Album Releases: Week Commencing 15/03/10: Part 1

Sugababes - Sweet 7

I love the Sugababes and I don't care who knows it. They were one of the most consistently good girl bands of the past 10 years, so I was interested to hear Sugababes seventh release. Even with the firing of longest serving member Keisha the band has always been more about the songs than the members. But Sweet 7 is just horrid. The album gets off to a promising start with Get Sexy, which is a sassy stomper of a track with a breakdown that would be a treat in any club. But from here the album goes into diminishing return with each track being worse than the last, Wear My Kiss is catchy and fun but very disposable and About A Girl is a Lady Gaga rip off without any of the Gaga quirks, it also marks the last listenable song on this album. The rest of the songs on this album I wouldn't wish upon my worst enemy, even production from Stargate and guest vocals from Sean Kingston don't help. Give It To Me Now marks a personal low point with its lyrics so sexual driven it just becomes unsexy, kinda like Billie Piper in Secret Diary of A Call Girl. The members may never have written the songs themselves but they had some kind of good luck surrounding them, like the girls from Charmed if you break up the original trio the band seems to lose its power.

Top Tracks: Get Sexy, Wear My Kiss
If you like this try: Sugababes - Angles with Dirty Faces

Ludacris - Battle Of the Sexes

The man with the best wordplay in rap has been around a while now with Battle of the Sexes his seventh release. Ludacris is one of the most inconsistent rappers in the business, he can make some brilliant singles, songs that are up there with the best in the business (Number One Spot, Area Code, Stand Up) but Battle Of the Sexes isn't up with his best, it is very much Ludacris on auto pilot. Originally the album was thought up as a collaboration with Shawna but after she left Ludacris' record label he wanted her off his album, maybe these distractions took Ludacris' focus away from creating a good album. The lyrics do reflect the title with most the songs being about the discrepancies between men and women, don't worry Luda hasn't become a feminist, the main difference he notices is that all men are players and all girls are slags. The singles are uninspired, How Low is a by the book hip hop track including auto tuned high pitched backing vocals all 3 minutes of rapping about the female posterior and its similarity to jelly when jiggled, My Chicks Bad is bad (not the good kind of bad) and Sex Room is just plain embarrassing. One positive is the quality of guest vocalists he snared Ne-Yo, Flo Rida, Eve and Lil Kim all show up and make brisk cameos, but they can't save the album from it's mediocrity. I can almost guarantee the album will get to number one on the other side of the pond, but Ludacris is a brilliant rapper on his day and can make much better than this.

Top Tracks: Tell Me A Secret, I Know You Got A Man
If you like this try: Busta Rhymes - E.L.E. The Final World Front

Cathedral - Guessing Game

In the 90s Black Sabbath were not making very good music and the slow doom metal style needing someone to kick it in the bum. Alongside Candlemass, Cathedral were the band that kept the genre alive and kicking. Guessing Game is the bands 9th release and sees them making their first double album. The extra disc give the band a bit more room to experiment bringing in elements of folk and prog to the restrictive doom genre and on the whole it works brilliantly. The group certainly aren't reinventing the wheel but they are the best at what they do. The lyrics are typically bleak dealing with social decay, slavery and the nanny state, the music isn't exactly jolly but this is the most upbeat the band have ever musically sounded. The extra length on the tracks means the band can have long psychedelic passages and massive monolithic guitar solos. If you like your riffs carved from lead and your lyrics bleaker than a stormy day at a hopelessness convention, say hello to your new favourite band.

Top Tracks: The Casket Chasers, Edwige's Eyes.
If you like this try: Black Sabbath - Sabbath Bloody Sabbath