Nell Mescal doesn’t need Paul’s stardust, Blue Lab Beats are irresistible – the week’s best albums

Nell Mescal, Can I Miss It For a Minute ★★★★☆

The elephant in the room is Nell Mescal’s surname. She released her first single in 2020, having started it long before older brother Paul’s Normal People stardom (and before the siblings posted a cover duet online in lockdown). Nepo baby accusations cut deep for the 20-year-old Irish singer-songwriter: “It’s sometimes difficult to take.” She needn’t worry – her debut EP, showcasing laid-bare lyrics and technical skill, undeniably warrants recognition independently.

Can I Miss It For a Minute?’s five tracks tell a continuous narrative about, Mescal says, “growing up” and “deal[ing] with experiences that have shaped me”, including “friendship breakups”, and “moving away” to London, having quit school, to jump-start her career. Her confessional, indie-folk-pop style has already impressed HAIM, Florence & The Machine, The Last Dinner Party and Mescal’s idol Birdy – she’s supported them all in concert. And having just sold out her first UK tour, in January, Mescal shows no signs of stopping.

The EP starts in a similar, sad place to Mescal’s last single In My Head (2023) – self-professedly capturing persistent recollections of lost love – with Warm Body. Mescal’s past relationships haunt her, “pulling on [her] hair”, the structure recursive, stuck, opening and ending with the same line. But despite its emotional stasis, it already sounds more fully-fledged than her previous work: less bedroom pop, more depth and texture in the instrumentation. This is, as the concept purports, growth.

The writing falters slightly in falling-out-of-love song Yellow Dresser – “turning red flags auburn” is slightly too chronically online to feel truly meaningful. But confidence returns in Killing Time, which wonders if an ex “was just as invested or just killing time” (Mescal says) – the catchy, pop lead track would be irresistible live.

Electric Picnic then looks, strikingly, backwards, imagining the person Yellow Dresser is about crying upon hearing it: “did Yellow Dresser make you sad or just the role you played in it”.

So much self-examination risks seeming self-obsessed – but the EP is actually just compellingly sincere. Indeed, the album title asks for but a short time for introspection (“a minute”), and Mescal’s vocal capabilities left me happy to oblige – her upper register is clear and powerful, showcased in cathartic cries of feeling.

Electric Picnic’s declamatory brass leads into the finale, July, about finally moving on – “it’s coming up roses”, “it’s finally over”, and cinematic, sweeping instrumentation which dissolves into resonant silence. Her ghosts finally stop talking back. Sophie Carlin

Blue Lab Beats: Blue Eclipse ★★★★★

With so many ‘blues’ in its moniker you’d expect something doleful, but this album is actually the most joyous I’ve encountered this year. It’s the fourth studio album of two north London lads who took in all kinds of music with their mothers’ milk: Roy Ayers, rap, Ghanaian highlife and the South African protest song in the case of NK-OK (Namali Kwaten), Duke Ellington, Oscar Peterson and Billie Holliday in the case of Mr DM (David Mrakpor). You’ll catch echoes of all these things, some loud, some distant. But it’s the glamorous, dreamy sound of the opening track Never Doubt, floating over a pattering beat, which tells us that if anything can be called home territory for this nimble, shape-shifting duo, it’s neo-soul.

Like last year’s Mercury-winning album, Where I’m Meant to Be, from the Ezra Collective, Blue Eclipse is rooted in the incredibly rich London jazz, hip-hop and neo-soul scenes, but is also open to collaborators from anywhere. One track mingles Amber Navran of the LA band Moonchild and London-based neo-soul singer Farah Audhali. The strolling soughing-waves sound of Sunset in LA is followed by the neon-lit excitement of Nights in Tokyo, and on Guava four instrumentalists jam happily in a way that evokes a jazz ethos, over a guitar-laden backing that is pure 1960s highlife. Geographical and temporal boundaries are constantly blurred, often in subtle, subliminal ways, as in Say Wow where a contemporary electronica sound is piquantly sauced with an old-fashioned Fender Rhodes-style keyboard.

It’s all deliciously light and sunny; one song even hymns the joys of “home-cooked love like rice and peas”. The most appealing thing of all is the duo’s gift for real melodies that go way beyond catchy ‘hooks’. This irresistible album is yet more evidence that London’s musical scene might just be the liveliest in the world. Ivan Hewett

Pearl Jam, Dark Matter ★★★★☆

A few weeks ago, I watched Eddie Vedder wax lyrical at the Lafayette in Kings Cross about how rejuvenated Pearl Jam felt making their 12th studio album, Dark Matter. Moments before he started doing shots of tequila with the crowd, Vedder declared: “No hyperbole. I think this is our best work”.

Dark Matter certainly feels like the Seattle grunge titans are kick starting a new dawn: it’s loud and boisterous, as expected, but the influence of producer Andrew Watt – best known for his work with popstars Dua Lipa and Miley Cyrus, as well as rock stalwarts like Ozzy Osbourne and The Rolling Stones, he has proudly declared Pearl Jam to be his all-time favourite band – signals a welcome sonic shift, from pure nostalgia to experimentation.

Made up of 11 taut tracks, the highlights come thick and fast: Scared of Fear opens with the sharp crack of a pool cue (apparently shot by Vedder’s close friend Sean Penn) before giving way to Mike McCready and Stone Gossard’s swaggering guitar riffs, Vedder going on a trip down memory lane as he roars “We used to laugh / We used to sing / We used to believe”. React, Respond sees Vedder’s vocals constantly switching between crooning and angsty growl, backed by Matt Cameron’s pulverising drums. It’s gloriously, unapologetically noisy – while you’re listening, imagine being back in your teenage bedroom, cranking up the sound while ignoring shouts from your parents to shut the hell up. They’re sure to be stand-outs – alongside classic tracks such as Black, Yellow Ledbetter and Even Flow – at the band’s massive stadium shows this summer.

Waiting for Stevie, meanwhile, would have made for a far better lead single than the eponymous title track: a thudding ode to the power of live music (a medium which helped to make Pearl Jam household names even amongst rock novices, thanks to their well-publicised battle with Ticketmaster) that features McCready’s best guitar solo in years – standing at almost 90-seconds – and Cameron bringing the emotional intensity of his Soundgarden days to the electric drums, it’s a knockout. Something Special is off puttingly sentimental, but it’s a rare dud on an album that signals Pearl Jam are actually enjoying making new music again. “Let us not fade,” Vedder begs at the end of closing track Setting Sun. I don’t think he needs to worry. Poppie Platt

Gabrielle Aplin, Writer’s Block Pt 1 ★★★☆☆

Covers have defined Gabrielle Aplin’s career. Her big break came when her rendition of Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s The Power of Love became UK number one, after featuring on the 2012 John Lewis Christmas advert. Her career started when she was signed because of her YouTube cover videos. And it’s what the 31-year-old English singer-songwriter has returned to now, with her latest release and (surprisingly) first covers EP, Writer’s Block Part 1, featuring songs she loved growing up in the 90s. So, this should really work. But sadly, it lacks the magnetism of her earlier work.

Aplin says the EP came from “finding [her]self sitting at the piano and playing songs I love as opposed to writing”. It’s a “bridge” between “phases” of songwriting, named Part 1 in case another is needed in future. These are exercises to spark longer-term creativity – which has apparently worked, with Aplin now working on new material.

But absent is the spark that made Aplin so compelling to listeners at the height of her fame: the swelling, balladic The Power of Love; the more textured, folk-y sound of Gold-certified 2013 single Please Don’t Say You Love Me. Slicker production better supports Aplin’s breathy, un-showy voice, and here the sparse production lets her down a little.

There are, however, some lovely moments. To plucked guitar, Reef’s rock-y Place Your Hands becomes an intimate round-the-campfire song, better revealing the lyrical sentiment that was somewhat obscured behind the original’s jangly sound. In Sheryl Crow’s If It Makes You Happy, Aplin delves into her lower register, a strong part of her voice we don’t normally hear. The wraith-ish vocals that opened her 2012 Christmas hit are, delightfully, there in the whispered open and close of Madonna’s Frozen, while acoustic renditions of Fake Plastic Trees (Radiohead) and My Hero (Foo Fighters) are beautiful. I’m glad Aplin is reaching the end of her Writer’s Block – she has more to give, I think,
than this EP was able to show off. Sophie Carlin

Best New Songs

By Poppie Platt

AJ Tracey, Joga Bonito
The West London rapper has become one of the UK’s hottest exports in recent years, thanks to megahits like Ladbroke Grove and Thiago Silva. This hazy new track borrows from the carnival sounds of Rio de Janeiro to create a summer rap anthem just begging to be played at BBQs across the land.

Belle and Sebastian, What Happened To You, Son?
Having made a career from dreamy, whimsical ruminations on love, life and Glasgow, What Happened To You, Son? sees the indie stalwarts, led by Stuart Murdoch, take on juvenile failure and the fear of growing up (”You must go the way you’re at and bring on flight”).

Dua Lipa, Illusion
As the rest of us mere mortals eagerly await her Glastonbury headline set, the British-Albanian superstar unleashes another dancefloor-filling anthem ready to transport us back to the Nineties.

Fontaines D.C., Starburster
I’ll still proudly tell who will listen that the Dublin band’s breakout 2019 single Boys in the Better Land is the best indie song since Last Nite by the Strokes. They’ve gone down a darker, murkier path since then, with Starburster swapping singalong-potential for post-punk brooding, but it’s still stellar.

Also out this week:

Taylor Swift, The Tortured Poets Department. Read our full review by Neil McCormick