ALBUM OF THE WEEK: REM: Automatic For The People

REM 

Automatic For The People ★★★★★ 

(Craft Recordings, two disc box set) 

Reissued on its 25th anniversary, Automatic For The People is both a joyful attempt to shake off the shackles of a standard guitar band and a serious meditation on love, mortality and fame. It exerts an astonishing grip, the entire 12-song set, including the huge hits Everybody Hurts, Man On The Moon and The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite, a perfectly programmed exercise in sublimely intelligent rock. The set also includes a CD of a concert performed shortly after the recording, band photos and a fascinating booklet on the album’s making. 

PROJECT MAMA EARTH 

Mama Earth ★★★★✩ 

(Mascot/Provogue) 

An EP, coming in at just over 30 minutes, Project Mama Earth is a collaboration featuring Devon-based soul singer Joss Stone, ace Cameroon bassist Etienne M’Bappe and enigmatic guitarist Nitin Sawhney. Featuring fi ve superbly soulful vocal tracks blending African-American funk and dream-like jazzy interludes, it could have disappeared in a cloud of spiritual right-on-ness. Instead it’s the fi nest thing Stone has done since her 2003 debut, Soul Sessions. 

KIRSTY MERRYN 

She & I ★★★★✩ 

(Self-released)

Discovered at a songwriting retreat by Show Of Hands frontman Steve Knightley, Kirsty Merryn is a New Forest-born folk singer and composer of extraordinary skill. Her original songs – particularly the opening The Pit & The Pugilist, Bring Up The Bodies and An Evening At Home In Spiritual Seance – manage to conjure traditional folk atmosphere but underpinned by all sorts of contemporary indie touches in the accompaniment. There are shades of Lionheartera Kate Bush here and there but Merryn is destined to be a big star in her own right. 

SEAL 

Standards ★★★✩✩ 

(Decca/Virgin EMI) 

Seal seems joyfully reborn on these crooner favourites. The opening Luck Be A Lady is a swirl of swaggering attitude and energy, the vocalist gliding so easily up through the registers that, by the end, he is simply toying with his good fortune. He is equally fi ne on those Sinatra favourites They Can’t Take That Away From Me and I’m Beginning To See The Light. 

THE CORRS 

Jupiter Calling ★★★✩✩ 

(East West) 

As on its excellent predecessor White Light, The Corrs are in restlessly experimental mood here, tracks like Chasing Shadows, with its jangle of guitars and swirl of childhood memories, and the Coldplay-esque Butter Flutter, a joyful blend of jazz, folk and rock. There are a few duff moments, the aptly-titled SOS for instance, but The Corrs remain a constant fascination.