Album reviews: January 27

★★★

Dragonfly is a solid Kasey Chambers album. Other words to apply here are thorough, rocking (in parts), relatively impersonal and briefly weirdly personal (though only partly true). The word that's not coming up is excellent. It's a 20-track double disc: the Sing Sing Sessions, produced by Paul Kelly, the Foggy Mountain Sessions produced by Nash Chambers. There's not a dud track but few that are really exciting and take Chambers beyond efficiency. Sing Sing is the more musically adventurous, disporting itself through hard-treading gospel rock (Ain't No Little Girl), a Powderfinger-esque ballad (Summer Pillow), back-porch picking (Golden Rails) and a brooding folk number (Jonestown) before the disc is halfway through. But it's lacking emotional punch in writing or voice. The Foggy Mountain disc starts with some country gospel in Shackle & Chain, and for the next eight tracks it hews close to country. There's an easier feel to this disc, a more natural flow that lifts several songs into play-again-immediately territory. On its own Foggy Mountain Sessions would be a winner, but as a package Dragonfly earns respect but not lasting love. Bernard Zuel

Omar

LOVE IN BEATS

(Freestyle Records)

★★★½

Despite being a founding father of neo-soul and among its most formidable talents, commercial success and recognition (with exception of a recent MBE) has eluded South London singer Omar Lye-Fook. Across a 25-year career, record labels have attempted to shoehorn him into acid-jazz, urban, alt-soul and whatever other scene, but heads in the know rate him an unsung genius. Collaborators along his journey (Stevie Wonder, Erykah Badu, Common, Angie Stone and Motown legend Leon Ware) lay testament to this regard. Eighth album Love in Beats (his first in four years) is more electronic, with producer Scratch Professor (Omar's young brother) employing punchier, hip-hop-inspired beats that compliment Omar's butter-smooth tenor. Further collaborators (Blue Note pianist Robert Glasper​, grime MC TY, UK rapper/poet Floacist​ and the return of Leon Ware) enrich the album, while blaxploitation flavours, jazzy interludes and strings serve well. Dejavu has a wonderfully wonky vaudevillian sample and waltz rhythm time, while I Want it to Be purveys summery tropical flavours and Doobie Doobie Doo delivers parping New Orleans swing. Although remaining on the fringes of wider breakthrough, Omar continues to deliver the goods. Andrew Drever

Japandroids

NEAR TO THE WILD HEART OF LIFE

(Pod/Inertia)

★★★

The album's title references James Joyce and Clarice Lispector​, but the title-track's sentiment is pure Japandroids. "It got me all fired up," Brian King sings, "to go far away/and make some ears ring from the sound of my singing". The riff-slinging Canadian duo have long written hymns – played at ear-ringing volume – to the power of rock'n'roll; their second album, 2012's Celebration Rock, wore that unironic idealism in its self-descriptive title. Five years on, Japandroids – guitarist King and drummer David Prowse – return with their third LP. And Near to the Wild Heart of Life, as opener, first single, and title track, is a familiar starting point. However, the set that follows shows things have changed. Sure, there's eight songs, epic riffs, and heart-on-sleeve sincerity, but there's also subtle synths, drum loops, electronic programming, a more mid-tempo mood, and vocals sung, not hollered. It's a studio-born album pushing at Japandroids' musical boundaries. But, in such, it loses some of the simplicity, and purity, of their old two-guys-joyously-jamming-in-a-garage set-up. Anthony Carew

Foxygen

HANG

(Jagjaguwar/Inertia)

★★★★½

Following the success of 2013's We are the 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace & Magic, LA duo Foxygen sought solace and inspiration in LSD casualty Skip Spence and made 2014's ... And Star Power – a double album as excessive as it was erratically brilliant. Hang, their fourth release, restores some precision, comprising only eight songs, while preserving an eccentricity that would be unfathomable to many of today's indie rockers. By employing a 40-piece orchestra on every track, Hang moves through a hit parade of '70s pop, (ABBA, Fleetwood Mac, Elton John), while also incorporating elements of show tunes, vaudeville and prog. David Bowie strived for something similar, though the source of Hang's eccentricity may reside more in one of Bowie's early influences – cult New Orleans pianist Biff Rose. Controlled production has helped the band avoid the sonic muddiness that undermined their previous album, and ensure their zaniness does not obscure the compositional complexity always at work. Such a sincere, un-macho, and thoroughly unfashionable musical statement probably won't appeal to everyone, but for those who like their pop audacious, Hang is a great start to the year. Sean Rabin