Five or so years ago Dan Deacon was struck square in the jaw by a rift in spacetime. Tore right through him while he walked from the kitchen to the bathroom in his house in South Astral Plane and split him into two. Two whole men even! One became the Dan Deacon we know, who got progressively more dense and arty, whose sound got more and more and more more more, culminating in last year's America, a masterpice of n-layered electronic and analog sound, spastic electro-punk shoegaze prog a thousand stories high.
The other Dan knew knew he didn't belong in this place, so he struck out to be even more Dan than Dan, stayed purer to Dan than Dan, and made a Dan Deacon record as clever and ambitious as Bromst or America, but without all of the density, without all the layering and production, making an album as basic and primitive and raw and noisy as pre-Spiderman of the Rings Deacon, making an album like modern day Dan Deacon might make if he had to create it live, with surging, clumbering analog crashers loping and looping along under atari sunspot leads, making the most fucked soaring pop you've heard in your timeline. That album was called Total Folklore. He filed it under Dan Friel to make it hard. If you like Dan Deacon, but weary of his crushing ambition, take a trip to an alternate dimension and give his quasi-extant shitshow masterpiece a whirl 4/5
Thursday, February 28, 2013
#778 Elvis Presley - Elvis is Back
Maaaaaan, fuck Elvis, just one of the most overrated performers of all time. He's got his charms, and he was an innovator and all that, but his biggest assets were being white and good looking and first, in more or less that order. He's more Timberlake than Bieber, which is a compliment to be sure, but you get the idea of the league I'm putting him in when I say that; I'd take Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Gene Vincent, and a half dozen other dudes from that era over him on my fantasy rock and roll team.
His best songs were always his fast ones, and that's truer here than usual: Fever is a gimmicky cover, and the doowop and country forays reveal Elvis to be a talented but mostly uninteresting crooner, checking off boxes on his road to range. Them fast songs really are something though, some of his best since Sun day one, especially the savage sax on Reconsider Baby and the too-fast pop of Dirty, Dirty Feeling. All my complaints aside, dude's solid, and you can't complain too much about an album with highlights that good 3.5/5
His best songs were always his fast ones, and that's truer here than usual: Fever is a gimmicky cover, and the doowop and country forays reveal Elvis to be a talented but mostly uninteresting crooner, checking off boxes on his road to range. Them fast songs really are something though, some of his best since Sun day one, especially the savage sax on Reconsider Baby and the too-fast pop of Dirty, Dirty Feeling. All my complaints aside, dude's solid, and you can't complain too much about an album with highlights that good 3.5/5
#777 Sarah Vaughan and Her Trio - At Mister Kelly's
Another of the big bold female singers of the 50's, with more waver and quaver than I'd like, as was the style thenabouts. And, for better or for worse, that voice is on full display, backed by the barest sparest brushing of drums and a piano finding its way to the microphone as if miles and ages away, leaving you alone with Vaughan in a bracingly intimate sonic space.
The other major point of note is the nuance of the performance, which is alternately charmingly spontaneous and distractingly sloppy. Vaughan handles her flub of Willow Weep for Me with grace, seemingly missing her cue by about 12 bars while the band vamps in place, and its fun watching them warp the whole affair back into place. There's a real sense of moment, of being in an actual, dark, smoky jazz club. But on How High the Moon everything just falls apart, and its uncomfortable watching Vaughan fall on her face. The MC on the first track explains that a lyrics sheet is being used, all of which leads one to wonder whether the singer even prepared for this. When a talent shows mortality it can lend them a winning humility, but unapologetic error taken too far instead reads as arrogance. It's a fine line, baby.
In the end, its a net win: it's better a performance should have character than perfection. It's a recording worth hearing, and it has many things a live album should, everything but a singer I actually care to listen to 2.5/5
The other major point of note is the nuance of the performance, which is alternately charmingly spontaneous and distractingly sloppy. Vaughan handles her flub of Willow Weep for Me with grace, seemingly missing her cue by about 12 bars while the band vamps in place, and its fun watching them warp the whole affair back into place. There's a real sense of moment, of being in an actual, dark, smoky jazz club. But on How High the Moon everything just falls apart, and its uncomfortable watching Vaughan fall on her face. The MC on the first track explains that a lyrics sheet is being used, all of which leads one to wonder whether the singer even prepared for this. When a talent shows mortality it can lend them a winning humility, but unapologetic error taken too far instead reads as arrogance. It's a fine line, baby.
In the end, its a net win: it's better a performance should have character than perfection. It's a recording worth hearing, and it has many things a live album should, everything but a singer I actually care to listen to 2.5/5
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
#775 Leftfield - Leftism
You can't put a price on being alive. Here's a heavy, arty house record that doesn't flow especially well, sounding like the singles-plus-filler album that it is, often sloppy and disjointed, reading like the opposite of the just-reviewed Underworld album. There is no particular perfection here, despite the discrete inputs and digital outputs. But it's alive. It's music that sounds like its moving out from under you, out from under itself, escaping artifice tentacle over tentacle, writing out of its four by four cell. Its lifeblood is the ragged toasting on the first couple of tracks, the scratching, the stuttering, the syncopation. Underworld made a Ferrari, this is the horses.
The downside is the heavy dub influence, with that overblown bass that I find so unpleasant, making everything sludgier than it has to be, especially on the leaden Original. But elsewhere, the music bristles with static and plays downright dynamic 3.5/5
The downside is the heavy dub influence, with that overblown bass that I find so unpleasant, making everything sludgier than it has to be, especially on the leaden Original. But elsewhere, the music bristles with static and plays downright dynamic 3.5/5
#775 Underworld – Second Toughest in the Infants
This is it. This is the sound that a shitload of bands before and after tried to hit, the kind of repetitive, meandering, subtle, evolving electronica that I have heard so many failed attempts at, that resulted in watery, indistinct records for miles. Here though, everything is expertly put together, and Underworld has a masterful sense of human perception and feeling, of arc and flow and melody and sound, like a less-tacky Moby (who I actually think is really talented in certain ways) stretched in artistically along every dimension. The composition is mostly of the loops-come-and-go variety, in opposition to all the linear bending that's so hot today, and there's not even much knob twiddling along the way, but it's an album that sets out to do what it does, and does it with a deft touch.
Most impressive is the album's overall arc, full of hyperslick transitions, managing to be as chilled out as, well The KLF's Chill Out at some moments, and then in full on banger mode another, wringing almost unbearable tension from the relentless loop loop loops without you even knowing how you got there. Part of the success comes from the unusual album structure, leading off with two fifteen minute epics before a suite of 6 or 7 minute "short" songs. Not that you notice the song breaks, but it gives the album a certain psychic feel that leaves you feeling strapped in and shot towards something.
Most important is the fact that this is what all long-and-repetitive music should be, whether its electronica or art rock or whatever: it melts time when you don't listen, and is worth listening to when you do.
The major downside is the approach to vocals, with a bit too much of that breathy euro pretentiousness that makes the whole thing feel a bit twatty when you think about it. Luckily, when this is on, you don't find a whole lot of time for thinking about such matters, what with the whole universe being out there and all, and you shooting out into it 4/5
Most impressive is the album's overall arc, full of hyperslick transitions, managing to be as chilled out as, well The KLF's Chill Out at some moments, and then in full on banger mode another, wringing almost unbearable tension from the relentless loop loop loops without you even knowing how you got there. Part of the success comes from the unusual album structure, leading off with two fifteen minute epics before a suite of 6 or 7 minute "short" songs. Not that you notice the song breaks, but it gives the album a certain psychic feel that leaves you feeling strapped in and shot towards something.
Most important is the fact that this is what all long-and-repetitive music should be, whether its electronica or art rock or whatever: it melts time when you don't listen, and is worth listening to when you do.
The major downside is the approach to vocals, with a bit too much of that breathy euro pretentiousness that makes the whole thing feel a bit twatty when you think about it. Luckily, when this is on, you don't find a whole lot of time for thinking about such matters, what with the whole universe being out there and all, and you shooting out into it 4/5
#774 Gotan Project – La Revancha del Tango
A thorough muddling of tango and dubby trip hop sensibilities, word among some writers is that this was a really innovative album when it came out. And by some standards it was! It offers a different take on rhythm, with some swaps in instrumentation, and when you're in a genre that is often built on carefully crafted sounds into carefully chosen rhythms, then that's a natural couple of places to look when it comes time to do something attention-grabbing.
But that's all this is, some styles that have been muddled. As in, clumsily crushed together in a cocktail shaker, jammed into mush by blunt force, and shaken, hoping for the best. As in made muddy, as in left indistinct, but repetition dominating, bass overwhelming, an overwhelming sense of predictability ever-looming. There's nothing truly dynamic here, this isn't any fun at all, having the trappings of fun without inspiring any, every little muttered French line, every bandoneón flourish, all put there with such purpose, with so little heart, streamers at a funeral.
The only thing you could hope to get out of this is a sense of cool, and this is maybe where the years lead me to be unkind. This might have been cool in 2004, but by today this is the kind of stuff you hear in car commercials and lazy movies to imply exoticism and mystery the easy way. It reads as a cute trick executed by the book, and while the beats are different, and there's more strings than usual, we've read this book before 2/5
* though 1994 seems more plausible, where it would have at least beaten out The Contino Sessions's similarly overbassy, muddy, but strangely intriguing sound by 5 years, instead of the other way around
But that's all this is, some styles that have been muddled. As in, clumsily crushed together in a cocktail shaker, jammed into mush by blunt force, and shaken, hoping for the best. As in made muddy, as in left indistinct, but repetition dominating, bass overwhelming, an overwhelming sense of predictability ever-looming. There's nothing truly dynamic here, this isn't any fun at all, having the trappings of fun without inspiring any, every little muttered French line, every bandoneón flourish, all put there with such purpose, with so little heart, streamers at a funeral.
The only thing you could hope to get out of this is a sense of cool, and this is maybe where the years lead me to be unkind. This might have been cool in 2004, but by today this is the kind of stuff you hear in car commercials and lazy movies to imply exoticism and mystery the easy way. It reads as a cute trick executed by the book, and while the beats are different, and there's more strings than usual, we've read this book before 2/5
* though 1994 seems more plausible, where it would have at least beaten out The Contino Sessions's similarly overbassy, muddy, but strangely intriguing sound by 5 years, instead of the other way around
Monday, February 25, 2013
#773 Billie Holiday - Lady in Satin
Look, I'm not a sexist guy. You might even be right to call me a feminist if we can agree on what the fuck that means. But as a matter of preference, I find myself pretty tough to please when it comes to female singers, and if they're warbly and inflected, doubly so. That's the heart of the problem here: the instrumentation is rich and nuanced and cool, but Holliday's nearing the end of her career by now and she doesn't sound great to me. Sacrilege I'm sure. Plus, goddamn, how many torch songs do you need to put on one album? It was truly another time, I'm often reminded.
As an aside, don't listen to those 1001 albums before you die. I was using it to get nudges on some early albums for a little while there, and it lead me to some pretty darn good albums through the 750's or so of this project. I even considered knocking off the rest of the list, but then I realized I'd only heard half of the entries, and I'm a pretty well-listened guy. Curious. I looked a little closer and read a bit and details like its inclusion of three (3) Pet Shop Boys albums and three (3) Dexy's Midnight Runners albums suggest that maybe I need not follow it to slavishly. Guess I'll have to find another way to decide how to die with some albums, and not others, under my belt.
Oh right, Billie Holiday. Classy lady, not my scene. Like aggressively no 1.5/5
As an aside, don't listen to those 1001 albums before you die. I was using it to get nudges on some early albums for a little while there, and it lead me to some pretty darn good albums through the 750's or so of this project. I even considered knocking off the rest of the list, but then I realized I'd only heard half of the entries, and I'm a pretty well-listened guy. Curious. I looked a little closer and read a bit and details like its inclusion of three (3) Pet Shop Boys albums and three (3) Dexy's Midnight Runners albums suggest that maybe I need not follow it to slavishly. Guess I'll have to find another way to decide how to die with some albums, and not others, under my belt.
Oh right, Billie Holiday. Classy lady, not my scene. Like aggressively no 1.5/5
#772 Endless Boogie - Long Island
We're going through a revolution in band naming! Whaddya need me for when you can pick up a cd (if people still did that kind of thing) and it says Endless Boogie on it, and sure enough, you will get an album full of vaguely bouncy, groovy, spacy jams that seem to go on forever*, forging rails across spacetime, one spike at a time, driving onward like cosmic John Henries.
This is art rock. Fuckit, this is Art Rock, though weirdly couched in a crunchy, desert psycho hillbilly aesthetic, Les Claypool and Roky Erickson stoned beyond reason, riding repetition and noise forever, taking just enough dubious shortcuts through dubious landscapes to be weirdly engaging along the way. But then, you probably knew all that already 4/5
* and heck, with an average song length of 10 minutes and a total running time of almost an hour and a half, they kinda do
This is art rock. Fuckit, this is Art Rock, though weirdly couched in a crunchy, desert psycho hillbilly aesthetic, Les Claypool and Roky Erickson stoned beyond reason, riding repetition and noise forever, taking just enough dubious shortcuts through dubious landscapes to be weirdly engaging along the way. But then, you probably knew all that already 4/5
* and heck, with an average song length of 10 minutes and a total running time of almost an hour and a half, they kinda do
Saturday, February 23, 2013
#771 Moon B - Moon B
On his debut, producer Moon B offers up sludgy, hazy take on 80's techno, with dashes of that wildly-unpleasant, wrong-RPM dissonance that's so hot right now. Loose in structure, but often too loose - songs wander around and fade out, or just stop in their tracks, like drunks who closed out their nights with doubles. The mysterious packaging and unspecific track naming suggest that the album's lo-fi aesthetic and unpolished composition are part of its charm, but the effect isn't altogether successful; it still sounds like a bent-for-its-own-sake post-EDM album wallowing in retro trappings.
For stretches it works. A couple of the best tracks will take you on a neon Delorean trip through desert city nowhere, and your head lolls, and you start to let time dissolve. But then some unpleasant dissonant bend, over-assertive bleep, or over-repeated loop will harsh your buzz. When this happens roughly once a track, you're hard pressed to find the proceedings altogether conducive to losing yourself in. When those moments are not just disruptive but gratingly ill-conceived, you're hard-pressed to end up much higher than 2.5/5
For stretches it works. A couple of the best tracks will take you on a neon Delorean trip through desert city nowhere, and your head lolls, and you start to let time dissolve. But then some unpleasant dissonant bend, over-assertive bleep, or over-repeated loop will harsh your buzz. When this happens roughly once a track, you're hard pressed to find the proceedings altogether conducive to losing yourself in. When those moments are not just disruptive but gratingly ill-conceived, you're hard-pressed to end up much higher than 2.5/5
Friday, February 22, 2013
#770 The White Wires - WWII
Perfectly brisk, fun, toe-tapping, chugga-chugga punk rock out of Ottawa, evoking The Buzzcocks' proto-pop-punk propulsiveness. The problem is the vocals, which take too much of the edge off, ringing too weak and too meekly pretty alongside the brash guitars, tipping the album off of that careful nasty-nice balance all pop-punk needs to pull off. There's not enough left musically to justify the loss of swagger, and the album ends up being, again, very toe-tapping, but little more 3/5
#769 Duke Ellington & His Orchestra - Ellington at Newport (Original Release*)
Here's an album where context is everything. Depending on how much you know, you might have one of three reactions to this album:
1) just listening to what's on the disc: this is a perfectly good, brash, big-band, blues-based jazz album, with some pretty epic solos. It sure is hard to hear that sax player on that last song though.
2) knowing about the context of this particular show (specifically knowing that it was a legendary performance and single-handedly responsible for revitalizing Ellington's career, that the crowd nearly rioted when the show ended, obligating the band to keep playing and playing and playing, and that that last solo is particularly legendary): yeah, ok, I can see that. That really is quite a solo at the end though, love all those encouragements and energy from the backing band. Still wish you could hear it better.
3) knowing the full history of this actual recording, that according to some accounts 40% was recreated in the studio afterwards, and that crowd noise was added afterwards to cover some places where the sax player missed the mic*: well. that kind of takes the fun out of it.
Let's keep these list rolling! There's a few ways to appreciate a live album:
1) as the way to just get a good song, one not available in studio. The Earphoria / Vieuphoria recording of Silverfuck, with its huge Jackboot coda (9:00) is a great example.
2) as a way to feel the raw energy that comes from live performance. This is most of the appeal of James Brown's legendary Apollo recording.
3) as a way to simulate the experience of being at the actual concert, feeling the feelings of the moment via recorded sound. I reckon this must be the appeal behind all those Grateful Dead recordings.
The first big problem with this album is that part of its appeal is the context. The performance was so important, so revolutionary, transcending the actual music, and we're supposed to listen to this as a record of that moment. But with so much fakery going on behind the scenes providing an unrealistic crowd sound and changes from the actual in-the-moment performances, this fails criteria #3. This isn't a recording of the time, its a strange recreation, pure sonic diorama.
The second problem is that, absent that legendary context, this is a good-but-not-great performance. The exception is that one epic solo on the last track, but...that's where the recording quality falls apart, and you find yourself straining to hear, mentally reconstructing the solo that's back there, trying to gin up a concept of what it must have sounded like in the flesh, and coming up short.
This album's a failure. A more-cleaned-up version, or a pure version, both would have been better. As it is, its a middle ground that you have to struggle to pull out of its own mistakes. Hardly the mark of a legendary album, the legendary underlying performance notwithstanding 2.5/5
* I'm reviewing the original recording, not the 1999 CD reissue re-created from later-found tapes, though I will concede that, based on a quick listen, the latter has a much, much better sound on this solo I'm so harping on.
1) just listening to what's on the disc: this is a perfectly good, brash, big-band, blues-based jazz album, with some pretty epic solos. It sure is hard to hear that sax player on that last song though.
2) knowing about the context of this particular show (specifically knowing that it was a legendary performance and single-handedly responsible for revitalizing Ellington's career, that the crowd nearly rioted when the show ended, obligating the band to keep playing and playing and playing, and that that last solo is particularly legendary): yeah, ok, I can see that. That really is quite a solo at the end though, love all those encouragements and energy from the backing band. Still wish you could hear it better.
3) knowing the full history of this actual recording, that according to some accounts 40% was recreated in the studio afterwards, and that crowd noise was added afterwards to cover some places where the sax player missed the mic*: well. that kind of takes the fun out of it.
Let's keep these list rolling! There's a few ways to appreciate a live album:
1) as the way to just get a good song, one not available in studio. The Earphoria / Vieuphoria recording of Silverfuck, with its huge Jackboot coda (9:00) is a great example.
2) as a way to feel the raw energy that comes from live performance. This is most of the appeal of James Brown's legendary Apollo recording.
3) as a way to simulate the experience of being at the actual concert, feeling the feelings of the moment via recorded sound. I reckon this must be the appeal behind all those Grateful Dead recordings.
The first big problem with this album is that part of its appeal is the context. The performance was so important, so revolutionary, transcending the actual music, and we're supposed to listen to this as a record of that moment. But with so much fakery going on behind the scenes providing an unrealistic crowd sound and changes from the actual in-the-moment performances, this fails criteria #3. This isn't a recording of the time, its a strange recreation, pure sonic diorama.
The second problem is that, absent that legendary context, this is a good-but-not-great performance. The exception is that one epic solo on the last track, but...that's where the recording quality falls apart, and you find yourself straining to hear, mentally reconstructing the solo that's back there, trying to gin up a concept of what it must have sounded like in the flesh, and coming up short.
This album's a failure. A more-cleaned-up version, or a pure version, both would have been better. As it is, its a middle ground that you have to struggle to pull out of its own mistakes. Hardly the mark of a legendary album, the legendary underlying performance notwithstanding 2.5/5
* I'm reviewing the original recording, not the 1999 CD reissue re-created from later-found tapes, though I will concede that, based on a quick listen, the latter has a much, much better sound on this solo I'm so harping on.
Thursday, February 21, 2013
#768 Marty Robbins - Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs
Does what is says on the tin!
This isn't roguish country, this isn't Johnny Cash, this isn't even Jack Elliot; this is golden-voiced, silky-toned, infinitely harmonized country that slides into your brain like a snake. This is Elvis-smooth crooning, without the edge, and soft, tinkling guitar that sounds suited to putting your grandpappy to sleep. It has decidedly not held up well, sounding painfully quaint by now, having bare little relevance.
The saving grace is the subject matter, something I so seldom focus on. The album is, like so much country, like so much post-war music, desolately death-obsessed, with protagonists, antagonists, and everyone in between dying or doomed or contemplating ends. Coupled with a lower-than-usual counterpoint of religious overtones, the whole thing is insidiously dark. Like a snake indeed.
So my reaction to this was roundly lukewarm, with one exception: Big Iron is a stunner, full of rich chords, perfectly dancing plucking, haunting backing vocals and a soaring lead that will fill your heart and soul and more, all whipped up into a vivid ballad like no other. Get on board for that song and then hop off, unless you want to nod off to a kinder, gentler time, bouncing ever-so-gently towards a thin white heaven 3/5
This isn't roguish country, this isn't Johnny Cash, this isn't even Jack Elliot; this is golden-voiced, silky-toned, infinitely harmonized country that slides into your brain like a snake. This is Elvis-smooth crooning, without the edge, and soft, tinkling guitar that sounds suited to putting your grandpappy to sleep. It has decidedly not held up well, sounding painfully quaint by now, having bare little relevance.
The saving grace is the subject matter, something I so seldom focus on. The album is, like so much country, like so much post-war music, desolately death-obsessed, with protagonists, antagonists, and everyone in between dying or doomed or contemplating ends. Coupled with a lower-than-usual counterpoint of religious overtones, the whole thing is insidiously dark. Like a snake indeed.
So my reaction to this was roundly lukewarm, with one exception: Big Iron is a stunner, full of rich chords, perfectly dancing plucking, haunting backing vocals and a soaring lead that will fill your heart and soul and more, all whipped up into a vivid ballad like no other. Get on board for that song and then hop off, unless you want to nod off to a kinder, gentler time, bouncing ever-so-gently towards a thin white heaven 3/5
#767 Jack Elliot - Jack Elliot Takes the Floor*
Friend of Johnny Cash, mentee of Woody Guthrie, "father" of Bob Dylan, suffice to say, Elliot was in the middle of the burgeoning country scene. Here he does a tour of the sounds of the time, soaring vocals, talking blues, rambling ballads, delivered in solid-but-unspectacular manner. The highlight is the big rich, raw, fingerpicked sound - every note rings with rattling attack and ringing release, and the highlight of that sound is certainly the romping, galloping, exhilarating Rock Island Line.
As a whole, though, the album doesn't really come together, though there might be a good reason for that, see note below. It's motley in pace, featuring some live tracks, some studio, with wildly varying sounds, both. A sampling that inspires a bit of curiosity, but that isn't overly listenable in its own right 3/5
* This is the peril of listening via Spotify, whose library is thorough, but carelessly curated. This is listed as "Jack Elliot Takes the Floor", not to be confused with the classic "Jack Takes the Floor", which appears to be what some versions of the 1001 Albums to Hear Before You Die list as "Ramblin Jack Elliot Takes the Floor". The album I listened to on Spotify and reviewed here seems to have no connection to any official release of any kind that I can find, so I have no idea who put it out or if it's a real thing or what. Possibly it's some minor label bootleg / public domain collection that Spotify somehow got hold of. If you can sort it out, I owe you a coke. The closest thing I can find is that this shares many songs with County Style. For reference:
1. Mean Moma Blues
2. Low and Lonely
3. Old Shep
4. Detour
5. Rock Island Line
6. Talking Sailor
7. Salty Dog
8. Hobo's Lullabye
As a whole, though, the album doesn't really come together, though there might be a good reason for that, see note below. It's motley in pace, featuring some live tracks, some studio, with wildly varying sounds, both. A sampling that inspires a bit of curiosity, but that isn't overly listenable in its own right 3/5
* This is the peril of listening via Spotify, whose library is thorough, but carelessly curated. This is listed as "Jack Elliot Takes the Floor", not to be confused with the classic "Jack Takes the Floor", which appears to be what some versions of the 1001 Albums to Hear Before You Die list as "Ramblin Jack Elliot Takes the Floor". The album I listened to on Spotify and reviewed here seems to have no connection to any official release of any kind that I can find, so I have no idea who put it out or if it's a real thing or what. Possibly it's some minor label bootleg / public domain collection that Spotify somehow got hold of. If you can sort it out, I owe you a coke. The closest thing I can find is that this shares many songs with County Style. For reference:
1. Mean Moma Blues
2. Low and Lonely
3. Old Shep
4. Detour
5. Rock Island Line
6. Talking Sailor
7. Salty Dog
8. Hobo's Lullabye
#766 Iron Maiden - Number of the Beast
Was Iron Maiden actually considered threatening? Scary? Dark? I was 2 years old when this came out, can someone who was there tell me? I mean, there's the trappings of metal edginess, the sacrilegious album title, the Zombie Eddie on the cover, the songs about Children of the Damned, and prostitution and genocide, but today it all reads pretty tame. It's nowhere near as intense (nor as technically proficient) as something like slayer, nor as soaring (nor as technically proficient) as Rush, nor as rollicking (nor as technically proficient) as Guns n' Roses years later.
This album's strength, despite its morbid trappings, is that it's actually kind of fun. It gallops along, fast and slow, melodically compelling without ever really impressing, reveling in itself without seemingly taking itself all that seriously.
Maybe I'm wrong, maybe these guys saw themselves as real hardcore motherfuckers. But I get the sense, like most metal dudes I know, that they're actually pretty self-aware, sharp, fun-loving guys who like rock and roll and not giving a fuck. I'm on board with that 3.5/5
(this is review #766! soclose)
This album's strength, despite its morbid trappings, is that it's actually kind of fun. It gallops along, fast and slow, melodically compelling without ever really impressing, reveling in itself without seemingly taking itself all that seriously.
Maybe I'm wrong, maybe these guys saw themselves as real hardcore motherfuckers. But I get the sense, like most metal dudes I know, that they're actually pretty self-aware, sharp, fun-loving guys who like rock and roll and not giving a fuck. I'm on board with that 3.5/5
(this is review #766! soclose)
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
#765 How to Destroy Angels - Welcome Oblivion
Where would Trent Reznor be without Atticus Ross? Their extended collaboration began when Ross was an engineer on WITH_TEETH, then a co-producer on Year Zero, then a co-writer of all the songs on Ghosts I-IV, and a full-on, top-billing collaborator for the Academy Award-winning soundtrack for The Social Network - quite the ascent!
The songs followed a similar upward trajectory. Previously, Reznor had been on a downward spiral into murk and guitar noise, bottoming out circa The Fragile, and album that left many wondering if there was anywhere left for Nine Inch Nails to go, if screaming and silence and rock oppression had any surprises left to deliver. But with Ross on board, the sound took a side tunnel into uncanny, otherworldly spaces, where texture and ambiance delivered more uncanny thrills than raw power ever could. The Social Network soundtrack, in particular, was the perfect expression of prickly, dangerous ambition, and one of my favorite albums of that year.
Here, though, the ascent gets sidetracked. There are flashes of brilliance, of electricity, of eerie atmosphere, but also a weird lean into pop grasping that's totally at odds with the sound. Reznor and Ross's previous material worked because it was outside of taste and humanity and time, hitching its wagon to some Lovecraftian fever-dream. Any attempt to make music for the masses, even the faintest gesture in that direction, and a curtain falls and the illusion snaps.
Too many songs here strive to be cool and instead come across like that rave scene in The Matrix Reloaded, landing with a 2003 Hot Topic thud. Furthermore, what does Reznor wife Mariqueen Maandig bring to the table exactly? I mean, other than making the band sound 500% more like Evanesence? It reeks of a vanity project, a grab at popularity, and a watering down of the Reznor / Ross sounds. The noises and surges and sub-notes on the disc are almost as good as before, but in that gap, in that uncomplete commitement to the project, the magic is lost 3/5
The songs followed a similar upward trajectory. Previously, Reznor had been on a downward spiral into murk and guitar noise, bottoming out circa The Fragile, and album that left many wondering if there was anywhere left for Nine Inch Nails to go, if screaming and silence and rock oppression had any surprises left to deliver. But with Ross on board, the sound took a side tunnel into uncanny, otherworldly spaces, where texture and ambiance delivered more uncanny thrills than raw power ever could. The Social Network soundtrack, in particular, was the perfect expression of prickly, dangerous ambition, and one of my favorite albums of that year.
Here, though, the ascent gets sidetracked. There are flashes of brilliance, of electricity, of eerie atmosphere, but also a weird lean into pop grasping that's totally at odds with the sound. Reznor and Ross's previous material worked because it was outside of taste and humanity and time, hitching its wagon to some Lovecraftian fever-dream. Any attempt to make music for the masses, even the faintest gesture in that direction, and a curtain falls and the illusion snaps.
Too many songs here strive to be cool and instead come across like that rave scene in The Matrix Reloaded, landing with a 2003 Hot Topic thud. Furthermore, what does Reznor wife Mariqueen Maandig bring to the table exactly? I mean, other than making the band sound 500% more like Evanesence? It reeks of a vanity project, a grab at popularity, and a watering down of the Reznor / Ross sounds. The noises and surges and sub-notes on the disc are almost as good as before, but in that gap, in that uncomplete commitement to the project, the magic is lost 3/5
#764 Marcos Valle - Previsão do Tempo
Did you know that most scholars consider Brazil a "Western" country? I might have stopped my list once I got to Europe + places the speak English. From a cultural standpoint, the rock music of the 60's and 70's provides some evidence in that direction, with the noisy end of Tropicalia mirroring American garage rock, Bossa Nova paralleling prettier, experimental British 60's pop rock, and moves into electronic sounds in the 70's lining up with similar moves towards funk and soul in the Northern Western world.
This is a great example of the latter, a funky 1973 album, to use the word so oft-applied to it. The hitched, sultry delivery, the crisp beats, the flicking licks of guitar, the sound is smooth, but undulating, sailing on rougher seas than your average Brazillian croonfest.
The key, though, are those keyboards, the warm Rhodes, the ethereal mini-moog, sending the entire endeavor skyward*, with Valle keeping the tempo brisk and keeping it from getting too lazy in the sun. The effect is sunny, cool, relaxing, exciting, and as good as anything the English-speaking world was ginning up around the same time 4.5/5
* is this where Air got the idea? The title track in particular sounds stunningly like something off of Moon Safari, an album that holds a special, mellowed-out place in my heart
This is a great example of the latter, a funky 1973 album, to use the word so oft-applied to it. The hitched, sultry delivery, the crisp beats, the flicking licks of guitar, the sound is smooth, but undulating, sailing on rougher seas than your average Brazillian croonfest.
The key, though, are those keyboards, the warm Rhodes, the ethereal mini-moog, sending the entire endeavor skyward*, with Valle keeping the tempo brisk and keeping it from getting too lazy in the sun. The effect is sunny, cool, relaxing, exciting, and as good as anything the English-speaking world was ginning up around the same time 4.5/5
* is this where Air got the idea? The title track in particular sounds stunningly like something off of Moon Safari, an album that holds a special, mellowed-out place in my heart
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
#763 Atoms for Peace - Amok
My theory: this is In Rainbows from an alternate reality.
You can more or less draw a line directly from Hail to the Thief's scattered, chiming, swooning, bass-heavy rock to The King of Limbs' skittering, glitchy non-rock, and find this album along that trajectory. It's surely closer to the TKOL end, though, where its IDM/EDM/WTF roots can easily reach, where twitchy, glitchy beats, offbeats, and off-offbeats can wind n-dimensional. And as on Limbs, the key to this album is the endlessly winding bass (provided by Flea, but you'll hear none of his signatures here). They give the whole thing backbone, making the album feel downright grounded despite their percussive gymnastics and ambient, electronic pulses. Suffice to say though, if this had been released as the next Radiohead album, nobody would have called bullshit: given the last decade, this is decidedly within Radiohead's reach.
The only tell would be the lack of that Radiohead album feel, that weird way that the disparate shards of a dozen different approaches to songwriting collide and feel like part of a magnificent whole. That ability to take songs like Paranoid Android, Fitter / Happier, Kid A, Treefingers, Idioteque, Pulk / Pull, Hunting Bears, Life in a Glass House, 15 Step, Videotape, Feral, Separator (need I go on?) and make each one feel like an essential part of an album they sounded nothing like*.
Here the songs are different in atmospheric ways, in a million small ways stretched out to tones and drones. Each has its own electronic maneuver, clapping a cage around some unique sonic pokemon, trapped from another dimension and writhing and swooping in turn. The sounds really are something special. But every song has that same subdued, lurking, slinking, ghostly buzz and swoop to it, the song lengths pinned pretty tightly to 5 minutes, with no big ups, no big downs, no sudden swerves, nothing that surprises you on first listen half as much as any of the songs listed above. The Eraser similarly played samily.
And maybe there's the difference between a Radiohead album and an album that has Thom Yorke on it: he can make a Radiohead song. Heck, he can make 9 of them. But he can't quite but a Radiohead album.
As songs go, they're good. Full of tension and invention and groove, lousy with intriguing detail, but the album, as a unit barely works. Heck, even the last song, the key moment of any album (though, I must confess, yes, especially a Radiohead album) sounds like it could have been sequenced anywhere, and kind of just stops playing with little momentum or ceremony. It's emblematic of the entire album, a shining perpetual motion machine, ingenious in design, spinning in place 4/5
* Notice who I left off? Hail to the Thief was neither cohesive enough, nor did it find that magic to make its parts transcend themselves. Part of the problem might have been that 15 song length, a mistake Yorke is atoning for by making albums with 10, 9, 8, and now 9 songs respectively, if you count The Eraser in there. 8 songs! In this age? Still think the TKOL2 rumors had some merit to them.
You can more or less draw a line directly from Hail to the Thief's scattered, chiming, swooning, bass-heavy rock to The King of Limbs' skittering, glitchy non-rock, and find this album along that trajectory. It's surely closer to the TKOL end, though, where its IDM/EDM/WTF roots can easily reach, where twitchy, glitchy beats, offbeats, and off-offbeats can wind n-dimensional. And as on Limbs, the key to this album is the endlessly winding bass (provided by Flea, but you'll hear none of his signatures here). They give the whole thing backbone, making the album feel downright grounded despite their percussive gymnastics and ambient, electronic pulses. Suffice to say though, if this had been released as the next Radiohead album, nobody would have called bullshit: given the last decade, this is decidedly within Radiohead's reach.
The only tell would be the lack of that Radiohead album feel, that weird way that the disparate shards of a dozen different approaches to songwriting collide and feel like part of a magnificent whole. That ability to take songs like Paranoid Android, Fitter / Happier, Kid A, Treefingers, Idioteque, Pulk / Pull, Hunting Bears, Life in a Glass House, 15 Step, Videotape, Feral, Separator (need I go on?) and make each one feel like an essential part of an album they sounded nothing like*.
Here the songs are different in atmospheric ways, in a million small ways stretched out to tones and drones. Each has its own electronic maneuver, clapping a cage around some unique sonic pokemon, trapped from another dimension and writhing and swooping in turn. The sounds really are something special. But every song has that same subdued, lurking, slinking, ghostly buzz and swoop to it, the song lengths pinned pretty tightly to 5 minutes, with no big ups, no big downs, no sudden swerves, nothing that surprises you on first listen half as much as any of the songs listed above. The Eraser similarly played samily.
And maybe there's the difference between a Radiohead album and an album that has Thom Yorke on it: he can make a Radiohead song. Heck, he can make 9 of them. But he can't quite but a Radiohead album.
As songs go, they're good. Full of tension and invention and groove, lousy with intriguing detail, but the album, as a unit barely works. Heck, even the last song, the key moment of any album (though, I must confess, yes, especially a Radiohead album) sounds like it could have been sequenced anywhere, and kind of just stops playing with little momentum or ceremony. It's emblematic of the entire album, a shining perpetual motion machine, ingenious in design, spinning in place 4/5
* Notice who I left off? Hail to the Thief was neither cohesive enough, nor did it find that magic to make its parts transcend themselves. Part of the problem might have been that 15 song length, a mistake Yorke is atoning for by making albums with 10, 9, 8, and now 9 songs respectively, if you count The Eraser in there. 8 songs! In this age? Still think the TKOL2 rumors had some merit to them.
Monday, February 18, 2013
#762 Ulrich Schnauss - A Strangely Isolated Place
Here's an album like that girl that you might like. You accidentally lead her on while you figure it out, and eventually decide, no, no this is as far as its going to go. I'm sorry. Perfectly nice, nothing wrong with you, really lots of things in the ol' "pro" column, but not quite pretty enough to get by on being pretty, not quite interesting enough to get by on being interesting, nice to have around, minute to minute sure, but...is this all there is?
Schnauss has crafted electronica on the cusp of post-rock, with its slow changes, its long bass tones, its glistening drones, it is to meant to stretch time without surprising. With song titles like Gone Forever, On My Own, In All the Wrong Places, and A Strangely Isolated place, there's even an air of pathos and mystery, mining Dayvan Cowboy ethereal drifting for all its world, stars to earth. But like that mysterious girl, you keep thinking there's more beneath the surface just waiting to be revealed and then...no, this is all there is, and you can't help but want a little more. A little more change, a little more craft, and you're almost just nearly seduced by its comfort... 3.5/5
Schnauss has crafted electronica on the cusp of post-rock, with its slow changes, its long bass tones, its glistening drones, it is to meant to stretch time without surprising. With song titles like Gone Forever, On My Own, In All the Wrong Places, and A Strangely Isolated place, there's even an air of pathos and mystery, mining Dayvan Cowboy ethereal drifting for all its world, stars to earth. But like that mysterious girl, you keep thinking there's more beneath the surface just waiting to be revealed and then...no, this is all there is, and you can't help but want a little more. A little more change, a little more craft, and you're almost just nearly seduced by its comfort... 3.5/5
#761 Count Basie & His Orchestra - Atomic Mr Basie
This is some seriously firey big band jazz, as bright and hot as the mushroom cloud on the record's cover. The band is tight, tied to overflowing, wailing possessed across the disc, highlighted by some punchy solos and whole-band riffs that just burst apart. Exciting, if slightly overwhelming stuff 3.5/5
Friday, February 15, 2013
#760 Louis Prima - The Wildest!
The Wildest indeed! Prima was woozily manic, especially for 1956, full of nonsense sputtering, wooly crooning, a madman swinging careless around a lamppost, the joker with his head out a car window, with singer Keely Smith bringing powerful counterpoint and punch.
Hey 30somethings, remember Brian Setzer Orchestra? Remember Jump Jive an' Wail? Prima wrote that, and performed it with twice the soul - a signature song that tells you roughly what to expect on this album.
While we're on the subject, remember thirtysomething? You ever think that would happen to you? Spooky.
Back to the past! This is a fun album, lyrical and playful, full of innuendo, banter, and lots of little musical quotes from In the Hall of the Mountain King to When the Saints Come Marching in, kinda beating Girl Talk to the punch by about 50 years.
Kinda.
4/5
Hey 30somethings, remember Brian Setzer Orchestra? Remember Jump Jive an' Wail? Prima wrote that, and performed it with twice the soul - a signature song that tells you roughly what to expect on this album.
While we're on the subject, remember thirtysomething? You ever think that would happen to you? Spooky.
Back to the past! This is a fun album, lyrical and playful, full of innuendo, banter, and lots of little musical quotes from In the Hall of the Mountain King to When the Saints Come Marching in, kinda beating Girl Talk to the punch by about 50 years.
Kinda.
4/5
Thursday, February 14, 2013
#759 Machito - Kenya
Further Afro-Cuban jazz, full of big band horns and runs and blasts. It sounds not unlike the just-reviewed Dance Mania, but the horn hits are more brash, the tone a bit less fun, and the lineup lacking a vocalist. That last one gives this a different feel, better suited for enticing background music than full front-and-center Entertainment. Still, the horns reach for the sun, in solos and in groups, endless and unstoppable, with rhythms out on to sunset 3.5/5
#758 Tito Puente - Dance Mania
I don't know how you don't like this.
It's an album full of music irresistibly full of Latin, big band flair, full of showmanship and pop, overflowing with goodwill. This is music that just reaches out to you and says dance, says sway, invites and entices, and does so well, from every horn blast, through every congo'd beat, to the last joyous cry. All expertly performed and recorded, with just enough roughness to keep it feeling alive 4/5
It's an album full of music irresistibly full of Latin, big band flair, full of showmanship and pop, overflowing with goodwill. This is music that just reaches out to you and says dance, says sway, invites and entices, and does so well, from every horn blast, through every congo'd beat, to the last joyous cry. All expertly performed and recorded, with just enough roughness to keep it feeling alive 4/5
#757 Theloneous Monk - Brilliant Corners
This is jazz in the vein of doubled horn runs laying out a theme, leading into solo sections, with a coda on the theme to close; which is not really my jam.
The title track is as complex as its legend would lead you to believe, and its more impressive the closer you listen. But the winner in my book is Pannonica, with that great, breathy sound, that languid, odd, oddly comforting feel. I love those celesta hits, ringing out to the stars. This is an album that demands you listen on vinyl, for that track alone. If only I could get past those overdone, too-tight runs. Those're a deal breaker 2.5/5
The title track is as complex as its legend would lead you to believe, and its more impressive the closer you listen. But the winner in my book is Pannonica, with that great, breathy sound, that languid, odd, oddly comforting feel. I love those celesta hits, ringing out to the stars. This is an album that demands you listen on vinyl, for that track alone. If only I could get past those overdone, too-tight runs. Those're a deal breaker 2.5/5
#756 Sabu - Palo Congo
A bare afro-cuban jazz record, sounding field-recorded-sparse and infinitely improvised. Congas and other percussion are at the backbone, with flecks of guitar and shouted vocalizations punctuating the slithery rhythms, on and on into the day, on and on into the night.
It's too raw to be easily listenable, and the shouty call-and-response vocals can be downright grating, but there's a sense of music coming through man and woman here, of rhythm leading and its makers following, and that's undeniably exciting 3/5
It's too raw to be easily listenable, and the shouty call-and-response vocals can be downright grating, but there's a sense of music coming through man and woman here, of rhythm leading and its makers following, and that's undeniably exciting 3/5
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
#755 Charles Mingus - The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady
An infernal jazz album, deeply evocative, opening with flashes of colorful tones against black, with repeated, ever-changing riffs licking like flames in the night, ringing modern and classic and familiar and mysterious. The inexorable, swampy, slinking backdrop only falls during the third of the suite's four tracks, which opens up into bare melody and well-wielded silence, whipping flamenco flair onto the fire. The players in place, the final sidelong track puts them to work, weaving themes into knots.
A complex, difficult, accessible album, far more satisfying as an unknowable whole than as any of its irrepressible parts 3.5/5
A complex, difficult, accessible album, far more satisfying as an unknowable whole than as any of its irrepressible parts 3.5/5
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
#754 Steely Dan - Can't Buy a Thrill
Let me steal the best line of amateur music criticism I've ever heard.
So there's this email thread about Steely Dan featuring Orion, the avowed Steely Dan; and myself, the conflicted critic asking about their merits. I enjoy the band's music, but I find that there's something unfun about it, something too controlled, something soulless, empty even.
Orion fires back: So you suggest that the songs are well-crafted but empty. I'm suggesting instead that they are well-crafted and conveying emptiness.
Drop the fuckin mic. Orion out.
There's something to this: that Steely Dan is empty because they make songs about emptiness, about ennui, as Orion puts it: the regret that you feel when everything has gone well.
Dude knows his Steely Dan.
And this album is another Steely Dan album, differing only marginally from any of their subsequent albums. That's the double-edged sword of making this music that's architected rather than evoked, you can control the process sufficiently to put out a consistent, unsurprising product. If anything, this is even more sterile and even less fun than the comparatively spry Countdown to Ecstasy. The production is perfect, everything is hooky, agreeable, overslick and utterly unsurprising. It's a syringe, a glove, a dildo, perfectly designed to purpose. It'll make your ears feel good and your heart feel empty. The fact that that's a feature rather than a bug may or may not change your mind about its merits 3/5
So there's this email thread about Steely Dan featuring Orion, the avowed Steely Dan; and myself, the conflicted critic asking about their merits. I enjoy the band's music, but I find that there's something unfun about it, something too controlled, something soulless, empty even.
Orion fires back: So you suggest that the songs are well-crafted but empty. I'm suggesting instead that they are well-crafted and conveying emptiness.
Drop the fuckin mic. Orion out.
There's something to this: that Steely Dan is empty because they make songs about emptiness, about ennui, as Orion puts it: the regret that you feel when everything has gone well.
Dude knows his Steely Dan.
And this album is another Steely Dan album, differing only marginally from any of their subsequent albums. That's the double-edged sword of making this music that's architected rather than evoked, you can control the process sufficiently to put out a consistent, unsurprising product. If anything, this is even more sterile and even less fun than the comparatively spry Countdown to Ecstasy. The production is perfect, everything is hooky, agreeable, overslick and utterly unsurprising. It's a syringe, a glove, a dildo, perfectly designed to purpose. It'll make your ears feel good and your heart feel empty. The fact that that's a feature rather than a bug may or may not change your mind about its merits 3/5
#753 Faces - A Wink is as Good as a Nod to a Blind Horse
The Faces were a weird backwards supergroup: feauring the dregs of The Small Faces after Steve Marriott left to form Humble Pie, paired with former-Jeff-Beck-future-solo-superstar singer Rod Stewart.
Aside: Rod Stewart! Your personal test of this album may rest on whether you can get past your preconceptions about a voice who would go on to be so tirelessly soulless. His delivery is carefully ragged and generally fine, but I kind of can't unhear echoes of Do Ya Think I'm Sexy.
Women are a reoccurring theme: women who are battled against, seduced, dismissed, and loved romantically and otherwise. It's casually nasty in places, sweet in others, painting a complex portrait of the fairer sex and the band's opinions about them.
The band, though, came to play, sounding raucous, spontaneous and alive on the faster tunes. It's bracing and exciting, more so than most of the bands still mining R&B roots by 1971. This is a band that cares about Rock and Roll and this is one of the finer albums in this vein, beating out Humble Pie easily for rollicking rock power.
Suck it Steve Marriott 4/5
Aside: Rod Stewart! Your personal test of this album may rest on whether you can get past your preconceptions about a voice who would go on to be so tirelessly soulless. His delivery is carefully ragged and generally fine, but I kind of can't unhear echoes of Do Ya Think I'm Sexy.
Women are a reoccurring theme: women who are battled against, seduced, dismissed, and loved romantically and otherwise. It's casually nasty in places, sweet in others, painting a complex portrait of the fairer sex and the band's opinions about them.
The band, though, came to play, sounding raucous, spontaneous and alive on the faster tunes. It's bracing and exciting, more so than most of the bands still mining R&B roots by 1971. This is a band that cares about Rock and Roll and this is one of the finer albums in this vein, beating out Humble Pie easily for rollicking rock power.
Suck it Steve Marriott 4/5
#752 Fela Kuti - Live!
This is the kind of thing that makes me feel bad about giving a decent rating to a Traffic album. Here's real energy, real musicianship, a real sense of something occurring before your ears.
This is hot shit.
Horn bursts, chants, shouts, rumbling, rollicking bass, and those beats. Those beats. They're the draw, unsurprisingly, given that this was billed as "Live with [Cream drummer] Ginger Baker", who brings a thumping Western intensity to the African intricacies on the album's second half.
This shit is hot.
If you listen to Ye Ye De Smell, start it at say 3:40, and give it 20 seconds. If that big kick back in at 3:50 and that doesn't get your head bobbing then just forget it. Just stop reading this because we can't be friends because I don't understand what kind of person you are or what effect music has on you.
Ye Ye De Smell is the music that Quintin Tarantino or whoever does the music for an Ocean's movie might try to set a scene to before giving up. I can't shoot a scene this hot!
The other three tracks are slower, funkier, jazzier, jammier less transcendental, but decidedly listenable, full of talent and spark.
This is the real deal 4.5/5
This is hot shit.
Horn bursts, chants, shouts, rumbling, rollicking bass, and those beats. Those beats. They're the draw, unsurprisingly, given that this was billed as "Live with [Cream drummer] Ginger Baker", who brings a thumping Western intensity to the African intricacies on the album's second half.
This shit is hot.
If you listen to Ye Ye De Smell, start it at say 3:40, and give it 20 seconds. If that big kick back in at 3:50 and that doesn't get your head bobbing then just forget it. Just stop reading this because we can't be friends because I don't understand what kind of person you are or what effect music has on you.
Ye Ye De Smell is the music that Quintin Tarantino or whoever does the music for an Ocean's movie might try to set a scene to before giving up. I can't shoot a scene this hot!
The other three tracks are slower, funkier, jazzier, jammier less transcendental, but decidedly listenable, full of talent and spark.
This is the real deal 4.5/5
#751 Mount Eerie - Clear Moon
As a Microphones / Mount Eerie album, this album sucks, a meandering, listless series of droning, moaning half-remembered dreams, punctuated by muddled, thunderous drums.
It sounds like No Flashlight with less heart, like The Microphones' Mount Eerie with less awe-inpsiring scale, like The Glow Pt. 2 with less effective pathos and vulnerability. As arty indie rock, it is empty, aimless and dull.
But is this just something else? After all, two of my comparisons are to the band's prior incarnation as The Microphones, maybe they deserve a rebirth. If you listen to it with fresh ears, this isn't indie rock at all any more, but possibly guitar-laced ambient. Ambient so spare that Richard James circa 85-92 would ask where the beat was, with drones so long and foreboding Angelo Badalamenti would get restless.
Even seeing it from that angle, its hard to call this a success, with the beats only occasionally skittering eccentric, the drones only occasionally glimpsing transcendence, and the vocals sounding decidedly out of place.
One last try. As a grasp at capturing existential emptiness, terror and longing, a repeated theme for Phil Elvrum, this is more successful. It is relentless, uncomforting, seemingly endless, nightmarishly cold, utterly disinterested in your experience, much like the universe itself. In that sense, its a success, perhaps the boldest realization of Elvrum's aspirations. But still, once again, I can't call this a success. Previous albums managed to reel you out to the same themes with lifelines of melody and soul and song, an achievement more difficult and more rewarding than the crushing sound of oblivion itself, unfettered and untethered.
Unsuccessful. Verdict rendered.
Going for it full on is something you can't help but respect, and it took hours of struggling with The Glow Pt. 2 before I appreciated it. So maybe there's hope. But for now this seems a striking, brave, ultimately unsuccessful record, thin and empty and endless as the desert, as the surface of the moon, as time itself 2.5/5
It sounds like No Flashlight with less heart, like The Microphones' Mount Eerie with less awe-inpsiring scale, like The Glow Pt. 2 with less effective pathos and vulnerability. As arty indie rock, it is empty, aimless and dull.
But is this just something else? After all, two of my comparisons are to the band's prior incarnation as The Microphones, maybe they deserve a rebirth. If you listen to it with fresh ears, this isn't indie rock at all any more, but possibly guitar-laced ambient. Ambient so spare that Richard James circa 85-92 would ask where the beat was, with drones so long and foreboding Angelo Badalamenti would get restless.
Even seeing it from that angle, its hard to call this a success, with the beats only occasionally skittering eccentric, the drones only occasionally glimpsing transcendence, and the vocals sounding decidedly out of place.
One last try. As a grasp at capturing existential emptiness, terror and longing, a repeated theme for Phil Elvrum, this is more successful. It is relentless, uncomforting, seemingly endless, nightmarishly cold, utterly disinterested in your experience, much like the universe itself. In that sense, its a success, perhaps the boldest realization of Elvrum's aspirations. But still, once again, I can't call this a success. Previous albums managed to reel you out to the same themes with lifelines of melody and soul and song, an achievement more difficult and more rewarding than the crushing sound of oblivion itself, unfettered and untethered.
Unsuccessful. Verdict rendered.
Going for it full on is something you can't help but respect, and it took hours of struggling with The Glow Pt. 2 before I appreciated it. So maybe there's hope. But for now this seems a striking, brave, ultimately unsuccessful record, thin and empty and endless as the desert, as the surface of the moon, as time itself 2.5/5
Monday, February 11, 2013
#750 Traffic - John Barleycorn Must Die
I have a wholly irrational response to this record. For one thing, that first minute of Freedom Rider probably knocks this up a whole point in my book. That sick, Danger Mouse-ready beat, that thudump bass kick, that thin, soaring Winwood vocal line, you keep looking for that kind of legit funk banging on the rest of the album. But even by the end of the song, the novelty wears off, and its clear the band is more or less out of ideas.
Elsewhere the jams are unfocused, unimaginatively recorded and produced, and listenable without being exciting. And yet, on the whole, it is strange and strangely compelling. Its a legitimate infusion of jazzy sentiment into rock, and while I try to take what's on the disc as it is, the fact that this came out in 1970, just as funk was getting rolling, keeps it from feeling too derivative.
I think maybe this sucks (and the title track, which goes all goddamn folk on you, almost certainly does), but I kind of like it anyway 3.5/5
Elsewhere the jams are unfocused, unimaginatively recorded and produced, and listenable without being exciting. And yet, on the whole, it is strange and strangely compelling. Its a legitimate infusion of jazzy sentiment into rock, and while I try to take what's on the disc as it is, the fact that this came out in 1970, just as funk was getting rolling, keeps it from feeling too derivative.
I think maybe this sucks (and the title track, which goes all goddamn folk on you, almost certainly does), but I kind of like it anyway 3.5/5
#749 Bob Seger - Night Moves
Night Moves has one of those sounds, overpolished but with a deep-set, dead-buried mournful heart that gets you to listen closer, an early Bruce record made by Steely Dan. It's soulless-sounding music made by someone with a soul. Tantalizing, Meat Loaf big, swinging for the fences with a desperate reaching to the night, and yet couched in chooaloo, trashy bluesy riffage. Aggravating. Full of surprising moments, like Sunburst's little flute solo, that actually brings a heady pathos to the song's final act. Confounding. I can't see picking it to put on, but I'd not be sorry to hear it on just the right kind of open-eyed beerlit night 3.5/5
#748 AC/DC - Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap
AC/DC is possibly my least favorite band, so its no coincidence that this was the 101st album on Jeff Gold's list of 101 essential rock albums that I listened to. It's not just that the songs are unimaginative, not just that Bon Scott's sniveling is unbearable, not just that the riffs are caveman-simple without marshaling any particular energy, its their entire attitude, their whole sneering, defiantly-juvenile schtick. No wonder Agus Young rocks that schoolboy outfit, these are rock and roll songs a 12 year old would write, with as much wit and class and genuine swagger as a 12 year old could muster.
How many double entendres about balls can you come up with? Not just good ones, how many do you think you could come up with that work at all. Take all those, add some that don't work, and you've got Big Balls. A song called Rocker that talks about being good at rocking? Check. How about a song about murdering people, but not in a gritty way, one that just says "concrete shoes! cyanide! TNT!" in a crinkledup cryptkeeper voice, like a 12 year old voicing the villain in his imaginary playtime adventures.
And I guess its their schtick. You can't lose in rock and roll, because if you do something people don't like, say being an obnoxious manchild, well that's just you thumbing your nose at convention. It's good you don't like it, because that's the whole point! I do what I want! Rock and roll! I almost buy that. Almost. But eventually when you're past that you're left with the actual music, which involves some half-decent rock songs but nothing worth all the posturing. Not by a longshot. I cannot fathom how this insipid, unimaginative band got so big and has garnered any kind of respectability among the rock critic elite. I guess this preceded punk, so maybe its a matter of perspective. Maybe this kind of attitude was really groundbreaking. But when you're talking about letting the album speak for itself, there's no there there. Maybe I'm old, but keep these kids off my goddamned lawn.
That said, at least its rock. I still liked it better than some of the preposterous folk I struggled through in the name of checking my way down that list 2/5
How many double entendres about balls can you come up with? Not just good ones, how many do you think you could come up with that work at all. Take all those, add some that don't work, and you've got Big Balls. A song called Rocker that talks about being good at rocking? Check. How about a song about murdering people, but not in a gritty way, one that just says "concrete shoes! cyanide! TNT!" in a crinkledup cryptkeeper voice, like a 12 year old voicing the villain in his imaginary playtime adventures.
And I guess its their schtick. You can't lose in rock and roll, because if you do something people don't like, say being an obnoxious manchild, well that's just you thumbing your nose at convention. It's good you don't like it, because that's the whole point! I do what I want! Rock and roll! I almost buy that. Almost. But eventually when you're past that you're left with the actual music, which involves some half-decent rock songs but nothing worth all the posturing. Not by a longshot. I cannot fathom how this insipid, unimaginative band got so big and has garnered any kind of respectability among the rock critic elite. I guess this preceded punk, so maybe its a matter of perspective. Maybe this kind of attitude was really groundbreaking. But when you're talking about letting the album speak for itself, there's no there there. Maybe I'm old, but keep these kids off my goddamned lawn.
That said, at least its rock. I still liked it better than some of the preposterous folk I struggled through in the name of checking my way down that list 2/5
#747 Vashti Bunyan - Just Another Diamond Day
Vashti, you have a perfectly good voice. You're actually pretty restrained in your use of it as warbly folky folks go. And the songs have a quiet smallness to them that I appreciate. But music that is focused squarely on female singers, especially with folky trappings is just not in my wheelhouse, and when you start lilting along to Twinkle Twinkle Little Star melodies its pretty much HBP.
It's worth hearing for the moments of beauty, the first notes of Where I Like to Stand are crushingly gorgeous in a way that will hitch your breath. And this is a sound small and sad and quirky, echoing out to the likes of Elliot Smith. But to my ear, when Vashti croons higher and higher still on the very next song, I actually clench my jaw, and its everything I can do not to put something else, anything else, on 2/5
It's worth hearing for the moments of beauty, the first notes of Where I Like to Stand are crushingly gorgeous in a way that will hitch your breath. And this is a sound small and sad and quirky, echoing out to the likes of Elliot Smith. But to my ear, when Vashti croons higher and higher still on the very next song, I actually clench my jaw, and its everything I can do not to put something else, anything else, on 2/5
#746 Fleetwood Mac - Rumours
I know! Weird one to not have heard before.
It's pop, its overdone, its unduly sentimental, and its great. Not only that, but it's obviously great, enjoyable from note one, all the way through, even the first time you hear it. Rich, melodic, full of curves, every change coming as if mathematically preordained. An album that if rendered real would be rife with perfect spheres and golden ratios. Vocals, by McVie and Nicks in particular have seamless interplay with the guitars, strings and synthy lines that whorl about, all of which whip over rhythm sections that only operate subconsciously.
Is perfection good though? Sometimes. For my part I prefer a little more roughness, but if you're going to make an album like this, this is the blueprint. The real missteps, to my ear are the overly rah-rah centerpiece hits Don't Stop and Go Your Own Way, but even those are pretty much exactly what they're supposed to be.
A 5 in the abstract, but given the relentlessly personal-taste-driven ratings I've given up to this point 4.5/5
It's pop, its overdone, its unduly sentimental, and its great. Not only that, but it's obviously great, enjoyable from note one, all the way through, even the first time you hear it. Rich, melodic, full of curves, every change coming as if mathematically preordained. An album that if rendered real would be rife with perfect spheres and golden ratios. Vocals, by McVie and Nicks in particular have seamless interplay with the guitars, strings and synthy lines that whorl about, all of which whip over rhythm sections that only operate subconsciously.
Is perfection good though? Sometimes. For my part I prefer a little more roughness, but if you're going to make an album like this, this is the blueprint. The real missteps, to my ear are the overly rah-rah centerpiece hits Don't Stop and Go Your Own Way, but even those are pretty much exactly what they're supposed to be.
A 5 in the abstract, but given the relentlessly personal-taste-driven ratings I've given up to this point 4.5/5
#745 The Incredible String Band - The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter
My distaste for inflected, warbling singing is well-documented here, as is my disinterest in folk, so a Scottish folk band starts off with some ground to make up. Amending that to psychedelic folk is a good start, but...no.
There's richness here, inventiveness, mystery even, all things I like. But this is self-important, overbusy, doubly, triply warbly, relentlessly uncharming and often downright annoying. It is so much of a muchness, so striving, so imposing, so WE ARE THE MUSIC OF THE WORLD. WE ARE WHAT'S NEXT AND WHAT WILL ALWAYS BE, it's Animal Collective meets the Polyphonic Spree, it can't be abided, at least not by me 2/5
There's richness here, inventiveness, mystery even, all things I like. But this is self-important, overbusy, doubly, triply warbly, relentlessly uncharming and often downright annoying. It is so much of a muchness, so striving, so imposing, so WE ARE THE MUSIC OF THE WORLD. WE ARE WHAT'S NEXT AND WHAT WILL ALWAYS BE, it's Animal Collective meets the Polyphonic Spree, it can't be abided, at least not by me 2/5
Friday, February 8, 2013
#744 No Salvation - Faith
A wicked-fast metal album with a careful sense of balance: fast and tight without being showy, melodic without losing its edge, heavy but not oppressive, balancing longterm headbobbery against start-stop swerves, complex without getting proggy, well-produced without being overproduced: a good, solid metal album.
Beyond that I recuse myself, not knowing enough about metal's lineage to know where this falls.
Decidedly useful as heavyfuckinmusic, more likely to pump me up to work really hard than rip someone's actual head off. Which is probably backhanded at best as metal goes, but where I come from that's actually probably a good thing 3.5/5
Beyond that I recuse myself, not knowing enough about metal's lineage to know where this falls.
Decidedly useful as heavyfuckinmusic, more likely to pump me up to work really hard than rip someone's actual head off. Which is probably backhanded at best as metal goes, but where I come from that's actually probably a good thing 3.5/5
Thursday, February 7, 2013
#743 James Taylor - Sweet Baby James
This is probably not a very good album to listen to in the middle of an existential meltdown. But then, what is?
There's sweet moments of insight into details, everything perfectly lonesome and wistful like clouds on long roads. Mostly benign, slightly boring, perfectly pleasant, exactly what you'd expect 3/5
There's sweet moments of insight into details, everything perfectly lonesome and wistful like clouds on long roads. Mostly benign, slightly boring, perfectly pleasant, exactly what you'd expect 3/5
#742 Parquet Courts - Light up Gold
Crunchy 90's alt/underground revival is really in right now, but little of it manages to elevate or add anything new to the formula. Worse, many of its necromancers betray its legacy, infecting legitimate frustration and disillusionment with winking homage and halcyon nostalgia.
Parquet Courts tread the same ground with far better results, evoking Sonic Youth's dissonant peal, Minutemen's clean punk augularism, and Pavement's rusty jangle, but finding deep-tissue resonance beyond other imitators. Its not just the sound that's getting recreated, its the sentiment, its the dissolution, the deconstruction, the post-frustrated resignation, the entire early 20's, finished-college-now-what ennui, the curse of freedom, the terror of choice, the lack of animal survival drive and the scraping search for a substitute. This hit kids in the 90's, just smart enough, just far enough removed from christian panacea tradition to know there was something more, but not wise enough to find it, or to know that it wasn't going to be found.
That sentiment never went away, but it dropped out of music, 00's indie getting artier and prettier and largely drifting away from gritty scrabbling. Third wave stoner culture, in the guise of Wavves, Das Racist, No Age and countless others, provides the answer: I still have all those frustrations, and all those problems, but I'm embracing giving up. I'm accepting the loss of purpose, and allowing obliteration of self in the times when the search for self becomes too much.
These are the traditions married by Parquet Courts, whose noisy, drony rock rings on like Los Angeles haze, prodded on by Strokesy, New York post-punk backbeat, setting the stage for declarative, cavernous exaltations straight out of Guided by Voices*, The Fall, and yes, Pavement and Minutemen. The problems are insignificant and huge and rendering them as both is comforting and distressing, the unaddressed ever lurking in the corners. It's the 90's all over again, but done well, with the era's spirit soundly understood and represented, less a rehash than a legitimate update. Sure it basically only bangs together existing styles, but that's rock and roll, and I like it 4.5/5
* are you sure Caster of Worthless Spells isn't a lost Guided by Voices song? That sound, that song length, that song name, good god man, you owe Robert Pollard a coke.
Parquet Courts tread the same ground with far better results, evoking Sonic Youth's dissonant peal, Minutemen's clean punk augularism, and Pavement's rusty jangle, but finding deep-tissue resonance beyond other imitators. Its not just the sound that's getting recreated, its the sentiment, its the dissolution, the deconstruction, the post-frustrated resignation, the entire early 20's, finished-college-now-what ennui, the curse of freedom, the terror of choice, the lack of animal survival drive and the scraping search for a substitute. This hit kids in the 90's, just smart enough, just far enough removed from christian panacea tradition to know there was something more, but not wise enough to find it, or to know that it wasn't going to be found.
That sentiment never went away, but it dropped out of music, 00's indie getting artier and prettier and largely drifting away from gritty scrabbling. Third wave stoner culture, in the guise of Wavves, Das Racist, No Age and countless others, provides the answer: I still have all those frustrations, and all those problems, but I'm embracing giving up. I'm accepting the loss of purpose, and allowing obliteration of self in the times when the search for self becomes too much.
These are the traditions married by Parquet Courts, whose noisy, drony rock rings on like Los Angeles haze, prodded on by Strokesy, New York post-punk backbeat, setting the stage for declarative, cavernous exaltations straight out of Guided by Voices*, The Fall, and yes, Pavement and Minutemen. The problems are insignificant and huge and rendering them as both is comforting and distressing, the unaddressed ever lurking in the corners. It's the 90's all over again, but done well, with the era's spirit soundly understood and represented, less a rehash than a legitimate update. Sure it basically only bangs together existing styles, but that's rock and roll, and I like it 4.5/5
* are you sure Caster of Worthless Spells isn't a lost Guided by Voices song? That sound, that song length, that song name, good god man, you owe Robert Pollard a coke.
#741 FIDLAR - FIDLAR
If you thought Wavves' brand of fuzzy slacker punk needed fewer murky ambient interludes and more outright shouting fistface energy, here's your band. These guys are pure fuckitall, taking the entire stoner punk thing to Andrew WK near-parodic extremes. Catchy at times, cathartic in its shameless unselfconscious clamor, FIDLAR's debut is a cocaine-quick thrill 3.5/5
#740 Air - The Virgin Suicides
Air's signature sexy / alien sound is just about perfect given the themes of the movie / book, and this reads as a creepier take on Moon Safari, blessedly dispensing almost altogether with the vocals that marred their later albums. The few snippets of words that do arise bolster the film's themes of exotic, vacant loss. Beautiful and superficially perfect and ultimately not much fun, its all a bit like the titular virgins 3.5/5
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
#739 The Alllman Brothers Band - At Fillmore East
Hope you like jams!
These go on and on, but for once I don't mind. For my money, compared to, say, The Grateful Dead (who, I admit, I take a lot of cheap shots at) the AB band has a great sense of pacing and showmanship. While bordering on overslick, this is downright listenable, with enough twists and turns to keep it interesting while an album-scale arc builds steadily from porchy blues to grander and grander temples of rock energy. There's some showy run in the solos, sure, but mostly they'e are in service of a larger feel, one that swells satisfyingly again and again.
And when its over you're left saying man, I'll bet that was a heck of a show to be at. And when it comes to a live album, isn't that kind of what matters? 4/5
These go on and on, but for once I don't mind. For my money, compared to, say, The Grateful Dead (who, I admit, I take a lot of cheap shots at) the AB band has a great sense of pacing and showmanship. While bordering on overslick, this is downright listenable, with enough twists and turns to keep it interesting while an album-scale arc builds steadily from porchy blues to grander and grander temples of rock energy. There's some showy run in the solos, sure, but mostly they'e are in service of a larger feel, one that swells satisfyingly again and again.
And when its over you're left saying man, I'll bet that was a heck of a show to be at. And when it comes to a live album, isn't that kind of what matters? 4/5
#738 Chandeliers - Bigshot Weekend EP
Listen free here!
There's a really good noisy local scene emerging around here, and I'm eager to catch these guys at a show that isn't cancelled by a blizzard. Fuckin New England.
The Chandeliers bang out technically tight punk rock, full of proggy start-stops and angular runs, but with a couldn'tgiveafuck energy that makes them more fun than just about any likeminded band this side of Dananananakroyd. Is it exhausting? Sure. Do they need to expand their sound if they hope to stretch it to LP length? Probably. But that's what EP's are for, figuring this stuff out, and this is a raucous, promising start 4/5
There's a really good noisy local scene emerging around here, and I'm eager to catch these guys at a show that isn't cancelled by a blizzard. Fuckin New England.
The Chandeliers bang out technically tight punk rock, full of proggy start-stops and angular runs, but with a couldn'tgiveafuck energy that makes them more fun than just about any likeminded band this side of Dananananakroyd. Is it exhausting? Sure. Do they need to expand their sound if they hope to stretch it to LP length? Probably. But that's what EP's are for, figuring this stuff out, and this is a raucous, promising start 4/5
#737 Six Finger Satelite - Severe Exposure
An album as black and negative and stark and curiously compelling as its cover art.
The whole record bristles with sheetmetal rust guitars, rendered thin and spare, every instrument sounding unnatural, pulled out of shape by production; not so much overproduced as underproduced; underproduced as in undernourished, as in underdeveloped, like a photograph, handled wrong and rendered wrong. It's music reanimated, like psychobilly or surf rock revival, with the morbid cinematic leanings to match, taken screeching to its grave.
It's like Gang of Four met Big Black and The Meteors in a dark alley and came out meaner than its assailants, sounding like The Giddy Motors' fractured father, blood in teeth smiling without cheer.
And then, just at the end, Board the Bus takes everything 3 levels further, revealing the first 9 songs to merely be the means to a terrifying end. One of the most seethingly unsettling songs I've heard in a long time.
The overall effect is brutal and brilliant, admirable and utterly unenjoyable 3.5/5
The whole record bristles with sheetmetal rust guitars, rendered thin and spare, every instrument sounding unnatural, pulled out of shape by production; not so much overproduced as underproduced; underproduced as in undernourished, as in underdeveloped, like a photograph, handled wrong and rendered wrong. It's music reanimated, like psychobilly or surf rock revival, with the morbid cinematic leanings to match, taken screeching to its grave.
It's like Gang of Four met Big Black and The Meteors in a dark alley and came out meaner than its assailants, sounding like The Giddy Motors' fractured father, blood in teeth smiling without cheer.
And then, just at the end, Board the Bus takes everything 3 levels further, revealing the first 9 songs to merely be the means to a terrifying end. One of the most seethingly unsettling songs I've heard in a long time.
The overall effect is brutal and brilliant, admirable and utterly unenjoyable 3.5/5
#736 Mission of Burma - Signals, Calls and Marches
Raw, hooky-but-nasty punk rock with plenty of smart/dumb/weird charm: basically the ingredients that make bands like Minutemen and Fugazi tick, bridging late 70's post-punk disdain and 80's post-post-punk melodicism.
The second half flags, but there's still something exciting and new about this even now, some magic energy captured that still shines. I can only imaging the impact it had in nineteen eighty goddamn one 4/5
The second half flags, but there's still something exciting and new about this even now, some magic energy captured that still shines. I can only imaging the impact it had in nineteen eighty goddamn one 4/5
#735 Hot Snakes - Audit in Progress
Well, it's a Hot Snakes album, more or less like the two that came before it, full of chugging guitars, thundering drums and frustrated shouting. Unfortunately its the weakest of the band's similar-ish three albums.
As before, for each song there's generally one big punk maneuver that catapults towards you, shifting up or down a gear, coming back, up or down a gear, coming back, adding a couple of bars of climax, and then its over and another song starts. This isn't music about surprises, it's a decidedly blunt instrument, and not even one that hits as hard as Suicide Invoice or Automatic Midnight, which at least had breakneck batshit rage to recommend them.
This is a comparitively tame beast that is in need of some new tricks 2.5/5
As before, for each song there's generally one big punk maneuver that catapults towards you, shifting up or down a gear, coming back, up or down a gear, coming back, adding a couple of bars of climax, and then its over and another song starts. This isn't music about surprises, it's a decidedly blunt instrument, and not even one that hits as hard as Suicide Invoice or Automatic Midnight, which at least had breakneck batshit rage to recommend them.
This is a comparitively tame beast that is in need of some new tricks 2.5/5
Monday, February 4, 2013
#734 Guided by Voices - Let's Eat the Factory
I don't think Robert Pollard likes the idea of an album. I don't even know if he likes the idea of a song. I think he just wants to dump hooks and notes and melodies and noise into the world forever and resents being forced to put any kind of boxes around them.
How else do you explain the relentlessly short, endlessly numerous songs packed onto an album? Pollard seemingly poured notes into the CD until it was full, and then stopped, and called it done. How else do you explain the terrible, aggressively careless sequencing, with no regard for transitions, that the band has always displayed?
And now an album that blows the two most important slots on an album, first and last, on two songs that have nothing to do with the album as a whole and that have no business being in either of those two slots. Laundry and Lasers is a blunt, sludgy droner that sounds like it should be buried somewhere on the last third of an album (so, in this case, roughly track 18), not leading it. And Won't Apologize for the Human Race sends the album out on a drunken, Built to Spill throb that crushes any of the sunniness the album had mustered. And then the album, head-scratchingly, is just over. It could have stopped anywhere along the way and been just as reasonable. I swear he's either not trying or actively fucking it up. Both seem in line with his personality.
There's something hypnotic about the approach, I'll confess. When you abandon any sense of flow, the listener stops even expecting any. He drops any hope for a smooth ride, surrenders to song after song after song, and the whole motley menagerie collectively drives him mad. It's a fun kind of madness, especially when a particularly great little melody or texture jumps at you out of the darkness. Unfortunately those thrills are rarer than usual here, and the overall sound is kind of sedated and indistinct. You need your Echoes Myrons, your Valuable Hunting Knives, your Buzzards and Dreadful Crows to spike the muck laid out by your Hot Freaks, otherwise it's just disc full of notes, sloshing around indistinctly 3/5
How else do you explain the relentlessly short, endlessly numerous songs packed onto an album? Pollard seemingly poured notes into the CD until it was full, and then stopped, and called it done. How else do you explain the terrible, aggressively careless sequencing, with no regard for transitions, that the band has always displayed?
And now an album that blows the two most important slots on an album, first and last, on two songs that have nothing to do with the album as a whole and that have no business being in either of those two slots. Laundry and Lasers is a blunt, sludgy droner that sounds like it should be buried somewhere on the last third of an album (so, in this case, roughly track 18), not leading it. And Won't Apologize for the Human Race sends the album out on a drunken, Built to Spill throb that crushes any of the sunniness the album had mustered. And then the album, head-scratchingly, is just over. It could have stopped anywhere along the way and been just as reasonable. I swear he's either not trying or actively fucking it up. Both seem in line with his personality.
There's something hypnotic about the approach, I'll confess. When you abandon any sense of flow, the listener stops even expecting any. He drops any hope for a smooth ride, surrenders to song after song after song, and the whole motley menagerie collectively drives him mad. It's a fun kind of madness, especially when a particularly great little melody or texture jumps at you out of the darkness. Unfortunately those thrills are rarer than usual here, and the overall sound is kind of sedated and indistinct. You need your Echoes Myrons, your Valuable Hunting Knives, your Buzzards and Dreadful Crows to spike the muck laid out by your Hot Freaks, otherwise it's just disc full of notes, sloshing around indistinctly 3/5
#733 Carole King - Tapestry
Wow, that's a lot of hits; you probably know about half the songs on this album and didn't realize that the same person had anything to do with them. Girl could write (or co-write) a song, and she could sing em too. No wonder this became such a smash hit.
This is pure, soaring balladry, full of strength and weakness, but simply not something I have any interest in listening to. I Feel the Earth Move is a great piece of Staxy groove, but I can't imagine revisiting this any time soon 2.5/5
This is pure, soaring balladry, full of strength and weakness, but simply not something I have any interest in listening to. I Feel the Earth Move is a great piece of Staxy groove, but I can't imagine revisiting this any time soon 2.5/5
#732 Yes - The Yes Album
As huge and pompous as you might expect for prog, but made accessible by the paradoxical combination of impossibly perfect melodies and humanizing half-missed notes. This is men striving for perfection, and the touches of struggle that show through the veneer make it all the more impressive. Even as it strives for the-new-classical bigness, it gets there with straining Byrdsy harmonies.
Fragile would come next, and would be brilliant, but the tone was severely fractured by the democratic (but uncooperative) approach to songwriting that lead to each member getting his turn taking the reigns. This is more overtly the Jon Anderson show, and I think its better for it, more consistent, outside of that maddening outlier, Clap, which is a real misstep.
An album of paradoxes and exceptions: its gloriously pretty just often enough, just restrained enough, just ambitious enough, just humble enough, to actually be a slightly great 4/5
Fragile would come next, and would be brilliant, but the tone was severely fractured by the democratic (but uncooperative) approach to songwriting that lead to each member getting his turn taking the reigns. This is more overtly the Jon Anderson show, and I think its better for it, more consistent, outside of that maddening outlier, Clap, which is a real misstep.
An album of paradoxes and exceptions: its gloriously pretty just often enough, just restrained enough, just ambitious enough, just humble enough, to actually be a slightly great 4/5
#731 Emerson Lake & Palmer - Emerson Lake & Palmer
It's easy to forget that prog wasn't always uncool. For a while, people actually bought it, and its aspirations of being the beginning of music, or the end of music, or both, or something, seemed almost reasonable. So complex! So intricate! So bold! This album sums up both sides, showing why prog was popular and why it shouldn't have been in turn and all at once. Alternately accessible and pompous, alternately thrilling and overdone, it's a trip to be sure.
If you had to pick a song, Tank sums it up best, opening with relentless, overcomplex metal, wandering off into indulgent, sparse drum solos and then really, actually, kind of rocking really goddamn hard, as gorgeous, buzzy synths build and build and soar. All in a downright restrained 7 minutes!
Unlike so much prog that seemed to aspire to be "the new classical music", or that set out in search of folk's timelessness via bloated narrative, ELP worship at the altar of jazz. Lines whirl in and out and around like sparrows, Keith Emerson's keyboards at the eye of the storm, whipping endlessly. I guess you can't make an ELP LP without LP, but this is decidedly the E show, and the spastic keyboard melodies are as essential to this sound as Jethro Tull's flute, whether in staccato piano or richly portamento'd synth form (the latter's more fun).
Also give credit for the beautiful, heartbreaking final song that sounds lush enough to be a great lost, miscategorized ELO song; a closing argument that's enough to knock you off the whole accessible / pompous debate at the last second. But no. I'm staying strong. Pompous! But still good! It's a wicked weird album, and a sadder, jazzier, arguably more important album than their more famous ones, say, maybe, the ones featuring creepy Giger art or a robotic armadillo (really!) on the cover. These dudes were all kinds of strange. 4/5
If you had to pick a song, Tank sums it up best, opening with relentless, overcomplex metal, wandering off into indulgent, sparse drum solos and then really, actually, kind of rocking really goddamn hard, as gorgeous, buzzy synths build and build and soar. All in a downright restrained 7 minutes!
Unlike so much prog that seemed to aspire to be "the new classical music", or that set out in search of folk's timelessness via bloated narrative, ELP worship at the altar of jazz. Lines whirl in and out and around like sparrows, Keith Emerson's keyboards at the eye of the storm, whipping endlessly. I guess you can't make an ELP LP without LP, but this is decidedly the E show, and the spastic keyboard melodies are as essential to this sound as Jethro Tull's flute, whether in staccato piano or richly portamento'd synth form (the latter's more fun).
Also give credit for the beautiful, heartbreaking final song that sounds lush enough to be a great lost, miscategorized ELO song; a closing argument that's enough to knock you off the whole accessible / pompous debate at the last second. But no. I'm staying strong. Pompous! But still good! It's a wicked weird album, and a sadder, jazzier, arguably more important album than their more famous ones, say, maybe, the ones featuring creepy Giger art or a robotic armadillo (really!) on the cover. These dudes were all kinds of strange. 4/5
#730 Unknown Mortal Orchestra - Unknown Mortal Orchestra
Look, Pitchfork is a good, easy way to find out about some perfectly good bands. But sometimes their writers reveal themselves to have painfully short cultural attention spans, giving little regard to anything that happened more than a year or so ago. The site just seems to have gotten scenier and scenier, ever more obsessed with the new.
When your review consists of repeating some secondhand namedrop buzz and citing the same two influences twice each, and those two influence are no more than a year old, maybe you haven't cast your contextual net wide enough. Am I any better? Sometimes? But look, I do one of these a day, and I don't get paid to do it, and I'm old as fuck.
If it was me writing that review I might look at least as far back as mid-00's reverb-meets-beat dredgers The Russian Futurists and The Tough Alliance. Or better yet, notice that frontman Ruban Nielson was in a little band called The Mint Chicks (that put out my favorite album of 2009, maybe explaining my bile on the matter), and that this basically picks up right where the similarly retro-obsessed, overblown Screens left off. This is, by all accounts, the new Mint Chicks album, and seen from that angle its an almost-brilliant, bent take on the sound. Heck, I'd certainly point out the decidedly New Zealand sound on display here, what with the Mint Chicks influence, a dash of Gasoline Cowboy's vocal quaver, and a touch of The Dead C's bent, booming overdosage.
And honestly, if you're going to be myopic in your comparisons, how do you still miss the fact that this sounds a lot (a LOT) like the Ariel Pink album that came a year, nearly to the day, before your review?
Ok, ok, now I'm piling on and I'm a wiseass and an asshole both. Here I end up writing a terrible review as a way to bash a mediocre review. Who's the bigger fool, eh?
The actual goddamn record? It's fine. The beats are dusty and familiar like the best hip hop samples, covered in blasted, reverb-soaked melodies, with vocals that slur and bow, stumbling from warped Summer tapedecks. It's more interesting than it is enjoyable though; I miss The Mint Chicks frenetic bombast on this mock-followup, and I don't have that much patience for all this early 10's reverb and bend. I'm old as fuck, remember? 3/5
When your review consists of repeating some secondhand namedrop buzz and citing the same two influences twice each, and those two influence are no more than a year old, maybe you haven't cast your contextual net wide enough. Am I any better? Sometimes? But look, I do one of these a day, and I don't get paid to do it, and I'm old as fuck.
If it was me writing that review I might look at least as far back as mid-00's reverb-meets-beat dredgers The Russian Futurists and The Tough Alliance. Or better yet, notice that frontman Ruban Nielson was in a little band called The Mint Chicks (that put out my favorite album of 2009, maybe explaining my bile on the matter), and that this basically picks up right where the similarly retro-obsessed, overblown Screens left off. This is, by all accounts, the new Mint Chicks album, and seen from that angle its an almost-brilliant, bent take on the sound. Heck, I'd certainly point out the decidedly New Zealand sound on display here, what with the Mint Chicks influence, a dash of Gasoline Cowboy's vocal quaver, and a touch of The Dead C's bent, booming overdosage.
And honestly, if you're going to be myopic in your comparisons, how do you still miss the fact that this sounds a lot (a LOT) like the Ariel Pink album that came a year, nearly to the day, before your review?
Ok, ok, now I'm piling on and I'm a wiseass and an asshole both. Here I end up writing a terrible review as a way to bash a mediocre review. Who's the bigger fool, eh?
The actual goddamn record? It's fine. The beats are dusty and familiar like the best hip hop samples, covered in blasted, reverb-soaked melodies, with vocals that slur and bow, stumbling from warped Summer tapedecks. It's more interesting than it is enjoyable though; I miss The Mint Chicks frenetic bombast on this mock-followup, and I don't have that much patience for all this early 10's reverb and bend. I'm old as fuck, remember? 3/5
Friday, February 1, 2013
#729 Cat Stevens - Tea for the Tillerman
Yeah, it's probably official that I don't like folk. Are any of you an official that can make something like that official? In the meantime, I unofficially-but-with-great-certainty don't like folk.
Instrumentally, there's a rich, tense melodicism, but I don't really have all that much interest in Stevens's meandering warbling nor his thin shouting. Self-important and salt-of-the-earth as only late-60's-early-70's folk can be, even the tone of the album turns me off. I think schmaltz of Wild World and the association with the similarly over-precious Harold and Maude aren't helping, the whole thing drips with burgeoning 70's grasping that I can't get past 2.5/5
Instrumentally, there's a rich, tense melodicism, but I don't really have all that much interest in Stevens's meandering warbling nor his thin shouting. Self-important and salt-of-the-earth as only late-60's-early-70's folk can be, even the tone of the album turns me off. I think schmaltz of Wild World and the association with the similarly over-precious Harold and Maude aren't helping, the whole thing drips with burgeoning 70's grasping that I can't get past 2.5/5
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