★★★★★ Beyoncé worked with so many people on ‘Lemonade’, her sixth album which she dropped in late April with an accompanying short fi lm, that its credits run to 3,105 words. It’s a testament to her star power that none of her collaborators blabbed before the surprise album release – Bey’s second in a row after her 2013 self-titled LP. But it’s also a testament to her star quality that despite the many, many cooks in this kitchen, ‘Lemonade’ feels like an album only Beyoncé could make. ‘Lemonade’ is officially billed as ‘a conceptual project based on every woman’s journey of self knowledge and healing’, but the narrative is really one of marital infi delity. ‘How did it come down to this? Going through your call list,’ she sings on the deceptively breezy reggae bounce of ‘Hold Up’, before issuing what sounds like an ultimatum on the brilliant, Jack White-assisted rock stomper ‘Don’t Hurt Yourself’: ‘If you try this shit again / You gon’ lose your wife.’ The electro blips of ‘Sorry’ feature another killer couplet: ‘He only want me when I’m not there / He better call Becky with the good hair.’ Beyoncé stops short of singing ‘My sister Solange appeared to attack you in a lift after the Met Gala in 2014’, but this is still startling stuff which must be tough for Jay Z (who appears in the short film) to listen to. As the story progresses from rage to reconciliation, ‘Lemonade’ continues to thrill musically. Bey teams with The Weeknd for ‘6 Inch’, a kind of strip club update of
Following hot on the heels of fellow psychedelicist Martin Carr’s luminescent ‘The Breaks’, paisley-shaded Londoners The See See’s third LP offers jangling, California-kissed bliss more suited to a top-down cruise through Topanga Canyon than a rainy night in Soho.
As with previous See See outings (including the recent compilation that saw them become the first contemporary band to be signed to legendary American reissue label Sundazed), ‘Once, Forever and Again’ is more concerned with reviving the past than breaking new ground. But when the songs are this tight, sweet and perfectly formed, who needs novelty?
‘400 Miles’ is an early charmer, steeped in shy folkish calm (despite lifting a lyric from Neil Young’s ferociously protest-y ‘Ohio’), while ‘Ynys Las’ is as swooningly Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci-inspired as its Welsh title implies. But it’s the upbeat numbers that reign supreme here: ‘Over and Under’ is a skip down Scally-pop lane, while ‘Featherman’ adds phased cellos for a touch of queasy psychodrama. It may not give you a winter tan, but ‘Once, Forever and Again’ might be the closest many of us get to a beach holiday this side of springtime.