Album reviews: Soft Cell | Carly Rae Jepsen | The Rezillos | My Glass World

Soft Cell: Danceteria (Republic of Music) ★★

Carly Rae Jepsen: Day and Night (Schoolboy/Interscope) ★★★

The Rezillos: Psycho Tornado (Last Night From Glasgow) ★★★

My Glass World: Extraordinary Renditions (Luxury Noise Records) ★★★★

It’s time to say goodbye to Soft Cell, one of the great quirky British pop groups, titans of the New Romantic scene who always seemed more at home in a seedy Soho bar than on a private yacht in the Bahamas. Founder member Dave Ball passed away last October, leaving Marc Almond to finesse their final album in his memory.

Danceteria swaps Soho for Midtown Manhattan, another influential regular haunt in the early 80s where the duo tested the so-called city that never sleeps. Such was the hedonism of the times, it’s a wonder Almond can remember anything about it, yet Danceteria is awash with neon-lit nostalgia for the people, the music, the drugs and the rules of engagement.

The album is named after the famous New York club also celebrated by Madonna on Confessions II but, unlike Madge’s mighty banger-laden dispatch, Danceteria is overlong and underwhelming - not what anyone wants from a night out. The title track sounds like a poor man’s Pet Shop Boys, The Rainbow Room - named after the glitzy bar in the Rockefeller Center - is a plod and other tracks rely on background saxophone or woodwind to create any kind of ear candy.

Almond’s love of 60s pop shows on Crackland, but even this is still a bit of a drudge, while their club cover of Was (Not Was)’s Out Come the Freaks strips the song of its weirdo charm. If only Decadence Is Hard Work was as good as its title, but it does inject some old age ambivalence to the tone, with Almond expressing regret at his self-absorbed behaviour, so it’s not all them-were-the-days sentiment. After Hours touches on the loneliness of the inveterate clubber, while Wave to America recalls two northern lads’ perplexed engagement with their adopted home.

Canadian singer/songwriter Carly Rae Jepsen also has nocturnal transmissions on her mind on her double concept album Day and Night. Working with British dance producer and Charli XCX collaborator AG Cook, she gathers pop songs and dance tunes across 100 minutes, ostensibly transitioning from day to night. Careful not to peak too soon Carly - opening track After All is dancefloor ready with its house piano, breathy vocals and flirty lyrics and the Night album does end on an anti-climax.

Overall, Day and Night doesn’t justify its length but it does feature a strong, diverse batch of highlights. Day boasts the Minnie Riperton-like rapture of Blue Skies, prime 80s AOR of Burning Heart and the light fragrant funk of Habits of Creatures, on which she works out what to do with the morning after the night before, concluding coquettishly “I think you could be the one to plant my lemon tree”, while Night blasts off with the lean electro funk of Never Let A Good Thing Die and Abba-lite disco pop earworm Don’t Leave Me On the Dancefloor.

The Rezillos mark their half century as Scotland’s premier gonzo punks with latest album, Psycho Tornado. Co-writing with Goodbye Mr Mackenzie frontman Martin Metcalfe, frontfolks Fay Fife and Eugene Reynolds land on the axis of punk, metal, pop and new wave via the snotty power rockabilly of Sugar Punk Fairy, brawny punky rock’n’roll of Man Junkie Riot, Rocky Horror rasp of Edge of Delight and beat pop riffing of Be My Guy - Do Or Die.

READ MORE: Saint Etienne & The Pastels, Glasgow review: 'immaculate pop'

My Glass World is the sophisticated soul pop vehicle of Langholm-bred, London-based singer/songwriter and classically trained multi-instrumentalist Jamie Telford, who was touring keyboard player for The Jam in the early 80s, and Dexys wingman Sean Read, who provides the smoky saxophone, among other fine embellishments, on this immersive album. Telford is a smooth operator, dabbling in baroque pop on Entwined, uplifting Afrobeat rhythms on High Hopes and Blue Nile-esque melancholy on Now We’re A Home.

CLASSICAL

Mendelssohn & Grieg: String Quartets (Alpha) ★★★★

Having witnessed the interpretational freshness and zeal of Scandinavian string quartet Opus13 at this year’s East Neuk Festival, it’s hardly surprising to find their debut disc, pairing Mendelssohn and Grieg, confirm that favourable assessment. They open with the work that inspired their name, Mendelssohn’s Quartet in A minor, Op 13. From its brief, hymn-like introduction a window opens filling the ensuing Allegro vivace with sparkling sunlight. After the languishing warmth and immaculate texturing of the Adagio, the gentle playfulness of the Intermezzo gives way to impassioned, rhetorical drama in the finale. Turning to Grieg’s Op 27 String Quartet, Opus13 they summon their inner patriotism in a performance laced with dreamy nostalgia, folk-fuelled vigour and an innocent, open-spaced sweetness that frequently calms the hurtling energy. Opus13’s “encore” arrangement of Solveig’s Song from Grieg’s Peer Gynt provides a sultry, atmospheric sign-off to an impressive album. Ken Walton

FOLK

Siskin Green: Living in the Echo (Own Label) ★★★★

Combining close vocal harmonies with fiddle, banjo, percussion and guitar, the trio of Jane Bentley, Suzanne Butler and Margaret McLarty (augmented by bass and cello) give keen voice to their core themes of “folk, faith and feminism”. Butler’s opening As I Went Walking showcases their ability to create contemporary song rooted in tradition, while their harmonising brings to the old hymnary chestnut Guide Me Thou Great Redeemer new freshness and a certain intimacy. They revel in the open-hearted welcome of Karine Polwart’s Come Away In, while the celebratory Oh, The Life of the World springs along eagerly over western fiddle and banjo. They bring gentle drift to Christina Rossetti’s We Stumble On and urgency to Palestinian Hallelujah, arranged by contemporary hymn-writer John L Bell. The life-affirming exhortation of Hey, Young Girls is perhaps counterbalanced by the dignified dander of the following instrumental, Matriarchs. Jim Gilchrist

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