitar albums is that you keep being reminded that they are GUITAR albums because there are GUITAR solos all over the place and, gosh, isn't that a great GUITAR solo, whether it should be there or not but it's a GUITAR album, what do you expect? Yes's best-known guitar player, Steve Howe, has released several albums and I finally decided to pick up one, having been impressed by a recording of one of his solo shows. Be forewarned that some of his albums have him singing and he is a terrible singer. Turbulence, though, is all instrumental so we are out of danger here. What I liked about this album was that I found myself forgetting that I was listening to a guitar player's solo album. I sometimes find Howe's playing a bit cold but he sure knows how to let the song take the spotlight and have the guitar(s) serve it instead of the song merely being a vehicle for (yet another) guitar solo. Check out Running the Human Race and Corkscrew. Do you hear what I mean? I'm looking forward to more of Steve Howe's (instrumental) albums.

Kaiser Chiefs - Employment

I love great pop albums. Unfortunately, "pop" is a much-maligned word in rock because it is too often used to describe crap. Great pop albums, though, are precious. Here is a short list of what I consider to be some great pop albums:

• A Hard Day's Night - The Beatles (1964)
• Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd. - The Monkees (1967)
• In Color - Cheap Trick (1977)
• Get the Knack - The Knack (1979)
• Beauty and the Beat - The Go-Go's (1981)
• 11 - The Smithereens (1989)

Enough hooks to open a tackle shop, harmonies aplenty, and a beat you can dance to. You get the idea: great pop. That leads us to the Kaiser Chiefs. I'm not saying that their new album, Employment, is good enough to join the ranks of the above great albums. It's a very good album. I am saying that the Kaiser Chiefs have a great album in them. Check out the first single, I Predict a Riot, and Na Na Na Na Naa and just try and keep from moving to the beat.