★★★★★
Five Stars

From the opening seconds of ‘Pompeii’, which feature atmospheric chanting, to the last pleading notes of ‘Get Home’, Bad Blood is a masterpiece of epic proportions. It’s been a long time coming, and at times it seemed it might never arrive, but Bastille’s debut is emphatically worth the wait. While many albums attempt to present one coherent picture, telling the same story from start to finish, Dan Smith has produced what sounds more like a book of short stories, a series of snapshots from different narratives and ideas, moving swiftly between the many themes and ideas swirling around in his head and changing setting so rapidly that the minute you’ve got a hold on the meaning of one song, you’re thinking about the next one.

The lyrics are exquisite, as fans of the band will already be aware, the material on Bad Blood being largely familiar to any followers of Bastille. But it doesn’t matter how many times you’ve heard “Your hands protect the flames/From the wild winds around you” and other such gems from album highlight ‘Icarus’, a song that’s been around for a full year and a half. It will still tug on your heart strings, describing but not judging the self-destructive life of someone living every day as if it might be his last (“Icarus is flying too close to the sun/
Icarus’ life has only just begun”). As for some of the previously unreleased tracks, it surely won’t be long before festival and tour crowds alike are singing “Felled in the night by the ones you think you love/They will come for you” on the chorus of biblically-inspired ‘Daniel In The Den’, a song about dreaming and unreality. References and allusion are common throughout, with ‘Pompeii’ transporting the listener to the devastation of the Roman city destroyed by a volcanic eruption almost 2000 years ago, and ‘Laura Palmer’ calling on the David Lynch cult TV drama Twin Peaks.

The lyrics are mostly simple – “When all of your flaws and all of my flaws are laid out one by one” – but powerful, and it’s a heartless person indeed who feels nothing as Dan Smith unashamedly announces “There’s a hole in my soul/I can’t fill it, I can’t fill it/There’s a hole in my soul/Can you fill it, can you fill it?” on ‘Flaws’. The same can be said for the music. Despite Smith’s prowess as a producer, as seen on his Other People’s Heartache mixtapes, he resists the urge to bury the album in production, instead achieving a simple, heartfelt effect from start to finish. This is never more evident than in ‘Oblivion’, a song that Google tells me was used in an episode of Vampire Diaries (OK fine, I heard it watching the show), which features little more than a piano and Dan Smith sounding for all the world like he’s standing in a desert staring at the night sky as he mournfully proclaims, “When oblivion is calling out your name/You always take it further than I ever can”.

The album is so packed with excellent songs that it’s almost impossible to pick a favourite, and mine’s been oscillating wildly since I first heard it. Currently it’s  ‘Icarus’, but we probably shouldn’t go into why “Drinking from a paper cup/You won’t remember this” speaks to me. Instead, listen to it yourself, pick your own, and love it forever.

★★☆☆☆
Two Stars

I wonder whether you can justifiably call an album “very average”, let alone an album by a band with the reputation and track record of Suede. When Suede first really emerged in 1992, they sounded like a mixture between David Bowie and what would become Placebo – a sexy, streamlined, neo-glam band. Nowadays, they sound more like Simple Minds, U2 and Manic Street Preachers bellowing at each other at an old farts’ convention.

Perhaps it’s to be expected or, indeed, only right that such a band should focus less ontheir sex appeal when they’re on the wrong side of the hill. However, you’d think they’d try and at least keep some of the elements that made them so much fun to begin with. The slinky riffs, deft lyrics and androgynous sexuality are all conspicuously absent. Without a new reason to like Suede, this album looks like a disappointment before it’s even really begun.

There are some really cheap tricks employed on the record – dialling back the lead guitar (which, incidentally used to be the closest thing to Mick Ronson since Mick Ronson) on the opening track in order to open up space for a chorus that seems to involve more wailing than screaming, or blatantly stealing the riff from Tenacious D’s ‘Wonderboy’ on ‘Sometimes I Feel I’ll Float Away’ – definitely a low point of both the album and the band’s career.

It’s strange that this album should be such a let-down. With all the great Britpop legends — including Pulp, Blur and Shed Seven — returning (and Oasis finally giving up the rather pathetic ghost), you’d think there’d be no better time for Suede to strut their stuff onstage. Perhaps they’re embarrassed about their age, no longer able to play the agent provocateur (hasn’t stopped Uncle Jarvis), but that really is no excuse. They’ve lost their raison d’etre, lost their mojo, and lost their relevance.

Bloodsports is fundamentally a decent album, but you should really expect more from Suede. If we’re measuring this relative to their past output, this is a piss-poor effort.

★★★☆☆
Three Stars

No doubt Palma Violets are soon to be widely hailed as the next big thing, the ‘saviours of rock n’ roll’ here to save us all from the mere mortals that have been clogging the system for far too long, with their first offering: 180.

Playing secret gigs at an exclusive venue in South London and releasing a free preview of their forthcoming album seems to tie in with the modern dynamic of an indie ‘guitar band’, that NME claimed “it’s time to get very excited about” in May last year. However, all these biblical claims and acts of ‘indieness’ point to exactly what is wrong with the whole affair. It’s nothing new.

Introducing the album, ‘Best of Friends’ attempts to set an epic scene that is never quite met. The single, released last year, is easily comparable to anything from The Vaccines’ back catalogue with lazy lyrics such ‘I wanna be your best friend, I don’t want you to be my girl’ telling a clichéd love story with an equally clichéd sound that loosely resembles Babyshambles’ Down in Albion but with a slightly less sincere result. Tracks such as ‘Set up for the Cool Cats’ and ‘Last of the Summer Wine’ start with a more convincing atmospheric backdrop which is reminiscent of late ’60s psychedelic rock.

The Violets have been compared to a number of bands from this period and genre, and with good reason: the vocals on ‘Cool Cats’ could easily be those of Jim Morrison and the whole album has an air of the psychedelic to it with its loose grooves and echo-laden distorted riffs. With various easily made comparisons to Joy Division, Velvet Underground and other such indie royalty, reinforced by a fan club including Nick Cave and Bernard Cave (both spotted at a recent gig at Glasgow’s King Tut’s) Palma Violets’ prospects look promising. Pulp’s Steve Mackey at the head of production duties adds yet another level of legitimacy to what is, to all intents and purposes, a very listenable album by a band that I would definitely enjoy live. The problem is that it’s just all been done before, and smacks of a tried and tested formula that’s unlikely to stand the test of time.

Oxford’s annual Asian theater show, ‘Chutney & Chips’, was back at it last week, delighting crowds who streamed in to St John’s Garden Quad Auditorium for one of four performances. Nisha Julka’s original script combined traditional Bollywood tropes–love triangles, song and dance, and comic relief–artfully in a way that spoke to the Oxford audience. The core conflict in the production was about what it means to be both Indian and British; yes, just like “Bend It Like Beckham,” but situated at Oxford and in which the main characters don’t play soccer but rather act in a play. And though that sounds irreverently self-referential (oh, a play about characters who act in a play), the whole thing does–perhaps surprisingly–work. Chutney & Chips is enjoyable because it doesn’t take itself too seriously. 

The great strength of the production is the infusion of Bollywood into anything and everything. The thorough celebration of all-things Indian makes the thematic conclusion of the play never in doubt–Jeevan will, of course, reconnect with his Indian roots and get the girl that he loves. I found Chutney & Chips’s exuberance of India exhilarating  The costumes are wonderful rich and Indian to a T. The opening 10-minute Bharatanatyam sequence is well-executed and sets the scene for the rest of the play: there ain’t nothin more Indian than Bharatanatyam.

The token white characters (yes, Bollywood films have them too) had the innocuous names of Dave and Sonia. But Dev and Sonia are Indian names too, and Chutney & Chips makes a strong case against racial exclusivity: the point here is that anyone can be Indian, no matter the color of skin or accent of voice. Indeed, Chutney & Chips’s message of pan-Indian universalism is something that Indians themselves should take to heart–too often it seems that India is riven by internal rivalries: Hindu v Muslim, north v south, caste v caste, etc.

The strongest part of Chutney & Chips is how well song and dance was integrated into the production. From the opening Bharatanatyam sequence to the closing Harlem Shake, everything was just fun. Including, incidentally, the scene that used Some Nights by fun. The seeming randomness when dance would break out was just awesome: the needlessness of the dance scenes is what makes Bollywood Bollywood, and Chutney & Chips captured it perfectly. The best dance was the impromptu red repairmen dance at Bridge. It sounds ridiculous, and it was. But so good.

The use of music was strong as well. I wouldn’t want to take the music director in a round of Antakshari–I’d get hosed. Clearly these guys know their stuff, and they chose the exact right music for the right scenes. The wide range of music, from classical Indian to Western pop, was excellent. Even better was how the music was integrated into the plot. I don’t know of a better song than Pretty Woman for that moment when Dave met Sonia, and Jeevan’s strumming of Ladki Bardi Anjanni Hai was perfect.

I enjoyed the simple sets and props. The totality of props included a few tables, chairs, a bed, and a broom. But even these items tell a story. For example, the set director somehow found an old palang to use–a cheap bed to Western eyes, but so much more to Indians in the know. I nearly gasped when I saw it rolled on to stage: I mean, that’s what I sleep on when I go back to India.

The acting was varied throughout the performance. The highlight, no doubt, was the passionately comedic performance of the character Mukesh (Johnny Lever beaten at his own game, dare I say). Continuing with the ‘play-within-a-play’ motif, Mukesh is told that he is the breakout character in the play-within-a-play. While that’s not true, Mukesh certainly was the breakout in Chutney & Chips. He was sassy and sexy, and you can’t beat unzipping blue coveralls to expose a full tux underneath (very Bondish). The other strong performance was the bit piece of Jeevan’s high school girlfriend’s over-protective older brother. He gets to beat up Jeevan, and actually does. Those kicks hit real ribs, and I’d hate to see the bruises day-after. The fight was certainly better than the stale Bollywood fight scenes of the 80s.

Unfortunately, most of the emotional scenes (particularly when Jeevan confided in Rachana) didn’t seem exactly right. The actors had trouble expressing openness and love between one another. Luckily our amateur actors have at least 5 years to learn these emotions before their parents marry them off in arranged marriages. Paging Dr. Mukesh from Chandigarh.

I had two other criticisms of the performance. First, Chutney & Chips suffered from something that all Bollywood films and old Indian aunties can commiserate with: bloat. The performance was perhaps 15 minutes too long.

My second criticism is more substantive, however. Thematically, Chutney & Chips played it too safe. There is nothing outre in the three couples of Jeevan and Rachana, Chirag and Shivani, and Dave and Sonia. All are heterosexual, and each pair is racially homogeneous. Unfortunately while Indian film today is pushing boundaries on sexuality, race, and religion, Chutney & Chips was uncomfortably blase. Indeed, the only stirring of social criticism in the script is the portrayal of child marriage, though Balika Vadhu does a better job in that regard.

Chutney & Chips 2013 was a strong performance, and I look forward to the 2014 iteration. I will certainly be there, and I hope to see you too.

CONGRATULATIONS to Bithia Large, winner of our ‘ANIMALS’ photo competition! Here’s her winning shot

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We had some lovely things in this week, so we’ve also picked a runner up. Congratulations Rachel Hutchings!

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Thank you to all our entries, we’ve loved seeing your interpretations of the themes throughout the term. As always, all of our competition winners can be found on the Cherwell Photo Flickr page