Album reviews: James | Gun | Glen Campbell | The Power of the Heart

Gun: Hombres (Cooking Vinyl) ***

Glen Campbell: Duets – Ghost on the Canvas Sessions (Big Machine/Surfdog Records) ****

Various: The Power of the Heart: A Tribute to Lou Reed (Light in the Attic) ***

Despite frontman Tim Booth’s endless capacity for ecstatic dancing, there are no great shakes to report in the realm of James. This one-time weird little indie group have mined a winning anthemic seam for decades and their 18th album – can any of their peers match that work rate? – consolidates their reputation as a celebratory band, casting light on dark circumstances with a polished succession of unremarkable tracks emerging from studio jams.

Is This Love is a bland mantra on disruptive emotions, Our World a slick Eighties power pop number with words for the superpolluters. The stripped-back Stay at least has a tune worth highlighting, while Jon Hopkins’s undulating piano, siren backing vocals and mournful violin combine with some poignancy on Shadow of a Giant.

The irrepressible Booth’s lyrics remain a standout feature. Yummy has room on its menu for big themes but also personal appetites. Rogue rhymes “cleavage” with “Jesus” – surely a first – as he hails his fellow sexagenarians with the assertion that “some of us still have work to do”.

Glasgow’s Gun also deliver to order on Hombres, their latest album of strong and stable commercial classic rock. Whether ticking off glam or garage influences, punching the air or raising a lighter, the rock rulebook is firmly adhered to, but at least they are ready to rumble on opener All Fired Up and have fun on the rabble rousing Wrong To Be Right and the strutting Fake Life.

Glen Campbell was an extraordinary singer (and guitarist). Seven years since his passing, his 2011 album Ghost on the Canvas has been reimagined as a series of duets which somehow generate a chemistry as if he’s in the room with his vocal partners. Contributions range from Hope Sandoval’s breathy caress on Long Walk Home to Brian Setzer’s rockabilly chops on In My Arms.

The title track is classic Campbell, with his gorgeous burnished guitar style as well as his effortlessly emotional voice ringing out. In this case, his guest Sting hovers in the background as if happy to let Campbell do his thing. In contrast, Eric Church mines the country melodrama of Hold On Hope for all its worth.

It’s a treat to hear him with a halting Brian Wilson on the gentle catharsis of Strong, while Dolly Parton joins him on A Better Place, uttering a simple prayer for sustenance through his decline. The original album was produced shortly after he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and Campbell cuts to the heart of the matter on I’m Not Gonna Miss You, singing “I’m still here but yet I’m gone”. There’s not much his guest Elton John can add to that.

A similar starry line-up pays tribute to the late Lou Reed on The Power of the Heart, covering songs from across his catalogue. Keith Richards croaks through Velvet Underground classic I’m Waiting For The Man, Angel Olsen and Maxim Ludwig gallop through I Can’t Stand It from Reed’s 1972 debut solo album and Afghan Whigs turn the groovy Eighties hit I Love You, Suzanne into a stormy rocker.

Rufus Wainwright, a man who knows what it’s like to be wasted in New York, treats Perfect Day with kid gloves, while Bobby Rush, 90 years young, leans into the rhythm’n’blues on a low-slung, funky take on Sally Can’t Dance, but it’s the female collaborators who demonstrate a real affinity for this material. Mary Gauthier and Lucinda Williams are practised storytellers themselves and their versions of Coney Island Baby and Legendary Hearts resonate, while I’m So Free fits Joan Jett like a pair of skinny jeans.

CLASSICAL

Peace I Leave You: Music for the Evening Hour (Coro) ***

Opportunities to wallow in the reflective glow of sacred music “for the Evening Hour” are fewer than they were, given the relative demise of the Sunday evening church service. So here’s a fetching home-listening kit from The Choir of Magdalene College Oxford, which contrasts established settings with refreshing contemporary ones. From simple plainsong-inspired Tallis (Te lucis ante terminum), Purcell’s organically powerful Hear my Prayer and the comforting embrace of a Gibbon’s verse anthem, through the thick-set English opulence of Stanford, Wood and Parry (the substantial Lord, Let Me Know Thine End), to contemporary additions by the likes of Grayston Ives, Roxanna Panufnik and Piers Connor Kennedy, variety is sustained. The same can be said of mainly a cappella performances that capture the candlelit glow, dreamy, soft-centred, if calling out at times for sharper focus. Ken Walton

FOLK

Ross Couper Band: The Homeroad (Ross Couper Music) ****

Shetland fiddler Ross Couper has played for years with The Peatbog Fairies and in his duo with Tom Oakes. This debut recording sees him with his tight quartet of pianist Michael Biggins, Sam Mabbett on melodeon and crisp drumming from Paul Jennings, augmented by bassist Duncan Lyall. Most material is by Couper, who has a nice ear for a tune, the opening set establishing the vibe, with the rumbustious Da Clubb suddenly giving way to the plaintive air Farewell to Dumbarton Road before Couper’s fiddle strikes up Clunie Road – evidently another address with lively associations. The lovely Delting Bridal March, with its dignified pacing, is followed by a spirited trio of reels over exuberant piano and rockabilly drumbeat and there’s an elegant waltz, Regenvista. The closing medley is a cracker, including a stirring flourish of a tune, Natalie’s, with its nimble melodeon harmony line. Jim Gilchrist

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