Reader TTS

By ADRIAN THRILLS FOR THE DAILY MAIL 01:53 05 Mar 2021, updated 14:52 05 Mar 2021 Kings of Leon: When You See Yourself (Columbia) RATING: **** Verdict: Looking good Gabrielle: Do It Again

(BMG) RATING: *** Verdict: Soul queen unmasked Zara Larsson: Poster Girl (Black Butter) RATING: *** Verdict: Hit and miss return When they hit the commercial jackpot with their fourth album

Only By The Night in 2008, Kings Of Leon looked set to join rock's big league. The singles Sex On Fire and Use Somebody were everywhere, and the world's stadiums beckoned for a

family quartet who had broken through five years earlier by mixing Southern country with the lean guitars of a garage band. But superstardom eluded the three Followill brothers, sons of a

Pentecostal minister, and their guitarist cousin Matthew. The excesses of touring and inter-band squabbles took a toll, and a run of indifferent albums followed. There were even a couple of

Spinal Tap moments, with one gig in St Louis abandoned when the stage was strafed by pigeons; and another at London's O2 Arena postponed after a tour bus caught fire. The Nashville

group got their act together again on 2016's Walls by reverting to a more robust approach, topping the U.S. charts for the first time in the process.  They build on that reboot with

When You See Yourself, a record that continues a tradition of five-syllable titles that goes back to their first album Youth & Young Manhood (Walls was an acronym of We Are Like Love

Songs). Delayed by its long gestation — the band rehearsed for six months and then spent a further ten in the studio — and the pandemic, this is essentially their experimental album,

although such a term is relative as far as these good ol' boys are concerned.  Its moodier, electronic digressions come as a surprise, but the guitar-driven rock numbers are a throwback

to the days when they were hailed as 'the Southern Strokes'. They have stayed loyal to Walls producer Marcus Dravs, a Brit who is a dab hand at highlighting festival-friendly

choruses while encouraging his bands (Coldplay and Arcade Fire among them) to show ambition. As drummer Nathan Followill says: 'We'd use two or three synthesisers on a song even

though we're known as a rock band.' They begin with a retrenchment of core values. When You See Yourself, Are You Far Away is all crunchy guitars and U2-style sound effects, with

instruments tumbling into one another in an energetic blur. Singer Caleb Followill's tone ('One more night, will you stay here') is soulful and introspective — a mood that

runs through the album — but the song's a real grower. The Bandit has a familiar ring, too. Built around New Order-ish guitar, it was inspired by Caleb's childhood memories of

staying up late to watch westerns on TV, although you'd be hard pressed to guess that from his vague lyrics. 'Tracks in the dirt for days . . . must catch the bandit,' is as

close as we get to a cowboy saga. Elsewhere, Golden Restless Age is a bittersweet celebration of lost youth and Stormy Weather a tale of love on the run. The slower, synth-based songs find

the band branching out, with the reflective 100,000 People the most notable departure. Caleb's lyrics have never been particularly deep or meaningful, but the electronic ballad is

unusually philosophical: 'All your time is heaven sent, days and the nights all start to blend.' Written pre-pandemic, it could easily be a line — and a number — about life in

quarantine. Of the other slow songs, A Wave never quite crashes onto the shore, but Claire & Eddie is a country lament that touches on the woes of the world without becoming preachy.

There's a rousing sign-off on the penultimate track Echoing, an electric jig and reel that's sure to be a crowd-pleaser when the band play live again. 'If you love me and

you're willing to dance, we could take it to the high seas!' Caleb exhorts listeners. The singer says he went back as far as the all-conquering Only By The Night for unused ideas

while writing these songs. Kings Of Leon are now a more grown-up concern, but When You See Yourself might just replicate some of that landmark album's triumphs.  Gabrielle's status

as one of pop's national treasures was heightened when she dressed up as Harlequin and finished fourth in ITV's recent ratings winner The Masked Singer. Building on that success,

her latest album contains studio versions of the songs she sang on the show. In keeping with her onscreen character, it's a chequered affair. She has always been hard to pin down

musically, and she excels thanks to some bold song choices.  She sings Billie Eilish's Everything I Wanted as a soulful ballad and recreates Rihanna's Diamonds. Her take on Nat

King Cole's Smile is overcooked, but she's in her element on Tracy Chapman's Fast Car, the song that inspired her own breakthrough hit Dreams. Do It Again is fleshed out with

two originals — new single Stop Right Now and the glimmering Can't Hurry Love — and other songs not associated with The Masked Singer. She looks to the Fugees for inspiration on Killing

Me Softly With His Song, and sings with the enthusiasm of a true fan on Womack & Womack's Teardrops.  Zara Larsson's career has stuttered since she topped the UK singles chart

as a guest singer with Clean Bandit and released her second album four years ago.  New album Poster Girl should boost her profile, although its machine-tooled pop and R&B doesn't

make the most of her engaging personality. The loved-up WOW is a quirky melodrama helmed by Philly DJ Marshmello, but auto-tuned ballad I Need Love is one of several generic pop pieces. The

Stockholm singer fares better when she heads to the clubs: the title track is a smooth disco number and Look What You've Done a Euro-dance romp in the tradition of fellow Swedes Abba.

RELATED ARTICLES LAURA? WELL SYNTHS YOU'RE ASKING...  Laura Mvula has kept a low profile in the five years since her second album The Dreaming Room, but she has used that sabbatical to

revamp her sound.  Moving from jazzy piano soul towards quirky electronics, she showcases her new direction on two releases. The first is an oddly-titled EP, 1/f, a four-song comeback that

reinterprets tracks from her two studio LPs, modernising her sound while retaining its warmth.  She adds funky guitar to Green Garden and delivers a surprising cover of Diana Ross's

1970 ballad I'm Still Waiting. Her second release is a new original song, Safe Passage, which adds propulsive beats and 1980s synths to whet the appetite for a forthcoming album. Van

Morrison has spent the past year writing a double LP. The album — Latest Record Project: Volume 1 — arrives in May, and the wry title track, out now, finds him riffing on the art of creating

original new music.  'It's not something from long ago,' he muses against a backdrop of soulful vocal harmonies. And Essex quintet The Horrors are back with their first new

music in four years on Lout, a three-track EP out today. Dominated by distorted guitars and electronic squalls, it's a noisy departure from 2017's V album. A boisterous return —

but not one for the faint-hearted.  A.T.