New releases round-up - 16th May 2011

Lady Gaga - The Edge of Glory

Gaga returns to the more straight-laced pop of her early days with The Edge of Glory, in the process adding in an inspired saxophone solo and a real 80s rock ballad vibe. This marks the third on air/on sale release from Gaga's forthcoming Born This Way album.

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Take That - Love Love

The Take That boys prove that you can never have enough Love around with this big, bold stand-alone single that shares more than a little in common with previous track Kidz (what happened to Happy Now?! We love that track!) - Love Love is the 'official' song of the new X Men movie, so expect to hear it slapped on in the film's end credits and soundtracking the trailers...

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Friendly Fires - Pala

Already being touted as one of the best albums of the year, Friendly Fires return bigger, better and even dancier than before. With track names like Live Those Days Tonight and Hawaiian Air, expect Pala to swiftly become the soundtrack to your summer.

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Hugh Laurie - Let Them Talk

The vastly talented House and Blackadder actor turns his hand to classy blues for his debut album. Now, actors going and 'doing music' doesn't always bode well, but Hugh has received rave reviews for Let Them Talk as well as dazzling on The Graham Norton Show and Later With Jools Holland. And if Jools likes you then you're on to a winner...

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Chapel Club - Palace

When a band releases their debut album, it is all about first impressions. This is the big time, your chance to convince the masses you are worth investing in. And as debut albums go, Chapel Club’s Palace is a profoundly good one. The band’s guitarist Michael Hibbert says of the album that it is about “not being afraid to be too ambitious. We wanted to take the grandeur and force of the lyrics and make a record that resonates on a large emotional scale.” And he’s spot on. Palace is an album that builds itself around ambition and grandeur, and it succeeds.

There’s touches of early New Order and Echo & The Bunnymen here, particularly on Blind Light and Five Trees respectively, but only at their more guitar-orientated moments. Chapel Club are not a synth band. Instead they specialise in hefty post-punk guitar hooks - the tracks are powerful, big; certainly more weighty than contemporaries like White Lies, who their sound shares more than a lot in common with. Songs like After The Flood are atmospheric, explorative pieces; an experiment in just how many sounds you can pull out of a guitar.

As an album, Palace paints a bleak, modern landscape, a place of harsh, mechanistic sounds. Rhythmic basslines, thundering drum beats, wailing guitar lines. When you listen to this album, it is almost as if you are dropped into a factory-like labyrinth of sonic qualities and made to pick your way out. But the important thing is that this is a pleasurable experience, for the deeper you look into these songs, unpacking the towering wall of sound that manifests itself in tracks like White Knight Position, the more you get from this album.

The Shore has a more cinematic quality to it, the potential soundtrack to countless slick, American TV drama’s. You can almost picture a stark, rain-lashed cityscape now as you listen to the track. This is music to think to, and at six minutes long, there is ample thinking time provided. Reaching the second half of the album, the aforementioned Blind Light stands out again and again as a highlight. Indeed, it is refreshing to see that Palace, as an album, bucks the trend that so many albums fall prey too: starting well, only to trail into mediocrity in the second half. And with the sense of atmosphere Chapel Club create, consistency lends itself even more to ensuring a complete listening experience.

iTunes are currently offering O Maybe I from the album as their free single of the week.