Enjoy Sensibly Visit Visit facebook.com/CaptainMorganIreland TheCAPTAINMORGANwordsandassociatedlogosaretrademarks.CaptainMorganRumCo.2009. Follow Captain Morgan on facebook as he continues his global adventure. Win weekly legendary prizes, get the lowdown on upcoming parties all over the country and challenge Captain Morgan and his Morganettes to Dare The Captain and win 1,000 in cash. Got A Little CaptainInYou? Staying In Music Reviews Album Of The Week Whitney Houston: I Look To You Arista The anticipation around Whitney Houstons seventh album has been fierce, and rightly so. After all, isnt fierceness what this all- American diva and tortured soul is supposed to be about? The music scene prefers its divas to be tragic hit princess Houston qualified via her notoriously abusive marriage, tantrums and addictions and then it demands further extremes: either an earth-shattering return to form, or an epic meltdown. Happily, I Look To You isnt the latter, yet its also far too modest to be the former; essentially, its a fine collection of survivors anthems, two years in the making. Houston might have enlisted some on-trend producers (Swizz Beatz, Danja) here, but she isnt about to abandon her 1990s rnb stylings. The album does start out on a high, with the joyously soulful disco of single Million Dollar Bill, co-written by Alicia Keys. Its soon apparent, though, that while Houstons life has been reported as a celebrity car crash, her music is safe territory; dont expect any explicit references to ex- husband Bobby Brown. On these songs, shes cossetted by reliable collaborators, without stretching her range even though her unmistakable vocals can still send everyday sentiments soaring. Mega-songwriter Diane Warren provides the typically emotive ballad I Didnt Know My Own Strength; the inexplicably ubiquitous Akon goes beep-beep all over Like I Never Left; and R Kelly contributes the defiant break-up song Salute. Youre left with the impression of Houston as showbiz trouper, not exactly living the dream, but soldiering on fiercely. Arwa Haider Kings Of Convenience: Declaration Of Dependence Virgin Its been five long years since we last heard a peep from Kings Of Convenience but their third offering Declaration Of Dependence is well worth the wait. It seems like Erlend ye and Eirik Glambek Be are still busy plucking away at the musical manifesto laid out in the title of their debut Quiet Is The New Loud. Here, the Norwegian duo use gentle vocals, delicate guitar-picking, and sparse piano lines to create another collection of songs of hushed intimacy and exquisite beauty. Beguiling opener 24-25 is suffused with melancholic longing, while Rule My World showcases the pairs newfound interest in bossa nova but its the spine-tingling elegance of Riot On An Empty Street (also, confusingly the title of their second album) that will linger long after youve pressed stop. This is a band that can make even the smallest pauses seem poetic with Kings Of Convenience, less is definitely more. Ann Lee Portico Quartet: Real World Isla A surprise choice on the 2008 Mercury shortlist, this south London outfit play melodic jazz on drums, double bass and saxophones, but their USP is an odd Swiss invention called the hang. This tuned, metal drum looks like a UFO but can sound like an electric piano, a Caribbean steelpan or an Indonesian gamelan, and it gives Porticos music a spooky, otherworldly quality. Album No.2 sees them at Abbey Road with producer John Leckie, best known for producing the Stone Roses and Radiohead but whos also helmed many African albums. Here he steers Portico into pan-global territory: on Clipper and The Visitor, hypnotic rhythm tracks accompany ecstatic sax solos, while the chimes on Dawn Patrol resemble Pharaoh Saunders freakier Afro-jazz. But crucially, Portico havent abandoned the strong, simple melodies that have lifted them from the jazz ghetto. John Lewis Seasick Steve: Man From Another Time Atlantic As titles go, Man From Another Time is no way near as eloquent as I Started Out With Nothing And I Still Got Most Of It Left, Seasick Steves last album and the one to finally propel this sixtysomething wrinkly American hobo into the mainstream. But its certainly apt: this is another clich-free, analogue- recorded collection of slam-dunk blues, acoustic spirituals and old- time country delivered with the help of Seasick Steves trusty one- stringed Diddley Bow that channels the lonely, weather-beaten spirit of a long gone America criss-crossed by freight trains and the open road. Lyrically, Seasick Steve is no poet, but he doesnt need to be when he summons a vanished place so effortlessly Banjo Song could have been recorded by The Carter Family in 1928. Steve is still hungry grizzled electric guitars add plenty of umph and grit; and if fans feared that fame may have dimmed his appetite for keeping it raw then just one spin will put em right. Claire Allfree Thursday, October 15, 2009 metrolife 17 Its 1931, and a penniless American writer arrives in Berlin at a venue far removed from the Great Depression: the Kit Kat Klub, where pursuit of pleasure is king, and Nazism a sideshow. But when troubled cabaret starlet Sally Bowles (immortalised on screen by a luminous Liza Minnelli) falls pregnant and the Nazis gain support, the nightclubs in here, life is beautiful! mantra rings hollow. This Bill Kenwright production, directed by British hot-shot Rufus Norris, has been on tour since 2007 but it shouldve hung up its hot- pants long ago. With Weimar Berlin on the cusp of one of the worlds greatest ever war crimes, Cabaret should be nasty, sleazy and menacing. But this show is none of the above. Siobhn Dillon plays Bowles as a shrill stage- school reject rather than a fascinating cocaine-snorting, gin-soaked diva, her supposed showstopper Dont Tell Mama prone to hysteria. She and Henry Luxemburg, who plays novelist Cliff, have sub-zero chemistry and even Javier de Frutos choreography feels amateurish. Naked bodies and simulated fellatio on stage do not a sexy production make, and Wayne Sleep corseted-up as if hes just arrived from a Rocky Horror Picture Show matine is oddly static. Also, its often difficult to make out the dialogue over the (excellent) band and the gas chamber ending is woefully overstated. The courtship between Matt Zimmermans Herr Schultz and Jenny Logans Fraulein Schneider is really the only convincing element here that and the wonderful set design that truly echoes the era. Lucy White Until Oct 24, Gaiety Theatre, South King Street D2, various times, 25 to 60. Tel: (01) 677 1717. www.cabaret-the-musical.co.uk MUSICAL REVIEW Cabaret index.html2.html3.html4.html5.html6.html7.html8.html9.html10.html11.html12.html13.html14.html15.html16.html17.html18.html19.html20.html21.html22.html23.html24.html25.html26.html27.html28.html29.html30.html31.html