Round-up Tracks: The 1975, Run the Jewels, and more

“We didn’t necessarily get in a room and put on leather trousers,” claimed The 1975 frontman Matt Healy, speaking to Annie Mac before unveiling new single ‘Love Me’. But Healy and co.’s comeback statement pictures this exact scene - four guys getting engrossed in the hi-glam, neo Hollywood life and loving every second. A Talking Heads and Bowie-channelling funk force, ‘Love Me’ is 2015’s answer to previous decades’ shine and glitz obsessions.

Instead of bathing in nostalgia or getting absorbed in the past, ‘Love Me’ intends to shine a light on today’s trigger-happy culture. “It’s about narcissism,” Healy told Mac, and he spends the opening verse moaning about how “I’m just with my friends online, and there’s things we’d like to change.” Not exactly cutting social commentary, but it’s hard to get worked up on the ins and outs of ‘Love Me’ when it’s so determinedly ridiculous. Less second guesses, more leather trousers - this is bombast on a maddening level. (Jamie Milton)

Between making an entirely serious new album out of cat sounds, and embarking on a fairly relentless tour, it’s a wonder Run the Jewels have time for anything else. Yet, just like that, El-P and Killer Mike have dropped ‘Rubble Kings Theme (Dynamite)’ - written for a new Shan Nicholson documentary about Bronx gangs in the 1970s. RTJ collaborator Little Shalimar is responsible for that lurching, out of control beat - the sort of fluid, barmy noise that collides into a brick wall and bounces away unscathed like reinforced jelly. “You got beef,” quips Killer Mike, “then we fryin’ your burger.” The bracketed adjective in the title is quite correct. This is dynamite indeed. (El Hunt)

Professional part-time sadboy James Blake covering a song so tragic its opening line has become a meme – the punchlines write themselves. Get past Blake’s quivering delivery of that famed “hello darkness, my old friend,” though, and the proceeding three minutes frame the Simon & Garfunkel classic in a whole new light. Dedicated to Blake’s friend who sadly passed away on New Year’s Eve, it’s a poignant return to melancholy for the figurehead of 1800-Dinosaur’s clubland foray. Much like his cover of Joni Mitchell’s ‘A Case Of You’ before it, ‘Sound Of Silence’ plumbs emotional depths like never before under Blake’s direction – as layer upon layer of tortured vocal harmony is added to the mix atop the sound of incessant rainfall he delicately assembles a one-man choir of heartbreak, and a touching ode to a lost loved-one. (Tom Connick)

So far Formation’s cowbell-heavy dance punk has tipped the see-saw firmly towards the attacking, abrasive end of the spectrum. Urgent bass-lines, flailing limb-grabbing dance wires in all directions dominated the likes of ‘Hangin’ and ‘Back Then, but now, taking a different tact, live staple ‘All The Rest Is Noise’ is a arms-thrown around shoulders haze of rolling drums and laggy foot-shuffling . With the same regretful nostalgia that characterises most Formation lyrics, Will Ritson sings “It’s not the same as it once was,” nailing a purposefully rigid, stilted vocal. Framed by the odd murky squelch, the piano stabs lazily with one finger down to the ivory. The cowbells might be firmly in the back pockets for this one, but it’s still a keeper. (El Hunt)

In hindsight, lifting “give me grace and dancing feet” for the opening lines of this new Bloc Party song seems a cruel joke. Harking back to the glory days of ‘The Prayer’ in its opening seconds alone, the band quickly become completely unrecognisable, ‘The Love Within’ instantly dominated by pre-school electronics that sound like a sample of Furby slowly dying after being dropped in the bath. Technically impressive, given the sounds were all created by Bloc Party guitarist Russell Lissack warping his instrument to within an inch of his life, but otherwise? A complete mess. (Tom Connick)

Glass Animals and Joey Bada$$ might not seem like the most likely of bedfellows on first glance, but mere seconds into ‘Lose Yourself’ the blocks all click into place. Joey’s ragtime rage powers things along, the venom in every line building to boiling point before the first minute’s even up. “Joey Bad and Glass Animals, yeah let’s go!” he spits when finally fit to burst, before a sample of Yellowman’s ‘Nobody Move, Nobody Get Hurt’ adds to the ferocity. Glass Animals’ usually silky beats are roughed up and dirtier than ever before, their usual eerie wilting replaced with an in-your-face aggression, and by the time frontman David Bayley swoops into the mix, his whispered declarations that he’s “’bout to go insane” are dripping with menace. On paper, it’s madness. In practice, it’s massive. (Tom Connick)

Tags: Run The Jewels, The 1975, Listen, Features