Shearwater
Jet Plane and Oxbow
(Sub Pop)
4/5

INSPIRED by a flight over the Mississippi, Jet Plane and Oxbow is the latest album from US indie rock band Shearwater.

Fronted by multi-instrumentalist, ex-member of Okkervil River and ornithologist Jonathan Meiburg and based in Austin, Texas, the group shares a similar musical space to the geeky Death Cab For Cutie and Arcade Fire.

Film composer Brian Reitzell, singer-songwriter Jesca Hoop and Wye Oak’s Jenn Wasner all contribute to proceedings.

It’s a very loud record.

Prime is a pounding, cinematic opener, while the synth-heavy Quiet Americans is pure David Bowie.

Pale King takes things up a notch, veering towards the kind of expansive, po-faced, emotive rock of the US heartlands like Matchbox Twenty.

Exciting and heart-stopping album, if you like your music big in ambition and arena-ready, then Jet Plane and Oxbow won’t disappoint.

Pete Astor
Spilt Milk
(Fortuna POP!)
4/5

THE latest album from Pete Astor, veteran English singer-songwriter and lecturer in music at the University of Westminster, Spilt Milk is a wonderful set of pop tunes in the mould of Darren Hayman and Belle and Sebastian.

Astor is accompanied by James Hoare, who plays guitar, bass, drums, keyboards and contributes backing vocals.

There’s nothing flashy or revolutionary here, just assured lyrics and melodic, jangly guitar songs that go straight to the heart.

My Right Hand is a jaunty number, seemingly about the artistic life, that name checks Tony Hancock, Groucho Marx and Marvin Gaye. The synth-based Very Good Lock, meanwhile, eloquently describes the restrictions traditional masculinity can have on a healthy emotional life.

A back-to-basics album, Spilt Milk is another brilliant example of the literate, very English pop music that Fortuna POP! excels at putting out. Delightful.

Darren Hayman
Florence
(Fika Recordings)
4/5

THE eponymous Florence was written and recorded while Darren Hayman was staying in a friend’s apartment in the Italian city a year ago and it’s a beautiful and romantic set from this unappreciated English singer-songwriter.

Opening with a song reciting a welcome note to a houseguest — “I left two towels on the bed for you/And guidebooks on the table too” — Hayman plays everything from delicate acoustic guitar and complementary percussion to twee-sounding synths.

The lyrical focus of Break Up With Him and Didn’t I Say Don’t Fall In Love With Him are self-explanatory, though the honest and smart wordplay raise these mid-tempo, whimsical ditties above the usual lovelorn pop fare.

Having recently released albums of William Morris’s lyrics set to music and a song cycle about the 17th-century witch trials, Florence is a decidedly understated, personal project for Hayman.

A touching, lo-fi triumph.