3.5 stars

This album is shiny, constructed to within an inch of its life and overflowing with focused energy.It is the musical equivalent of one of those shaggy-meets-bed haircuts the average teenage boy affects when he's working hard to look casual. It marries outright pop melodies that would once have accompanied a Ratcat or New Kids On The Block (or for that matter, Leif Garrett), with just enough rock in its guitars and busy drums to suggest the so-called punk pop bands. There are whoa-whoas and yeah-yeahs; choruses that explode and ballads that slow things down. In those songs the lyrics name check a few cultural landmarks and spin variations of boy wants girl/boy loses girl/boy really is more sensitive than you think and is waiting for the girl to notice. Tick, tick tick. By the end the hormones have been worked over, jumping around has been accomplished and that thrill of having something that’s yours, that’s great to sing along with and that says you’re not a Belieber anymore is filling your heart. - BERNARD ZUEL

FOLK
Beverley Martyn
THE PHOENIX AND THE TURTLE
(LES COUSINS/PLANET)

3.5 stars

Beverley Martyn's first album in 14 years is often so achingly raw, it is like being given a tool for excavating her soul. The recording quality makes it seem that she is seated right beside you, wishing, lamenting and confessing in your ear. It begins with the previously unrecorded Reckless Jane, which she was co-writing with Nick Drake when he died. Its sadness falls about you as softly as a fine mist, the guitars beautifully embroidered with strings. Here, as elsewhere, when her 67-year-old voice strains to reach an occasional note, it somehow merely compounds the impact. Nighttime and Levee Breaks are reminiscent of the material she contributed to the two classic early-'70s albums she made as  a duo with her then husband, John Martyn. Since she last recorded he has died, of course, and Women & Malt Whisky harks back to the mad, reckless lifestyle that made that genius impossible to live with. Throughout, the accompaniment  of guitar, bass and drums is kept simple enough not to cloud the compelling in-your-ear intimacy and immediacy. - JOHN SHAND

HIP-HOP/KHMER
Astronomy Class
MEKONG DELTA SUNRISE
(ELEFANT TRAKS)

3.5 stars

Visiting Phnom Penh in 2012, Astronomy Class fell for the heady sounds of Khmer-pop, prompting the Sydney trio’s two producers - Sir Robbo and Chasm - to hunt out original LPs and cassettes from the ‘50s to the ‘70s. Simultaneously, global underground interest in this era of Cambodian popular music was fuelled by numerous compilations,  raising interest in the country’s idiosyncratic blend of traditional vocal techniques with the western influences of rock, blues, soul and R&B genres. Now fused with Australian hip-hop, it all sounds fresh again. The  interplay between male and female vocals, supplied by resident MC Ozi Batla and guest vocalist Srey Channthy of the Cambodian Space Project, is central. Similarly impressive are cleverly integrated samples and turntable-manipulated melodies from authentic Khmer-pop records. Woman Wants to Drink is particularly good, tackling gender double standards in a high-noon desert canter more Western than Eastern. Throughout, Channthy’s graceful, lofty, undulating singing sparkles among weighted beats and baritone rhymes. - PARIS POMPOR