Review of Give Me Infinity, the new album by Exit Ten

Give Me Infinity is the second album from Reading's Exit Ten, who are a British rock/metal band, which is kind of refreshing in this world of a million and one genres.

Interestingly, they feature a singer who sings. Although I'm quite happy with cookie monster vocals and the like, 45 minutes of shouting can sometimes get on your nerves so kudos to Ryan Redman, Exit Ten's front man.

After my first run through of half the album so far what I most like about Exit Ten is an acknowledgement that the song is the most important thing. I don't care how good you are at your chosen instrument, if you can't write a song then all you're doing is showing off. The musicians of Exit Ten, all individually excellent, do precisely what each song requires and that's not always the case with rock and metal bands.

Opening two tracks Life and Curtain Call start the album off strongly. The latter in particular has a mighty riff but then two thirds of the way through has a quiet passage that musically has a hint of Oceansize, which is the greatest compliment I can pay any band.

Track 3 Suggest A Path has tasteful guitar and strings before everything crashes in but Ryan Redman bestrides it all, emoting his heart out. Eyes Never Lie is another solid piece of rock with another hint of Oceansize. Nice.

Tracks 5 to 9 are like overs 20-40 of a one-day international. Little cricket reference for you. They are all solid pieces of work but are working up to some kind of climax. The Cursed sounds like one of those alternative/indie rock bands and is quite hooky. Track 8 Sunset is a bit Funeral For A Friend-ish. Smoke has a restrained, pretty beginning. The guitars in this song, and indeed throughout the album, sound glorious when they are both restrained and full-on.

But then.

Then, we reach the tenth track. It is called Mountain.

Oh. My. God.

If you're lucky a band makes a good album. Occasionally, a band makes a great album.

But only rarely does a band make one utterly fabulous track that stands out so much it makes you completely rethink how you feel about the album its on and actually hauls that album out of the good category and into the great category.

But Exit Ten has done it and Mountain is the track.

It starts with a monstrous guitar sound and manages to maintain that monstrous greatness throughout its five and a half minutes. I won't describe it in any more detail because if what I've already said hasn't encouraged you to go seek it out then there is no hope for you.

It is genuinely thrilling. Thrilling that Exit Ten came up with it and thrilling in the way Exit Ten has laid it down. It shows admirable, awe-inspiring ambition.

And do you know what? Last track Lion is almost as good.

Coming to the end of this review I have now listened to Give Me Infinity a whole bunch of times and I have come to the conclusion, unsurprising given some of the things I've written above, that this is an enormous, formidable, fantastic rock record and I am most assuredly Exit Ten's newest fan.

I hope fans of the first album come along because Exit Ten are going somewhere, of that I am absolutely convinced.

Buy this album. Go see them live. Do whatever you can to encourage Exit Ten. I know I will.

The whole Michael Jackson thing

There was a radio debate about Michael Jackson on yesterday. Everyone was saying what a great artist he was but what a "troubled" person he was in his private life.

I've got no idea what he was really like. He seemed pretty odd...but that's not the worst thing in the world. He did dangle a child over a balcony. That was dumb. He did seem to like the company of children but we'll never know whether he could actually be labelled a paedophile.

So let's stick with what we know. His music. I am old enough to remember the excitement and buzz in 1982 when Thriller came out and the video was shown in its entirety on the telly.

Off the wall, the previous album, was also pretty good.

1987's Bad, while not actually bad, was no more than okay.

After that, unmitigated garbage.

So, two and a half albums that you'd want to listen to.

One of them is the biggest-selling album of all time, so his contribution is not to be sniffed at.

But was he really such a good singer and such a good dancer? To my ears, his singing was competent but punctuated by needless whoos every other line. His dancing seemed to be a well-choreographed routine that he basically repeated endlessly whilst grabbing his crotch in an unappealing fashion.

There is not a single Michael Jackson vocal performance that is as good as, for example, Prince's singing on If I Was Your Girlfriend. Come to think of it, Prince was a much better dancer than Michael Jackson. He was free and loose and unshackled in a way that Jacko never was.

And now that I think about it, Prince was a better musician and a better songwriter...biggest-selling album ever notwithstanding.

From 1983 to 1988 Prince released Purple Rain, Around the world in a day, Parade, Sign o' the Times, Lovesexy.

I've said it before, I'll say it again. That's about as good a five-album body of work as you can possibly get. Up there with the first four or five Roxy Music albums.

And I've always wondered about those devoted fans of Michael Jackson. Maybe the media highlighted the slightly loopy ones when he died but frankly anyone who follows ANYONE with that kind of blinkered fervour is worrying.

Anyhoo, just a thought. I'm not a Jacko hater as such, and I'm not questioning his impact on the world, but sometimes a little perspective can be a good thing.