This Is All Yours

全英1位/全米4位獲得アルバム!トータル・セールス200万枚以上を誇る、UKロックバンド、アルト・ジェイによる2ndアルバム!(2014年作品)第57回グラミー賞『最優秀オルタナティヴ・ミュージック・アルバム』、BRITアワード『最優秀ブリティッシュ・アルバム賞』と『最優秀ブリティッシュ・グループ賞』、IMPALAヨーロピアン・インディペンデント・アルバム・オブ・ザ・イヤーにノミネート!

Rolling Stone - 4 stars out of 5 -- "[I]t's an ambling, entrancing listen -- full of songs that blur weird folk and electronic zoinkiness, classical filigree and straight-up rock, scrambling in all directions as singer-guitarist Joe Newman sings in a pillowy KID A warble." Clash - "'Hunger Of The Pine' might stand to be one of the most emphatic songs alt-J has ever conceived. Written during the darker days of guitarist Gwil Sainsbury's departure, it is a rich and misty masterpiece." Paste - "Interlaying so many different phrasings, moods and sounds evokes this impression of traveling through a gallery of sonic sensibilities..."

Alt-J arrived on the British music scene awash with praise and went on to win the 2012 Mercury Prize and score three Brit Award nominations, and their debut album, An Awesome Wave, entered the U.K. Top 20 chart. The success and heavy touring brought about the departure of bassist Gwil Sainsbury, but the remaining members continued to work together, and their sophomore record, This Is All Yours, continued to expand their experimental indie rock sound. ~ Scott Kerr|

The 2012 Mercury Prize winners begin their sophomore outing with the subversively titled "Intro," a four-and-a-half-minute highlight reel of what's to come that pairs the monastic chanting that prefaced An Awesome Wave's first single, "Fitzpleasure," with a pastiche of new age and worldbeat-blasted ambient pop that suggests Mogwai by way of Peter Gabriel's Real World studios circa 1990 -- it's both planetarium laser light show and art installation ready. The muted yet equally heady "Arrival in Nara," all fingerpicked electric guitar and diffusive synths, and its more muscular yet no less monkish second half, "Nara," do little to rein in the holistic atmosphere that's so decisively laid out in the remarkably potent This Is All Yours' opening moments, which makes the arrival of the punchy, carnally minded "Every Other Freckle" and the meaty, Anglo-Motown thump of "Left Hand Free" so thrilling, but hardly unexpected. After all, this is a band that proved with its debut that it can go from icy, distant, and often excruciatingly beautiful to downright feral at the crack of a snare drum (or pots and pans, as the group's humble, dorm room beginnings often required), and This Is All Yours does little to tarnish their reputation as choirboys with dark passengers. That penchant for edgy refinement, along with frontman Joe Newman's elastic voice, remains the band's most effective weapon, but it's hard to pinpoint where and when that magic occurs, as it's so effortlessly woven into the group's sound. It's somewhere in between the autumnal and apocalyptic, Miley Cyrus-sampling "Hunger of the Pine," the bucolic, recorder-led "Garden of England," and the oddly soulful, midnight-black posturing of "The Gospel of John Hurt," and it gets under your skin, where it somehow manages to both hurt and heal. ~ James Christopher Monger

〈マーキュリー・プライズ〉で最優秀英国アルバム賞を獲得した初作から2年。そのままスター街道を突き進むかと思いきや、メンバーの脱退などトラブルに見舞われていたアルト・Jが無事に2作目を発表しました。モダン・トリップ・ホップやチル&Bとの同時代性を強く感じさせつつ、あくまで基調となるのはアコースティック楽器の音色。マイリー・サイラス“4×4”のネタ使いで発表前から話題を呼んでいた“Hunger Of The Pine”も、蓋を開ければべス・ギボンズのソロ作みたいなフォークトロニカ・タッチの仕上がりです。たびたびレディオヘッドと比べられてきましたが、もっと突っ込んで言うと今回は『The King Of Limbs』に似た深遠さ。音数が少ないぶん、想像力を掻き立てられます。
bounce (C)武田晃