One of the good things about dreading the worst is that you won't easily be disappointed. But as that middle-class punk in Repo Man said, "It...still...hurts!"
Now, I am a Sam fan, don't get me wrong. I loved the first (proper) ep and very much liked We Were Corn In A Flake. I just felt that the latter (and accompanying live show) represented a musical approach with a short shelf-life, and unfortunately Chemical City does very little to disabuse me of that impression. I haven't read any reviews of this album yet, as is my habit, but just on the off-chance that the words "prog" and "rock" show up in a few of them, I pre-emptively shout "nonsense." A tendency toward long-windedness aside, it's the same fish here, just in different wrappings; or rather, the same beardy scruff with bedroom eyes, just wearing a different t-shirt and playing a little more electric guitar. SR still has his Dylan fetish and he still likes writing and singing shuffle-beat rhythms.
There's always been this pull between the popster and the old-school rocker in Roberts (probably more apparent live than in the studio). On his earlier stuff, this added interest and tension, but here, when he takes the hippie-freak route of longer songs with looser structures, things tend to fall flat. As the yobs say, he's gotta have the hooks! And some economy. The production on the album's better than on WWBIAF; it's harder-driving and less lo-fi. His band, intact bar the drummer from his previous tour, is very energetic and together when they rock out old-school, but not virtuosic, and they don't produce a sound with a lot of internal detail. I find this diminishes the effect of the ensemble playing and crescendos after a while [what are you writing for, Gramophone?--ed]. In any case, definitely an album for high-volume listening, if it's to be listened to at all.
I don't think it's any coincidence that the tracks I like best--two rockers, "Bootleg Saint" and "With A Bullet" and two quieter numbers, "Bridge To Nowhere" and "Uprising Down Under"--are the ones that are the most concise. "Bootleg Saint" is a slow, grungy scorcher with great hooks that begs to be turned up to the proverbial 11. Should be a hit with the stoner crowd. "Bridge" and "Uprising" contain echoes of "No Sleep" and "Taj Mahal" respectively from Flame, and the former would be a good choice for a single, with its bouncy rhythm, nice sing-along chorus and jangly acoustic guitar. "With A Bullet" has a much heavier feel than anything off previous records and balances control and hell-for-leather really well, as well as having some great arrangement and guitar.
The rest of the package ranges from okay to not so great. The pseudo-mystical "The Gate" opens the disc I suppose as a statement of intent, and it's half-successful. It has an attractive energy, but the lyrics are dumb, and the simple chord sequences combined with the loosey-goosey structure create an exemplar of muscle over brains. Smoking a spliff might up the enjoyment factor on this one. "Mind Flood" shows off Roberts' characteristic melodic facility and easy vocal patter, but goes on too long with a meandering instrumental outtro. "Mystified, Heavy" is alright but a bit stiff, particularly on the vocal front. Roberts' lack of variation in vocal delivery is a problem in a couple of places, actually, but particularly on the piano-and-vocals-only finale "A Stone Would Cry Out," which is inoffensive but about as exciting as this. The album low-points are the limp and humourless "An American Draft Dodger In Thunder Bay," and particularly "The Resistance," a definite case of trying too hard whose big musical statement is a switch to double-time. Nice acoustic-y finale part, though, if you haven't hit the fast-forward button already.
Flame wasn't a perfect album by any means, but it had a vibrancy and naivete that helped it get past the occasional duff bit (e.g., "On The Run"). Chemical City is more stylistically cohesive but in the end it just doesn't have enough attention to detail and craft to compensate for the ponderousness. Medium-to-big disappointment.
P.S. If you think I'm being overly critical, note that I didn't take one shot at the ridiculous band photo.
Saturday, April 1, 2006
Records In Review: Neko Case--Fox Confessor Brings The Flood
Right off the top, a confession: I have time for Neko Case's voice. An awful lot of time. In fact, if I was given to such things, one of my top musico-erotic fantasies would probably involve NC, Maggie Reilly, and a large consignment of Vista Bellas. But that's another subject for another blog.
Fox Confessor Brings The Flood, which I originally misread as ...Brings The Food (leading to some odd misinterpretations of the lyrics) is the alt-countryish Ms. Case's fourth studio album and it's been getting glowing reviews 'round these parts and has also been moving the odd unit, which is good news. For those unfamiliar with the husky-voiced artist, she's an honorary Canadian (a stint in Vancouver) and perhaps best known as a member of The New Pornographers, of whom I'm greatly enamoured, where she shares the vocal duties with Canuck Guy and Hippie Guy. But there be no power-pop here, fellow! Case's own music utilizes traditional country and folk motifs but comes across as decidedly non-traditional. There's a very dramatic, and often melodramatic side to her songwriting, but it's not Kate Bush dramatic--more of a sense of resignation--and the dynamics are often static and the atmosphere trapped in amber. Add some sonic thickness and you've got a music that's simultaneously pretty and creepy. The songs are generally short and often evanescent, and it's easy to imagine many of them being sung as asides by characters in a musical drama. I'm not exactly a font of knowledge on this genre, so I'm going to write in more general terms than usual, which is probably a better way of dealing with this record anyway.
This is a very good record, but I do have a few problems with it. If I liked everything on Fox Confessor as much as I like my four or five favorite songs, we'd be into rave territory, but life is seldom fair, even for the mere end-user of compact discs. The reliance on dramatics is something I'm not entirely comfortable with. My friend G-Love (Sans Special Sauce), who's more familiar with Case's ouevre than I, finds this aspect of her music (i.e., the end-product of a defined lyrical dramatic persona) slightly hokey. I'm not sure I'd put it in those terms, but I would say that there are times on the record when dramatic considerations and musicality are inversely proportional. I'm thinking here of songs like "Dirty Knife," which has very good bones but is prevented by its episodic nature from really getting going. The music feels almost incidental to the evoked mood. The lyrics are a bit much at times, too, especially when Case is in full wry drama queen mode: "The most tender place in my heart is for strangers/I know it's not kind, but my own blood is much too dangerous." Call me judgmental, but I just don't think you should be writing stuff like that when you're in your mid-30s.
At her best, Case combines a strong melody with an exceptional vocal cadence. Two of the three tracks on the album co-written with The Sadies, "The Needle Has Landed" and "Hold On, Hold On" (from whence the cited offending lyric came) are standouts in this regard. They're both upbeat, straight-ahead and slightly twangy, with bouncy and sharp vocal rhythms that have a way of sticking with you for days. "That Teenage Feeling" is a bit kitschy for me, but again the vocal writing and performance is excellent. Other standouts are the cautionary but fatalistic (and creepy) "Maybe Sparrow," which features some nice details of arrangement, the brief bit of atmosphere "A Widow's Toast," and particularly "Star Witness," which is a great example of the aforementioned creepy/pretty thing, especially in the way that the static, loping three-beat verses give way to a beautifully simple chorus melody and some killer harmonies. Again, a bit much on the lyrical front. The rest of the material is of varying quality, mostly good, but the arrangements are uniformly strong and the vocal performances (you sensing a pattern here?) engaging. The second of the three Sadies collaborations, "Lion's Jaws," is my least favorite track, mostly because Case's singing is lacking in subtlety. In general, I'm happier with Fox Confessor when there's less of the dramatics and/or knowing winks at genre getting between me and the music.
Both the album and the songs are shortish, making this an easy listen in addition to being an engaging one. The production's boomy and the vocals reverberant so listening at low-to-mid volume's the thing to do. Recommended, with a couple of provisos.
Fox Confessor Brings The Flood, which I originally misread as ...Brings The Food (leading to some odd misinterpretations of the lyrics) is the alt-countryish Ms. Case's fourth studio album and it's been getting glowing reviews 'round these parts and has also been moving the odd unit, which is good news. For those unfamiliar with the husky-voiced artist, she's an honorary Canadian (a stint in Vancouver) and perhaps best known as a member of The New Pornographers, of whom I'm greatly enamoured, where she shares the vocal duties with Canuck Guy and Hippie Guy. But there be no power-pop here, fellow! Case's own music utilizes traditional country and folk motifs but comes across as decidedly non-traditional. There's a very dramatic, and often melodramatic side to her songwriting, but it's not Kate Bush dramatic--more of a sense of resignation--and the dynamics are often static and the atmosphere trapped in amber. Add some sonic thickness and you've got a music that's simultaneously pretty and creepy. The songs are generally short and often evanescent, and it's easy to imagine many of them being sung as asides by characters in a musical drama. I'm not exactly a font of knowledge on this genre, so I'm going to write in more general terms than usual, which is probably a better way of dealing with this record anyway.
This is a very good record, but I do have a few problems with it. If I liked everything on Fox Confessor as much as I like my four or five favorite songs, we'd be into rave territory, but life is seldom fair, even for the mere end-user of compact discs. The reliance on dramatics is something I'm not entirely comfortable with. My friend G-Love (Sans Special Sauce), who's more familiar with Case's ouevre than I, finds this aspect of her music (i.e., the end-product of a defined lyrical dramatic persona) slightly hokey. I'm not sure I'd put it in those terms, but I would say that there are times on the record when dramatic considerations and musicality are inversely proportional. I'm thinking here of songs like "Dirty Knife," which has very good bones but is prevented by its episodic nature from really getting going. The music feels almost incidental to the evoked mood. The lyrics are a bit much at times, too, especially when Case is in full wry drama queen mode: "The most tender place in my heart is for strangers/I know it's not kind, but my own blood is much too dangerous." Call me judgmental, but I just don't think you should be writing stuff like that when you're in your mid-30s.
At her best, Case combines a strong melody with an exceptional vocal cadence. Two of the three tracks on the album co-written with The Sadies, "The Needle Has Landed" and "Hold On, Hold On" (from whence the cited offending lyric came) are standouts in this regard. They're both upbeat, straight-ahead and slightly twangy, with bouncy and sharp vocal rhythms that have a way of sticking with you for days. "That Teenage Feeling" is a bit kitschy for me, but again the vocal writing and performance is excellent. Other standouts are the cautionary but fatalistic (and creepy) "Maybe Sparrow," which features some nice details of arrangement, the brief bit of atmosphere "A Widow's Toast," and particularly "Star Witness," which is a great example of the aforementioned creepy/pretty thing, especially in the way that the static, loping three-beat verses give way to a beautifully simple chorus melody and some killer harmonies. Again, a bit much on the lyrical front. The rest of the material is of varying quality, mostly good, but the arrangements are uniformly strong and the vocal performances (you sensing a pattern here?) engaging. The second of the three Sadies collaborations, "Lion's Jaws," is my least favorite track, mostly because Case's singing is lacking in subtlety. In general, I'm happier with Fox Confessor when there's less of the dramatics and/or knowing winks at genre getting between me and the music.
Both the album and the songs are shortish, making this an easy listen in addition to being an engaging one. The production's boomy and the vocals reverberant so listening at low-to-mid volume's the thing to do. Recommended, with a couple of provisos.
Wednesday, March 1, 2006
Film Review: Cross Of Iron
Pelette and I took in the late-period Sam Peckinpaugh flick Cross Of Iron (1976) at Cinematheque on Saturday night. I'm sure that Sean will be posting a fuller and more insightful review soon, but in the meantime my humble and semi-literate efforts will have to suffice.
You can read the allmovie guide synopsis, but briefly: the film's setting is the Crimea in 1943, when the writing was clearly visible on the wall for the German regiments. James Coburn is Rolf Steiner, a fearless platoon leader who's only loyalty is to his men, James Mason is the well-intentioned and war-weary commandant (with David Warner--not playing an alien and/or miserable creep!--as his slightly shell-shocked Captain and intellectual confidant), and Max Schell is the Prussian aristocrat Captain Stransky: newly-arrived, old-school, uninterested in Hitler and his ideology, and on the make to pick up the Iron Cross as quickly and cheaply as possible. The conflict between Stransky and Steiner is really the basis of what plot there is here, and things start to heat up when the former's claim to the Cross, based on supposed valorous conduct in battle, is gainsaid by Steiner (a grunt who already has the IC) and his platoon. Steiner becomes a problem to be got rid of...
Cross Of Iron certainly contains a lot of different and interesting technical elements. The film's epilogue is a quote from Bertolt Brecht's The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, which is quite telling as, while I wouldn't characterize Peckinpaugh's techniques as "Brechtian" exactly, there are a number of things, like the unexpected use of montage and the very occasional eruption of orchestral soundtrack that break up the rhythm of the film. All of this is filtered through the director's tendency to live in the moment and to big it up, American-style. Stylistically, there is a large helping of satire, some of it overtly comic (as in the excellent scene where Schell makes his introductions to Mason and Warner), more than a little chunk of melodrama and, this being Peckinpaugh, a generous spread of things and people being shot and blown up...in slow motion, of course. "I say, anyone for tennis..?"
It's a good flick that certainly doesn't feel long at 2-and-a-quarter hours (this non-pristine European print contained an extra 11 minutes, where I don't know), but it is bedevilled by inconsistency. The script is one of the problems. There are great internal scenes and parts of scenes almost worthy of David Lean, and others, such as those revolving around Steiner's time recovering in the infirmary, that are a bit threadbare. The stylistic balance is also a bit out of whack. A lot of the film, perhaps by commercial necessity, is action and while a lot of it's good--the stealth movements by Steiner's platoon are particularly suspenseful--I got the distinct impression of different versions of the film competing for space. I for one would have preferred a few more scenes with Coburn, Mason and Schell and a few less of Russkies being machine-gunned in slo-mo. Given all of these contrasting and often conflicting elements, pacing is actually pretty good, with the exception of the ending which is very abrupt. The movie's really lacking a final scene (mostly due to production problems, I gather).
The acting's a strength. Lots of good moments from the minor players, but the principals are in fine form. Schell is at his oily and dangerous best (albeit slightly undercut by his character's buffoonery); Coburn's cod-German accent escapes him when he gets agitated, but he pulls off Steiner's combination of humanity and necessary ruthlessness brilliantly. Mason gets less of the glory but he's exemplary as the fatherly commander with a sense of perspective who's trying to salvage what lives, honour and dignity he can out of a bad and worsening situation. There's also a really interesting element of theatricality about the film that creates these odd, what I can only describe as "out of time" moments (viz the scene where Steiner frees the Russian boy that his platoon captured), which contrast effectively with the claustrophobic and impending doom-laden trench settings.
As I said earlier, C of I's a film that draws attention to its own technique, certainly more so than the main-sequence Peckinpaughs that I've seen. A good film that could have been better. If you like Peckinpaugh, you're surely going to find lots to like here, and if you don't, hey: he blowed up REAL good!!
You can read the allmovie guide synopsis, but briefly: the film's setting is the Crimea in 1943, when the writing was clearly visible on the wall for the German regiments. James Coburn is Rolf Steiner, a fearless platoon leader who's only loyalty is to his men, James Mason is the well-intentioned and war-weary commandant (with David Warner--not playing an alien and/or miserable creep!--as his slightly shell-shocked Captain and intellectual confidant), and Max Schell is the Prussian aristocrat Captain Stransky: newly-arrived, old-school, uninterested in Hitler and his ideology, and on the make to pick up the Iron Cross as quickly and cheaply as possible. The conflict between Stransky and Steiner is really the basis of what plot there is here, and things start to heat up when the former's claim to the Cross, based on supposed valorous conduct in battle, is gainsaid by Steiner (a grunt who already has the IC) and his platoon. Steiner becomes a problem to be got rid of...
Cross Of Iron certainly contains a lot of different and interesting technical elements. The film's epilogue is a quote from Bertolt Brecht's The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, which is quite telling as, while I wouldn't characterize Peckinpaugh's techniques as "Brechtian" exactly, there are a number of things, like the unexpected use of montage and the very occasional eruption of orchestral soundtrack that break up the rhythm of the film. All of this is filtered through the director's tendency to live in the moment and to big it up, American-style. Stylistically, there is a large helping of satire, some of it overtly comic (as in the excellent scene where Schell makes his introductions to Mason and Warner), more than a little chunk of melodrama and, this being Peckinpaugh, a generous spread of things and people being shot and blown up...in slow motion, of course. "I say, anyone for tennis..?"
It's a good flick that certainly doesn't feel long at 2-and-a-quarter hours (this non-pristine European print contained an extra 11 minutes, where I don't know), but it is bedevilled by inconsistency. The script is one of the problems. There are great internal scenes and parts of scenes almost worthy of David Lean, and others, such as those revolving around Steiner's time recovering in the infirmary, that are a bit threadbare. The stylistic balance is also a bit out of whack. A lot of the film, perhaps by commercial necessity, is action and while a lot of it's good--the stealth movements by Steiner's platoon are particularly suspenseful--I got the distinct impression of different versions of the film competing for space. I for one would have preferred a few more scenes with Coburn, Mason and Schell and a few less of Russkies being machine-gunned in slo-mo. Given all of these contrasting and often conflicting elements, pacing is actually pretty good, with the exception of the ending which is very abrupt. The movie's really lacking a final scene (mostly due to production problems, I gather).
The acting's a strength. Lots of good moments from the minor players, but the principals are in fine form. Schell is at his oily and dangerous best (albeit slightly undercut by his character's buffoonery); Coburn's cod-German accent escapes him when he gets agitated, but he pulls off Steiner's combination of humanity and necessary ruthlessness brilliantly. Mason gets less of the glory but he's exemplary as the fatherly commander with a sense of perspective who's trying to salvage what lives, honour and dignity he can out of a bad and worsening situation. There's also a really interesting element of theatricality about the film that creates these odd, what I can only describe as "out of time" moments (viz the scene where Steiner frees the Russian boy that his platoon captured), which contrast effectively with the claustrophobic and impending doom-laden trench settings.
As I said earlier, C of I's a film that draws attention to its own technique, certainly more so than the main-sequence Peckinpaughs that I've seen. A good film that could have been better. If you like Peckinpaugh, you're surely going to find lots to like here, and if you don't, hey: he blowed up REAL good!!
Records In Review: Moving Units--Dangerous Dreams
The sub-heading for this review should be, with thanks to Dr. Nick Riviera, "you've tried the best, now try the rest!" Moving Units are a Californian entry in the new wave revivalist sweepstakes. Dangerous Dreams (2004) is the three-piece's first full-length release, and within its polycarbonate depths can be heard bits and pieces of a number of influences, both contemporary and ancient, which I'll go into as needs be, but I'll just say this one thing now: don't believe anything you read about this record resembling Gang Of Four in any meaningful way.
MU's principal musical mode is a crunchy, new wavey disco a la Franz Ferdinand, albeit lighter on the Brit jack-the-laddism and heavier on the west coast sleaze. Odd, considering that some of the bandmembers apparently came from the hardcore scene. The songs in this style, like the opening track "Emancipation," feature skronking, metallic guitar, fake-slappy octave-intervalled disco bass and loud 'n' messy drumming. The balance between the instruments is actually quite good, even if the band sound isn't particularly well-developed or detailed and the production is kind of in Nowheresville. The vocal production in particular is not good and consists of a thin layer of goop over almost all of the tracks that's guaranteed to get on your nerves double-quick (as will the vocals--more on that later). A few of the other tracks lean more toward electropop "Anyone" or the gloomy doomy sound of Interpol and the like ("Scars"). The lyrics range from not particularly good to godawful. The dance/disco-tinged tracks are of mixed quality, to put it mildly. They all suffer more or less from an approach that's neither subtle enough to be interesting nor over-the-top enough to be fun.
"Emancipation" is an okay beginning to the record. It's like a lighter, upbeat Franz Ferdinand; or, if you like, Hot Hot Heat with a stiffer rhythm section (same general harmonic landscape). "Unpersuaded," with its lounge guitar chords and herky-jerky slightly latinate rhythm, is the best of the songs in this style. The lounge-latin cheeze--maybe they picked it up from here?--is a persistent and persistently aggravating motif, and it doesn't do "Submission" or "Bricks And Mortar" (awful lyrics) any favours. My imagination conjures up conga lines, cruise ships, and paunchy, leering middle-aged crooners with sequinned suits and Brylcreemed hair. "Available" is embarrassing; I could only bring myself to listen to it through twice, the second time being of course "for science." Singer/guitarist Blake Miller's vocal performance, not one of DD's strengths and hampered by an oily, pseudo-Brit inflection, is particularly bad on this one and brings back unfond memories of this.
The remainder of the material's a bit better. My favorite track is "Between Us And Them," which is quick, concise and with one foot in the Interpol camp--picked eighth-note bass melody and gloomy chorus. You can really hear the influence of The Strokes' Julian Casablancas both on this song and on "Birds Of Prey," as Miller shares the former's penchant for stretching lines out and landing after the beat in faux/ironic-crooner style. "Anyone" features beatbox and keyboards, including some sounds that wouldn't be out of place on an early Ultravox/John Foxx album, and has some nice texturing to it. "Scars" is a bit overlong and features a vocal outtro that sounds like the mating call of the Baudet du Poitou (unsuccessful), but is otherwise a reasonable facsimile of the glum and grandiose Interpol/Chameleons/Cure school. "Killer/Lover" is nice and discordant, if a bit wooden on the songwriting front. The scratchy guitar in the finale is very Bloc Party.
In the final result, there's nothing on Dangerous Dreams that I'd consider essential listening, and there's too many distracting and/or taste-challenged elements on the album to make it listenable. Their contemporaries do it better, and more often. Not recommended.
MU's principal musical mode is a crunchy, new wavey disco a la Franz Ferdinand, albeit lighter on the Brit jack-the-laddism and heavier on the west coast sleaze. Odd, considering that some of the bandmembers apparently came from the hardcore scene. The songs in this style, like the opening track "Emancipation," feature skronking, metallic guitar, fake-slappy octave-intervalled disco bass and loud 'n' messy drumming. The balance between the instruments is actually quite good, even if the band sound isn't particularly well-developed or detailed and the production is kind of in Nowheresville. The vocal production in particular is not good and consists of a thin layer of goop over almost all of the tracks that's guaranteed to get on your nerves double-quick (as will the vocals--more on that later). A few of the other tracks lean more toward electropop "Anyone" or the gloomy doomy sound of Interpol and the like ("Scars"). The lyrics range from not particularly good to godawful. The dance/disco-tinged tracks are of mixed quality, to put it mildly. They all suffer more or less from an approach that's neither subtle enough to be interesting nor over-the-top enough to be fun.
"Emancipation" is an okay beginning to the record. It's like a lighter, upbeat Franz Ferdinand; or, if you like, Hot Hot Heat with a stiffer rhythm section (same general harmonic landscape). "Unpersuaded," with its lounge guitar chords and herky-jerky slightly latinate rhythm, is the best of the songs in this style. The lounge-latin cheeze--maybe they picked it up from here?--is a persistent and persistently aggravating motif, and it doesn't do "Submission" or "Bricks And Mortar" (awful lyrics) any favours. My imagination conjures up conga lines, cruise ships, and paunchy, leering middle-aged crooners with sequinned suits and Brylcreemed hair. "Available" is embarrassing; I could only bring myself to listen to it through twice, the second time being of course "for science." Singer/guitarist Blake Miller's vocal performance, not one of DD's strengths and hampered by an oily, pseudo-Brit inflection, is particularly bad on this one and brings back unfond memories of this.
The remainder of the material's a bit better. My favorite track is "Between Us And Them," which is quick, concise and with one foot in the Interpol camp--picked eighth-note bass melody and gloomy chorus. You can really hear the influence of The Strokes' Julian Casablancas both on this song and on "Birds Of Prey," as Miller shares the former's penchant for stretching lines out and landing after the beat in faux/ironic-crooner style. "Anyone" features beatbox and keyboards, including some sounds that wouldn't be out of place on an early Ultravox/John Foxx album, and has some nice texturing to it. "Scars" is a bit overlong and features a vocal outtro that sounds like the mating call of the Baudet du Poitou (unsuccessful), but is otherwise a reasonable facsimile of the glum and grandiose Interpol/Chameleons/Cure school. "Killer/Lover" is nice and discordant, if a bit wooden on the songwriting front. The scratchy guitar in the finale is very Bloc Party.
In the final result, there's nothing on Dangerous Dreams that I'd consider essential listening, and there's too many distracting and/or taste-challenged elements on the album to make it listenable. Their contemporaries do it better, and more often. Not recommended.
Records In Review: The Decemberists--Picaresque
Album no. 3 from faux-gothic American mutant folksters The Decemberists. Damn--I really have to learn not to fire the bolt in the first paragraph. Well, please read on anyway...
Picaresque (released last spring) doesn't cosy up to you on the first listen. Hardly surprising: there's an awful lot of outlandish and over-the-top elements to assimilate right from the get-go, and the band's style ranges from hang-dog straight narrative folk ("Eli, The Barrow Boy," "From My Own True Love") to borderline power-pop ("16 Military Wives"), with a few stops in between. The line-up is what you'd expect from an outfit with folksy roots: acoustic guitar, upright bass, lightly-produced drums and accordion and/or hurdy-gurdy or something (don't have the liner notes), although augmented with a bit of electric guitar, some keyboards, and bold strings and horns that are fully integrated into the songs. Arrangements are uniformly confident, often swaggeringly so. Geetarist/mainman Colin Meloy has an unmistakable voice that not everyone is going to take to--extremely nasal with some strange diction. I find him distracting in a few places, but generally charming.
All other considerations aside, it's hard not to be impressed by Meloy's easy melodic facility, which really hits home with repeated listenings. One of my favorite tracks, the languid pop-folk "The Engine Driver," moves from section to section with incredible fluidity and grace because of the lovely vocal lines. The aforementioned and up-tempo "16 Military Wives," a hit single in my ideal alternate universe and a million miles away stylistically, is big and brassy but similarly derives a lot of strength from the forward motion of the vocals.
Back to the outlandish and over-the-top for a sec. The opening track, "The Infanta," (lyrics here) thunders along in all its semitonic glory like a psychotic bullfighting theme, painting a picture of the installation of a child queen. Exhilarating, but it's hurt a bit by its silliness, particularly in the break section, and could use a little editing and dialing back of the wild arrangement at the finale. Also in need of a little trim at the back is the otherwise excellent "The Bagman's Gambit," which effectively combines dynamically static acoustic guitar and vocal verses with some real foot-to-gas-pedal choruses--probably the most rockist approach on the album. The weakness in both songs is an (intermittent) hesitation about where to go next.
"The Sporting Life" (are these guys really Yanks?) is a very obvious Smiths homage, right down to the vocal inflections and intervals, and a very enjoyable one too. The lyrics are a light-hearted American transposition of The Mozzer's mopey loser shtick, which adds to the fun. The rest of the material I like very much, with the possible exception of "On The Bus Mall," which is fairly anonymous late-'80s jangle-pop, albeit very prettily arranged. The glacial "From My Own True Love" is, despite Meloy's annoying inflections in the chorus, my favorite of the folk tunes, but "Eli, The Barrow Boy" (I've double-checked: the band IS American!) gives it a run for the money. The nine-minute campy narrative "The Mariner's Revenge Song" is a hoot, but probably not for regular consumption. The guitar/vocal finale "Of Angels And Angles" is very pretty, and sounds like Nick Drake without the heavy hand. A nice palate cleanser to end the disc.
This review probably comes across as more critical than I intended. Even displaying a few errors in judgment, Picaresque is very lively and a good listen from start to finish, with variety and confident delivery to burn. Very much recommended.
Picaresque (released last spring) doesn't cosy up to you on the first listen. Hardly surprising: there's an awful lot of outlandish and over-the-top elements to assimilate right from the get-go, and the band's style ranges from hang-dog straight narrative folk ("Eli, The Barrow Boy," "From My Own True Love") to borderline power-pop ("16 Military Wives"), with a few stops in between. The line-up is what you'd expect from an outfit with folksy roots: acoustic guitar, upright bass, lightly-produced drums and accordion and/or hurdy-gurdy or something (don't have the liner notes), although augmented with a bit of electric guitar, some keyboards, and bold strings and horns that are fully integrated into the songs. Arrangements are uniformly confident, often swaggeringly so. Geetarist/mainman Colin Meloy has an unmistakable voice that not everyone is going to take to--extremely nasal with some strange diction. I find him distracting in a few places, but generally charming.
All other considerations aside, it's hard not to be impressed by Meloy's easy melodic facility, which really hits home with repeated listenings. One of my favorite tracks, the languid pop-folk "The Engine Driver," moves from section to section with incredible fluidity and grace because of the lovely vocal lines. The aforementioned and up-tempo "16 Military Wives," a hit single in my ideal alternate universe and a million miles away stylistically, is big and brassy but similarly derives a lot of strength from the forward motion of the vocals.
Back to the outlandish and over-the-top for a sec. The opening track, "The Infanta," (lyrics here) thunders along in all its semitonic glory like a psychotic bullfighting theme, painting a picture of the installation of a child queen. Exhilarating, but it's hurt a bit by its silliness, particularly in the break section, and could use a little editing and dialing back of the wild arrangement at the finale. Also in need of a little trim at the back is the otherwise excellent "The Bagman's Gambit," which effectively combines dynamically static acoustic guitar and vocal verses with some real foot-to-gas-pedal choruses--probably the most rockist approach on the album. The weakness in both songs is an (intermittent) hesitation about where to go next.
"The Sporting Life" (are these guys really Yanks?) is a very obvious Smiths homage, right down to the vocal inflections and intervals, and a very enjoyable one too. The lyrics are a light-hearted American transposition of The Mozzer's mopey loser shtick, which adds to the fun. The rest of the material I like very much, with the possible exception of "On The Bus Mall," which is fairly anonymous late-'80s jangle-pop, albeit very prettily arranged. The glacial "From My Own True Love" is, despite Meloy's annoying inflections in the chorus, my favorite of the folk tunes, but "Eli, The Barrow Boy" (I've double-checked: the band IS American!) gives it a run for the money. The nine-minute campy narrative "The Mariner's Revenge Song" is a hoot, but probably not for regular consumption. The guitar/vocal finale "Of Angels And Angles" is very pretty, and sounds like Nick Drake without the heavy hand. A nice palate cleanser to end the disc.
This review probably comes across as more critical than I intended. Even displaying a few errors in judgment, Picaresque is very lively and a good listen from start to finish, with variety and confident delivery to burn. Very much recommended.
Records In Review: Bloc Party--Silent Alarm
I'm beginning to think I've got "sucker" tattooed on my forehead; I'm such an easy mark for all of this new wave revivalist stuff.
If I was to compare London's Bloc Party to some of their generational colleagues, I'd say that it's the same ballpark, different hot dog. The influences on display on their debut album Silent Alarm are less of the mod set, Gang Of Four and XTC, and more of P.I.L., The Chameleons (yes, I know I keep bringing them up, but I will continue to do so until people stop ripping them off!) and a little bit of The Cure; so, it's no surprise that BP's is a sound that, like much of the output of these latter three, mixes the aggression with a touch of grandeur--and very successfully too. In terms of instrumentation, it's the guitars that steal the show, as they produce a lot of different sounds, from the sustained to the metrical to the scratchy and reverberated; they're complemented by some keyboard washes and effects here and there. The bass pulses, often with an implied "dubness" to it, and the drums are fairly frenetic, pounding and rough around the edges (usually in a good way, but occasionally with more blood than brains like in the opening to "Banquet"). I hear Martin Atkins in many of the drum patterns (hear "Positive Tensions"). Singer Kele Okereke alternates between subdued achiness and a glottal declamatory style that brings to mind either Robert Smith, Damon Albarn or John Lydon, depending on which song you're listening to. With the vocals, melody is usually secondary to rhythm and attack.
I have to admit that after the first three tracks, I thought that there might be too much of the emo tendency here for my taste, but the middle section of the disc is a peach and with mucho variety. The martial "Price Of Gas" is the most obviously P.I.L.-inspired (hear Okereke's Lydonesque yelps), with the bass and drums providing the foundation in the verse and intro parts while the guitars skitter along the surface. In contrast to this approach, you've got the infectious and radio-friendly new-wave/disco "Banquet," in which the rhythm section and guitars are pretty much working as one metrical unit. Another favorite is "This Modern Love," which, despite it's borderline wimpy-'80s-love-song opening, ends up as quite an exhilarating number. I think it's on tracks like this that the defined edges of the band's instrumentation are a real advantage. BP don't rely on indiscriminate washes of sound, even on the loud and monolithic "Pioneers." "Blue Light" is a sweet, gentle and welcome change of pace.
Back to my Chameleons obsession: I guess what I'm talking about is some of the twin guitar (the opening to "Helicopter" is a good example), the kind of drawn-out sectional songwriting on display in the powerful "Like Eating Glass," and the album's overall blend of wistful and earnest. The final track, "Compliments," does have more of The Cure's shoe-staring dirge quality about it, for those who're into such things. I prefer wistfulness to overwrought, but that's just me (and I am right).
The International Record Evaluation Standards (IRES) require me to deduct a half-cookie for the last few tracks not being up to the standard of the rest of the disc, and an additional quarter for dipping into the same harmonic well maybe once too often, but other than that, this one's yet another keeper, and a nice change from the jerkier styles of the likes of The Futureheads and Maximo Park. Amazing how many of these bands have created a unique sound, despite wearing their influences so boldly on their sleeves. Muchly recommended.
P.S. My burned copy of this disc appears to be missing track 11 ("This one doesn't go up to 11"). If this is the greatest song in the history of rock music, I will adjust my review accordingly.
If I was to compare London's Bloc Party to some of their generational colleagues, I'd say that it's the same ballpark, different hot dog. The influences on display on their debut album Silent Alarm are less of the mod set, Gang Of Four and XTC, and more of P.I.L., The Chameleons (yes, I know I keep bringing them up, but I will continue to do so until people stop ripping them off!) and a little bit of The Cure; so, it's no surprise that BP's is a sound that, like much of the output of these latter three, mixes the aggression with a touch of grandeur--and very successfully too. In terms of instrumentation, it's the guitars that steal the show, as they produce a lot of different sounds, from the sustained to the metrical to the scratchy and reverberated; they're complemented by some keyboard washes and effects here and there. The bass pulses, often with an implied "dubness" to it, and the drums are fairly frenetic, pounding and rough around the edges (usually in a good way, but occasionally with more blood than brains like in the opening to "Banquet"). I hear Martin Atkins in many of the drum patterns (hear "Positive Tensions"). Singer Kele Okereke alternates between subdued achiness and a glottal declamatory style that brings to mind either Robert Smith, Damon Albarn or John Lydon, depending on which song you're listening to. With the vocals, melody is usually secondary to rhythm and attack.
I have to admit that after the first three tracks, I thought that there might be too much of the emo tendency here for my taste, but the middle section of the disc is a peach and with mucho variety. The martial "Price Of Gas" is the most obviously P.I.L.-inspired (hear Okereke's Lydonesque yelps), with the bass and drums providing the foundation in the verse and intro parts while the guitars skitter along the surface. In contrast to this approach, you've got the infectious and radio-friendly new-wave/disco "Banquet," in which the rhythm section and guitars are pretty much working as one metrical unit. Another favorite is "This Modern Love," which, despite it's borderline wimpy-'80s-love-song opening, ends up as quite an exhilarating number. I think it's on tracks like this that the defined edges of the band's instrumentation are a real advantage. BP don't rely on indiscriminate washes of sound, even on the loud and monolithic "Pioneers." "Blue Light" is a sweet, gentle and welcome change of pace.
Back to my Chameleons obsession: I guess what I'm talking about is some of the twin guitar (the opening to "Helicopter" is a good example), the kind of drawn-out sectional songwriting on display in the powerful "Like Eating Glass," and the album's overall blend of wistful and earnest. The final track, "Compliments," does have more of The Cure's shoe-staring dirge quality about it, for those who're into such things. I prefer wistfulness to overwrought, but that's just me (and I am right).
The International Record Evaluation Standards (IRES) require me to deduct a half-cookie for the last few tracks not being up to the standard of the rest of the disc, and an additional quarter for dipping into the same harmonic well maybe once too often, but other than that, this one's yet another keeper, and a nice change from the jerkier styles of the likes of The Futureheads and Maximo Park. Amazing how many of these bands have created a unique sound, despite wearing their influences so boldly on their sleeves. Muchly recommended.
P.S. My burned copy of this disc appears to be missing track 11 ("This one doesn't go up to 11"). If this is the greatest song in the history of rock music, I will adjust my review accordingly.
Wednesday, February 1, 2006
Records In Review: Maximo Park--A Certain Trigger
More fruit from the new wave revivalist tree, courtesy of Newcastle's Maximo Park. A Certain Trigger is the debut lp from The Futureheads' down-the-road neighbours and genre cohabitants. And it is good. Hot damn good.
I almost don't want to analyze the record too closely, 'cos it's such fun to listen to and I don't want to kill the mood; but, I s'pose I owe it to posterity and the kids. This five-piece does have many traits in common with the F-Heads beyond the superficial resemblances to early XTC, but, as usual, it's the differences that are most interesting. There's more of a pop sensibility here courtesy of The Jam and the mod set in general, more sense of flow (despite myriad stylistic references), and a less elephantine sound. They've a full-time keyboard player, and that certainly makes a difference; the sounds used are mostly upper-range chamber organ and buzzy new wave synth, adding some space-age feel--well, what was considered space-age in 1978. Guitarist Duncan Lloyd utilizes lots o' sounds (see "Graffiti"), and the rhythm section is lively and self-assured.
Maximo Park are a band with exceptional musical instincts. All of the material, with very few exceptions, works, even when by rights it shouldn't. Songs come at you with a TON...sorry, TONNE of influences in consecutive sections and don't sound garish even when the contrasts are at their most extreme. I'm thinking here of the appropriately titled "Now, I'm All Over The Shop," which in the course of 60 seconds runs through mid-'70s Queen, Go 2-era XTC and The Housemartins. I think the reason it works is that the approach is consistent (a couple of exceptions, which I'll get to), even when the material isn't. I can't explain it better than to say that the songs are always moving forward with no dithering or wallowing. You'll just have to listen to hear what I mean. Also helping immensely is singer Paul Smith, who performs a skilful balancing act with his slightly wavery crooning, bringing neither too much sweetness nor gruntiness. I'm kind of glad that both Smith and Futurehead Barry Hyde don't try to play the tough guy--which might be tempting with this kind of music--because I have to shamefully admit that Geordie and other Northern accents in pop music often make me laugh; just can't stop thinking about my late grandmother and Dales farmers. The vocals also blend repetitive hook-based lines and looser melodic ones really well. The lyrics usually involve seeing or imagining exes with other dudes.
I have new favourite tracks on ACT every other day, but my current ones are: "Apply Some Pressure," which is fairly hell-for-leather with at least one foot in Futureheads territory; "The Coast Is Changing," one of the gentler numbers with an '80s-style picked bass and very nice and simple vocal melody; "I Want You To Stay"--a jerky, staccato Devo-ish keyboard rhythm gradually evolves into something completely different; and "Once, A Glimpse," which has the most overtly punky chorus, but also a very unexpected Chameleons-like ambient guitar section in the middle. "Going Missing" might move a bit too far in the modern rock direction, but it's far from banal, particularly arrangement-wise. I said that there were one or two exceptions to the band's consistency of approach: the last couple of tracks. "Acrobat" is the one example of atmosphere over energy on the record, reminiscent of The Stranglers' silky, spoken-word "La Folie." Very good, if a bit out of the flow of the album. The closer "Kiss You Better" is the weakest link and far less nervy than it needs to be.
A Certain Trigger vs. The Futureheads is pretty much a toss-up in the battle of fabulousness; it depends on whether you prefer gently bouncing up and down or doing the (theoretical) post-punk spazz dance. Either way, you win. Highly and wholeheartedly recommended.
I almost don't want to analyze the record too closely, 'cos it's such fun to listen to and I don't want to kill the mood; but, I s'pose I owe it to posterity and the kids. This five-piece does have many traits in common with the F-Heads beyond the superficial resemblances to early XTC, but, as usual, it's the differences that are most interesting. There's more of a pop sensibility here courtesy of The Jam and the mod set in general, more sense of flow (despite myriad stylistic references), and a less elephantine sound. They've a full-time keyboard player, and that certainly makes a difference; the sounds used are mostly upper-range chamber organ and buzzy new wave synth, adding some space-age feel--well, what was considered space-age in 1978. Guitarist Duncan Lloyd utilizes lots o' sounds (see "Graffiti"), and the rhythm section is lively and self-assured.
Maximo Park are a band with exceptional musical instincts. All of the material, with very few exceptions, works, even when by rights it shouldn't. Songs come at you with a TON...sorry, TONNE of influences in consecutive sections and don't sound garish even when the contrasts are at their most extreme. I'm thinking here of the appropriately titled "Now, I'm All Over The Shop," which in the course of 60 seconds runs through mid-'70s Queen, Go 2-era XTC and The Housemartins. I think the reason it works is that the approach is consistent (a couple of exceptions, which I'll get to), even when the material isn't. I can't explain it better than to say that the songs are always moving forward with no dithering or wallowing. You'll just have to listen to hear what I mean. Also helping immensely is singer Paul Smith, who performs a skilful balancing act with his slightly wavery crooning, bringing neither too much sweetness nor gruntiness. I'm kind of glad that both Smith and Futurehead Barry Hyde don't try to play the tough guy--which might be tempting with this kind of music--because I have to shamefully admit that Geordie and other Northern accents in pop music often make me laugh; just can't stop thinking about my late grandmother and Dales farmers. The vocals also blend repetitive hook-based lines and looser melodic ones really well. The lyrics usually involve seeing or imagining exes with other dudes.
I have new favourite tracks on ACT every other day, but my current ones are: "Apply Some Pressure," which is fairly hell-for-leather with at least one foot in Futureheads territory; "The Coast Is Changing," one of the gentler numbers with an '80s-style picked bass and very nice and simple vocal melody; "I Want You To Stay"--a jerky, staccato Devo-ish keyboard rhythm gradually evolves into something completely different; and "Once, A Glimpse," which has the most overtly punky chorus, but also a very unexpected Chameleons-like ambient guitar section in the middle. "Going Missing" might move a bit too far in the modern rock direction, but it's far from banal, particularly arrangement-wise. I said that there were one or two exceptions to the band's consistency of approach: the last couple of tracks. "Acrobat" is the one example of atmosphere over energy on the record, reminiscent of The Stranglers' silky, spoken-word "La Folie." Very good, if a bit out of the flow of the album. The closer "Kiss You Better" is the weakest link and far less nervy than it needs to be.
A Certain Trigger vs. The Futureheads is pretty much a toss-up in the battle of fabulousness; it depends on whether you prefer gently bouncing up and down or doing the (theoretical) post-punk spazz dance. Either way, you win. Highly and wholeheartedly recommended.
Records In Review: The Strokes--First Impressions Of Earth
The Strokes' potted history: album number one luvverly, number two more impressive in certain respects but less enjoyable and with less staying power, and now First Impressions Of Earth, which manages to be both better and worse, more and less enjoyable than its predecessors.
I'm not trying to be cryptic or hedge bets here. This is a tough album to get a handle on, largely because it's a tale of two (almost) halves. The first 8 or 9 tracks are as good if not better than anything in the band's ouevre, and the remainder is...not, and sounds strangely detached from the album's main sequence. But more on this anon. FIOE sees Julian C. and the boys in a more relaxed mood. There's still the same disciplined aesthetic, particularly in terms of song structure, but there's been a movement toward--well, I wouldn't call it part-writing exactly, but rather a shift away from the wall-of-sound layering of the first two records. The bass is punched up, with an increased emphasis on surging lines rather than the customary eighth-note monotones, making for a formidable rhythm section in combination with Fab "The Very Loud Human Drum Machine" Moretti's metronomic pounding. Lead guitar steps into the spotlight a lot, with surprising boldness in one or two spots. And you can actually hear Casablancas' vocals! With the fuzzbox dialed back, it's clear that he's no slick crooner, but his voice is really quite characterful, with enough variation in delivery to keep things interesting. He also knows where the line between biting and snarky is drawn, and stays on the good side of it.
The best material on the album makes good use of internal momentum and instrumental counterpoint and contrast. Re the former: one of my principal beefs about The Strokes has been their tendency to fire the bolt in the first thirty seconds, leaving precious little for the chorus and break parts (I'm thinking here of Room On Fire songs like "Between Love And Hate" and "The Way It Is"). "Razorblade" is a great example of getting the balance right. It's really just an alternation between two sections, one loud and broad with a catchy harmonized guitar line, and the verse part with pulsing arpeggiated bass and an upper range guitar melody duking it out rhythmically with the vocal line, but it's exemplary in its use of noise and space--expansive without being overblown. "On The Other Side," another winner, has more of a loping, stop-start feel but uses the same techniques of contrast and space, as does the kick-ass "Juicebox," although it's busier in songwriting terms. A first for the group is "Ask Me Anything," which is nothing but vocals and mellotron-like strings and woodwinds. This one's particularly interesting in the way it contrasts a rigidly metrical new wave keyboard line with a sweeping and very uncharacteristic break part.
Sometimes the sectional contrasts work on FIOE, and sometimes they don't. "Vision Of Division" is my favourite track and one of their best, and it's part traditional Strokes melodic stuff and part hell-for-leather, scream-yourself-coarse quasi-metal, with an astonishing pentatonic-style guitar solo/precision drum freak-out thrown in for good measure. Not much left in the tank after that one! "Ize Of The World," on the other hand, starts out like a '70s cowbell rocker, goes all mellow, then wraps it up with a tribute to Interpol. Appalling. The broody "Fear Of Sleep" isn't terrible by any means, but the movement from A to B to C feels similarly effortful.
Which brings me to those last five songs. A nasty person might call them shite, but a glass half-full guy like me prefers to say that they require a different kind of treatment than this album was capable of giving them. It's almost like they came from a different recording session. I don't mind "Evening Sun," as it's evocative in an unusual way for the group, but "15 Minutes" is extremely ponderous and overwrought--I counted three songs in a row where Julian builds to a climax by screaming like a Rothman's-addicted banshee--and "Red Light," with its hippie-freak harmonized guitar, is just plain bizarre.
First Impressions Of Earth will probably be let loose from its jewel case more often than Room On Fire, but not for end-to-end play. The lesson here is that the perfect Strokes album length is 37 minutes. Half-to-two-thirds highly recommended; the rest...
I'm not trying to be cryptic or hedge bets here. This is a tough album to get a handle on, largely because it's a tale of two (almost) halves. The first 8 or 9 tracks are as good if not better than anything in the band's ouevre, and the remainder is...not, and sounds strangely detached from the album's main sequence. But more on this anon. FIOE sees Julian C. and the boys in a more relaxed mood. There's still the same disciplined aesthetic, particularly in terms of song structure, but there's been a movement toward--well, I wouldn't call it part-writing exactly, but rather a shift away from the wall-of-sound layering of the first two records. The bass is punched up, with an increased emphasis on surging lines rather than the customary eighth-note monotones, making for a formidable rhythm section in combination with Fab "The Very Loud Human Drum Machine" Moretti's metronomic pounding. Lead guitar steps into the spotlight a lot, with surprising boldness in one or two spots. And you can actually hear Casablancas' vocals! With the fuzzbox dialed back, it's clear that he's no slick crooner, but his voice is really quite characterful, with enough variation in delivery to keep things interesting. He also knows where the line between biting and snarky is drawn, and stays on the good side of it.
The best material on the album makes good use of internal momentum and instrumental counterpoint and contrast. Re the former: one of my principal beefs about The Strokes has been their tendency to fire the bolt in the first thirty seconds, leaving precious little for the chorus and break parts (I'm thinking here of Room On Fire songs like "Between Love And Hate" and "The Way It Is"). "Razorblade" is a great example of getting the balance right. It's really just an alternation between two sections, one loud and broad with a catchy harmonized guitar line, and the verse part with pulsing arpeggiated bass and an upper range guitar melody duking it out rhythmically with the vocal line, but it's exemplary in its use of noise and space--expansive without being overblown. "On The Other Side," another winner, has more of a loping, stop-start feel but uses the same techniques of contrast and space, as does the kick-ass "Juicebox," although it's busier in songwriting terms. A first for the group is "Ask Me Anything," which is nothing but vocals and mellotron-like strings and woodwinds. This one's particularly interesting in the way it contrasts a rigidly metrical new wave keyboard line with a sweeping and very uncharacteristic break part.
Sometimes the sectional contrasts work on FIOE, and sometimes they don't. "Vision Of Division" is my favourite track and one of their best, and it's part traditional Strokes melodic stuff and part hell-for-leather, scream-yourself-coarse quasi-metal, with an astonishing pentatonic-style guitar solo/precision drum freak-out thrown in for good measure. Not much left in the tank after that one! "Ize Of The World," on the other hand, starts out like a '70s cowbell rocker, goes all mellow, then wraps it up with a tribute to Interpol. Appalling. The broody "Fear Of Sleep" isn't terrible by any means, but the movement from A to B to C feels similarly effortful.
Which brings me to those last five songs. A nasty person might call them shite, but a glass half-full guy like me prefers to say that they require a different kind of treatment than this album was capable of giving them. It's almost like they came from a different recording session. I don't mind "Evening Sun," as it's evocative in an unusual way for the group, but "15 Minutes" is extremely ponderous and overwrought--I counted three songs in a row where Julian builds to a climax by screaming like a Rothman's-addicted banshee--and "Red Light," with its hippie-freak harmonized guitar, is just plain bizarre.
First Impressions Of Earth will probably be let loose from its jewel case more often than Room On Fire, but not for end-to-end play. The lesson here is that the perfect Strokes album length is 37 minutes. Half-to-two-thirds highly recommended; the rest...
Records In Review: The Arcade Fire--Funeral
All right, a day late and a dollar short, but hype brings out my contrarian side. And don't worry, I'll keep this short.
(read my review of The AF's first ep here!)
I've tried very hard with this record but I just can't get close to it, and I doubt if I'll ever have reason to listen to it again. I have a certain admiration for its construction, but I'm not sure what the big whoop is. I'd broadly describe Funeral as the offspring of New Order and Modest Mouse, with a little gene replacement therapy courtesy of The Flaming Lips and Neil Young (is that a tautology?). It's broad stroke music with a lot of detail--the former is dominant--mixed in a pot to create a veritable wall of sound, making it a great album to play at volume, that's for sure. It's much more direct and less whimsical than the first ep, and there's more emphasis on the guitar and less empty space in the mix. Singer Win Butler still sounds like a caffeinated whiny-pants, which doesn't do my ears or blood pressure any good. Prejudices about the voice are the hardest to overcome and I'm too old to change now.
I think it's the imbalance in favour of the broad strokes that's a turn-off for me. A number of the songs, like "Wake Up" and "Neighbourhood #4 (7 Kettles)" involve weighty burdens of drama being carried by fairly basic song and chord structures, even if the sonic layering is nice. One interesting aspect of the album is the relationship between the three-piece new wave ching-ching-ching-ching and the wrap-around instrumentation of (variously) mallet percussion, piano, weepy strings and booming guitars and basses; I'm thinking here of "Neighbourhood #2 (Laika)" and "Neighbourhood #3 (Power Out)," the beat and guitar of which reminds me of a particular crappy New Order song...but these are both good. Also good 'n' pretty is "Une Annee Sans Lumiere," which benefits from being less melodramatic than some of its colleagues. "Neighbourhood #1 (Tunnels)," a quasi-hymnal reminiscent of "Old Flame" from the previous record, is one of the best and builds at its own pace. I get bored during the second half of the disc. Only the smash-hit "Rebellion (Lies)" piques my interest with its energy and earnestness. "Haiti" reprises the rhythms from "Power Out" in a gentler and less interesting form. "Crown Of Love" sucks donkey balls.
To each his own, I guess, but there isn't a song here that I prefer to "No Cars Go" from the band's rookie disc. I respect Funeral in many ways but I don't particularly like it. Oh well: I'm sure I'll get with the zeitgeist one day.
(read my review of The AF's first ep here!)
I've tried very hard with this record but I just can't get close to it, and I doubt if I'll ever have reason to listen to it again. I have a certain admiration for its construction, but I'm not sure what the big whoop is. I'd broadly describe Funeral as the offspring of New Order and Modest Mouse, with a little gene replacement therapy courtesy of The Flaming Lips and Neil Young (is that a tautology?). It's broad stroke music with a lot of detail--the former is dominant--mixed in a pot to create a veritable wall of sound, making it a great album to play at volume, that's for sure. It's much more direct and less whimsical than the first ep, and there's more emphasis on the guitar and less empty space in the mix. Singer Win Butler still sounds like a caffeinated whiny-pants, which doesn't do my ears or blood pressure any good. Prejudices about the voice are the hardest to overcome and I'm too old to change now.
I think it's the imbalance in favour of the broad strokes that's a turn-off for me. A number of the songs, like "Wake Up" and "Neighbourhood #4 (7 Kettles)" involve weighty burdens of drama being carried by fairly basic song and chord structures, even if the sonic layering is nice. One interesting aspect of the album is the relationship between the three-piece new wave ching-ching-ching-ching and the wrap-around instrumentation of (variously) mallet percussion, piano, weepy strings and booming guitars and basses; I'm thinking here of "Neighbourhood #2 (Laika)" and "Neighbourhood #3 (Power Out)," the beat and guitar of which reminds me of a particular crappy New Order song...but these are both good. Also good 'n' pretty is "Une Annee Sans Lumiere," which benefits from being less melodramatic than some of its colleagues. "Neighbourhood #1 (Tunnels)," a quasi-hymnal reminiscent of "Old Flame" from the previous record, is one of the best and builds at its own pace. I get bored during the second half of the disc. Only the smash-hit "Rebellion (Lies)" piques my interest with its energy and earnestness. "Haiti" reprises the rhythms from "Power Out" in a gentler and less interesting form. "Crown Of Love" sucks donkey balls.
To each his own, I guess, but there isn't a song here that I prefer to "No Cars Go" from the band's rookie disc. I respect Funeral in many ways but I don't particularly like it. Oh well: I'm sure I'll get with the zeitgeist one day.
Sunday, January 1, 2006
Records In Review: Martha And The Muffins--This Is The Ice Age
Martha And The Muffins/M+M have always fallen between the cracks of Canadian music history. Perhaps it was inevitable; after all, they've had a punky-new wave hit single, been perceived as ahtsy (no mean feat with such a dumb band name), split their sound between Toronto, London and New York, and have vocalists who sound like a show-tune singer and an art nerd respectively (you figure out which). In other words, their generic identifiers aren't always easy to isolate. They've certainly never been fully given their due. Fortunately, some reissues have been popping up recently, and Mark and Martha have been playing a few shows, updating the oldies. This Is The Ice Age (1981) was their third and possibly best lp, and this beautifully remastered edition came out last spring.
The first thing that hits you about this album is the sound. Co-produced by a then-industry-toddler Daniel Lanois and the band, it's extremely warm and spacious, with an Eno-like attention to sonic detail and restraint. I'm not an M+M completist and it's been a while since I've heard the old stuff, but I don't remember being awfully impressed by the first couple of Mike Howlett-helmed records, production-wise--trying too hard to sound "new wave." In terms of instrumentation, (electric) piano's always around but there's plenty of room to spare for the bright and generally unfuzzed guitar, watery chorused bass and layer upon layer of keyboards and electronic experimentation. Influences are worn on sleeve, with the aforementioned Bald One, King Crimson and (especially) Talking Heads being the most obvious, but this isn't derivative stuff; the mellow chord progressions and ambience are entirely the band's own, and place them well within the context of the contemporary local scene.
I'll call this record rilly rilly good, 'cos it's maybe one substantial song short of being brilliant (a term I don't throw around lightly). I'm pleasantly surprised how well the single "Women Around The World At Work"has aged; given the subject matter and the fact that it's not a great fit with the surrounding material, being "hookier" and more spastic, it holds its own pretty well (I'm not even as annoyed by the squawking sax as I used to be). "You Sold The Cottage" is the other concession to rocking out here, and it"s squonky and fun. A lot of the material is more pattern-based, which is where the contemporary T. Heads and Crimson comparisons come in. The drums in "Swimming" are very Remain In Light, somewhere between pounding and skittering across the surface, and you've got to give it to Mr. Gane for managing to sound like both Adrian Belew (with the elephantosity--if that IS a guitar) and Robert Fripp (intermittent line/solo) in the same song--and a good one, too. The title track utilizes the same Africanish drum pattern and is the album's high point. What you think is going to be a breezy pop song effortlessly slides into a perfectly paced, hypnotic but detailed raga through which tons of sounds and rhythms pass in and out. "One Day In Paris" follows on the heels of this, rising out of the mist like an aubade, and is as lovely and plaintive a piano and vocal interlude as you're likely to hear. In fact, the quieter stuff is all very good, particularly "Boy Without Filters" which tests Mark's spoken-style vocal abilities to the limit but gets away with it--just. "Jets Seem Slower In London Skies" is a very pretty piano and keys instrumental.
My two minor beefs with the album is the upbeat, positivity-soaked addendum to the otherwise good "Casualties Of Glass" which brings to mind the more annoying aspects of these guys, and the concluding "Three Hundred Years/Chemistry," which is underwritten enough to leave you wanting more, more, MORE! Of the bonus tracks, "I'm No Good At Conversation" is a very good up-tempo number, and "Twenty-Two In Cincinnati" is noodling around. I don't think either were missed on the original album release, but both are welcome here.
I should mention that This Is The Ice Age also has a mega-cool cover featuring a shot of an obscured BMO tower. And it was only $12.99. I'm sorry, why are you still sitting at your computer when you could be out buying this? Highly recommended and immensely listenable.
The first thing that hits you about this album is the sound. Co-produced by a then-industry-toddler Daniel Lanois and the band, it's extremely warm and spacious, with an Eno-like attention to sonic detail and restraint. I'm not an M+M completist and it's been a while since I've heard the old stuff, but I don't remember being awfully impressed by the first couple of Mike Howlett-helmed records, production-wise--trying too hard to sound "new wave." In terms of instrumentation, (electric) piano's always around but there's plenty of room to spare for the bright and generally unfuzzed guitar, watery chorused bass and layer upon layer of keyboards and electronic experimentation. Influences are worn on sleeve, with the aforementioned Bald One, King Crimson and (especially) Talking Heads being the most obvious, but this isn't derivative stuff; the mellow chord progressions and ambience are entirely the band's own, and place them well within the context of the contemporary local scene.
I'll call this record rilly rilly good, 'cos it's maybe one substantial song short of being brilliant (a term I don't throw around lightly). I'm pleasantly surprised how well the single "Women Around The World At Work"has aged; given the subject matter and the fact that it's not a great fit with the surrounding material, being "hookier" and more spastic, it holds its own pretty well (I'm not even as annoyed by the squawking sax as I used to be). "You Sold The Cottage" is the other concession to rocking out here, and it"s squonky and fun. A lot of the material is more pattern-based, which is where the contemporary T. Heads and Crimson comparisons come in. The drums in "Swimming" are very Remain In Light, somewhere between pounding and skittering across the surface, and you've got to give it to Mr. Gane for managing to sound like both Adrian Belew (with the elephantosity--if that IS a guitar) and Robert Fripp (intermittent line/solo) in the same song--and a good one, too. The title track utilizes the same Africanish drum pattern and is the album's high point. What you think is going to be a breezy pop song effortlessly slides into a perfectly paced, hypnotic but detailed raga through which tons of sounds and rhythms pass in and out. "One Day In Paris" follows on the heels of this, rising out of the mist like an aubade, and is as lovely and plaintive a piano and vocal interlude as you're likely to hear. In fact, the quieter stuff is all very good, particularly "Boy Without Filters" which tests Mark's spoken-style vocal abilities to the limit but gets away with it--just. "Jets Seem Slower In London Skies" is a very pretty piano and keys instrumental.
My two minor beefs with the album is the upbeat, positivity-soaked addendum to the otherwise good "Casualties Of Glass" which brings to mind the more annoying aspects of these guys, and the concluding "Three Hundred Years/Chemistry," which is underwritten enough to leave you wanting more, more, MORE! Of the bonus tracks, "I'm No Good At Conversation" is a very good up-tempo number, and "Twenty-Two In Cincinnati" is noodling around. I don't think either were missed on the original album release, but both are welcome here.
I should mention that This Is The Ice Age also has a mega-cool cover featuring a shot of an obscured BMO tower. And it was only $12.99. I'm sorry, why are you still sitting at your computer when you could be out buying this? Highly recommended and immensely listenable.
Records In Review: Medeski Martin & Wood--End Of The World Party (Just In Case)
After due consideration, and consultation with my family, I came to the inevitable conclusion that it was time that I got funky wid it. How delightful to live in a society where you can do this for less than $13!
Medeski Martin & Wood, for those not in the know, are a hot-shot NY instrumental three-piece (keys, drums and bass, respectively) who've been around since the early '90s and who play groove-based fusiony funky stuff. They're fairly traditional in terms of sound, if you strip away the processing, synths and occasional sample. John Medeski is perfectly at home with piano, electric piano, clavinet and organ, and often plays in a punctuated style that's quite guitar-like (perhaps by default, in a three-piece). Chris Wood uses both upright and electric bass impressively, and drummer (not that) Billy Martin is a small-kit player who doesn't stray too often from his syncopated bass drum, snare and hi-hat rhythms.
End Of The World Party is essentially a groove and some chops in search of a brain. I got a similar impression a few years ago from listening to their late '90s album Combustication, which I'd recommend over this one. The playing is top-notch, particularly from Medeski and Wood (Martin's a very detailed drummer, but too restrained; I wish he'd cut loose once in a while), but as is often the case with the genre, structure is not a strong suit and the grooves regularly amble off into noodlesville. I could deal with that better if the hooks and heads (as the jazzebos say) weren't so silly and stereotyped a lot of the time. I honestly can't tell in songs like "Sasa" (fusion hook) and "Queen Bee" (funky hook) if they're taking the piss or no. If yes, then they need to carry it a little bit further to be effective; if not, then there's a definite lack of gray matter on the songwriting front.
"New Planet" and "Curtis" are both pretty good and kick it a little harder than some of the other tracks. The former has a goofy, good-natured bass groove and clavinet and guitar solos, and ends with a processed flute space-out that had me thinking of Gong; the latter's a syncopated fast shuffle-beat thingy with great processed organ as its main point of interest. Other good ones are opener "Anonymous Skulls," which sets orchestral surges and samples to a skulking groove, kind of like Moby with 'tude, and "Reflector," which is as funky, fast and processed as it gets here. The rest of it I can take or leave, being as it's mostly wandering and/or not too clever. "Ice" starts out with a nice atmosphere and an octaved piano line, but doesn't really go anywhere. "Bloody Oil"--message? ya think?--puts a "middle-eastern" pentatonic melody through some interesting turns of production but the musical point is made in the first 30 seconds. I might appreciate "Mami Gato" more if I weren't allergic to most things latin. "Queen Bee" should only be listened to by middle-aged white men dressed in black, wearing berets, and snapping their fingers in time to the beat while ordering lattes.
I wouldn't say that MMW isn't my kind of thing, but I do prefer a little more oomph, directness and/or structure, of the kind that you'd find in another NY funky band from back in the day. I'd like them to sound like they're having a bit more fun with it, too. Recommendation: groovy wallpaper music.
Medeski Martin & Wood, for those not in the know, are a hot-shot NY instrumental three-piece (keys, drums and bass, respectively) who've been around since the early '90s and who play groove-based fusiony funky stuff. They're fairly traditional in terms of sound, if you strip away the processing, synths and occasional sample. John Medeski is perfectly at home with piano, electric piano, clavinet and organ, and often plays in a punctuated style that's quite guitar-like (perhaps by default, in a three-piece). Chris Wood uses both upright and electric bass impressively, and drummer (not that) Billy Martin is a small-kit player who doesn't stray too often from his syncopated bass drum, snare and hi-hat rhythms.
End Of The World Party is essentially a groove and some chops in search of a brain. I got a similar impression a few years ago from listening to their late '90s album Combustication, which I'd recommend over this one. The playing is top-notch, particularly from Medeski and Wood (Martin's a very detailed drummer, but too restrained; I wish he'd cut loose once in a while), but as is often the case with the genre, structure is not a strong suit and the grooves regularly amble off into noodlesville. I could deal with that better if the hooks and heads (as the jazzebos say) weren't so silly and stereotyped a lot of the time. I honestly can't tell in songs like "Sasa" (fusion hook) and "Queen Bee" (funky hook) if they're taking the piss or no. If yes, then they need to carry it a little bit further to be effective; if not, then there's a definite lack of gray matter on the songwriting front.
"New Planet" and "Curtis" are both pretty good and kick it a little harder than some of the other tracks. The former has a goofy, good-natured bass groove and clavinet and guitar solos, and ends with a processed flute space-out that had me thinking of Gong; the latter's a syncopated fast shuffle-beat thingy with great processed organ as its main point of interest. Other good ones are opener "Anonymous Skulls," which sets orchestral surges and samples to a skulking groove, kind of like Moby with 'tude, and "Reflector," which is as funky, fast and processed as it gets here. The rest of it I can take or leave, being as it's mostly wandering and/or not too clever. "Ice" starts out with a nice atmosphere and an octaved piano line, but doesn't really go anywhere. "Bloody Oil"--message? ya think?--puts a "middle-eastern" pentatonic melody through some interesting turns of production but the musical point is made in the first 30 seconds. I might appreciate "Mami Gato" more if I weren't allergic to most things latin. "Queen Bee" should only be listened to by middle-aged white men dressed in black, wearing berets, and snapping their fingers in time to the beat while ordering lattes.
I wouldn't say that MMW isn't my kind of thing, but I do prefer a little more oomph, directness and/or structure, of the kind that you'd find in another NY funky band from back in the day. I'd like them to sound like they're having a bit more fun with it, too. Recommendation: groovy wallpaper music.
Records In Review: They Might Be Giants--The Spine
Album number ten from inventive weirdo power-pop miniaturists They Might Be Giants. Over-generalize? Moi?
The Spine (2004) is an enjoyable and incredibly easy listen. Compared to the last (non-kids) TMBG album that I'm substantially familiar with, the unkindly (and unfairly) remembered Factory Showroom from the mid-'90s, this one has better flow to it and a fuller utilization of the band sound that helps to level out the more jarring contrasts between John's and John's material. It's also, unfortunately, a little too easy a listen. Masters Linnell and Flansburgh aren't pushing themselves terribly hard here, and it shows in the dearth of really, really A-1 stuff. The second coming of Flood it ain't.
The songwriting is split pretty much down the middle as it usually is, but Linnell's tracks show more boldly (I tend toward his songs, generally speaking; he's off in his own little world, which appeals to me more than Flansburgh's messing about with antique genre expectations). I particularly like the foot-stomper "Thunderbird," which is reminiscent of "Til My Head Falls Off" from Factory Showroom and which contains the immortal lines: "Before you walk you have to learn to crawl/You can't see heaven when you're standing tall." "Wearing A Raincoat" is also really catchy, a string of word-associated similes that lead you back to the beginning, with a lilting melody, moderate tempo and hypnotic feel. But the weird comic classic is without a doubt "Bastard Wants To Hit Me." How else to describe a slick, electropop song with cheezy Cher vocoder and lyrics about being targeted by a random nutcase in a parking lot? Flansburgh's contributions include, as is the custom, a few guitar-hero rockers like the catchy "Prevenge," as well as the odd suave lounge ditty like "I Can't Hide From My Mind." My favorite of his, "Spine/Memo To Human Resources," tends toward the latter camp and has a really nice and relaxed melody.
I can't bitch about the rest of the tracks, 'cos there's not really anything wrong with them per se. In fact, the songcraft on display is impressive, and the respective lyrical styles have developed quite nicely and don't feature quite as much overt goofiness as in days gone by. As I said, it's just a general impression of some of it coming a little to easy to the band. A few of the tracks certainly have antecedents (for "Au Contraire" read "Turn Around"), which diminishes their impact.
If I was to describe The Spine in one sentence, I would call it a letter from an old friend telling you that everybody's doing just fine. And those are nice letters to receive, aren't they? Recommended, for fun and stress-reduction.
The Spine (2004) is an enjoyable and incredibly easy listen. Compared to the last (non-kids) TMBG album that I'm substantially familiar with, the unkindly (and unfairly) remembered Factory Showroom from the mid-'90s, this one has better flow to it and a fuller utilization of the band sound that helps to level out the more jarring contrasts between John's and John's material. It's also, unfortunately, a little too easy a listen. Masters Linnell and Flansburgh aren't pushing themselves terribly hard here, and it shows in the dearth of really, really A-1 stuff. The second coming of Flood it ain't.
The songwriting is split pretty much down the middle as it usually is, but Linnell's tracks show more boldly (I tend toward his songs, generally speaking; he's off in his own little world, which appeals to me more than Flansburgh's messing about with antique genre expectations). I particularly like the foot-stomper "Thunderbird," which is reminiscent of "Til My Head Falls Off" from Factory Showroom and which contains the immortal lines: "Before you walk you have to learn to crawl/You can't see heaven when you're standing tall." "Wearing A Raincoat" is also really catchy, a string of word-associated similes that lead you back to the beginning, with a lilting melody, moderate tempo and hypnotic feel. But the weird comic classic is without a doubt "Bastard Wants To Hit Me." How else to describe a slick, electropop song with cheezy Cher vocoder and lyrics about being targeted by a random nutcase in a parking lot? Flansburgh's contributions include, as is the custom, a few guitar-hero rockers like the catchy "Prevenge," as well as the odd suave lounge ditty like "I Can't Hide From My Mind." My favorite of his, "Spine/Memo To Human Resources," tends toward the latter camp and has a really nice and relaxed melody.
I can't bitch about the rest of the tracks, 'cos there's not really anything wrong with them per se. In fact, the songcraft on display is impressive, and the respective lyrical styles have developed quite nicely and don't feature quite as much overt goofiness as in days gone by. As I said, it's just a general impression of some of it coming a little to easy to the band. A few of the tracks certainly have antecedents (for "Au Contraire" read "Turn Around"), which diminishes their impact.
If I was to describe The Spine in one sentence, I would call it a letter from an old friend telling you that everybody's doing just fine. And those are nice letters to receive, aren't they? Recommended, for fun and stress-reduction.
Records In Review: Destroyer--Thief
Well, I did say a few months back that I'd be delving into the New Pornographers' and associated members' back catalogues, didn't I? Of course I did. So be quiet and listen, both of you.
Destroyer is the vee-hickle of NP occasional songwriter Dan Bejar. In the Pornographers, he's the indispensable, hippy counterpoint to mainman Carl Newman's tightly-wound and razor-sharp economy. On his own, he's a sardonic, occasionally arch folk troubadour whose music contains echoes of early '70s Elton John and David Bowie, among others (N.B. to any Bowie freaks: I don't wanna hear it), although much less presentational. Thief (1999) is his first full-fledged band album, and it features NPer John Collins on bass and Jason Zumpano, from that band whose name escapes me, on keyboards.
I've been flipping and flopping on this one for a while, but my Considered And Rational Judgment is that Thief would make an extremely good ep; at album length, the static pacing combined with Bejar's nasal recitativo starts to grate. On a song-by-song basis, the material's very good. I particularly like opener "The Temple," which has that EJ country-blues pace and a catchy melody. Bejar does craft some nice vocal melodies, which you might at first overlook 'cos he's very wordy and his singing style very percussive/punctuated. "Mercy" and "To The Heart Of The Sun On The Back Of The Vulture, I'll Go" (I kid you not) are also standouts; on both, the folky thing is balanced by a '90s low-fi approach which works really well.
The rest of the album could use some editing. By the time I got to "Queen of Languages" (track 8 of 13), I was itching for a change of pace and, frankly, for the Pornographers to show up and put some foot to gas pedal. I can't help thinking that this music could have been better realized. It needed to be taken farther away from its folky, solo-performer roots, so as to let the band stretch out more. That said, it does have a lot of charm, which shows well on upbeat tracks like "The Way Of Perpetual Roads." There's a few instrumental/ambient tracks that are nice changes of pace, if unspectacular. I haven't been able to find a lyric sheet, but most of the songs appear to be humorous digs at the music industry or the self-importance of pop singers (as in the title track). They're abstract enough not to be annoying.
Thief probably won't stop me from picking up some of the more recent Destroyer albums, but based on this I prefer Bejar in his other, better-known band, where he doesn't have to be the centre of attention and where his material's interpreted with more gusto. Cautiously recommended.
Destroyer is the vee-hickle of NP occasional songwriter Dan Bejar. In the Pornographers, he's the indispensable, hippy counterpoint to mainman Carl Newman's tightly-wound and razor-sharp economy. On his own, he's a sardonic, occasionally arch folk troubadour whose music contains echoes of early '70s Elton John and David Bowie, among others (N.B. to any Bowie freaks: I don't wanna hear it), although much less presentational. Thief (1999) is his first full-fledged band album, and it features NPer John Collins on bass and Jason Zumpano, from that band whose name escapes me, on keyboards.
I've been flipping and flopping on this one for a while, but my Considered And Rational Judgment is that Thief would make an extremely good ep; at album length, the static pacing combined with Bejar's nasal recitativo starts to grate. On a song-by-song basis, the material's very good. I particularly like opener "The Temple," which has that EJ country-blues pace and a catchy melody. Bejar does craft some nice vocal melodies, which you might at first overlook 'cos he's very wordy and his singing style very percussive/punctuated. "Mercy" and "To The Heart Of The Sun On The Back Of The Vulture, I'll Go" (I kid you not) are also standouts; on both, the folky thing is balanced by a '90s low-fi approach which works really well.
The rest of the album could use some editing. By the time I got to "Queen of Languages" (track 8 of 13), I was itching for a change of pace and, frankly, for the Pornographers to show up and put some foot to gas pedal. I can't help thinking that this music could have been better realized. It needed to be taken farther away from its folky, solo-performer roots, so as to let the band stretch out more. That said, it does have a lot of charm, which shows well on upbeat tracks like "The Way Of Perpetual Roads." There's a few instrumental/ambient tracks that are nice changes of pace, if unspectacular. I haven't been able to find a lyric sheet, but most of the songs appear to be humorous digs at the music industry or the self-importance of pop singers (as in the title track). They're abstract enough not to be annoying.
Thief probably won't stop me from picking up some of the more recent Destroyer albums, but based on this I prefer Bejar in his other, better-known band, where he doesn't have to be the centre of attention and where his material's interpreted with more gusto. Cautiously recommended.
Thursday, December 1, 2005
Records In Review: The Go-Betweens--Oceans Apart
Update (May 8/06): Grant McLennan died unexpectedly over the weekend, aged 48. Very, very, very sad.
I've put off writing about this one, 'cos I was hoping to hear a bit more of their stuff as a basis for comparison. The Go-Betweens were one of those bands that flew clean under the Robman's radar, odd considering that one of the records from their original run is widely bruited as an all-time classic. What can I say; I'm sure it was the booze, or the pills, or the depression.
Oceans Apart is the latest (2005) from the veteran Aussie songwriting team of Grant McLennan and Robert Forster. They were recording throughout the '80s, broke up, then, after several respective solo records, got back together at the turn of the millennium to considerable critical kudos. Judging by this record, I can understand why. They're very easy to listen to, with very good lyrics, minimal distractions, and an effortless and unbusy melodic way about them. Their sound is (electrified) folky and strummy, but with strong overtones of '80s radio pop; the resultant mix is a very pleasing blend of laxity and directness. McLennan is the balladeer; Forster's lyrics are more observational and his voice reminds me of The Stranglers' Hugh Cornwell: deep and plummy, without a lot of sustained notes [and just a hint of strawberry on the nose--ed.].
The songs are fairly straight-ahead, but there's considerable shifts in mood on the record, which the band executes with a minimum of muss, fuss and drama, and with the help of some nice arrangements, which include the occasional keyboard and drum machine. Forster's lyrics give his material some additional bite. My favourite of his is "Darlinghurst Nights," one of the album's more spread-out tracks, which is a portentous but wry reminiscence (fictional or no, I dunno) about the old Oz days that contains a reference to Died Pretty's Frank Brunetti. Obviously not an album geared to mid-Western U.S. radio! As with a lot of the songs here, the rhythm and lead guitars interact nicely, and there's a messy brass outtro done as only Australian bands can. The rest of his songs are pretty diverse: the terse travelogue "Here Comes A City" is nervy and rhythmically insistent, like a train travelling to nowhere, whereas the reggae-inflected "Lavender" and countryish "Born To A Family" are much sunnier. McLennan's stuff is less immediately appealing, perhaps because of his more deliberate vocal delivery, but it grows on you. "No Reason To Cry" is maybe a little too M.O.R./Crowded House for my taste, but the rest is very good and again, quite varied, with my favourite being "Boundary Rider," which is so plaintive it hurts. "Finding You" sounds obvious at first, but what it lacks in originality it makes up for with sincerity.
My one beef about this album is the production; great guitar sounds and impressive atmospheres (like on the silky-smooth "The Statue"), but crunchy and congested in places, to the extent that I once thought that my amp was shorting out (again). Otherwise, good stuff and very recommendable. To add to the album's appeal, it comes with a 6-song live disc from 2004--supposedly part of a planned full-length live album--of very high quality, which includes top-flight back catalogue like "The Wrong Road" and "Bye Bye Pride."
I've put off writing about this one, 'cos I was hoping to hear a bit more of their stuff as a basis for comparison. The Go-Betweens were one of those bands that flew clean under the Robman's radar, odd considering that one of the records from their original run is widely bruited as an all-time classic. What can I say; I'm sure it was the booze, or the pills, or the depression.
Oceans Apart is the latest (2005) from the veteran Aussie songwriting team of Grant McLennan and Robert Forster. They were recording throughout the '80s, broke up, then, after several respective solo records, got back together at the turn of the millennium to considerable critical kudos. Judging by this record, I can understand why. They're very easy to listen to, with very good lyrics, minimal distractions, and an effortless and unbusy melodic way about them. Their sound is (electrified) folky and strummy, but with strong overtones of '80s radio pop; the resultant mix is a very pleasing blend of laxity and directness. McLennan is the balladeer; Forster's lyrics are more observational and his voice reminds me of The Stranglers' Hugh Cornwell: deep and plummy, without a lot of sustained notes [and just a hint of strawberry on the nose--ed.].
The songs are fairly straight-ahead, but there's considerable shifts in mood on the record, which the band executes with a minimum of muss, fuss and drama, and with the help of some nice arrangements, which include the occasional keyboard and drum machine. Forster's lyrics give his material some additional bite. My favourite of his is "Darlinghurst Nights," one of the album's more spread-out tracks, which is a portentous but wry reminiscence (fictional or no, I dunno) about the old Oz days that contains a reference to Died Pretty's Frank Brunetti. Obviously not an album geared to mid-Western U.S. radio! As with a lot of the songs here, the rhythm and lead guitars interact nicely, and there's a messy brass outtro done as only Australian bands can. The rest of his songs are pretty diverse: the terse travelogue "Here Comes A City" is nervy and rhythmically insistent, like a train travelling to nowhere, whereas the reggae-inflected "Lavender" and countryish "Born To A Family" are much sunnier. McLennan's stuff is less immediately appealing, perhaps because of his more deliberate vocal delivery, but it grows on you. "No Reason To Cry" is maybe a little too M.O.R./Crowded House for my taste, but the rest is very good and again, quite varied, with my favourite being "Boundary Rider," which is so plaintive it hurts. "Finding You" sounds obvious at first, but what it lacks in originality it makes up for with sincerity.
My one beef about this album is the production; great guitar sounds and impressive atmospheres (like on the silky-smooth "The Statue"), but crunchy and congested in places, to the extent that I once thought that my amp was shorting out (again). Otherwise, good stuff and very recommendable. To add to the album's appeal, it comes with a 6-song live disc from 2004--supposedly part of a planned full-length live album--of very high quality, which includes top-flight back catalogue like "The Wrong Road" and "Bye Bye Pride."
Tuesday, November 1, 2005
Film Review: The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou
Believe me, watching a film's a big event in our household, due to our current schedule and the fact that The Wife tends to fall asleep during the first third, no matter what time we start it (all right, all right, stop laughing). It's funny: I prefer listening to music in isolation, but these days I think of films as social events and don't like watching alone.
Friday's film was Wes Anderson's The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, which came pre-recommended since I quite liked Rushmore and also co-writer Noah Baumbach's first couple of films. Baumbach fell on hard times at the turn of the millennium, but fortunately has found his feet again, unlike certain other indie auteurs.
Bill Murray is very good as the deadpan title character, a borderline has-been Jacques Cousteau-type adventurer who's half action hero, half show-biz fake. The meat of the plot revolves around Zissou, at a turning point in his career and needing to prove something not least of all to himself, meeting up with Ned (Owen Wilson), who is presumed to be his son via one of many decades-old trysts. The two of them attempt to size each other up as they, along with crew ("Team Zissou") go off on a last-kick-at-the can adventure that ends up getting sidetracked more than once. It's an off-kilter, campy, slightly forlorn comedy that's visually smart and very fast-paced; scenes and dialogue are often carried across cuts with little or no pause. The first few minutes of the film show off name cast like a Robert Altman film, with rapid-fire appearances by Jeff Goldblum, Willem Dafoe, Michael Gambon, Anjelica Houston and Noah Taylor.
The comparison to Rushmore is apt, because both it and TLAwSZ airdrop the viewer into a strange, hyper-realized world in medias res. I found that weird in the former, but managed to go with the flow because of its charm and the unfolding of plot; in the latter, it's much harder to find the way in. Jason Schwartzman's preternaturally clever Adrian Mole-type character was exceptional but understandable, whereas Zissou's motives are extremely hard to--forgive me--fathom, and you're never sure that he's not a complete phony and self-promoter (which may be the point, I suppose). The film is incredibly funny most of the time, but the plot turns mushy once the crew of the Belafonte set sail on their presumably last mission. The last hour is basically a caper comedy with complications developing between Murray, Wilson and lurve interest Cate Blanchett.
The Life Aquatic is recommendable for the visual style and the laughs alone (as well as the Portuguese versions of Bowie songs). It's also fairly consistent in its aesthetic, in that it's weird 'cos it's weird, rather than for weirdness' sake. I just wish that there was a little more steak here to go along with the sizzle.
Friday's film was Wes Anderson's The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, which came pre-recommended since I quite liked Rushmore and also co-writer Noah Baumbach's first couple of films. Baumbach fell on hard times at the turn of the millennium, but fortunately has found his feet again, unlike certain other indie auteurs.
Bill Murray is very good as the deadpan title character, a borderline has-been Jacques Cousteau-type adventurer who's half action hero, half show-biz fake. The meat of the plot revolves around Zissou, at a turning point in his career and needing to prove something not least of all to himself, meeting up with Ned (Owen Wilson), who is presumed to be his son via one of many decades-old trysts. The two of them attempt to size each other up as they, along with crew ("Team Zissou") go off on a last-kick-at-the can adventure that ends up getting sidetracked more than once. It's an off-kilter, campy, slightly forlorn comedy that's visually smart and very fast-paced; scenes and dialogue are often carried across cuts with little or no pause. The first few minutes of the film show off name cast like a Robert Altman film, with rapid-fire appearances by Jeff Goldblum, Willem Dafoe, Michael Gambon, Anjelica Houston and Noah Taylor.
The comparison to Rushmore is apt, because both it and TLAwSZ airdrop the viewer into a strange, hyper-realized world in medias res. I found that weird in the former, but managed to go with the flow because of its charm and the unfolding of plot; in the latter, it's much harder to find the way in. Jason Schwartzman's preternaturally clever Adrian Mole-type character was exceptional but understandable, whereas Zissou's motives are extremely hard to--forgive me--fathom, and you're never sure that he's not a complete phony and self-promoter (which may be the point, I suppose). The film is incredibly funny most of the time, but the plot turns mushy once the crew of the Belafonte set sail on their presumably last mission. The last hour is basically a caper comedy with complications developing between Murray, Wilson and lurve interest Cate Blanchett.
The Life Aquatic is recommendable for the visual style and the laughs alone (as well as the Portuguese versions of Bowie songs). It's also fairly consistent in its aesthetic, in that it's weird 'cos it's weird, rather than for weirdness' sake. I just wish that there was a little more steak here to go along with the sizzle.
Records In Review: Anthony Phillips--Field Day
A piece of advice to all y'all: don't order UK imports from Slothazon.comingsoonwepromise unless you don't have a choice. They've left me hanging well beyond the 2-3 week shipping estimate more than once.
Field Day is a long-time-coming 2-cd collection of acoustic guitar and stringed instrument pieces by Phillips, erstwhile member of Genesis from the dawny mists of time, when dinosaurs ruled the earth. His music has been described as a sort of tails to his former band's heads, a possible route for Gabriel and the boys if they hadn't decided to go all theatrical and generally rock out. He plays stuff very much in the English tradition--and when I say that, I mean from Dowland onward--with spread-out, overripe chords, incredible gentleness and only rare intersections with contemporary trends and practices. His actual living is keyboard-based library music (i.e., multi-purpose material for use by television companies, etc.) and commissions, but he's maintained a fairly regular output of albums over the past thirty years as well. A lot of his music makes excellent pm listening, a quality that I certainly don't sneer at anymore.
For those interested, I recommend checking out this book, which was part of the prog critical re-evaluation of the mid-to-late '90s and which contains a substantial section on Phillips as one of the genre's career rebels (the others being Fripp, Hammill and Oldfield).
I was a little wary of this one, as over the years I've tended to prefer AP's mixed-instrument recordings. His twelve-string album from the early '80s, appropriately titled Private Parts & Pieces V: Twelve, I found unfocused and meandering. Not to worry, though, as this one's definitely a keeper, and with enough variety to keep most devotees (and some others) happy. There's over a dozen different fretted creatures used, from 6-, 10- and 12-strings to cittern and bazouki, all evoking their own particular mood. Each instrument gets more-or-less its own chunk of the album. As far as the material goes, there are multi-part suites, longer works, one-offs, and brief impressions or bits of atmosphere. Many of the pieces within each instrumental sub-grouping are at least associated, if not deliberately continuous. Phillips' playing is in top form, and the recorded sound is excellent.
I like disc one better, as there are more things that grab your attention. The centrepiece is probably the "Concerto de Alvarez," an eight-minute 12-string piece with a lot of momentum that combines the guitarist's customary Spanglish motifs with some post-Genesis grandeur. The eight-part "Parlour Suite," on the other hand, is an incredibly restrained chamber piece (and on an interesting-sounding instrument--can't find a link to the maker) that contains nary a hint of rockism at all. Of the shorter pieces, there's another 12-string, "White Spider," which combines atmospherics and structure well; the title track, a shortie that has a lovely counterpointed melody; and "Bel Ami," named for the type of cittern used, which'll have you tapping your toes, or whatever it is you do to signify enjoyment.
Disc two is 3 parts wistful, 2 sombre and 1 light-hearted and as such, it's a little tougher going. My favourite tracks are some of the heavier-sounding ones, like the slower-than-slow-paced 10-string opener "Weeping Willow" and "Fallen City," a bazouki piece that starts like Chopin's Raindrop thingy and then really gets 'er going, like an angry Brit with, um, a bazouki. "Mudlark" is the album's sole mandolin piece and it's bright and shiny, alternating between 3- and 4-time. Some of the 6- and 12-string material on the second half is maybe too metrical and controlled for its own good, a complaint that I sometimes read about Phillips' guitar work.
There's a hell of a lot of music to go through here, well over two hours' worth, but the running order is well chosen, and in any case it's nice to cross-reference tracks and compare the sounds of the various instruments...even if you're not a geetar geek. Strongly recommended, if you can find it.
Field Day is a long-time-coming 2-cd collection of acoustic guitar and stringed instrument pieces by Phillips, erstwhile member of Genesis from the dawny mists of time, when dinosaurs ruled the earth. His music has been described as a sort of tails to his former band's heads, a possible route for Gabriel and the boys if they hadn't decided to go all theatrical and generally rock out. He plays stuff very much in the English tradition--and when I say that, I mean from Dowland onward--with spread-out, overripe chords, incredible gentleness and only rare intersections with contemporary trends and practices. His actual living is keyboard-based library music (i.e., multi-purpose material for use by television companies, etc.) and commissions, but he's maintained a fairly regular output of albums over the past thirty years as well. A lot of his music makes excellent pm listening, a quality that I certainly don't sneer at anymore.
For those interested, I recommend checking out this book, which was part of the prog critical re-evaluation of the mid-to-late '90s and which contains a substantial section on Phillips as one of the genre's career rebels (the others being Fripp, Hammill and Oldfield).
I was a little wary of this one, as over the years I've tended to prefer AP's mixed-instrument recordings. His twelve-string album from the early '80s, appropriately titled Private Parts & Pieces V: Twelve, I found unfocused and meandering. Not to worry, though, as this one's definitely a keeper, and with enough variety to keep most devotees (and some others) happy. There's over a dozen different fretted creatures used, from 6-, 10- and 12-strings to cittern and bazouki, all evoking their own particular mood. Each instrument gets more-or-less its own chunk of the album. As far as the material goes, there are multi-part suites, longer works, one-offs, and brief impressions or bits of atmosphere. Many of the pieces within each instrumental sub-grouping are at least associated, if not deliberately continuous. Phillips' playing is in top form, and the recorded sound is excellent.
I like disc one better, as there are more things that grab your attention. The centrepiece is probably the "Concerto de Alvarez," an eight-minute 12-string piece with a lot of momentum that combines the guitarist's customary Spanglish motifs with some post-Genesis grandeur. The eight-part "Parlour Suite," on the other hand, is an incredibly restrained chamber piece (and on an interesting-sounding instrument--can't find a link to the maker) that contains nary a hint of rockism at all. Of the shorter pieces, there's another 12-string, "White Spider," which combines atmospherics and structure well; the title track, a shortie that has a lovely counterpointed melody; and "Bel Ami," named for the type of cittern used, which'll have you tapping your toes, or whatever it is you do to signify enjoyment.
Disc two is 3 parts wistful, 2 sombre and 1 light-hearted and as such, it's a little tougher going. My favourite tracks are some of the heavier-sounding ones, like the slower-than-slow-paced 10-string opener "Weeping Willow" and "Fallen City," a bazouki piece that starts like Chopin's Raindrop thingy and then really gets 'er going, like an angry Brit with, um, a bazouki. "Mudlark" is the album's sole mandolin piece and it's bright and shiny, alternating between 3- and 4-time. Some of the 6- and 12-string material on the second half is maybe too metrical and controlled for its own good, a complaint that I sometimes read about Phillips' guitar work.
There's a hell of a lot of music to go through here, well over two hours' worth, but the running order is well chosen, and in any case it's nice to cross-reference tracks and compare the sounds of the various instruments...even if you're not a geetar geek. Strongly recommended, if you can find it.
Simple Minds: An Appreciation, Part The Third
(continued--parts 1 & 2)
Back in '82, and what a year it was, there wasn't much that was bigger among my circle than New Gold Dream (81-82-83-84). Still largely considered to be Simple Minds' ne plus ultra, their magnificent octopus, etc., ad nauseum, this album is so iconic according to my memory banks that it's hard for me to analyze it. Looking at it now, I can see mighty strengths and a few weaknesses. On the plus side for a young teenager on the make, it was the first SM record that your girlfriend was likely to enjoy. Some of this is due to Jim Kerr's shift in lyrical emphasis from Euro-alienation to a brand of Catholic earnestness, and some to the giving over of the production reins to journeyman Peter Walsh, who infused NGD with a sound that is warm, lustrous and crystal clear, if a little vacuum-sealed for mid '00s ears. Sounds aren't echoing around in outer space, like on the last couple of albums; everything's very present, intimate and approachable, Kerr's vocals especially. Charlie Burchill's guitars are more upfront in the mix and generally brighter, and Mick MacNeil uses, as usual, a huge array of synth colours with a particular emphasis on mallet-percussion sounds. My big two cents: you'd be hard-pressed to find a finer display of the pop keyboardist's craft than right here.
Is this their best album? Hard to say, as long as no one's paying me for this. It's certainly very consistent, but I'm not sure it has the same appeal to me now that it once did. It's a more sensual aesthetic on display here, for sure, quite a change from the band's previously objective approach...and I liked the objective approach. The loss of forceful drummer Brian McGee has had a considerable effect on the back-line dynamic, especially as the drums here are provided by a barely-distinguishable consortium of players who take the word "restraint" very seriously. The bass groove, while still there in "Big Sleep" and the absomofolutely great "Colours Fly And Catherine Wheel," one of the group's finest songs, is becoming less of the foundation and/or not so dug-in when it's there, as in the occasionally hard-to-take "Glittering Prize." Song structure is much more conventional--only the searing title track has Sons And Fascination's free-floating tendencies--but the arrangements are beautiful and there's lots of sectional contrasts and colours.
Side one is a peach, with the aforementioned "Colours Fly," the bouncy explosion of sound that is "Promised You A Miracle," and crooner's delight "Someone Somewhere In Summertime," which sidles up to the listener like nobody's business. The instrumental "Somebody Up There Likes You," a mutant version of Sons' "Theme For Great Cities," is a sonic delight. Side two isn't quite as good. "Glittering Prize" sounds great but hasn't aged all that well, and I've always thought "Hunter And The Hunted" was the album's weak link, a sort of excessively dramatic version of "Someone Somewhere." "New Gold Dream" is mighty refreshing in its (relatively) visceral simplicity, and closer "King Is White And In The Crowd" has a nice sprawl and tension to it, kind of like Empires And Dance's "This Fear Of Gods" with some human feeling. All in all, an extremely easy album to like, and one that's for the most part deserving of its laurels, but one that might have had the shine worn off it for me by overexposure.
Yet yet more to follow...
Back in '82, and what a year it was, there wasn't much that was bigger among my circle than New Gold Dream (81-82-83-84). Still largely considered to be Simple Minds' ne plus ultra, their magnificent octopus, etc., ad nauseum, this album is so iconic according to my memory banks that it's hard for me to analyze it. Looking at it now, I can see mighty strengths and a few weaknesses. On the plus side for a young teenager on the make, it was the first SM record that your girlfriend was likely to enjoy. Some of this is due to Jim Kerr's shift in lyrical emphasis from Euro-alienation to a brand of Catholic earnestness, and some to the giving over of the production reins to journeyman Peter Walsh, who infused NGD with a sound that is warm, lustrous and crystal clear, if a little vacuum-sealed for mid '00s ears. Sounds aren't echoing around in outer space, like on the last couple of albums; everything's very present, intimate and approachable, Kerr's vocals especially. Charlie Burchill's guitars are more upfront in the mix and generally brighter, and Mick MacNeil uses, as usual, a huge array of synth colours with a particular emphasis on mallet-percussion sounds. My big two cents: you'd be hard-pressed to find a finer display of the pop keyboardist's craft than right here.
Is this their best album? Hard to say, as long as no one's paying me for this. It's certainly very consistent, but I'm not sure it has the same appeal to me now that it once did. It's a more sensual aesthetic on display here, for sure, quite a change from the band's previously objective approach...and I liked the objective approach. The loss of forceful drummer Brian McGee has had a considerable effect on the back-line dynamic, especially as the drums here are provided by a barely-distinguishable consortium of players who take the word "restraint" very seriously. The bass groove, while still there in "Big Sleep" and the absomofolutely great "Colours Fly And Catherine Wheel," one of the group's finest songs, is becoming less of the foundation and/or not so dug-in when it's there, as in the occasionally hard-to-take "Glittering Prize." Song structure is much more conventional--only the searing title track has Sons And Fascination's free-floating tendencies--but the arrangements are beautiful and there's lots of sectional contrasts and colours.
Side one is a peach, with the aforementioned "Colours Fly," the bouncy explosion of sound that is "Promised You A Miracle," and crooner's delight "Someone Somewhere In Summertime," which sidles up to the listener like nobody's business. The instrumental "Somebody Up There Likes You," a mutant version of Sons' "Theme For Great Cities," is a sonic delight. Side two isn't quite as good. "Glittering Prize" sounds great but hasn't aged all that well, and I've always thought "Hunter And The Hunted" was the album's weak link, a sort of excessively dramatic version of "Someone Somewhere." "New Gold Dream" is mighty refreshing in its (relatively) visceral simplicity, and closer "King Is White And In The Crowd" has a nice sprawl and tension to it, kind of like Empires And Dance's "This Fear Of Gods" with some human feeling. All in all, an extremely easy album to like, and one that's for the most part deserving of its laurels, but one that might have had the shine worn off it for me by overexposure.
Yet yet more to follow...
Simple Minds: An Appreciation, Part The Second
(continued--part 1)
1980's Empires And Dance brings things into sharper focus. Austere, drawn-out, aesthetically strict and keyboard-heavy, this is by no means the easiest SM album to listen to, but it's very rewarding nonetheless. The keyboards cover more square footage here than on Real To Real, while the guitar is really pushed into the background; in fact, on "Today I Died Again" and "Celebrate" the layman [you mean people who aren't know-it-alls like you--ed.] would be hard-pressed to identify it at all. Lyrics on songs like "Capital City" and "This Fear Of Gods" are stripped down to bare necessities, as is song structure; "Gods" in particular is very static and almost hypnotic.
But, as with all SM albums, there's more variety than at first meets the ear, and the material here is very strong throughout. Side one is mostly weighty-sounding stuff best listened to loud, with "Celebrate" the best of the bunch and one of their best tunes full stop. "Today I Died Again" shows that the group knows the difference between menace and melodrama. I don't foresee ever tiring of "I Travel," such a neat amalgam of controlled energy, insect-like guitar explosions and semi-comical almost-Latin motifs. Side two is more offbeat and quite claustrophobic in places, particularly the incessant and production-heavy "Thirty Frames A Second" and "Twist/Run/Repulsion." "Constantinople Line" is better than I remember it; it's sparseness, sense of instrumental anticipation and unwillingness to resolve its own tension are a real fascination. It's not all doom and gloom, though, as again there's a touch of humour in the loping, descending keyboard melody on "Captial City," a nice contrast to the pounding drums and general weight of the piece. "Room," like "Scar" from Real To Real rounds things off as an effective palate cleanser. All told, not the most suitable album for the neophyte listener, but definitely the most cohesive of the first three.
Contrary to what The Nation's Music Station told me the other night, the Use Your Illusion albums were not the first simultaneously released albums by a rock band. 1981 saw the release of the twins Sons and Fascination and Sister Feelings Call (the UK releases were evenly weighted, but in Canada Sons was tarted up with all the hits and Sister released as a five-song addendum ep; I'll split the difference and treat it as one record).
Opinion's somewhat divided on this one, but I've always found its vibe to be very appealing and an antidote to some of its deficiencies. It's their easiest album thus far to listen to; whether you view that as compliment or criticism is up to you. The sound's gentler and not so dense: it's mostly the four instrumentalists playing without the previous two albums' reliance on sound effects, processing and layering. The group opted for ex-Gong hippie-freak Steve Hillage as producer, with mixed results for the album: delightfully trippy and spaced-out in places, but also rather muddy and lacking in sonic detail and contrast in others (e.g., "20th Century Promised Land"). The instrumental balance is fairly similar to Empires And Dance, although with the guitar slightly more prominent in the mix and the keyboard sounds tending toward the sustained. Jim Kerr's sounding more confident: less tics and mannerisms, more singing.
None can escape the curse of the double-album, of course, but the material's 75-80% very good. The singles are all striking, if not uniformly brilliant. "Love Song," deservedly the band's first minor hit up in these parts, is the best of the three and like the rest, founded upon a killer Derek Forbes bass groove. "Sweat In Bullet" isn't quite the sum of its excellent parts, as it forces everything too rigidly into 4- and 8-bar chunks. "The American" kicks a modicum of buttock and has a sing-along chorus (sing-along word, at least), for those who enjoy such things. Of the rest, only "70 Cities" is a rival in terms of instant attention-grabbingness, and, like most good Minds songs of the period, is a great combo of front-line intricacy and monolithic rhythm section. Kerr really brings it here, and you gotta love that Angry Cow setting on the keyboard, too!
The remainder of the album(s) is mostly about flow, and I've always thought that several of the trippy songs, like "This Earth That You Walk Upon," the great instrumental "Theme For Great Cities" and the lovely "Seeing Out The Angel" would make a wonderful soundtrack for a space-exploration film--an impression unchanged with time. "In Trance As Mission" and "Boys From Brazil" are both repetitive structures in the manner of much of Empires And Dance, but it's a different kind of energy; tensions are released, rather than prolonged. "Wonderful In Young Life," "Careful In Career," and "League Of Nations" are the bean sprouts in this particular sonic spring roll. Sons/Sister is best viewed as a transitional work, but it's a very enjoyable one, if you're capable of going with the flow. As for what the band was transitioning to...
Yet more to follow...
1980's Empires And Dance brings things into sharper focus. Austere, drawn-out, aesthetically strict and keyboard-heavy, this is by no means the easiest SM album to listen to, but it's very rewarding nonetheless. The keyboards cover more square footage here than on Real To Real, while the guitar is really pushed into the background; in fact, on "Today I Died Again" and "Celebrate" the layman [you mean people who aren't know-it-alls like you--ed.] would be hard-pressed to identify it at all. Lyrics on songs like "Capital City" and "This Fear Of Gods" are stripped down to bare necessities, as is song structure; "Gods" in particular is very static and almost hypnotic.
But, as with all SM albums, there's more variety than at first meets the ear, and the material here is very strong throughout. Side one is mostly weighty-sounding stuff best listened to loud, with "Celebrate" the best of the bunch and one of their best tunes full stop. "Today I Died Again" shows that the group knows the difference between menace and melodrama. I don't foresee ever tiring of "I Travel," such a neat amalgam of controlled energy, insect-like guitar explosions and semi-comical almost-Latin motifs. Side two is more offbeat and quite claustrophobic in places, particularly the incessant and production-heavy "Thirty Frames A Second" and "Twist/Run/Repulsion." "Constantinople Line" is better than I remember it; it's sparseness, sense of instrumental anticipation and unwillingness to resolve its own tension are a real fascination. It's not all doom and gloom, though, as again there's a touch of humour in the loping, descending keyboard melody on "Captial City," a nice contrast to the pounding drums and general weight of the piece. "Room," like "Scar" from Real To Real rounds things off as an effective palate cleanser. All told, not the most suitable album for the neophyte listener, but definitely the most cohesive of the first three.
Contrary to what The Nation's Music Station told me the other night, the Use Your Illusion albums were not the first simultaneously released albums by a rock band. 1981 saw the release of the twins Sons and Fascination and Sister Feelings Call (the UK releases were evenly weighted, but in Canada Sons was tarted up with all the hits and Sister released as a five-song addendum ep; I'll split the difference and treat it as one record).
Opinion's somewhat divided on this one, but I've always found its vibe to be very appealing and an antidote to some of its deficiencies. It's their easiest album thus far to listen to; whether you view that as compliment or criticism is up to you. The sound's gentler and not so dense: it's mostly the four instrumentalists playing without the previous two albums' reliance on sound effects, processing and layering. The group opted for ex-Gong hippie-freak Steve Hillage as producer, with mixed results for the album: delightfully trippy and spaced-out in places, but also rather muddy and lacking in sonic detail and contrast in others (e.g., "20th Century Promised Land"). The instrumental balance is fairly similar to Empires And Dance, although with the guitar slightly more prominent in the mix and the keyboard sounds tending toward the sustained. Jim Kerr's sounding more confident: less tics and mannerisms, more singing.
None can escape the curse of the double-album, of course, but the material's 75-80% very good. The singles are all striking, if not uniformly brilliant. "Love Song," deservedly the band's first minor hit up in these parts, is the best of the three and like the rest, founded upon a killer Derek Forbes bass groove. "Sweat In Bullet" isn't quite the sum of its excellent parts, as it forces everything too rigidly into 4- and 8-bar chunks. "The American" kicks a modicum of buttock and has a sing-along chorus (sing-along word, at least), for those who enjoy such things. Of the rest, only "70 Cities" is a rival in terms of instant attention-grabbingness, and, like most good Minds songs of the period, is a great combo of front-line intricacy and monolithic rhythm section. Kerr really brings it here, and you gotta love that Angry Cow setting on the keyboard, too!
The remainder of the album(s) is mostly about flow, and I've always thought that several of the trippy songs, like "This Earth That You Walk Upon," the great instrumental "Theme For Great Cities" and the lovely "Seeing Out The Angel" would make a wonderful soundtrack for a space-exploration film--an impression unchanged with time. "In Trance As Mission" and "Boys From Brazil" are both repetitive structures in the manner of much of Empires And Dance, but it's a different kind of energy; tensions are released, rather than prolonged. "Wonderful In Young Life," "Careful In Career," and "League Of Nations" are the bean sprouts in this particular sonic spring roll. Sons/Sister is best viewed as a transitional work, but it's a very enjoyable one, if you're capable of going with the flow. As for what the band was transitioning to...
Yet more to follow...
Simple Minds: An Appreciation, Part The First
Simple Minds released a new album a few months ago that's seen them getting their best press in a long while. Should I care?
Jim Kerr and the boys were the absolute bees' knees for me when I was 15 or 16 (do the math). Teenage musical experiences, like their sexual counterparts, are as you know particularly vivid, and occasionally damaging. It's inevitable. Still, I have to fight the urge to throw punches whenever I hear boomers waffle on about El Beatellos and W-stock and all of those World-Changing Events, but every generation's the same really, if perhaps not so earnest in their retrospective utopian reveries. I loved Simple Minds and then I lost them, and, as my tastes moved away from their particular brand of musical austerity, I haven't really analyzed their ouevre in any substantial adult way since. Here goes nothing...
Simple Minds' 8 (or 7, depending on how you look at it) album releases between '79 and '85--you remember back in the day when bands didn't put out an album every three years?--showed remarkable development, to say the least. They started out as the scrag-end of a punk band with a Roxy Music fetish, went all experimental-like, then a bit spacey, and eventually turned out stadium rockers. It's hard to describe their sound simply, but minimalist would be the most appropriate word to use, although they never wore any aesthetic as a straight-jacket...except when they occasionally did.
Listening to the earlier albums now, I'm rediscovering how fascinating the band dynamic is. Repetitive bass and drum patterns are usually the foundation of the songs, but it's the interaction between guitarist Charlie Burchill and keyboardist Mick MacNeil that really makes things interesting. I don't know if there's ever been a rock guitarist less burdened by ego than Burchill, and he's a guy who's certainly never gotten the kudos he's due for his very non-traditional interpretation of the role of the instrument. MacNeil's keyboards provide the bulk of the sound and melody, but neither player is dominant and the sounds are so interwoven that it's often hard to pick out who played what, particularly on Empires And Dance and Sons And Fascination/Sister Feelings Call. Crooner Jim Kerr makes his bread-and-butter on that space between the minor and major third, with a tremulous voice that obviously brings Brian Ferry to mind, although paired with mostly non-narrative lyrics that provide a degree of abstraction.
If I'd have heard Life In A Day upon its release, I don't think I would have been waiting with bated breath for album number two. Listening to it now, I realize it hasn't aged all that badly, actually, it's just that it doesn't sound much like the Simple Minds that people know (exhibit A: "Chelsea Girl"). It's got some spirit and charm, if a fair amount of duff songwriting and a youthful desire to fill up every available square inch of sonic space. It's the most obviously Roxy Music-inspired, with a fair whack of piano, but you can hear bits of early Ultravox as well as fellow countrymen The Skids, especially in the guitar playing in songs like "Sad Affair." The playing is tight and John Leckie's production is appropriately unadorned. The best songs are the title track, "Someone" and "Wasteland". And okay, I like "Chelsea Girl" too, if only for its kitsch value. 'Nuff said about that.
The great leap forward came with Real To Real Cacophony, also produced by Leckie, which was released just over six months after the debut. The album outer- and inner-sleeve layout screams out: minimalist, experimental, studio, modern. It's amazing how well this, The Minds' most unsettling and diverse album has held up over the years, and right now it's probably the one I'm most likely to pull out for a listen. There's still some high-tension new-wavery about the band here, noticeable on more conventional fare like "Calling Your Name," which is a better-realized and tempered version of the kind of thing that appeared on Life, but the album's principal influences are more electronic and experimental, which oddly enough results in a much tougher sounding record. The keyboards really cover the gamut, from the orchestral to the machine-age; the instrumental "Film Theme" is very early Human League, while the aforementioned "Calling Your Name" utilizes god knows how many different types of sounds and attacks. Brian McGee's drums are mostly processed, with a lot of different sounds and the first appearance of the unsnared snare. The guitar still lets rip in songs like the kick-ass "Premonition," but can also act as colour and texture in the more keyboard-heavy stuff.
Did I mention the material's diverse? Side one alone is a real trip, man, opening with the jerky yet spaced-out Euro-organ-pop of "Real To Real" and ending with "Cacophony" and "Veldt," the first two examples of the Simple Minds instrumental, which illustrate the group's moving away from traditional song form. "Changeling" is a brilliant, blistering bass hook-based pop song, one of their best. "Citizen" and "Factory" aren't too shabby, either. Perhaps Real To Real doesn't go out quite as boldly as it came in, but that's a minor quibble.
More to follow...
Jim Kerr and the boys were the absolute bees' knees for me when I was 15 or 16 (do the math). Teenage musical experiences, like their sexual counterparts, are as you know particularly vivid, and occasionally damaging. It's inevitable. Still, I have to fight the urge to throw punches whenever I hear boomers waffle on about El Beatellos and W-stock and all of those World-Changing Events, but every generation's the same really, if perhaps not so earnest in their retrospective utopian reveries. I loved Simple Minds and then I lost them, and, as my tastes moved away from their particular brand of musical austerity, I haven't really analyzed their ouevre in any substantial adult way since. Here goes nothing...
Simple Minds' 8 (or 7, depending on how you look at it) album releases between '79 and '85--you remember back in the day when bands didn't put out an album every three years?--showed remarkable development, to say the least. They started out as the scrag-end of a punk band with a Roxy Music fetish, went all experimental-like, then a bit spacey, and eventually turned out stadium rockers. It's hard to describe their sound simply, but minimalist would be the most appropriate word to use, although they never wore any aesthetic as a straight-jacket...except when they occasionally did.
Listening to the earlier albums now, I'm rediscovering how fascinating the band dynamic is. Repetitive bass and drum patterns are usually the foundation of the songs, but it's the interaction between guitarist Charlie Burchill and keyboardist Mick MacNeil that really makes things interesting. I don't know if there's ever been a rock guitarist less burdened by ego than Burchill, and he's a guy who's certainly never gotten the kudos he's due for his very non-traditional interpretation of the role of the instrument. MacNeil's keyboards provide the bulk of the sound and melody, but neither player is dominant and the sounds are so interwoven that it's often hard to pick out who played what, particularly on Empires And Dance and Sons And Fascination/Sister Feelings Call. Crooner Jim Kerr makes his bread-and-butter on that space between the minor and major third, with a tremulous voice that obviously brings Brian Ferry to mind, although paired with mostly non-narrative lyrics that provide a degree of abstraction.
If I'd have heard Life In A Day upon its release, I don't think I would have been waiting with bated breath for album number two. Listening to it now, I realize it hasn't aged all that badly, actually, it's just that it doesn't sound much like the Simple Minds that people know (exhibit A: "Chelsea Girl"). It's got some spirit and charm, if a fair amount of duff songwriting and a youthful desire to fill up every available square inch of sonic space. It's the most obviously Roxy Music-inspired, with a fair whack of piano, but you can hear bits of early Ultravox as well as fellow countrymen The Skids, especially in the guitar playing in songs like "Sad Affair." The playing is tight and John Leckie's production is appropriately unadorned. The best songs are the title track, "Someone" and "Wasteland". And okay, I like "Chelsea Girl" too, if only for its kitsch value. 'Nuff said about that.
The great leap forward came with Real To Real Cacophony, also produced by Leckie, which was released just over six months after the debut. The album outer- and inner-sleeve layout screams out: minimalist, experimental, studio, modern. It's amazing how well this, The Minds' most unsettling and diverse album has held up over the years, and right now it's probably the one I'm most likely to pull out for a listen. There's still some high-tension new-wavery about the band here, noticeable on more conventional fare like "Calling Your Name," which is a better-realized and tempered version of the kind of thing that appeared on Life, but the album's principal influences are more electronic and experimental, which oddly enough results in a much tougher sounding record. The keyboards really cover the gamut, from the orchestral to the machine-age; the instrumental "Film Theme" is very early Human League, while the aforementioned "Calling Your Name" utilizes god knows how many different types of sounds and attacks. Brian McGee's drums are mostly processed, with a lot of different sounds and the first appearance of the unsnared snare. The guitar still lets rip in songs like the kick-ass "Premonition," but can also act as colour and texture in the more keyboard-heavy stuff.
Did I mention the material's diverse? Side one alone is a real trip, man, opening with the jerky yet spaced-out Euro-organ-pop of "Real To Real" and ending with "Cacophony" and "Veldt," the first two examples of the Simple Minds instrumental, which illustrate the group's moving away from traditional song form. "Changeling" is a brilliant, blistering bass hook-based pop song, one of their best. "Citizen" and "Factory" aren't too shabby, either. Perhaps Real To Real doesn't go out quite as boldly as it came in, but that's a minor quibble.
More to follow...
Records In Review: Kate Bush--Aerial
"Mummy, Daddy, the day is full of birds," says Kate Bush's young son at the beginning of the second of his mum's new 2cd set. Unfortunately for all of us, most of the fowl in question are named Tom, and are soon to be served up on millions of American dinner tables. Aerial has grown on me a little since the first listen, but it still has to rate as a major disappointment. I'd put it next to Lionheart as KB's worst record.
The material on display here isn't radically different, even after a 12-year hiatus, from what you'd expect from the artist. It's got less of the theatrics than previously, and the album certainly leans more toward flow than contrast (both between and within songs), but the motifs and lyrical themes are mostly familiar, although being a 47 year-old mum the adolescent phase appears to be over, finally! The real problem with the album is a certain lack of conviction of performance; you wait and wait for things to catch fire, but they never do. The vocals are very underpowered, often sounding like they're for private rather than public consumption (Bush isn't a live performer, of course, which doesn't help). Apart from piano and bass guitar, most of the accompaniment is just that, and not particularly helped by a bottom-heavy mix that acts to smooth out any potential spikiness.
Disc one, A Sea of Honey, is comprised of self-contained songs and is the better of the two. "Pi" is a great tune; it's based around a 3/4 sequenced organ pattern and has some great fretless playing and a very loosely-rhythmed vocal line. "King Of The Mountain" isn't the most immediately appealing KB single, but it's a grower with a nice skanking-paced rock groove and some of the more spirited singing on the album. "How To Be Invisible," like most of the album, goes on a bit long but manages to work up a little bit of menace--a quality not abundant here. The rest of the disc is so-so. "Bertie" is a nice little slice of medievalism and a reminder that, with the possible exception of S. Wonder's "Isn't She Lovely," songs in praise of children and spouses should be banned. The two mostly piano songs "Mrs. Bartolozzi" and "A Coral Room" are fairly ponderous (the latter is better) and don't develop much despite the emotive lyrics. "Joanni" features a good vocal performance and nice chorus hook, but comes awfully close in feel to Enigma or mid-'90s Mike Oldfield territory. And that's not good.
The second disc, A Sky of Honey, is, well, pretty pointless, to be honest. It's a continuous episodic piece that's meant to represent a day's passage. What a very, very dull day Kate must have had. I've listened to it several times and I still have difficulty remembering much about the individual pieces, it's all so structurally flaccid. Everything feels dragged out beyond its useful length, particularly the latter bits like "Nocturn" and the title track. "An Architect's Dream" is pretty, with (again) nice fretless playing and some effective keyboard contrasts, and might work better in a different context, but "Sunset" is pure Gypsy Kings cheeze. I really can't think of much else to say. Perhaps it's best viewed as chill-out music for recovering Romantics, I don't know.
The experience of listening to Aerial in its totality makes me wonder: was there anything there really, apart from the (prolonged) adolescent dramatics? I don't know, but I certainly hope that Bush doesn't let this sit as her final musical statement. Recommendation: Kate fans, you can't go home again.
Update: I may have confused some upright bass for fretless, silly me, but checking it out would involve listening to the album again: pass.
The material on display here isn't radically different, even after a 12-year hiatus, from what you'd expect from the artist. It's got less of the theatrics than previously, and the album certainly leans more toward flow than contrast (both between and within songs), but the motifs and lyrical themes are mostly familiar, although being a 47 year-old mum the adolescent phase appears to be over, finally! The real problem with the album is a certain lack of conviction of performance; you wait and wait for things to catch fire, but they never do. The vocals are very underpowered, often sounding like they're for private rather than public consumption (Bush isn't a live performer, of course, which doesn't help). Apart from piano and bass guitar, most of the accompaniment is just that, and not particularly helped by a bottom-heavy mix that acts to smooth out any potential spikiness.
Disc one, A Sea of Honey, is comprised of self-contained songs and is the better of the two. "Pi" is a great tune; it's based around a 3/4 sequenced organ pattern and has some great fretless playing and a very loosely-rhythmed vocal line. "King Of The Mountain" isn't the most immediately appealing KB single, but it's a grower with a nice skanking-paced rock groove and some of the more spirited singing on the album. "How To Be Invisible," like most of the album, goes on a bit long but manages to work up a little bit of menace--a quality not abundant here. The rest of the disc is so-so. "Bertie" is a nice little slice of medievalism and a reminder that, with the possible exception of S. Wonder's "Isn't She Lovely," songs in praise of children and spouses should be banned. The two mostly piano songs "Mrs. Bartolozzi" and "A Coral Room" are fairly ponderous (the latter is better) and don't develop much despite the emotive lyrics. "Joanni" features a good vocal performance and nice chorus hook, but comes awfully close in feel to Enigma or mid-'90s Mike Oldfield territory. And that's not good.
The second disc, A Sky of Honey, is, well, pretty pointless, to be honest. It's a continuous episodic piece that's meant to represent a day's passage. What a very, very dull day Kate must have had. I've listened to it several times and I still have difficulty remembering much about the individual pieces, it's all so structurally flaccid. Everything feels dragged out beyond its useful length, particularly the latter bits like "Nocturn" and the title track. "An Architect's Dream" is pretty, with (again) nice fretless playing and some effective keyboard contrasts, and might work better in a different context, but "Sunset" is pure Gypsy Kings cheeze. I really can't think of much else to say. Perhaps it's best viewed as chill-out music for recovering Romantics, I don't know.
The experience of listening to Aerial in its totality makes me wonder: was there anything there really, apart from the (prolonged) adolescent dramatics? I don't know, but I certainly hope that Bush doesn't let this sit as her final musical statement. Recommendation: Kate fans, you can't go home again.
Update: I may have confused some upright bass for fretless, silly me, but checking it out would involve listening to the album again: pass.
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