Barrowman all on show

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DO YOU like musicals?
Are you a fan of John Barrowman?
No, I'm not questioning anybody's sexuality, the reason I ask is 'entertainer' John Barrowman's self-titled new album sees the 'personality' covering a selection of songs from the shows.
There are covers of tracks from Copacabana, Cats, Jersey Boys, Mamma Mia! and more - although the only cover I'd like to see here is the final curtain fall.
Because these overproduced, pointless recordings are so cheesy they should come with a warning for the lactose intolerent - you can visualise Barrowman's smug face churning these out in the studio as you listen.
So basically, if you like musical theatre and Barrowman's smug face, this is the album for you.

Dead Presidence

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I TAKE exception to experimental Brooklyn six-piece Excepter's new album, Presidence.
Imagine if Animal Collective were a collective solely of mutilated, suffering animals...
Opening track in earnest "The Anti-Noah" is 10 minutes-plus of nothingness, Teleportation: KAL is like someone having a mental breakdown while trapped inside the workings of a traction engine, while the weeping and wailing of Teleportation: GOL is how I imagine purgatory sounds.
Only occasionally does music break out - such as the unnerving When You Call.
Now if you're going to create psychedelic, ambient noise, fine - but why you'd want to create an ambiance as deliberately unenjoyable as this, I do not know.

Animal testing

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THE revered experimental psychedelic indie act Animal Collective - the band behind one of 2009's most critically acclaimed albums, Merriweather Post Pavilion - re-release their 2003 album Campfire Songs next week.
Whoopee, right?
Well, not really.
I know I risk the wrath of many, many people with this, but Animal Collective's releases are, collectively, a load of rubbish.
Over the course of Campfire Songs' five tracks and 40-plus minutes, I counted two songs, at a push.
It sounds like, and for the most part is, a chord being played repeatedly on an acoustic guitar outside while some people moan and make inexplicable "jingjingjing" noises, and occasionally mumble some lyrics.
And anyone who disagrees with me should be forced to live in the woods with only a piece of flimsy canvas for shelter - they'd probably like it anyway.

Can someone please chase Fox down a hole?

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SHE'S a celebrity? Get out of here.
Topless model-turned-singer-turned-reality TV contestant Samantha Fox probably hoped to capitalise on renewed interest off the back of her visit to the Australian jungle with a new Greatest Hits.
But this compilation is a lot like her fleeting appearance on I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here - there's about five minutes of retro kitsch appeal before it all gets grating.
That five minutes is of course her biggest hit Touch Me (I Want Your Body) - which is followed by an onslaught of dire '80s pop-by-numbers that just gets worse and worse.
By the forgotten likes of Naughty Girls (Need Love Too) and Love House I was losing the plot - yet this latest compilation has the option of a second disc of rarities and previously unreleased material.
Ultimately Fox will be remembered for two things - and neither of them are on show here.

Next We Bring You The Fire alarms

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AFTER listening to Next We Bring You The Fire, I have a sign for Signer - a stop sign.
Maybe even a rude hand gesture as well.

Because the 10-track synthesizer extravaganza from electronic New Zealand artist Signer, real name Bevan Smith, is a self-indulgent waste of time.
It's pretty much the sound of a man mumbling in soft tones while pressing down too many keys at once on his organ - half of the time without the saving grace of a beat.
But if you think this is bedtime music, think again - because out of nowhere Signer awakes from his own slumber with penultimate track Don't Be A Forest Cow.
Will Signer please sign off.

One is not amused

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IF LOVE On An Oil Rig is anything to go by, I won't be applying for membership to Victorian English Gentlemens Club anytime soon.
Because the album, the Welsh three-piece group's second, is like an in-joke that I just don't understand.
It's deliberately obtuse but not funny, and the punk indie rock music on show is wonky to the point of being unlistenable, with only The Venereal Game actually passable as a standalone track.
Even the band's name, with its missing apostrophe, gets my dander up.
One is not amused.

Strange and rubbish

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IMAGINE if a well-meaning friend offered to make you a tape of an old CD he had found of obscure avant garde IDM artists in the vein of Four Tet.
"Great," you'd say. "I'll listen to that in the bath."
But when you slip into the bathtub, having pressed play on the cassette, you realise that you friend's CD had been skipping while the recording was made.
"Darn," you might say. "I can't listen to this now."
But then, to compound matters, the player started eating the tape of the skipping CD, resulting in a frankly hellish outpouring of irritating looping noise.
To escape the non-music, you quickly duck your head under the water - and the resulting sound is the closest thing you will ever get to Eric Copeland's new album Alien In A Garbage Dump.
That's right, Alien In A Garbage Dump is both strange and rubbish.

Stick In A Pot stuck in a rut

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AS FAR as Stick In A Pot's debut EP When The Monsters Arrive is concerned - stick in a pot, and leave there.

The Brighton-based band's five track outing starts with a Jan Hammer-esque intro, Splinter, that really jars with the rest of the listing, before launching into two painfully plodding second rate indie tracks, Acclimatising and Plinky The Alien that sound like a sedated James.

With dodgy lyrics about beards and aliens, the whole affair smacks of a group that's trying just a bit too hard.

And when the tempo ups with Our Inert Inmate, it only goes to show that the tortuously-low beats per minute was the only thing that seperated them from the crowd.

Closing track Luterin (Victoria's Side Of The Story) is alright.

Clemmons lacks zest

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DESPITE the album title's assertions, Texan Jessica Clemmons is unlikely to become a permanent feature in the UK charts with debut Permanent.
This is no slight on Clemmons herself, whose voice is clearly passable - she's the singer of choice for sporting events in her native Houston, by all accounts.
However her pipes are put to no good use singing Permanent's formulaic pop soul tracks that would have been more at home in the early '90s.
These have then been polished so hard at the production desk that they are completely devoid of any kind of distinguishing features whatsoever.
The resulting music is so middle of the road, it's amazing that Clemmons hasn't got cat's eyes.

Zombie Colin lacks zeal

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FORMER frontman of The Zombies, Colin Blunstone's latest LP, The Ghost Of You And Me, has been a whopping 13 years in the making.
To put that into perspective, that's as long as it took Guns 'N' Roses to put out Chinese Democracy.
For fans it must have seemed it would never arrive - even as the finishing touches were being put to the album last December, the mixing desk exploded, putting the release date back to March.
Sadly nothing that exciting seems to have been captured on the record itself - instead, over time his music has turned to slush.
Outdated ballads with a 1980s soft rock sheen prevail, making the LP sound like a collection of Sting b-sides.
Limp and needlessly nostalgic, The Ghost Of You And Me is unlikely to resurrect this Zombie.

Chilli cold

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HOW little I know about country music would break Billie Ray Cyrus’s heart.
Then again, as the music’s southern US cultural references don’t translate well to the setting of north Leicestershire, it’s not surprising I grew up listening to Garbage and Blur rather than Garth Brooks.
So it’s disappointing for me listening to Londoner Chilli Gold’s new album Waterfalls, as despite being the UK’s finest country export for the last decade, there’s not a hint of her hailing from these shores in her middle of the road music.
Quite frankly it’s a cheesy listen, and a mild cheese to boot.
Obviously this will be perfect for some listener's appetites, but I expected something a little more stimulating from someone with a name that could be used by both a porn star and a curry house.

Barrowmangled

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INSTEAD of spending a tenner on mild cheese, melting it down and drinking it by the pint until you feel a little sickly, then going straight to bed for a total nightmare, why not spend your cash on John Barrowman's latest LP, Music Music Music.

It evokes a similar feeling, but you can repeat the experience again and again.

From the schmaltzy original numbers such as the Gary Barlow penned What About Us to the parade of camp cover versions such as Can't Take My Eyes Off You and Uptown Girl, Music Music Music is pure, unadulterated aural torture.

Mullet over

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EUROVISION flop James Fox must be off his rocker of he thinks Rocking Chairs And Lemonade will relaunch his career.

For the debut LP, the latest from the Welsh singer who represented GB in the 2004 Eurovision Song Contest, is a cheesy collection of wannabe-Jack Johnson strummers that's completely mind numbing and pointless.

On this flat effort, Fame Academy contestant Fox, whose real name is Richard Mullet, should call it a day.

To coin a phrase, nil points.

Future silence Of London

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DESCRIBING The Future Sound Of London's new album, Environments, as ambient is an understatement.

For the two-track 49-minute album is five minutes old before anything approaching a dictionary definition of 'music' can be heard.

Ocassionally a sparse scrap of electronica slips into the void, but for the best part this vacuous album is like listening to a BBC Sound Effects album - a dog barking here, a monk chanting there, a Spanish guitar a bit later on, a lot of wind, and very little else.

Quite honestly, I am baffled to think of an environment where you would want to listen to Environments at all.

In fact, listening to the album first time round I found myself inadvertantly whistling their 1992 hit Papua New Guineau to myself, just to pass the time.

Time I will never get back.

Unplex

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OF ALL the unexpected comebacks, a whopping 16 years after their last album, the B-52s are back - and they're desperate.

After all, there are acts in the charts that hadn't been born when they last had a hit.

Funplex is essentially the goodtime, shimmying, head shaking sound of the B-52s that we all knew and loved - albeit if only on Love Shack, Shiny Happy People and at a push (Meet The) Flintstones - but while they're trying to be sexy.

And lets be frank, the last people you'd want near you while you're gettin' it on would be an ageing pop group that resemble the Scissor Sisters' demented parents.