For a lot of people the album will probably ooze that romanticism that comes with the joy of hearing a once loved band return and finally impress you with their output. Critically & publicly the Hartnoll brothers later output never received much adulation – with a series of questionable collaborations and brief forays into concept work, for the vast majority of Orbital fans their output was less than appreciated.

Sadly, the confusing choice of lead single ‘Wonky’ still might put off a few fans from delving in – with a heavy breakbeat feel and Nicki Minaj esq shout rapping from MC Lady Leshurr over the top, its a completely different beast to the rest of the album. Tracks like the buzz filled ‘Distractions’ and heavily wrenching ‘Never’ are in a completely different class to ‘Wonky’ but despite their strength both are still further outshone by the two strongest tracks on the album. Detroit Techno homage ‘Stringy Acid’ which will tug at the heart strings and vibrate the soul of anyone that fell in love with the distinct Detroit flavour. But the real shining moment; album closer ‘Where Is It Going?’ in which the boys pull of an attempt to create a track that could easily sit along their debut ‘Chime’ and not feel out of place.

Have Orbital returned to form? Yes. Should you ignore the lead single and delve straight in to the long play? No. ‘Wonky’ as a track has a certain charm and provides solid proof that Orbital are as diverse as they want to be, it just doesn’t belong on this album – if you want a radio friendly lead into the album, you should focus on their second single from the album ‘New France’ which features everyones favourite electro-goth Zola Jesus.

Wonky hits stores April 2nd on CD, Double CD (which includes 5 live tracks) & Vinyl via ACP Records. You check out both singles below and find out more at orbitalofficial.com

Trilogies can be a tricky thing to pull off. If you think about some of the more famous film trilogies – say Star Wars or Lord of the Rings – the first one tends to be okay, the second one is generally the best and the last one is alright but the novelty has worn off somewhat. Musical trilogies are a rare thing, but Canadian R’n'B maestro The Weeknd, aka Abel Tesfaye, has attempted one. In nine months. Opening mixtape House of Balloons had most hipsters salivating at the prospect of an act who was skilful at piecing together synths and drumbeats with a distinct voice that was both self-referential and self-destructive. By Thursday, people were already saying that the novelty was beginning to wear off. So on this, Echoes of Silence, has there been a twist in the tale?

Sadly the answer is no, although there are some major highlights. Unfortunately, these high points on the album all come at the beginning of the mixtape. Echoes of Silence is truly top-heavy in terms of ideas: opener ‘D.D.’ sees Tesfaye straining his voice into a distinct Michael Jackson mould over pounding drums. It’s the indication that The Weeknd might be able to pull off a final flourish, backed up by the beguiling ‘Montreal’. Its apparently smooth and polished sound is subverted by the haunting vocal loops and Tesfaye’s almost unnerving insistence that he’s not to blame for a relationship breakdown, though this is softened by his admittance, albeit in French, that ‘I was crying/ I wasn’t crying.’

‘Outside’ is the first minimal ballad, more notable for its use of gentle, oriental synths than it is for Tesfaye’s voice or wordcraft. It is probably the most beautiful song musically on the mixtape, quickly shattered by the most overtly aggressive track ‘XO / The Host’, which introduces some distinctly disturbing lyrical elements to Echoes of Silence. Here, the loud-quiet-loud structure allows Tesfaye to sing of the tale of making a young woman destitute, sucking her in to a cycle of going back to him and leaving. But it’s ‘Initiation’ which takes the disquiet to the extreme, as the use of voice-distortion allows Tesfaye to take on the role of a Goblin during a drug-fuelled kidnapping.

Though this seems to be some of the best, if unsettling, work The Weeknd has done in terms of narrative lyrics, it’s unfortunately a downward spiral from there. ‘Next’ is almost too mired in R’n'B cliches to be considered an ironic take on the genre, while ‘The Fall’ has an interesting spiralling synth, but it’s too overshadowed by Tesfaye’s voice which by this time becomes grating and somewhat annoying. He doesn’t display an awful lot of vocal range, the limits to which are explored and left dormant after ‘D.D.’ By ‘The Fall,’ no inventive synths can detract from the fact that he sounds more and more like a cross between MJ and the various members of JLS. Pitchfork compared the closing title track with The Knife’s ‘Still Light’ but this is highly unkind to the Swedish band. While ‘Echoes of Silence’ is restrained, relying only on a single, simple piano melody, Tesfaye doesn’t adopt a quieter or even more sentimental tone and can no longer hold an audience’s interest. While ‘Still Light’ examined morbidity and the prospect of death and transcendence with great deft, ‘Echoes of Silence’ doesn’t strayvery far away from the general sexual theme of the mixtape, making what should be a beautiful denouement a seedy end to the trilogy.

It is safe to say that while Echoes of Silence sometimes keeps invention alive, it mostly falls into tried-and-tested R’n'B patterns and Tesfaye’s voice is too limited to add that sense of intrigue that could have been created by guest vocalists or more distortion technology. You have to commend The Weeknd for attempting something so audacious in such a short space of time, but it’s meant a decline in genuine quality and as Tesfaye sings himself, ‘you’re just the same old song.’ The novelty has well and truly worn off.

You can grab all of The Weeknd’s mixtapes from the-weeknd.com and find out more about the band at the same address. For a preview of their material check out below their standout track taken from the ‘House Of Balloons’ Mixtape – ‘The Morning’.

As we arrive in the last month of the Warehouse Project’s final season at Store Street, Liverpool based Chibuku came to town with some of the biggest names in electro-dance. Superstar producer, remixer and recent BBCR6 Music resident Erol Alkan, the ubiquitous Fake Blood and Alex Metric all on one bill is a huge line-up for any event but, with each artist popular in their own right, how they would work together on the same line-up was an interesting prospect.

Manchester-based resident kicked off proceedings in Room 2 with his tech house style. Having played two other gigs at Warehouse Project this autumn and impressed earlier in the year with his ‘Ordinary Things’ EP, the confidence is clearly growing with this DJ who presented an entertaining and funky set infused with garage sounds and a tech beat to an appreciative audience. Over on the main stage veteran synthpop maestro Jacques Lu Cont (aka Les Rhythmes Digitales, Stuart Price) was getting the crowd going but suffered the usual Warehouse affliction of being on before midnight. Those who missed out on Jacques Lu Cont missed a decent set but the real atmosphere was to come later on.

Both Erol Alkan and Fake Blood have appeared under the bill to Boys Noize at their BNR night at Warehouse in the past two years and have disappointed for the same reasons; up against electro giants who do it far better than them, they have paled in comparison and failed to grab their audience. Tonight however, Erol reigned supreme. With the darkness of the arches punctuated only by the flashing ‘E.R.O.L.’ lights on the back screen, the crowds went crazy to the indie-electro, synth infused house created by the maestro. Although the occasionally recognisable riff came into earshot as a crowd pleaser, Avicii’s ‘Levels’ being a prime example, the mastery of Erol’s set was in keeping the beat fresh and alive throughout his hour and a half on stage. Fake Blood followed suit with a heavier, harder style with a few more tech influences and performed admirably with the obligatory ‘I Think I Like It’ providing impetus to a slightly monotone set towards the end. Alex Metric was similarly good without being outstanding to close the night but it was Erol’s set which stayed long in the memory. It is times like this when you see the passion an artists has a producer and musician as well as just a DJ to mix styles so effortlessly and keep a crowd interested in dancing rather than playing a beat hard and fast all night. It was a set and a show you’d find hard to replicate anywhere other than the Warehouse Project.

If you were looking for explosive, innovative and all-round grooving modern music at the Warehouse Project this Saturday then you shouldn’t have been disappointed. The next generation of house artists has well and truly arrived and, with bass music making its way increasingly into the charts, tonight was a nice reminder that instrumental house could still get the electronic aficionados appreciating and the crowds jumping.

Tonight was also the last big night of Manchester University’s Welcome Week and it was perhaps no coincidence that we were looking at an audience with a slightly higher average age who were appreciative music without the heavy bassline or 140bpm speed. Maya Jane Coles is an excellent example of the new generation of house; a set full of synth riffs and vocal samples repeating into infinity and a simple but unrelenting, edgy and unnerving snare track. Her four 2011 EPs (Full Swing, Beat Faster, Focus Now and Cool Down) have fused traditional house influences with a deeper sound and have avoided the minimalism which can often turn newcomers off in the wrong environment. Tonight it is the Burial-esque drum tracks, most evident on recent single ‘Beat Faster’, which get the crowd going and refresh what could be a tired sound with a suitably invigorating rhythm.

Following Coles were the big names of techno. Whilst the names Seth Troxler and Marco Carola may seem to belong to another age, there was no doubting their relevance tonight with two superstar DJ sets exhibiting the best of old influences. Making full use of the huge soundsystem at Store Street, VisionQuest (AKA Seth Troxler, Lee Curtiss, Ryan Crosson and Shaun Reeves) drew in the crowd with a mind-blowing three hour set showcasing the best of their individual releases, music from the VisionQuest label and new material. Tracks like Troxler’s ‘Panic, Stop. Repeat!’ have restored something of a visceral sound to techno and have avoided a clinical, cold sound by restoring bass and hi-hats to their rightful place and giving the dancing crowd a selection of syncopated rhythms to work with. You don’t often get much pushing and shoving at house nights but there was plenty of enthusiasm from fans to create a raucous atmosphere and get the party going. Carola followed the VisionQuest in a similar ilk with more samba like beats and percussion and big synth lines. It takes a good DJ to work real trancey sounds into a track and make it feel innovative but Carola has that in bucketloads with tracks like ‘Bloody Cash’ creating euphoria right to the back of the main room and keeping the night alive until closing time at 5:30am.
If you’re still interested in the new generation however, you were in Room 2 towards the end of the night. Whilst Kieran Hebden’s (AKA Four Tet) DJ set lacked the impact of the Room 1 headliners, Julio Bashmore brought plenty to the stage as the night drew to a close. With his recent Radio 1 Essential Mix drawing praise from all corners, this was an opportunity for a rising DJ to really make his mark and he doubtlessly did that in the cramped back room as he kept the mass of bodies shaking and swaying until dawn. Whilst ‘Battle For Middle You’ has been almost the signature tune of 2011 and a firm fan favourite, the Bristolian’s high energy sets and remixes (for Mosca, Zero 7 and Buraka Som Sistema) have put him right at the forefront of a new gang showing that house music can still keep a party going all night.

It’s a terrible music cliché, but a band radically changing their sound is one hell of a risk, not only does it potentially alienate a fan base, but it can also disrupt band harmony and record label backing. The Horrors have now done it twice, and with undeniable success.

Lead single Still Life from new album Skying was shuffled onto Youtube with nothing more than a note saying the album it’s taken from, and the date of its release. No press fanfare, no Sea Within a Sea countdown style promo, just a band saying “Well, I guess you should listen to this.”

In front of a video which looks it’s been created by Bez (there has since been an actual music video produced) a backward instrumental kicks us off into whole new Horrors territory, a territory that includes more synth and eighties pop references than you can shake a colourful stick at. Front man Faris Badwan shows off his incredible grasp of control he now has over his voice, a million miles away from the screaming chaos he delivered on debut album Strange House. “The moment that you want is coming if you give it time” can only be a reference to certain highs available in this world.

Opening track Changing the Rain kicks off with driving bass and a whirlwind of fantastical synth before moving surprisingly into a baggy sound, was anyone really expecting that?

However, to pin point and generalise Skying into one genre would be doing it a great injustice, because it flitters so easily between electronic tranquillity and over-driven franticity. Take Endless Blue for example, it starts with a slow loping bass line and trumpets before cascading into something that wouldn’t sound out of place on a Black Rebel Motorcycle Club album.

A pattern emerges quite quickly, with a massive emphasis put on Tom’s encompassing synth and Rhys’ languid bass. Fusing together perfectly, they provide the ultimate wall of noise for Faris to impose his baritone voice upon.

As with Primary Colours there isn’t a weak track on Skying, although the seemingly endless (but in a good way) journey that Moving Further Away manages to take you on is the album’s pièce de résistance, transforming effortlessly from eighties electro to shoegaze, with a helping hand of some noisy seagulls.

The album ends with Oceans Burning, far and away the most beautifully crafted song the band have mustered in six years. “It’s a joy to know you’re waiting there” highlighting Faris’ newly found sentimentality and thirst for romance.

Once a wild cannon onstage, Faris has been described as boring recently, but sod that, he is an example of ‘less is more’, his sauntering of stages resulting in more stage presence than he was ever capable of whilst hanging from speakers and goading the audience. Again, it’s another musical cliché, but he and the rest of the band have simply grown up.

There’s been one hell of a transformation since Strange House, you only have to look at the band’s recent promo photos to see that. Where there was once a group strictly restricted to black and tight attire, there is now colour, and that mirrors their music. From dark and dangerous beginnings, The Horrors have discovered a vibrancy that, despite the plethora of obvious influences, makes them one of the most unique and important British bands right now.
Better than Primary Colours? It’s probably more inconsistent, but considering the musical risk they’ve applied to Skying that’s not really a surprise. The next chapter in this band’s intriguing history is crucial, as there will now be huge pressure for them to once again ‘evolve’ their sound. If anyone is capable of pulling it off though, it’s The Horrors.

Forget about the media frenzy, forget the lack of interviews, forget the little online presence and the air of apparent ‘mystery’ drummed up by the band in order to gain our attention. It is all about what you do with all that attention once you have it and what Wu Lyf have done with it is to release a very accomplished debut album to a glued audience.

With a name that sounds like a cry of elation; Wu Lyf (World Unite! Lucifer Youth Foundation) carry that same sense of elation over into their first album ‘Go Tell Fire To The Mountain’. From the opening track ‘LYF’, the churn of an archaic organ and bright bursts of guitar, this album has moments that could belong to the recordings of a Jim Jones style religious cult. Add to that the vocals which are often shouting, constantly raspy and always powerful and you have a record which sounds like it is offering religious salvation.

Lyrically, the whole affair is fairly ambiguous, although the snippets you can catch seem so laden with emotion that you feel the rest must be cries of either heart wrenching trauma or complete joy. The production is low-key, heavy reverb over crashing drums and fiery vocals, making everything seem more haunting than as abrasive that much noise could be. Each track rolls into the next as though it is just part of one large movement. Although there is stand out singles so to speak such as ‘Spitting Blood’, the albums production style means you’re looking at the bigger picture, each track being a small piece of a much greater structure.

Wu Lyf’s success will be dogged by claims that their ambiguity and mystery are their biggest selling point. However, this album proves that it’s not a case of style over substance and the band’s success will be down to releasing a record which leaves you taken aback. Sounding joyous yet heavy with woe at the same time is no small feat for a first album, but this is what bands from Manchester have mastered a niche doing and Go Tell Fire To The Mountain has Wu Lyf standing tall next to them.

Go Tell Fire To The Mountain is out now on LYF, you can check out the video for single ‘Dirt’ below and find out more at wulyf.org

It might be worth at this stage – if I may take a minute and break the old “don’t address yourself in first person in this kind of writing or goddamn it you’ll never pass year 11 English you fucking tit” rule – to point out that this may not be the most objective review ever written.

As someone who has some pretty real ambitions of a least a couple of Arctic Monkeys lyrics tattoos, and who spent so much time pouring over everything related to the band that I accidentally fell in love with Alexa Chung, it’s been a challenge to write this as an actual review, and not just as some giddy fan-boy premature ejaculation.

So to start actually reviewing, Suck it and See is a bit of a surprise. As the White Album via 2011 preview ‘Brick by Brick’, and in particular the first single ‘Don’t Sit Down Cos I’ve Moved Your Chair’, would have led you to believe, it’s not a million miles from the peyote fuelled desert adventures of Humbug.

The signatures of that polarising third album, the runaway basslines, Josh Homme cameos and kitchen sink poetry are still employed (if a bit more sparingly, save for the poetry) but whereas that record rushed in the room and threw you and your expectations around the room a bit with it’s instant heaviness Suck It comes along all pleasantly with a much more mellowed attitude, with the double hit combo ‘Library Pictures’ and highlight ‘All My Own Stunts’ being the brutal exceptions which prove the rule.

The focus of the Sheffield boys this time around is most definitely on achieving a higher level of pop song writing. Opener ‘She’s Thunderstorms’ may not get off to the speeding take off you’d hope for, but follow up ‘Black Treacle’, with the catchiest chorus the boys have come up with since ‘Fluorescent Adolescent’, sets things right for ‘Brick By Brick’ (honestly, not as bad as you first thought) to rock and roll things up.

Have they grown up then, you might ask? Most definitely thank-the-lord not. Festival hit in waiting ‘The Hellcat Spangled Shalalala’ and the sublime title track certainly show how in terms of musicianship, the lads are at the top of their game, and throughout it’s plain to see how Turner in particular has fully ascended from the reluctant peoples poet of 2006 to a masterful surrealist writer, with simple subtle twists such as “called up to listen to the voice of reason/and got the answering machine” and “wrecking ball gown” showing a Modest Mouse level of wordplay.

But there’s still the tongue in cheek sense of fun which has always defined the Arctic Monkeys, evidenced in the numerous shameless Merseyside melodies, youthful desperation of ‘Reckless Serenade’ and in your bloody face fact the whole thing is called Suck it and See.

So yes, I’m giving this glorious album a 9 out of 10. Don’t trust my opinion. Give it a spin, and I defy you, utterly defy you, to not have a touch of sadness when ‘That’s Where You’re Wrong’ the climactic closer the Monkeys have always had in them, wraps things up.

“In five years time, will it be ‘Who the fuck’s Arctic Monkeys?’” they sang five years ago. Here’s your answer….

Suck It And See is out now on Domino, you can check out the video for latest single ‘Don’t Sit Down ‘Cause I’ve Moved Your Chair’ below and find out more at Arcticmonkeys.com

On first listen of ‘Trampoline’, Aaron Wright’s first single sent forth from his self-titled debut album, you may be tempted to throw the 23 year old Scot in the same singer-songwriter bag, labelled “a bit less maudlin and more pop, a bit like that lovely album by Stornoway”. But that probably wouldn’t be fair.

Give the record more of a spin and you’ll see other tracks, such as the stompy ‘Go on Yerself’ and the irresistible harmonious opener ‘I’ll Be Fine’, betray a greater sense of ambition. With more trumpets, horns and strings than you can wave an orchestra conductor’s baton at, there’s much more there musically than the usual folk troubadour fare – no doubt partly thanks to the familiar talents of Belle & Sebastian’s Steve Jackson and Mick Cooke and Norman Blake of Teenage Fanclub playing behind the scenes .

Repeated listens will pick up also the ad-libbed, and sometimes not quite legible, vocals Aaron employs to varying effect. It’s usually a pleasant change of pace from the over-thoughtfulness that sometimes smothers these kind of tunes, but on closer ‘Origami Me’, for example, you begin to feel the lack of a sense of depth that this leaves behind.

It doesn’t matter too much though, because depth or no depth, this is still a charming debut, with just enough Beatles-meets-Paolo Nutini-esque quirky melodies and genuine wry lyrical wistfulness to make sure it is worth your time.

Aaron Wright’s debut album is out soon on d-set Records, you can find out more about Aaron here. Or check out the lead single ‘Trampoline’ below.

The forward looking follow up Room on Fire was almost as good – but due to the laws of the space time continuum and the fundamental idea of physics that time is irreversible change, it wasn’t Is This It and suffered as a result. By the time 2005’s First Impressions of Earth came around, it was clear for all to see that The Strokes were a band in conflict. The following five year hiatus surprised to no one.

So. Was it enough? It seemed the entire world was willing to pore over every nugget of information to come from The Strokes camp to work out the answer in advance. Rumours of hostility and resentment between the band, and the news that former Strokes dictator and coolest frontman alive Julian Casablancas was missing from the new recording sessions, caused many a fan sleepless nights, probably.

When ‘Under Cover of Darkness’ was unveiled, the single which formally introduced The Strokes 2.0 that you should already have heard, things looked good again. It’s a brilliant return to form, an effortlessly cool instant hit, all stop-start entwining riffs and crooning Casablancas vocals.

Follow that up with a glimpse of the perspective mind-fuck album sleeve, snippets of live performances on American TV, interviews with the band claiming they are stronger than ever, and the online stream of twitchy experimental Kid-A tribute album track ‘You’re So Right’ and all that’s left is Angles itself.

Opening statement ‘Machu Picchu’, half a Room On Fire era single, half funk/reggae oddball, is a twisting and turning listen. Give it 4 minutes to listen to ‘Under Cover of Darkness’ one more joyous time, and ‘Two Kinds of Happiness’ brings more of the unexpected. Its mash up of 80’s drive time radio and futuristic space-arena rock works, and like the guitar-less, bassline driven r’n’b of ‘Games’ and neon meets Exile era Rolling Stones ‘Gratisfaction’, it hints that there is a future for a band who looked worryingly on the verge of being irrelevant just weeks ago.

It’s not all good news though. The going-nowhere ‘Call Me Back’, and the heard-it-all-before affect of ‘Heart In A Cage’ remake ‘Metabolism’ and unceremonious closer ‘Life is Simple in the Moonlight’ hammer home the point that this is by no means a masterpiece. There is nothing here which is truly essential listening.

But there’s more to take from this. As their first effort with all five holding the songwriting reins you can forgive Angles for being disjointed and instead admire the spirit of creativity coming from a band who recycled spare parts from Iggy Pop and Blondie to make the sound of the noughties.

Most importantly though, these are just good songs. Maybe it’s time for the world to accept, just as Casablancas and co have done themselves, that it’s time for this band to move on. Welcome to the Second Age of The Strokes. Give it another album or two, and it’ll probably be Golden.

This isn’t actually a bad thing: somehow the fact that they don’t sound any more musically developed or mature than before is somewhat admirable in some ways. At least they haven’t abandoned the plan, and it’s almost refreshing to hear a band that have actually plowed on with the original idea rather than trying to either sound more “edgy” or more “accessible”. It helps that they have an easy sound to get into in the first place: the opener and title track works on a simple yet catchy, West-African inspired call and response structure featuring some nifty Caribbean guitar.  It isn’t all about what came from across the pond though. ‘Without You’ is simply a nicely crafted 80s pop song that takes some inspiration from ABBA in its vocal performance while ‘Blind’ moves more into the realms of techno with highlights of reggae.

In some ways the most striking part of this album is the massive range of vocal styles that singer Tiffany Preston takes on: one minute she’s chanting on songs like ‘Hai’ and the next she sounds just that little bit like Cyndi Lauper on ‘Jungle Bear’ (a track that is otherwise quite in-your-face in its vision). Comparisons with Lauper might not float everyone’s boat, but actually using a slightly more hushed and less tribal tone on this song seems to stop it from being too overpowering altogether. Tiffany steers the album in the right direction when the random mish-mash of genres might threaten to tear this album limb from limb.

Boys and Diamonds might seem like a jumble of ideas clumsily put together, put the clue to what the band are trying to achieve sits in their name: Rainbow Arabia suggests something magical in its diversity while trying to draw influence from a variety of other cultures. If that was their mission statement then they certainly would have succeeded, although occasionally it seems as if the whole thing could simple crumble away at any minute and sometimes the variety is almost too much to handle in one album. Still, you have to give them some brownie points for being so audacious. Few bands would try and do something so diverse now.