Reviews I May Have Missed In September (pt. 2)

…and other albums I happened to not get to in September. Better late than never, yes?

The Script – ‘#3’

The Script are back to their usual pop-rocking ways, and much of ‘#3’ (I’m getting kind of tired of these artists not being able to come up with interesting titles) is what we’ve heard. Lead singer/songwriter Danny O’Donoghue recently got out of a divorce or a breakup of some kind, and much of the album focuses on that. Sadly, I don’t hear much in the way of a hit single here. Sure, “Hall of Fame” (with Will.I.Am of all people) made it to the top spot in the UK and in Ireland (where the band is from), but does that make it good? The album is solid, if not a tad tepid.

Listen to: “Six Degrees of Separation”, “Kaleidoscope”

Chris Wallace – ‘Push Rewind’

Wallace is a newbie on the scene, and this is his first album. I first mentioned him some months ago when he released his first (and only as far as I can tell) single “Remember When (Push Rewind)", which I didn’t hate over here. ‘Push Rewind’ may not help Wallace separate himself from the crowd of attractive male pop singers (the album is a mix of Adam Lambert vocal heights and Andy Grammer sing-songy wordplay), but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a good time. For what was most likely a limited budget, the production sounds nice and I was jamming along at more than one point. Expect to see Wallace as the opening act for every radio show in the coming year.

Listen to: “Keep Me Crazy”, “Don’t Mind If I Do”, everything else except “I’ll Be There”

Cat Power – ‘Sun’

Chan Marshall, AKA Cat Power, has come to be known as kind of a…downer? Her music is known for its sparse beauty, which can sometimes be uplifting, but more often than not is a bit morose (think Lana Del Rey, only good). For her latest LP of original material (her last effort – ‘Jukebox’ – was her second covers album), the singer-songwriter stepped things up and decided she wanted to be happy. Or, at least as happy as Cat Power can be. The songs sound fuller (not that that was hard to do), and she even threw in tiny bits of electronic elements (see if you can find them) as a way of going against herself. Her singing has more to it as well, at times leaving Cat Power and sounding more like Grace Slick of Jefferson Airplane.

Listen to: “Ruin”, “3, 6, 9”, “Human Being”