Will Young Light It Up review - 'charming vocal chops'

Will Young | Jamie Noise

Will Young: Light It Up (BMG) ***

Killer Mike: Michael & the Mighty Midnight Revival, Songs for Sinners and Saints (Loma Vista) ****

Jimetta Rose & the Voices of Creation: Things Are Getting Better (Day Dreamer) ****

Alex Izenberg: Alex Izenberg & The Exiles (Domino) ****

The long and varied career of the ever affable Will Young demonstrates that nice guys do win. He shot to fame in 2002 after politely challenging Simon Cowell’s dismissive judgement on the inaugural series of Pop Idol and has applied that courteous resolve to his many endeavours since, riding out the initial reality TV hysteria to build a sustainable portfolio as an actor, writer, broadcaster, activist and pop star with pan-generational appeal. More than 20 years since his Pop Idol win, he is in a position where he can probably do whatever he likes - and what he likes right now is making an album about embracing middle age.

He throws it all at Light It Up’s opening track Falling Deep which initially presents as commercial soul funk before heading in an Eighties AOR direction with big synths, rock guitar breaks and urgent strings. Smooth synths also dominate Feels Just Like A Win and spice up the otherwise mid-paced pedestrian pop of No Man’s Land.

He heads back to the Seventies for the freewheeling pop R&B jam of the title track, sprinkles some tasty Latin seasoning on the otherwise sterile Me Without You and offers a steady dancefloor shuffle in the shape of Talk About It. The Worst is a typically breathy ballad from the man with the charming vocal chops but the album mostly tilts in an upbeat direction, with a comfortable pace, which is fine for ushering his audience along with him but not for generating any great excitement. It is also notable that the best song by some stretch is a cover of PhD’s soaring I Won’t Let You Down, originally sung by Jim Diamond.

Run the Jewels rapper Killer Mike returns with a surprise sequel to his Grammy-winning album Michael. Songs for Sinners and Saints is styled as the work of gospel band the Mighty Midnight Revival, though is not quite as zealous as Kanye West’s gospel albums. Here, the sound of gospel voices is more of a welcome infusion as he raps about being arrested at the Grammys on Humble Me and practises an air of humility elsewhere on Exit 9. Soul singer Anthony Hamilton guests on Nobody Knows, though the star is the sample from the original Pastor TL Barrett gospel classic.

Killer Mike | Contributed

For unadulterated modern gospel elevation, Los Angeles-based vocal group Jimetta Rose & the Voices of Creation are the real deal. This contemporary gospel outfit stir psychedelic soul and spiritual jazz into the mix as well as somewhat secular messaging about self-improvement, embracing each day and letting others go their own way on the compelling call of To Each Is Zone and Surrender the Day.

Vocally, they shine a light on their own eminent abilities with the a cappella overload of Miracle and the call-and-response of their fun and funky mission statement VOC Chant, while they sound like a righteous army on the sheer spiritual elation of Everywhere I Look. There is much they could be angry about but instead they choose joy.

Jimetta Rose and the Voices of Creation | Ethan DeLorenzo

There is more LA rapture from chamber pop singer/songwriter Alex Izenberg whose fourth album is titled Alex Izenberg & the Exiles to highlight the collaborative nature of its recording with fellow travellers who play with Lana Del Rey, Weyes Blood and Devendra Banhart.

Izenberg maintains a husky mellow-to-the-point-of-deadpan vocal tone throughout as he glides through a succession of psych pop dreamscapes. The retro roots swagger of The Wraith Behind Our Eyes is tempered with a Floydian blank dreaminess, while he offers blissed-out bursts of guitar on the sultry fanfare United States (Of Mind) and McCartneyesque balm on Only The Moon Knows.

CLASSICAL

Thomas Pitfield: String Chamber Music (Divine Art) ****

As an erstwhile student in Manchester I recall elderly home-grown lecturers citing frequently the name Thomas Pitfield (1903-99) - a mightily underrated composer, they insisted, who’d taught composition there to the likes of John Ogden and Ronald Stevenson. At the time there was no opportunity to test what Pitfield’s music actually sounded like. Thanks to Divine Art, however, who have released a series of profile recordings, that neglect is being remedied. The particular focus on this disc is on string chamber music, faithfully executed by The Pleyel Ensemble, and we are presented with two piano trios, two cello sonatas and the single-movement Epigraph, also for piano trio. There’s no doubting Pitfield’s craftsmanship, and the music is intelligently academic, but with a generous soulfulness and pastoralism derived from honeyed English influences like Delius and Grainger. Sparks fly, too, in the Cello Sonatina’s folkish Toccatina and its acid echoes of Shostakovich. Whiffs of Ravel add exoticism to the mix. Ken Walton

FOLK

Laura Jane Wilkie: Vent (Hudson Records) ****

Highland fiddler Laura Jane Wilkie is a familiar presence within groups such as the Kinnaris Quintet. This striking “solo” debut, however, sees her adapt traditional Gaelic waulking songs as fiddle-led instrumentals. She does so with the blessing of Gaelic tradition-bearer Rona Lightfoot, and in the company of players including guitarist Ian Carr, cellist Alice Allen and Sarah Keys on flute and keyboard, as well as occasional vocal samples. The result is unexpectedly beguiling. In I Am Sad in the Braes of the Glen, for instance, whatever heartbreak was being processed among the tweed-pummelling women who devised it, here it takes on multi-stringed grace, while still hinting at the work song pacing of the original. There’s warmth and virr in the strathspey of Lift Up My Love, or the glancing energy of Mermaid, while the closer, Try, shifts from winsome to vivacious, ending on an optimistic note. Jim Gilchrist