Philip Selway – ‘Weatherhouse’

This, the second solo album from Radiohead drummer Phil Selway, sounds more like an echo of his main band’s output than 2010’s ‘Familial’ did. With more ambition and further forays into experimental electronics than its understated, largely acoustic predecessor, the expansive nature of Radiohead’s influence grips harder. It usually works – the strings on ‘Around Again’ seem plucked from ‘Pyramid Song’ and spread over a ‘Knives Out’ drum-scuttle, yet the melody is distinctive enough to feel worthy of the comparisons, and ‘Around Again’ has a fuzzy red wine-drunk mellowness redolent of ‘Amnesiac’. The Lennon-esque ‘It Will End In Tears’, however, shows that the 47-year-old Selway has strong enough songwriting chops to keep it piano-thump simple regardless of how much buzz and crackle he’s got going on in the background. ‘Weatherhouse’ properly uncovers Selway as a compelling songwriter, and coming just weeks after Thom Yorke’s latest solo effort ‘Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes’ it feels remarkably pertinent.