The tracks of the weeks reviewed: Lana Del Rey, Westlife, Axl Rose

Lana Del Rey
Hope Is a Dangerous Thing for a Woman Like Me to Have – But I Have It

Lana Del Rey’s new album is called Norman Fucking Rockwell. I’ll take two, please. You either buy the shtick of a woman who sings of “tearing around in my fucking white gown, 24/7 Sylvia Plath / Writing in blood on the walls”, or you’re having a dull old time, with very little diaphanous-anything in your wardrobe. A piano rises and falls, Lana croaks through her tears, the best/worst girlfriend of all time, and edges towards the nightstand where she keeps the phenobarbital. Beautiful.

The Chemical Brothers
MAH

Few 70s films are more relevant today than Network, so it’s bloody smart of the Chems to nab Howard Beale’s “mad as hell” payoff line, filter it through one of their demonic-possession synth patches, and turn out a short and bloody ride into our modern media psychosis. Tom and Ed have often wandered off into more lacy techno, but sinister bruxism bangers remain their top trump.

Axl Rose
Rock the Rock

After the nine-years-in-the-making Chinese Democracy, Axl Rose has diminished expectations by a) Not ever stating he’s going to release any new material at all, b) Being patently bonkers, c) Making his first new track in 10 years soundtrack fodder for a new series of Bugs Bunny cartoons. And would you believe it? Expectation management is everything: Rock the Rock’s Cro-Magnon two-note chorus kills.

Rome
Who Only Europe Know

“What do they know of Europe, who only Europe know?” queries Luxembourg folkie Jérôme Reuter. True. I always think of it more like “What do they know of Luton, who only Luton know?”, but the point stands: sometimes you’ve got to go to Dunstable to know what you’re really missing. Regardless, this is a glorious, swathing torch song that sounds like 100 Beiruts being fired from the German howitzers at Verdun.

Westlife
Hello My Love

What is this hellish new age of shrinking manbands? We’re already down to a three-bloke Take That. Now a four-guy Westlife return. Perfectly formulated to cross that no man’s land between modern tinkly house anthem and old school slush-ballad, this is possibly the least-bad thing Westlife have ever done. And you can have that as a quote for the album cover ads, guys. No wonder: evil pop leprechaun Ed Sheeran wrote it for them.