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Tracks of the week reviewed: Kevin Morby, Hen Ogledd, Amanda Holden

This article is more than 3 years old

This week we’ve got drowsy alt-country, a slice of celestial synthpop, and an overwrought dollop of orchestral goo

Kevin Morby

Campfire

Half man, half hay wain, dope-rock troubadour Kevin Morby has always sounded as though he was born to serenade Waxahatchee with drowsy alt-country about dead friends on a Kansas porch at dusk. And that (checks press release) is exactly what he’s done for Campfire. Languid, mournful, a bit Velvets in the back end and perfectly timed, just as we’re looking for a replacement Mark Kozelek.

The Jaded Hearts Club

Love’s Gone Bad

Truly jaded hearts would dub this retro-larks-down-the-pub covers supergroup of Matt Bellamy, Miles Kane, Graham Coxon and Nic from Jet as the Travelling Landfillburys. But they couldn’t deny the escapist thrill of Chris Clark’s 1967 northern soul classic being given the full strut rock treatment, with Coxon channelling magick-era Jimmy Page and Kane, upfront, straining a nut for the cause. Electric.

Sigala & James Arthur

Lasting Lover

In hell’s coldest conference centre, officiators of the Pestilence-Pop Championship draw pull out the three most diabolical balls: six (Lewis Capaldi) writes a song for six (Sigala), featuring six (James Arthur). A till at Tiger Tiger could have written this while printing receipts, but its deadliest sin? Forcing a sample from MGMT’s Time to Pretend to neck a Magaluf fishbowl through its pants.

Hen Ogledd

Crimson Star

It’s been a bumper mushroom harvest on the Celtic lowlands, judging by the latest from Richard Dawson’s future-folk cultists. The celestial synthpop anecdotes of a singer on the first deep-space cruise ships, Crimson Star consummates Hen Ogledd’s marriage of mysticism and technology by sounding like they’ve dug up a ley line and unearthed Jean-Michel Jarre.

Amanda Holden

With You

The nation’s BGT sweetheart has made an album of West End covers called Songs from My Heart, an organ clearly transplanted by black market surgeons from a drugged Elaine Paige. A lament for lost Swayzes from the Ghost musical, With You throws so much orchestral goo at the potter’s wheel that Holden is left kneading a mound of watery mush. Bzzzzzp!

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