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The Maccabees – Given to the Wild
Back in the 1980s there was for a brief spell a move towards ‘big music’ i.e. epic songs with swelling choruses and rather pompous lyrics. In many ways the Given to the Wild sees the Maccabees veering towards this category. Much has been made of influences on this album with the likes of Bowie and U2 being name dropped. However, this seems to have more in common with bands such as Coldplay and the Wild Beasts. There is a sonically interesting palette and some effective haunting almost choral vocals and it does have coherence even if it lacks any memorable stand out tracks. This is the band’s third album and in this era where acts are routinely dropped after 1 or 2 albums it is re-assuring to see the Maccabees being given a chance to grow and develop. The sound is great now they need some killer songs.
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Tunng – This is Tunng…
Live from the BBC Reviewed by Tom Bevan The British band’s four albums to date have been periphery successes, with their unique experimental folk sound turning alternative heads across Europe and prompting an array of BBC sessions in the UK. For any British band, the first live session at the beeb is a rite of passage, a ‘you’ve made it’ moment, with support from the likes of Peel, Harris and Lamacq. Looking back at a series of radio sessions since their early days in 2005, Tunng saw they had an album’s worth of material, which has now been compiled into this career-spanning LP.
The album takes in personal acoustic performances for Rob Da Bank to the standout collaboration with Malian desert blues heroes Tinariwen, Tamatant Tilay. Radio 2 legend Bob Harris may be on one track, too; “I seem to remember him ‘playing’ a telephone directory along to one of our songs”. This sense of improvisation, unpredictability and Yellow-Pages-tapping appears throughout the album, giving the tracks that magic vibrancy only live music can offer. “Tunng are almost from another time, another place,” says BBC Radio 1’s Huw Stephens, for whom a number of the sessions were recorded. “When I think of Tunng I think of festivals, of sun, of smiles.”
This Is Tunng… Live From The BBC is to be followed early next year by a new Tunng album as well as the debut record from Mike Lindsay’s Icelandic spin off project, Cheek Mountain Thief. 2012 is set to be a bumper year for Tunng fans… and you can count me in!
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