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POP / FOLK / REVIEWS
ALSO ON RELEASE
TOM WAITS
Glitter & Doom Live
Anti
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This live album features the music of Waits the lonely bluesman (Dirt in the Ground), the clanking post-modern folk singer (Get Behind the Mule) and the noisy experimenter (The Part You Throw Away) but his voice is always stuck in booming, rasping, Dr Who-villain mode, which doesn’t always work in the context of hearing this on your stereo. That Tom Waits is a copper-bottomed, titanium-plated genius is undeniable; but whether Glitter and Doom adds much to his mainly exemplary back catalogue is debatable. John Doran
What they said...
'I was looking outside myself more at that time because of what was going on in the world. The past couple of years, though, I've looked inward more'
Norah navel-gazing Jones describes how her view changed between her last album and her latest, The Fall
PAUL McCARTNEY
Good Evening New York City
Hear
As the undying thirst for Beatles media proves, these songs are timeless – look at the diversity of attendees captured enthralled on the DVD. And then look at the last 10 selections of this mammoth 33-song set: that kind of closing chapter to a show doesn't need words here telling you how great it is. McCartney’s patter isn't cool, but it doesn't matter, as he could turn up and play on a washboard and it'd still be worth 20 quid. Good Evening… is a wonderful souvenir for those who were there and a perfectly pleasant second-hand experience for those who weren't. Will Dean
NICK CAVE & WARREN ELLIS
The Road
Mute
Outside of their work together preaching a dark gospel in the Bad Seeds and Grinderman, Nick Cave and Warren Ellis have turned a hand to the film soundtrack. Scoring the film adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s novel The Road would seem like an easy fit. It’s shot through with themes that are pretty much Cave’s bread and butter: violence, hardship, the prospect of a vengeful or uncaring God, and a plea for deliverance. But while the book is heavy on gloom, the score seems fixated on its thin shafts of sunlight. Given the subject matter, it could have been bleak, monochromatic even – but here, in the hands of Cave and Ellis, hope springs eternal. Louis Pattison
Patty Loveless’s first Mountain Soul album, released in 2001, pleased those who, though they enjoyed her forays into the commercial country world, knew her heart was in old-time, gospel and bluegrass. As Mountain Soul II (Saguaro Road) confirms, she has a voice that comes straight out of the mountains. Ricky Skaggs had his moment in the mainstream then reverted to his first love of bluegrass. He never looked back, and neither should Patty Loveless with records like this. Nick Barraclough
With his banjo album The Crow (Rounder) comic Steve Martin employs the likes of Dolly Parton, Vince Gill and Earl Scruggs as he explores all the sounds this instrument has to offer, and weaves them into his own charming songs. Nick Barraclough
These reviews have been adapted from www.bbc.co.uk/music/reviews under the Creative Commons Licence
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