REVIEW: HAIM - DAYS ARE GONE (10TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION)

4/5

Days Are Back. 

2020. We're locked in a collective, quarantined, planetary pandemic, and Haim still manage to release their best record and album of the year, in-between giving Zoom dance tutorials, with their third titled, 'Women In Music Pt. III'. Spawning the successful singles, 'Summer Girl', 'Now I'm In It', 'Hallelujah', 'The Steps', 'I Know Alone', 'Don't Wanna' and 'Man From The Magazine'. Matching their definitive debut, with all due respect to the superb sophomore doubling-up of 'Something To Tell You's' 'Want You Back' and a 'Little Of Your Love' for your country showdown. Now, after headlining another summer festival in London, All Points to the ten-year anniversary of 'Days Are Gone' and some brilliant bonus tracks to match the deluxe edition. Not to mention amazing signed art cards, cassettes and green vinyl (shout out to my bestie like Este, Depa for getting me a signed copy of 'WIMPIII' for the best Christmas present ever) as the girls take to the deck chairs on the grass again to show that even though they've barely changed, they've never looked or been better. From Polydor to kicking down the door, the sisterhood has come from a family band to the Sunset Sound of touring with Taylor Swift. It's an epic era. 

'Forever' like the formidable first single and mesmerizing music videos across the board. My favourite band is exactly that. Showing they can rock out and roll with the cool California nights. This best coast band have sung songs for the best soundtracks like 'Barbie' and even starred in movies themselves. Alana Haim generating Oscar buzz for her slice of 'Licorice Pizza', co-starring her family and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, who turned Haim music videos into actual movies themselves. But it all started when it came down to 'The Wire'. Or the 'Falling' of 'Don't Save Me' balling out on-court for the Laker fans (could I love them any more?). One of Pitchfork's '100 Best Albums Of The Year So Far', telling us 'If I Could Change Your Mind', before giving us the A$AP Ferg rap remix of 'My Song 5' and a hilarious Ricki Lake like talk show video with SNL's Vanessa Bayer as "Dallas Murphy". The iconic leather-clad big-three summoning a higher power as they bring their hands together for the bridge of, "If you want to see me, baby please/Been holding for on eternity/Say you only want me/Missing you never led to much of anything/If you wanna know, if you wanna show me/Everything’s what it seems, seems to be/Held by a thread/Tried to forget/I-I’ll never let it go/Honey, I’m not your honey pie." You're damn right! 

San Fernando Valley and 1970s classic Americana motored music that culminated in a classic CD that began with four strong singles like a Killer 'Hot Fuss' coming out of the cage. The sweet sing-a-long of 'Honey & I' was no slouch either, as this cool groove of an album flowed like the Pacific for your syrup off a spoon slow Sunday in Cali'. The title track was terrific too. But it was the "heat, heat, heat" of 'Go Slow' that really stopped us in our tracks. This track singing, "I know/I'm giving in and believing every lie/For now the moon is night/I turn off the light/And you shook up the foundation (go slow now)/With your intimidation (I know)/Oh, when you turn away now." All before the classic closer 'Running If You Call My Name' offered hope for the hurt and a clear path to stardom for these Valley girls. Even though the sobering 'Let Me Go' breaks you up boldly and beautiful ("Get me out, give me in/I gave you everything I could give/You tried to take, you tried to make it/But take all everything you can't break/If you go so easily/Go on, get out, when you leave") like the curtain yearn of 'Night So Long' in the 'Days Are Gone' follow-up. 

Japanese and UK editions of this legacy making album have offered us brilliant bonuses before, but now we have eight wonders on a double-disc to celebrate its decade birthday. The Cyril Hahn remix of 'Don't Save Me' is a cool groove, whilst the Cerrone Funk remix of 'If I Could Change Your Mind' switches up the tone. Giorgio Moroder's 'Forever' is gorgeously everlasting, but it's the 'Falling' remix by Duke Dumont that really takes the birthday cake. It 80s perfectly sounds like something out of the beginning and reprise end of a classic John Hughes movie. The demo bones of 'Go Slow' carefully and surely show you how the sisterhood of Haim put these classic records together forever in their garage, but it's the original bonus tracks that are truly outstanding, brought to bear here. "Forgiveness...is that all you want from me" Danielle sings with Fleetwood Mac inspiration on a standalone pre-album single that would have been 'Better Off' making the final cut like it did in the Great British release for an act who have just blew out the candles twice in the Big Smoke, last month. But as the door shuts to the drum beat and hand claps, it's the epic 'Send Me Down' that's an absolute anthem with the "woah, oh" oh's". All before we hit the 'Edge' of glory like Gaga for the true treasure of a hidden gem. "You were my own/The memories hold/They're overgrown/But now I know/There's no climbing over" are perfectly poised, beautiful broods. One that show in another decade the 20th anniversary is going to be a thing of legend. These days of future past are going to last. Far from gone. TIM DAVID HARVEY. 

Playlist Picks: 'Better Off', 'My Song 5', 'Edge'.

REVIEW: BARENAKED LADIES - IN FLIGHT

3.5/5

Flightplan.

It's been more than 'One Week' since we last looked into the Barenaked Ladies (a sentence that really won't fly these days), But after once telling us what they'd do if they 'Had $1000000', the Scarborough suburb of Toronto stars are back from Ontario, Canada, 'In Flight'. Their 18th album and first since 2021's 'Detour de Force' (somebody 'Pinch Me'). Ed Robertson and the harmonies of his band that Beatle Paul McCartney "right on" co-sings are back to bring the good times, but also to question their own mortality as a band in this music scene and life itself. Sometimes you need more than a few dollars and a million reasons like Gaga to stay. But here's your one good reason not to quit the show.

In an absolutely huge New Music Friday headlined by Diddy's first project decades, Nas concluding yet another trilogy with 'Magic 3' and Corinne Bailey Rae giving us the biggest left-turn and album of the year. This record 'In Flight' after last week's 'Layover' with V of BTS (sorry for the lateness in our boarding) hits just like the superb songwriting of the new Pretenders and Thirty Seconds To Mars break-up albums. Albeit differently as love faces the idea that, "that's life" as the Chairman of the Board once couldn't deny it. But at least they're 'Lovin' Life' whilst it's far from the rearview on the opening track and single. Sure singing, "One minute we're here, the next one we're not/The clock is tickin', better use what you got/It's armageddon, and we're gettin' it on/Because the world could end before the end of this song/There'll be darker days, there'll be hell to pay/But until then just keep breathing," is a little "corny", but all the goodness in life always is. Don't be stamped down by those saying so. They just want to keep you there.

There's still 'Enough Time', even if they'll be 'Fifty For A While', like fellow Canuck, Keanu Reeves still kicking ass as 'John Wick', at least with Chapter 4's 'Consequences' finally coming out this week in Japan. These two standout tracks are stellar when it comes to songwriting. Just like 'One Night' of "Dim the lights, clear the floor/Takе another record off the shеlf/Make a little space/Don't we owe it to ourselves?/God knows I need this night/Buckle up and hold on tight, don't let go," of love before the mourning comes. 'What Do We Need?' This and "Not a lot I'm pretty sure that we could get by on half as much as we got/Where will we be after the spotlight fades?/We're gonna have to learn to live in the slow lane," because the destination is nothing without an enjoyable journey. 'Just Wait'...and take it all in. Breathe, like the release of a 'Waning Moon' above this long and winding road Macca used to talk about as you drive. "The moon is up and it's waning/I'd guess about a half remaining/The stars are out and they're shining/Fading in and out, reminding," compelling couplets and vivid verses for the chapters and the best in this Barenaked catalogue, ladies and gents.

Laying it all down so you 'Wake Up' and 'See The Tower' in all its beauty, like Huey of the Fun Lovin' Criminals once said, 'The View Belongs To Everyones'. Enjoy it before the sunset forgets. You're far from 'Too Old', whatever decade you're pushing, no daisies for this chain. "It's just a little white lie from a little white guy/And it never really made much sense/Put a little more time into meter and rhyme." For those who are 'Clearly Lost', now you see, like the tower. Or 'The Dream Hotel' that checks you into "New York, it's fabulous/So beautiful this time of year/A DJ's playing good music/Bubbles float up to the chandelier." Or the pay heed cautionary tale of, "We work ourselves into a rhythm/And then I gotta go/We don't have to wonder what the problem is/We already know/No one should have to sleep alone so much/No one should work this hard just to keep in touch/No one, no one as loved as you are should not feel loved enough", for the life on the road of a band on the run who have now been pulled over. Saving the best for last, it all culminates in the compelling closer 'The Peace Lady' in all her beauty. "Growing up in Toronto/I'd ride with my parents wherever they'd go/She was always there above the DVP/Holding her peace sign for all to see", riding past what is now lost, but forever riding shotgun in memory. 'In Flight' may be the most important album of the week amongst this half-dozen worth of big names. Life is a short flight, but don't keep your heads in clouds. It's not the end of the world. Instead, admire the view and remind yourself that like Thirty Seconds To Mars said, it's beautiful. What a way to go. TIM DAVID HARVEY.

Playlist Picks: 'Enough Time', 'Fifty For A While', 'The Peace Lady'.

REVIEW: V - LAYOVER

4/5

V For Victory.

Ever since 'Proof' of South Korean super K-Pop group BTS' hiatus last year, we've had plenty of music from the boys between World Cup anthems and military service. Leader RM gave us 'Indigo'. Jimin his 'Face'. And J-Hope ('Jack In The Box') and Suga ('D-Day') amazing albums and major movies to go with them. But on Agust D's road to military service, an ARMY of fans sure miss their 'Love Yourself' soldiers together in heart like the fingers of a world reaching hand gesture. All of this has felt like a 'Layover' for the biggest band of brothers since The Beatles (believe that). And that's exactly what V gives us with his new album, no peace sign to his firm friends.

'Layo(V)er' (you get it, right?), marks a big-hit debut for the unsung hero of BTS, really hitting his high-notes now. Collaborating with NewJeans creative director Min Hee-jin. Rocking and wearing his R&B and jazz, pop infused style like Levis on a cowboy. Even washing his laying over loneliness with some vivid music videos. This six-track with a puppy on the front begins with some Mary J. Blige like 'Rainy Days' that brings back that RM 'Forever Rain' feeling, quite possibly one of the emotive songs these epic songwriters have ever done. "Rainy days, I'm thinking 'bout you/What to say, wish I knew how to/Find the way right back to you/On rainy days like-/Staring at my phone 난 깨있지/Hoping for your call lately/I've been on my own maybe/이젠 지난 일에 맨날/Time with you was so amazing/Haven't changed, it's still the same me/늦었지만 우리 다시/Can we go back to that moment again, yeah?" His pain falling on his apartment block window like tears.

It's a kind of 'Blue' like Joni Mitchell, miles away. And as V yearns, "What if I show you/And make it all new/Green, yellow, red, blue/Whatever seems good to you/달에게 하루/빌려온 별들/널 보네 모두/But baby you're still blue, blue." Believing in that comeback love. Even if it's hard to see through those tears that rain. Or the pain that is 'Slow Dancing' (and it's painful piano reprise closer) like John Mayer in a burning room of old letters and photographs. Look at it this way, 'For Us' takes us back even more in a bittersweet reminisce. "You went from my home to/It was nice to know you/And it breaks my heart/That we gave it our best shot/Now I'm in California/I'm still waitin' for yaWill you change your mind?/I would give it all up/For us." Just like the 'Relentless' latest from The Pretenders or the end of the world from Thirty Seconds To Mars last week, if you're going through it, you're really going through it here in this endless summer where the only thing that seems to stick around is the heat. Yet for all these track and tears in these turbulent times when we want more than Bangtan to get back together, it's the lead single 'Love Me Again' that gives us hope. "몇 번씩이나 뭘 하는지 널 생각해/Lost without you, baby/Lost without you, baby/Lost without you, baby/I wish you would love me again/No, I don't want nobody else." We feel you V. Hope this layover is just a brief respite before checking back in to take flight. And not staying over in a lonely hotel room watching others soar. This could all be so much more. TIM DAVID HARVEY.

Playlist Picks: 'Love Me Again', 'Rainy Days', 'Slow Dancing'. 

REVIEW: THIRTY SECONDS TO MARS - IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD BUT IT'S A BEAUTIFUL DAY

4/5

Life On Mars.

200 for 30. Academy Award-winning actor Jared Leto, who we most recently saw enter the Marvel world as 'Morbius', recently revealed to NME magazine that his new double-act Thirty Seconds To Mars got their teeth into a couple of hundred tracks before settling on a 'Stranger Things' number. Even without their guitarist Tomo Miličević, their 11-track album 'It's The End Of The World But It's A Beautiful Day' still keeps a new one in view, like their trademark titles. Long-winded sure, but look up to the Incubus like skies of this Californian act's amazing album artwork, and you too can see it's a beautiful day like Bono. One where you'll feel R.E.M fine even if it really is the end of the world as we know it. This Concord record soars through the friendly Hollywood skies like Pan Am. 

Ladies and gentlemen, as we start our descent, please make sure your seat backs and tray tables are in their full upright position. Make sure your seat belt is securely fastened, and all carry-on luggage is stowed underneath the seat in front of you or in the overhead bins. Thank you. Because here we go. After 'America' in 2018, it's been a long time since we saw 30 (believe me, I'm pushing 40), but after sitting on two albums during the pandemic, now is the right time for Mars to attack like Bruno does the dance floor. Bringing us the opening track and single 'Stuck'. "I've been lost in your eyes all afternoon/The more I drift, the closer I get to you/She's a ghost and the truth, it's impossible, but I love her lies/You make sure I don't find somebody new," Leto laments before telling us 'Life Is Beautiful' on one half of the album's title and a scorching should be summer single. "These scars don't lie I'm livin' in an empty time/Fallin' through space/I'm livin' in an empty place/But one truth that I know/Is that life's beautiful/Life is beautiful/Life is beautiful/Beautiful." Repeat it again and again. Over and over. Crimson and clover. If you're going through it right now, this is the type of amazing affirmation you need in your life...that's still beautiful. Trust me. 

'Seasons' change like people do, but it's time to 'Get Up Kid' on the new anthem. Even if it is "it's bittersweet to love someone but to watch them leave", it's all about the "swing and miss" as you round those bases, babe. Because, "I think that it's so strange what we call love these days/Kinda f####d up and fake/What we call love these days" ('Love These Days') as we swipe at each other like lions, when really we're masquerading like lambs, mutton dressed. So with the 'World On Fire' it's time to hit another 30 Seconds anthem because "life leads us out the dark", so "let there be light" like the genesis of your new beginning on the horizon of all the demons you've defeated and left in your wake. It's time to get up now. '7:1' it's about that time for your new psalm. Sure like the Pretenders new album, also out this week, and the hell this writer is literally going through right now, these kind of end of the world breaks rip you apart. Especially when the love and life was so beautiful. But one thing I know over subtle, but punctuating piano, I'll 'Never Not Love You'. "If it's over and we're going our separate ways/If it's over and I'm wiping the tears from your face/Maybe even if I don't ever see you again/I'll never not need you/I'll never not want you/I'll never not die inside each time I hear your name/I'll never not miss you/If I can't be with you/Even if my last memory was you walking away/I'll never not love you." Sing it again.

You can really feel it. Especially when Leto sings "If I can't be with you" after "miss you" like he was using the F-bomb. Yet as we fly one time again and make it through the clouds, put your hands together for a 'Midnight Prayer' of a better day come morning light. Forget love these days, many people are 'Lost These Days' and whilst singing, "Put you through so much pain/You showed me love somehow/Living a life I left I couldn't hold you down/I'm looking lost these days/Searching for what you found/Being in love with you like dancing with a loaded gun/Stranger in my bed to forget you, but now I know sex don't do it/I got high, I camе down, I called you, I'm not proud/Ten missed calls, I'm donе now", Leto finds a way. A way to put it all in words he's probably regretted he text. Because, hey, we all do it. But maybe we should take a minute and listen to this track with our tears. But as Jared just calls it a curtain with this album with brother and drummer Shannon Leto in Pitbull sunglasses, they end with the spectacle of an 'Avalanche' that comes down with all the walls you built and hurt your tried to avoid. Giving us hope in the end of the hurt with the heart of, "Time, time to live our lives/Set the world on fire/From the ashes, we will rise/You better run fast or get caught in the avalanche (Oh)/Gotta break some rules if you ever wanna win the game (Oh)/Never say no, never ever get to Neverland (Oh)/You better run fast or get caught in the avalanche (Hey)." We will rise again. With not one, but two amazing break up records this week that will go down as some of the best this year as the summer love ends, but the music keeps us together. TIM DAVID HARVEY. 

Playlist Picks: 'Life Is Beautiful', 'Never Not Love You', 'Avalanche'. 

REVIEW: NAS - MAGIC 3

4/5

It's A Kind Of Magic

Six albums. Three years. Two trilogies. And now not eight weeks after the release of the sequel, how about another magic trick to paraphrase Heath Ledger's Joker? The final act and rabbit out the hat is here as Nas and super producer Hit-Boy have just completed their second trilogy like the gold bars of a 'King's Disease'. What better way to surprise birthday celebrate the 50th anniversary of H.E.R. herself, hip-hop with the most remarkable run in the history of the urban music scene? Black excellence on display on the same day as the long-awaited return of Diddy with 'The Love Album' and Corinne Bailey Rae's artistic game-changer 'Black Rainbows'. One of the game's greatest at what might not even be his peak, as we thought going from 'Illmatic' to 'Stillmatic' was for 'God's Son'. Who knows what other book of rhymes he has in his back pocket? Because since the pandemic it's all been real rhymes for hip-hop heads over def jams from a man who once said this very poetic art-form was dead. Way to bring it back to life.

This once again is the resurrection like the common sense of ghetto dreams. Months after dedicating tracks to 'Magic Johnson' like a Red Hot Chilli Pepper 'Salute To Kareem', it's winning time for Nas and Hit for one more shot. Even if HBO just cancelled that show. They call it Magic and this coldest play is still showtime for the back-to-back three-peat ring circus. Giving us 'Fever' like Peggy Lee and the infectious lyrics, "Wolf out of NYC, this is prophecy/Know this was meant to be, evolve constantly/Half a century/Put your glasses up, represent for me (Represent, represent)/Represent for me/Represent, represent, represent for me/Fly from infancy to half a century/Ah-ha, represent." Referencing and representing his classic like Diddy at the VMAs as this man kills it at 50 more than Keanu Reeves chapters of 'John Wick' with the pencil. No tsk's about it on 'TSK's' victory lap of, "First thing I learned when I was comin' up in age/When they stumble in your space, is to punch 'em in the face/The second thing I learned, I was in thе second grade/Slidin' onto second basе, I can orchestrate this game/The third I heard was, if it quacks, it's a duck/The fourth, of course, just be upfront what you want/The fifth was this, keep somethin' crisp on your wrist/Now we on album six, the top team on your list."

This is a man that could still keep it locked for six straight summers (word to his Kanye album). A man as old as hip-hop himself, who still has another half-century and a forever legacy in him. 'Superhero Status' for Keri Hilson's 'Hero', rapping, "Adidas shells, I keep a reefer smell on me/Ringin' the Wall Street bell at 9:30 A.M. is my coffee (It's a s--)/My gang is New York Stock Exchange/Here's my costume change" with a cape on. 'I Love This Feeling' on God, like "Homicidal vinyl section wherе they always found me/By the motion picture soundtrack with Richard Roundtree on the album sleeve/That's my era s###/Musical excellence, hot like on a detective list", for the baddest mother...watch your mouth since Shaft. I'm talking about Nas. Damn right! 'No Tears' reigns next before Tha Carter himself (Weezy F, not Shawn) gets down on something that will 'Never Die'. "Uh, icons, steppin' on pythons/Spittin' that cayenne, eat ya like Zion, peakin' at the skyline/Reachin' for the stars like I'm reachin' for the pylon/I seent ya on the sideline, we need to walk a fine line/We need to read the guidelines, instead of readin' the timelines" Wayne wows. All as Nasir Jones counters, "Let my soul bleed, inside a Rolls, wearing rosaries/Homie, I lovе the new NY 'cause I'm thе new NY/And the old NY at the same time (Same time)/I always hit the last shot when it's game time (Game time)/The Jordan, Kobe, 'Bron talk, take a long walk." This is GOAT talk. 

After sending out a kite to a 'Pretty Young Girl' he saw 'round his way (expect many to slide into his DMs now), hip-hop's greatest storyteller gives us some rewinds 'Based On A True Story', part one and two like an unauthorized biography. That's when it gets cinematic on the detective list, "you see". But 'Sitting With My Thoughts' is where Jones and his Boy get real inspired and introspective. "Never broke again, I'm blacker than the NBA/ESPN couldn't cover all of my highlights", Nasir muses before dropping it all in a 'Blue Bentley' that rolls smoother than if he was a 'Jodeci Member'. "Chain walkin' on water like Jesus Christ/Should I do the gators, Nikes, or Adidas stripes? (Two)/It's been a good day, but tonight, we goin' bad/Whole squad causing terror, shout to Joey Crack", he flosses one moment.  All before getting real with, "Try me like new shoes, try me like new clothes, a color you never wore/Try me like vegan food, I'll show you what we can do, so you ain't sad no more/A love you ain't had before", the next. 'Speechless' also gets its sequel with part two. And you know the Sake smooth with a hit 'Japanese Soul Bar' is going to be just what I ordered. Yet it's the hotline blinging closer '1-800-Nas&Hit' that you should really call on. "Yo, it's like the box sets, Star Wars, Fast & Furious franchises/Six projects, six sagas, it's hood science/4 A.M. infomercials tellin' you where to buy it/1-800-Nas&Hit, all six like a greatest hits/No, my brother, you got to cop your own/Whether we did diamond or hardly sold/We did it for our soul." And they surely did like the black on white of the album artwork for the Rat Pack don you can't forget about like sampling Nat King Cole and singing with Natalie. Now when's the next big-three? We still believe in magic. TIM DAVID HARVEY.

Playlist Picks: 'Never Die (Feat. Lil'Wayne)', 'Based On True Events', 'Japanese Soul Bar'.

REVIEW: THE PRETENDERS - RELENTLESS

4/5

The Great Pretenders.

"You and me we were the pretenders/we let it all slip away", Springsteen once sang with a 'Human Touch'. And on the 'Relentless' new album from The Pretenders there's a heartbreak that just won't quit you like Jake Gyllenhaal and the late, great Heath Ledger in 'Brokeback Mountain'. All for the band that on their Hynde side in the 80s said 'I'll Stand By You' with Scarlett 'Lost In Translation' pink-wigged 'Brass In (Their) Pocket'. Yet, despite the break, the English/American 'Last Of The Independents' are still fighting like the boxing baby Banksy like graffiti of their album artwork, despite the eye-patch. They still see clearly on an album that makes a dozen and their first since the quarantined 'Hate For Sale' of 2020. Their first album on Parlophone and the 'Relentless' tour like Ben Harper and his band of 7 is spurred on by the first single that 'Let(s) The Sun Come In'.

"A bunch of myths, a bunch of tales/To take the wind out of our sails/They even say that we must die/I don't believe it, that's a lie/To live forever, that's the plan/The longest-living mortal man/With a soul that can't be perished/With a song that's always cherished", the icon Chrissie Hynde sings with angel wings on a track that will be held dear as such. Opening with 'Losing My Sense Of Taste' and feeling with the bittersweet pill of a love lost like, "I must be going through a metamorphosis/senile dementia , or some kind of psychosis/I don't even care about rock and roll." Even though that last line is bulls### as Hynde and the Pretenders haven't lost their signature style like R.E.M. did their religion. Especially on the second single 'A Love' that keeps this queen of hearts dealing. "A love to make the day go by/Like a gentle breeze/A love to make the difficult/Disappear with ease/A love like ones I've read about/Or heard about in song/A love like that might come to me/But never for too long." The wonderful remote writing of Chrissie and guitarist James Walbourne producing some of the best work they've ever written.

Believe me, if you're going through it (hands up), you'll really feel this raw 'Relentless' record. Especially with the violence of the 'Domestic Silence' that threatens to stonewall you with lines, "domestic stuff, that's what we got/I know it don't seem like a lot/But when you pan it out, there's a little bit of gold/Well this is where the story gets old" drawn. At 'The Copa', Chrissie calls it like she sees it. But when 'The Promise Of Love Is Broken' over haunting piano, that's when the vocals soar with "snow on the ground, so cold and so white/your arms did surround my mind that night". Like a 'Last Goodbye' from Alison Mosshart and another English/American act, my friend, this one kills. Just like the 'Merry Widow' haunting a fallen love that sadly won't be home for Christmas. "Love fools and everybody knows it/But not everybody shows it," she eulogizes. "I'm a divorcee, but I feel like a widow", when that person you once held dear is no longer here...and all you're left with is blind-siding grief. It's hard to 'Look Away', or the other way. Especially when 'Your House Is On Fire' with embers "from San Francisco to Sydney, there's no rain". It truly is a crying shame.

Yet it's easier said than done to 'Just Let It Go', even if it is for the best ("maybe").  And it's not 'Vainglorious' to look after yourself, but that very track will rock you to your core as Chrissie sings, "some have sank and some are swimming/The heads in hands and hands on faces/History fails and time erases." But for all the wise words and sharp songwriting for these legacy making lyrics, it's the final curtain where these Pretenders like the Foo Fighters are at their most beautiful. 'I Think About You Daily', Chrissie Hynde devotes on the latest single with Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood conducting and composing the strings as she sings, "Time is like a hammer/It comes slow, then comes fast/And things that are too delicate/Are never gonna last/The time you took from me/I never saw it enter/Too distracted by a pretty face/I lost you and my center," over a beautiful ballet of a vivid video. The latest and one of the greatest albums of the Pretenders is no pretence. Not only does this late career surge feel like the good old times, the lyrics are so raw you wonder how amazing an artist like Chrisse Hynde really is. Or how perplexing the pain she has been through has been. We wish as fans we could take it away, but what she gives us instead is solidarity on our own coldest nights. This type of love and life can happen to anyone for better and worse. And even the matrimony of that message can leave us feeling less relentlessly lonely. TIM DAVID HARVEY.

Playlist Picks: 'Domestic Silence', 'Just Let It Go', 'I Think About You Daily'.

REVIEW: CORINNE BAILEY RAE - BLACK RAINBOWS

4.5/5

In Rainbows.

For all the big releases this New Music Friday (Diddy, Nas, Thirty Seconds To Mars, Pretenders, Barenaked Ladies), it's Corinne Bailey Rae's formidable fourth album that is the most accomplished and artistic. With her first release since 2016's sweet 'The Heart Speaks In Whispers', Bailey Rae puts a whole new record on with her most profound project since 'The Sea' of 2010 in mourning. This powerhouse of a new album 'Black Rainbows' might just be the biggest and most successful left-turn for an acclaimed artist. One that's about to herald them as so much more. And Corinne was already one of the most underrated eclectic singer/songwriters we have in this generation. 'Black Rainbows' and the stunning summer single 'New York Transit Queen' takes us even further than those 'Paris Nights/New York Mornings'.

Inspired by her witnessing a Black history exhibition by artist Theaster Gates in Stony Island Arts Bank, Chicago, USA, the winds of change have hit the sails of this catalogue of beautiful, black excellence from the great Brit. Even 'The Love Album' like red and bold type of this album hits the career canvas of Corinne different. Definitively. No longer cocooned despite the cover, Corinne Bailey Rae lies between a gallery of images set to inspire, incite and influence. The art "summoned thoughts about slavery, spirituality, beauty, survival, hope and freedom", is all there in the beautiful struggle of the music. All the way to the cavernous club setting of the 'Transit Queen' video that sets everybody free in the boundless Big Apple. All to the call and response of the sparse, but substance filled, stylistic lyrics. "She takes the 9 to the 5/On the New York subway line/She gets her rides for free/Meet her at the Battery, aah/More, more, more, yeah/Ah, ah, ah, ah." Beauty is well and truly in her possession.

With so many amazing artists making music that moves you right now, it's easy to get lost in the shuffle. Yet nothing matters in all its meaning quite like this. Stepping out and over her self-tilted classic debut with bold new defiance, making her discography that much more deluxe. But this album that has even inspired the record label name change of Black Rainbows (along with Thirty Tigers) is about more than all that in all its garage rock fusion with R&B, jazz and stirring social commentary. It's for the people. It's glam. It's punk. It's the wake-up we all need when the world is too busy fighting each other to realize what is right. And that's right here. 'A Spell, A Prayer' meditating, "Finger tip to finger tip (Ah)/Eye to eye (Ah)/Lay your hip against my hip (Ah)/Feet entwined (Ah)/We are here in this moment (Ah)/And forever more." This is the beautiful beginning of a forever music that feels like legend. From the beats of the title-track, to the epic 'Erasure' of the standout song of significance that says it all in a distortion that has never sounded so clear. "They Typex'ed all the black kids out of the picture/So when they pictured that scene, they wouldn't be seen/Baby girl in the front row, with the cornrows/Smiling at the band/They made a cartoon of you/They beat you into lead, and made an object out of you/They put out lit cigarettes down your sweet throat/They fed you to the alligators."

If you didn't know this was coming, you wouldn't believe it was her. You've never heard Corinne Bailey Rae quite like this before. And you'll never hear better, or more bold and beautiful for a long time coming. Just like the engrossing 'Earthlings' in Stardust signature like a Sayaka Murata novel that reveals much more about this wide world we call planet home like Jamiroquai once did. "Do you know, earthlings/You can start again?/Simply press "refresh" to begin again." It's that simple. Subtle, beautiful and profound in this digital age that swipes past what's right there un front of us. Just like the "you can't wake up if you don't fall asleep" message and Jarvis Cocker song from the pulp of Wes Anderson's UFO fiction 'Asteroid City'. The 'Red Horse' doesn't pale either in all its beauty amongst the brutality of this album's central theme of all the scars the world has left. "Let’s go riding out in the pink light/On a prairie with an endless sky/Let’s get married under the moonlight/Raise a family of wild-eyed childs" Corinne croons on the sweetest reprise that could rest on any of her other big three albums, yet fits perfectly and yearningly right here. "You're the one that I've, I've been waiting for", she sings again and again on the album we've been waiting for when most didn't even know they really needed it. 

'He Will Follow You With His Eyes'. And like the Lord's light, we can see it clearly after the rain has gone. In this clever, conceptual track like St. Vincent 'Pills' that plays like a public service announcement or commercial to all the crass ways mass media and corrupt companies try to peddle what they feel real beauty is. Like a Haim 'Man From The Magazine, it all begins so insincerely as they write it. "Ladies, don't you long for love?/Be irresistible!/With the brighter, attractive beauty/Everybody admires", they tell us like it's just so easy for "all those girls in the magazines (that) make it seem so simple". All before the defiant refrain of the beautiful, "I'll be smouldering in my plum red lipstick/My black hair kinking/My black skin gleaming", takes us to a place we can really call home. With heart. And soul stirring as she 'Put(s) It Down' before the beauty of a piano perfect 'Peach Velvet Sky' and the compelling closer, 'Before The Throne Of An Invisible God' has heads rolling in this game. "Before the throne/Before the throne/His train filled the temple/His train filled the temple/Coal to my lips/His train filled the temple/A burning coal to my lips/To my lips/A burning coal to my lips" with Björk beauty over Japanese inspired instrumental moments. "Kneel" to the new queen far from a New York transit, embracing the whole world with a message that ties the beauty and the brutality of this wonderful world still sadly at war, for better or worse, all together. Until, we as a people, are once more again. TIM DAVID HARVEY.

Playlist Picks: 'New York Transit Queen', 'Erasure', 'Peach Velvet Sky'.

REVIEW: DIDDY - THE LOVE ALBUM: OFF THE GRID

4/5

Certified Lover Boy.

What is love? The artist formerly known as the 'Shiny Suit Man', Sean John Combs has renamed himself more times than he's retired from the game he helped revolutionize like the MJ of his times. Jordan or Jackson. They used to call the hip-hop entrepreneur and designer "Puffy" for the way his chest stuck out when he was playing basketball. Now, the Notorious best friend of B.I.G. has changed his government name to Love. And you can't help but feel heart to that. Especially after debuting the change in a definitive Vanity Fair cover story last calendar. The former Bad Boy for life P. Diddy is back on Motown and his own self-titled record label to give us 'The Love Album: Off The Grid' (still under the name Diddy, because you know how people get confused these days). This is his first album since 2010s 'Last Train To Paris', as a part of the Diddy Dirty Money collective. And his first solo since the club 'Press Play' of 2006. Although we must say 2015's 'MMM (Money Making Mitch)' mixtape feels like an actual album and one of his best ever too.

All-stars? The-Dream, Herb Alpert, Nova Wav, Busta Rhymes, Dawn Richard, Kalenna, Nija, Jozzy, Jacquees, Fabolous, Swae Lee, Summer Walker, French Montana, the Weeknd, 21 Savage, Justin Bieber, Jazmine Sullivan, Ty Dolla Sign, Kehlani, Coco Jones, Kalan.FrFr, K-Ci, Mary J. Blige, Teyana Taylor, Jeremih, Burna Boy, Babyface, John Legend, and H.E.R. They're all here. But none of them shine as bright as the most famous face in all of hip-hop, celebrating its 50th anniversary and a wonderful weekend that sees Nas complete his 'Magic' trilogy with Hit-Boy like a 'King's Disease', not eight weeks after the last one. The era of Love is here as Diddy dubs this, "a journey of retreating from the craziness of the world with a partner by shutting out all the distractions to just love on one another." And how sweet it is, really smoothing itself out to become an 80+ minute playlist of the year. R&B is well and truly back with the Dream like opening of 'Brought My Love' with that aforementioned Atlanta hitmaker and Herb Alpert. All before NOVA WAV partners up with Diddy to ask 'What's Love' all about. 

Yet this album really gets going when we truly go off the grid to 'Deliver Me' with a brilliant Busta Rhymes and Dawn Richard and Kalenna of Dirty Money fame track. Love bringing back the 'I Love You Baby' lyrics off his classic July anniversary celebrating debut 'Now Way Out' with Ma$e, The Lox and the late, great Black Rob. Singing, "It took a while to peep your style/Miss out bein' workin', low profile, single house in Staten Island/I'm in Manhattan while them same cats you sent to get me, boo/Is on they way to get you, f#####' with you." A music montage like his VMA career retrospect performance. It's that Dirty Money, mother...shut your mouths. Nija 'Stay(s) Awhile' for a cool two minutes as you relax your mind and let your conscience be free, rolling with the sounds of the one who invented the remix. It's a 'Homecoming' that like Jozzy (who comes back to tell you, 'It Belongs To You') begs for the love lost with a bold and beautiful brood over a beat that warns you of those Biggie days. Fabolous and Jacquees 'Pick Up' on a track that you would trade it all for with nothing phoned in. The grid belongs to the globe. This album of actual love, belongs to you. Taking the lead to the 'Tough Love' with Swae Lee, this is the type of relationship that doesn't hide its phone from its lover. Instead, it just puts it down.

'Stay Long' like the record with Summer Walker, or walking through the actual season in question, that's still here like the shirts on your backs, and the nostalgia will take you back to the backstreets of a Blackstreet vocoder that begged you not to leave me, girl. Like the first fresh air of a summer breeze the Isleys used to sing about like jasmine in your mind. But it's the sampling of the iconic Phil Collins drums that you can really feel in the air tonight of the sensational single 'Another One Of Me' featuring favourite friend French Montana, rapper of the moment 21 Savage and what is said to be the last collaboration with Canadian and global icon The Weeknd. That is, unless, Daft Punk put those helmets back on. "Dear Heavenly Father/Yeah, I pray you find love in the pieces of me that's left (Ooh-ooh)/Feel it in your soul, it separates from your flesh (Ooh)/The nights that I cried alone, they taught me best (Ooh)/Anybody shine like this, they mighty blessed/But sometimes, you gotta go through the dark to manifest (Ooh)/Yeah, turn me up (Turn me up)/Yo, sometimes, you gotta through the dark to manifest (Ooh)/Sometimes, you gotta smile through the agony and the stress", Love tells anyone wanting to follow his blueprint to Jay-Z like billionaire boys club success. Take that, take that, take that.

As we hit Side B like your old tape decks coming out of a 50-year boom box, even Love's 'Intermissions' are inspired. Not to mention some of the most mesmerizing moments of a matured Justin Bieber, if we're talking about iconic Canadians. The B-side really wins again with the great Jazmine Sullivan as we 'Need Somebody', even if it's only for one night of love like Luther. "We both grown/We both grown, and we know how it feels when we're feelin' somebody/It's a natural thing/'Cause the body's a thing that we shouldn't be ashamed of/And no one's to blame, so we shouldn't be ashamed of it, oh", Sullivan seductively sings on a brood that burns the midnight oil as you stay up skin to skin in the sweat of the sunset. But that's between 'Bosses In Love'. 'Mind Your Business' like another hallmark highlight with Kehlani and Ty Dolla $ign. All before Jozzy returns again with another 'Nasty' interlude from the nasty boy. Dolla $ign backs on another track, back with Coco Jones, 'Reachin'' on something that sounds like his sweet 'Remember' remix with South Korean songstress KATIE. "Ain't no goodnight, without you on the FaceTime", he waxes lyrical for those who understand the love. The 'I Need A Girl' singer then gives us Part 1 of 'Stay' with Kalan.FrFr, K-Ci Hailey (of JoJo, 'All My Life' fame) and Jeremih (who also cuts a heartbreaking 'Boohoo'). But for an amazing album of accomplished collaborations, albeit with some milk carton (especially when it comes to New York's finest), what's the 411?

Mary J. Blige reunites with the 'Love and Life' of the perfect pair's best work since that album from the Queen of hip-hop soul. Baby don't go, sampling the classics, for another one on the best coast of this Compact Disc (if they still make those in your Tower Records (here, home in Tokyo, but lost in New York)) that critics will say should trim the fat, albeit we love to see it. Because the higher Diddy and Love gets the 'Closer To God' he gets with Teyana Taylor on a soulful love that feels like one of the greats. But after the 'Burna Boy' interlude and before the classic closer of 'Space' that still loves H.E.R., it's the beautiful and heartbroken tribute to the late love of Kim Porter with Babyface and John Legend that really strikes the deepest chord on this Jordan digits collection. "Seven days, and/Six nights/Waiting on your sound/That I can't quite live without, yeah/You around?/I don't wanna lose you/I don't wanna be without ya/I just wanna lay by your side/I wanna see lovе through your eyes/Tonight, just and I/For all my life/'Til thе day I die", Face feels. As Legend laments, "Swear to God when I'm near you (Swear to God when I'm near you)/It sounds like Heaven when I hear you/And it rush deep in my heart." Summoning the spirit and the heart and soul in royal red that strikes you like the blood of love. The heart never truly dies. Love is here to stay. Off the grid and off the chain. Let Love rule. TIM DAVID HARVEY.

Playlist Picks: 'Deliver Me (Feat. Busta Rhymes, Dirty Money, Dawn Richard & Kalenna)', 'Need Somebody (Feat. Jazmine Sullivan)', 'Kim Porter (Feat. Babyface & John Legend)'.