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=> GENERAL DISCUSSION => Topic started by: Yank on June 06, 2003, 02:21:00 am
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Don't know about the rest of you but I like to read reviews on new music. This board would be an ideal place to get reviews on a wide variety of music styles. The following came from the the current NME.
Mogwai : Happy Songs For Happy People
When Mogwai were first dragged kicking and screaming onto the music scene, people feared them for their eardrum-shredding bursts of noise. Recent rumours, however, have suggusted a 'quieter, electronic direction'. This usually means that your favourite noise-wielders have lost their edge, while journalists reacquaint themselves with complex adjectives such as 'cerebral', 'challenging' and 'dogshit'.
So, is this fourth LP really the sound of the Scottish sound-sculptors going soft on us? Hardly. 'Happy...' is filled with paranoid song titles and a defiant refusal to compromise artistically. It tweaks the hushed blueprint of 2001's 'Rock Action' and the result is their most intriguing, beautiful and dazzling record to date.
'Kids Wil Be Skeletons' is a good indication of where their post-rockin' heads are at. Melodies weave around a brewing fuzz-storm while chords collide and the whole thing slips in and out of consciousness like Slint having a rather nice wet dream.
It's often complex, but Mogwai aren't the sort of band to harp on about how they achieved a neat atonal effect by restringing their guitars with Jim O'Rourke's pubic hair. In fact, their melodies are often as simple as nursery rhymes because this is what works best emotionally. Even when they do rock out the sonic peaks are woven into the fabric of the music rather than left to leap out at you.
By the time 'Stop Coming To My House' erupts, like Sigur Ros being buried beneath their own iceberg, you realise that Mogwai are truly special. They have that ability to experiment willfully, yet still appeal to an audience beyond three twats in Hoxton. Most importantly, they're still striving to recreate the beautiful sounds that bounce around their brains. And until they really do mellow out and release their 'Blur: Aren't Actually That Bad After All' T-shirts, we're in for a thrilling ride.
8/10
I wanted to do more but ran at of time. Sorry for any typos!
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The Waterboys: Universal Hall
Mike Scott is one of music's finest visionary eccentrics. After standing on the cusp of greatness with the sweeping, grandiose classic 'This Is The Sea' in 1985, he went mad, spending time as a raggie-taggle gypsy in Ireland and then as a new-age searcher in a Scottish commune. But after a decade of largely so-so albums, this is a minor classic built around little more than pianos and fiddles and his own rasping, raking voice.
His obsessions with the quasi-religious imagery of CS Lewis is never far away, and Scott remains as mad as a box of voles, but that's always been part of his appeal. 'Universal Hall' rewards repeated inspection and, as on every Waterboys album, there is one truly great song. Here, it's the title track, about brave leaps into the unknown. You should follow.
8/10
Radiohead: Hail To The Thief
In 1997, 'OK Computer' pointed to a new spirit of adventurousness and experimentalismafter Britpop, but it confused Radiohead's creative process to such an extent that when 'Kid A' finally appeared three years later, they'd lost sight of what made them such an exceptional band in the first place.
Prior to release, speculation hinted that 'Hail To The Thief' would mark a return to the band's more conventional dynamics. That always sounded like wishful thinking, and so it proves. The best moments occur when Yorke opens up a more personal side to his songwriting, but 'Hail To The Thief' is a good rather than great record, and Radiohead are still coming to terms with what to do after you've made an album hailed as one of the greatest ever.
7/10
Corrigan: How To Hang Off A Rope
It's easy to take the piss out of Northern Ireland's Corrigan, a band whose unerring desire to be the Pixies knows no limits, who write songs about post-apocalyptic murder by bicycle (the stupid, stupid 'McArthur')and whose singer sounds like an agitated leprechaun pushing a dead donkey up a hill. Let's face it, they're asking for it. This, their debut LP, thinks that it defies classification and provides a skewed, pitch-black look the modern world. In reality, it's a nerve-grating, joyless exercise in worthy alt. rock.
It's not all terrible - 'America Is Waiting' plays it straightforward and comes out tops - but that's too little, too late. For the most part, the only thing less fun than this record is a lobotomy.
3/10
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Waterboys got a better review than radiohead..does that mean the bandwagon will have standing room only?
Yank...do you know the US release date for the new album? The US isn't even mentioned on his official website (I knew I liked this bloke)
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Oh Mankie, you are such a hipster, did you get your big trendy chunky white belt from Urban outfitters?
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Originally posted by Andrew WK:
Oh Mankie, you are such a hipster, did you get your big trendy chunky white belt from Urban outfitters?
hey mar....err I mean Andrew, I was a Waterboys fan when they were the Waterbabies.
I got rid of the chunky white belt because it clashed with my brown "rupert bear check" wool pants and red shoes, silk paisley patterned shirt with oversized collar. I still go to the snooty hairdressers though, and pay an extortionate amount of money to make my hair look exactly like it did when I had just got out of bed earlier that morning.
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the new mogwai is awesome
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Originally posted by mankie:
Waterboys got a better review than radiohead..does that mean the bandwagon will have standing room only?
Yank...do you know the US release date for the new album? The US isn't even mentioned on his official website (I knew I liked this bloke)
I don't know Mankie. I do know that it comes out over here this coming Monday. There are a few copies on eBay now. I'll definitely be buying it.
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Some singles reviews:
The Thrills: Big Sur
Few bands have ever been so reliant on the seasons as The Thrills. Like Dodgy, David Hasselhoff and deckchair attendants in Dorset, without that strange glowing thing in the sky they would clearly be redundant. But with festival season approaching faster than Jack White at a Red Or Dead closing down sale, there's nothing better to piss off passing goths than 'Big Sur'. "Don't go back to Big Sur/Baby baby please don't go", they croon, like The Polyphonic Spree on Prozac, while the tune gives up the ghost, flips on its shades and actually turns into 'Theme From The Monkees' halfway through. Daydream believers, your time has come.
Reef: Waster
Blimey! West Country audio bullies Reef are back and boy are they pissed off! There's nothing like getting dropped for refocusing the mind, and by the sounds of 'Waster' they've been forced to hand back their Sony surfboards just before being pushed from a helicopter over Cheddar Gorge. "It's all gone up in smoke/It stuck to my throat/It left me broke!" roars Gary, insanely, over a cross-fire of demented riffs while imagining what he'd do to Chris 'It's Your Letters' Evans if he ever saw him again. Place your hands on this.
The Cranebuilders: Just Idleness EP
Slightly removed from the white heat of the Cosmic Scouse Phenomena, The Cranebuilders take the Velvets as their personal Jesus and get more intriguing from there. "Smashed plates on a kitchen floor", they sigh forlornly on 'You Can't Get At Her', like a dreamy student looking up the word 'ennui' on a wet 'study day'. And with The Cranebuilders, you know who's gonna have to clear up the mess afterwards.
AFI: Girl's Not Grey
These guys are meant to be goths? Sounds more like they're having a party here, whooping it up to a bizarre but brilliant mix of Southern rock and SoCal punk. This pisses so comprehensively over every drab corporate punk band going (hey, spiky twats from Good Charlotte, we're talking about you here!), that you can't help grinning like a loon while it spins.
Whirlwind Heat: Orange
If you listen very carefully you can hear the unmistakable sound of Justine Frischmann slapping her forehead in disbelief halfway through this superb debut single. A jerky, strung out, infectious slab of art garage, 'Orange' sounds like three highly educated men letting rip in a dank basement while mashing the Talking Heads back catalogue to a pulp. They're mates of Jack White, naturally.
Echoboy: Lately Lonely
It probably hasn't been keeping you up at night, but if you've ever wondered what would have happened had a gravel-throated tramp stumbled into the studio during Primal Scream's 'XTRMNTR' sessions, then here's the answer. 'Lately Lonely' isn't quite the saucy electro-sleaze marvel that was Goldfrapp's 'Train', but it's most definitely in the same buffet car.
Linkin Park: Faint
Panjabi MC has a lot to answer for! Here we find Linkin Park taking their staple diet of power metal and attaching it to some Bollywood strings. It'd be alright if that dude would stop shouting over the top of it, but then I guess that's the whole point of Linkin Park, isn't it?
The Blueskins: User Friendly
Midweek indie clubs throughout the Northamptonshire area will soon swoon to this, the debut missive from The Blueskins. Clearly working out of the same psychobilly mortuary as The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster, 'User Friendly' scrapesand blusters its way towards a climax featuring a vocal that could make even Justin from The Darkness raise a disconcerted eyebrow. Then a harmonica solo starts up. Weird, wired and wonderful.
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Yank, you've been busy, haven't you? :D
I like Echoboy but absolutely HATE The Thrills.
You should get the new I Am Kloot soon. It's on it's way...and you'll love it. Some of the songs are a few older ones that weren't on the albums. Of course, I'm not all that positive if this is the final cut.
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Originally posted by Jaguär:
Yank, you've been busy, haven't you? :D
I like Echoboy but absolutely HATE The Thrills.
You should get the new I Am Kloot soon. It's on it's way...and you'll love it. Some of the songs are a few older ones that weren't on the albums. Of course, I'm not all that positive if this is the final cut.
Thanks Jag, I'll be looking forward to it.
I had some time to kill this morning with the wife and kids still in bed. I hope others will cut and paste or post some reviews too. BTW, Metallica's 'St. Anger' got the best review of the week, 9/10. But since it's a rather long review, and I don't like the band, I couldn't be bothered to type it out.
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From Mojo - June 2003
Pink Grease: All Over You
Pink Grease are probably the most incompetent band this writer has ever seen. They look like they shop at an '80s alternative boutique, all different styles at once, and their peroxide-blonde singer might as well carry a sign, saying "Smack me!" He - and they - tend to provoke extreme reactions. Despite it all, this ramshackle bunch make sparks fly, and although certainly not for the muso listener, their debut mini-album brims with joy in its own clueless creation. First track, Nasy Show is the pick, a twisted desperate song of sexual compulsion which echoes Raw Power era Stooges, Swell Maps, Pere Ubu, X-Ray Spex, Chrome and Joy Division. The rest is by turns histrionic, hilarious and out to lunch. It's what punk was surely all about - wresting control of rock'n'roll from virtuoso stiffs and redistributing to people with hot ideas.
4/5
Cex: Being Ridden
What would the world be like if Eminem wasn't trailer trash?
Baltimore, MD wonderkid Cex, born Rjyan Kidwell, has racked up quite a bit of cred on the fledgling indie hop hop scene as a hard spitting middle-class white kid with an A-list vocab, obsessive knowledge of pop culture and self-deprecating humour worthy of it's own handmade 'zine. On this, his fourth full lengther in four years, Cex moves slightly away from his former snot and swagger towards more humble inflection. On Not Working, Kidwell wrestles his angst with an agitation and sense of destiny not unlike Eminem on the 8 Mile soundtrack. Elsewhere, pokey acoustic guitars and hand percussion help Cex shed the braggart inherent in the genre, slipping into whining blues a la Bright Eyes (Signal Katied). These sonic forwards are nothing if not mixed with slammers like Earth-Shaking Event, where Kidwell offers "a middle finger to the indie rock singer", while outing fake rappers who've cashed in by writing "stale regurgitations of The Smiths".
3/5
Buzzcocks: Buzzcocks
The most overrated virtue in popular music is originality, and no matter how many times a press release uses the words 'seminal' and 'archetype', it means nothing if the music stinks. Fortunate, then, that the only currently productive band from the Class of '77, the Buzzcocks, have crafted a nervy seventh album which at times positively fizzes into life. The opener, and frist single, I'm A Jerk, sets the tone in just two minutes and 20 seconds of riff heaven, before segueing blisteringly into Keep On, which has the audacity to clock in at over three minutes. Elsewhere, there's some damn catchy stuff too: Steve Diggle's Sick City Sometimes and Drive You Insane shun the punk template to explore more of a radio-hard-rock territory, while the Shelly/Devoto cut Stars is brutal. Dignity still intact then, and more than enough on show here to five the new brigade of 'punks' a run for their money.
3/5
British Sea Power: The Decline Of British Sea Power
Fancied Cumbrian four-piece's first album of "High Church amplified rock music".
It's a rare group that gets similarly mad props from Kerrand! and Newnight's Jeremy Vine. Those who've witnessed the tin helmets, stuffed owls and viseral Joy Division/Pixies-model rock of the British Sea Power live experience, however, will know the singular latitudes they occupy. Previously likened to Belle & Sebastian meeting Laibach, this is an album of stadium sized melodies and exquisite songwriting, allied with almost too many ideas. Delivered in singer Yan's breathy, desperate vocal, songs considered this country's past and future, geomancy and, in The Lonely, an imagined soliloquy by Joe Meek's writing partner and fellow spiritualist Geoff Goddard. An album to move and intrigue, it seems the intense, intelligent, nonconformist listener has a new band to love.
4/5
Vermont: Ins Kino
Melodic and charming debut from Europhile London-based quintet.
If the title and the label aren't dead giveaways, the sound of Vermont is determinedly pan-European - here a pub piano, there an old accordion, shades of The Smiths, French chanson, Teutonic motorik. Ins Kino is very much home-made, with a fast-picked acoustic and a buzzing, reedy organ giving songs like We Are Not Yet For Sale and Poppiloten a rickety, woody feel. Occasionally, this leaves the songs feeling undernourished - more of a hiking holiday around Europe than swanning around Monte in a Porsche - but the blend of Colin Murphy's urgent, staccato vocals and Sabine Zeissig's woozy gamine whisper (think Claudine Longet's cheeky neice) is never less than endearing. Sitting With The Ill is particularly affecting, a shoulders-shrugging, resigned counterpart to Van Morrison's TB Sheets. But overall the atmosphere is imbued with late spring evenings and - on melodic stand-outs, About The Man and Drive - makes for a highly recommended picnic soundtrack.
3/5
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Originally posted by Yank:
From Mojo - June 2003
Pink Grease: All Over You
Don't like what I've heard of Pink Grease.
Originally posted by Yank:
British Sea Power: The Decline Of British Sea Power
Fancied Cumbrian four-piece's first album of "High Church amplified rock music".
It's a rare group that gets similarly mad props from Kerrand! and Newnight's Jeremy Vine. Those who've witnessed the tin helmets, stuffed owls and viseral Joy Division/Pixies-model rock of the British Sea Power live experience, however, will know the singular latitudes they occupy. Previously likened to Belle & Sebastian meeting Laibach, this is an album of stadium sized melodies and exquisite songwriting, allied with almost too many ideas. Delivered in singer Yan's breathy, desperate vocal, songs considered this country's past and future, geomancy and, in The Lonely, an imagined soliloquy by Joe Meek's writing partner and fellow spiritualist Geoff Goddard. An album to move and intrigue, it seems the intense, intelligent, nonconformist listener has a new band to love.
4/5
British Sea Power is a band to watch out for! Have only heard a couple songs so far and that was almost a year ago so don't remember much other than that they were pretty good. Several of my friends have seen them and say they are great. The others have heard them and are wild about them. Supposedly a few weak songs more than made up for by a lot of very good songs.
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Just got ahold of some British Sea Power from a Manc friend of mine...
.....and they rock! :cool:
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Singles Reviews from 14/June NME:
Colder: Shiny Star/The Slow Descent
Last year, Trevor Jackson's Output Recordings ushered in the New York dancefloor invasion. Now London's coolest imprint turns its gaze to the new guard. By day, Marc Hguyen is a Parisian graphic designer, but by night he's Colder - a punk-funk Lothario with a jet-black carnation tucked in his vintage lapel. 'Shiny Star' comes on like Joy Division's 'Interzone' rewritten as a moonlit lovers' promenade along the banks of the Seine, a shapeshifting motorik pulse that veers between will-o'-the-wisp acoustica and crisp Teutonic robo-disco. Move over, Air and Daft Punk: the city of lovers has its new dark prince.
The Black Keys: Hard Row
Ohio duo The Black Keys have a lot to prove if they're going to keep the roots-rock motor running through another season. Thankfully, it looks like oil-stained jeans and plaid for a few months yet as dirty trailer blues and gravelly Paul Weller vocals are made exceptional with the inclusion of a discernible tune. Don't rush them and The Black Keys might just do us proud.
Amateur Night In The Big Top: Scooter Girl
Can a man really ris from the dead twice? There's no doubting the resilience of Shaun William Ryder: any man who can survive the crack-cocaine wreckage of the Happy Mondays and Black Grape deserves, at the least, lenghty convalescence in the rehab of his choosing. Here we find him ranting away over beats supplied by original electro-punk and ex-Cabaret Voltaire man Stephen Mallinder. Sadly, the carnival thud is pure forced jollity and it appears Shaun can only shout swear words these days. Disappointing.
Massive Attack: Butterfly Caught
God help Massive Attack's radio pluggers: watching them pick a single from the near-impenetrable '100th Window' must have been a bit like asking your grandad to select his favourite member of Blazin' Squad. Consisting of little more than drum machine hiss and Robert Del Naja's blank whisper, 'Butterfly Caught' is chilly and insubstantial. Remixers Jagz Kooner and RJD2 bravely attempt to coax a tune out of the fog. They fail.
Placebo: This Picture
They've got a very loyal fanbase, Placebo, which is another way of saying that only those with ill-applied black nail varnish are still listening. Agreeably, on 'This Picture' Molko has toned down his skin-crawling whine for a polished exercise in New Order-style disco-fluff. But how long will his freak army tolerate such behaviour before deserting them for the next band with spent needles hanging from their septic cocks? There is, after all, little worse than a kinky lover turned complacent.
The Bandits: Take It And Run
'Take It And Run' was a big skiffle hit in the working men's clubs of northwest England at the time of the Coronation in 1953. Digitally restored and re-released on compact disc to celebrate its 50th anniversary, it's lost none of its naive sparkle and sounds as fresh as the day it was recorded. If only The Bandits were around today - they'd show The Coral who's boss, for sure.
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From 14/6 NME:
Dead Meadow: Shivering Kings And Others
All wah-wah pedals and occult fascination, the seven-minute symphony of this Washington DC stoner-rock trio's 'I Love You Too' is a homage to vintage Black Sabbath. Suffering the same drugged up daydreams as The Warlocks, Dead Meadow also treat you to a southern boogie skin-graft alongside the electro-shock therapy. Ambient metal riffs dive through 'Golden Cloud' and 'Good Moanin'', while 'Shivering King' could cause brain damage in the casual listener.
They're dirty drone-rock boys with guns set to stun and then destroy. Kelly Osbourne be damned. Dead Meadow are Ozzy's true devil sprogs.
8/10
John Power: Happening For Love
With more brillinat bands coming out of Liverpool now than at any point since the '60s, surely it's time for one of the forefathers to make a comeback? Since the demise of Cast, Power has gone back to basics, revelling in acoustic strumming and Motown melody. The trouble is, there's no song to touch The Coral's 'Dreaming Of You', or The Bandits eclectic mix of influences.
Ther's the odd moment - opener 'Electrify' does just that, and the Lennon-esque 'Mariner' is a compelling blend of defiance and melancholy. But everything else is a flat, cliche-ridden pastiche of what's he done before. The new Scouse generation has left the last for dust.
4/10
Whirlwind Heat: Do Rabbits Wonder?
It's no surprise Jack White let us get to know The Von Bondies before introducing us to this trio. The are, with all due respect, fucking insane. Whirlwind Heat may hail from the state of Michigan but they've got nothing to do with the Detroit garage-rock scene, preferring to whip up their dark noise using doomy bass riffs and out-of-control synthesizers. The result is truly unique.
Normal people will only restort to playing 'Orange' (yes, every song is named after a colour) when they need answers from an unwilling terrorist suspect, and the warblings of 'Pink' are so unhinged they could be using Jack Osbourne as a vocal coach. Hanging out with them might damgae Jack White's mental state. But with friends like these, who needs sanity?
8/10
Biffy Clyro: The Vertigo Of Bliss
Up to now, the name of Biffy Clyro meant little to anyone other than the 'Reduced To Clear' guy down the local record shop, but my, how things have changed. They may not look much but behind the compact power-trio frame lies a distilled emo-core aggression that's been superglued to some polished thrift-store melodies.
It's a fractured but thrilling outcome. Opener 'Bodies In Flight' sets an immediate tone with its feral screams and glass-cutting riffs, while the delicately-titled 'Liberate The Illiterate/A Mong Amongst Mingers' quakes with raw guitars and emotion. But it's with 'Toys, Toys' Toys, Choke, Toys, Toys, Toys' that they can boast a song truly as exciting as its title suggests. Bliss? Not quite, but surprisingly close.
7/10
Singles from June's Rcord Collector
I Am Kloot: Life In A Day
Whoaah! I Am Kloot now seem to have traded quiet introspection for voodoo music, perhaps borrowed from an old La's demo album. Starting with a baroque drum rush that seems to build throughout, 'Life In A Day' could be the best thing they've ever done. If you know their sound then you'll be surprised. If you don't, where have you been, exactly?
The Great Unknow: Into....The Great Unknown EP
Is it U2? Is it Radiohead? The guitar effect on 'Don't Stray' could be the Edge, although this is much more relaxed than either of those bands, and a competent affair regardless of comparisons. In fact, it's a relief to hear any band nowadays that aren't just about arch pretensions or self-consciious anthemic qualities...
The wavery 'Something In The Weather' is a joy, with the keening vocals just the thing as those summer evenings approach, while 'Mountains' (not the Prince tune, although that would have been worth a listen) is the pick of the bunch: six minutes of funereal bass, Marr-like guitar and a spooky, spacey sound. We like.
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Singles reviews from The Fly, June 2003
Black Car: Asleep At The Wheel E.P.
Subtle and graceful, it's the best bits of Doves and Electric Soft Parade. With heart-felt melodies, intense lyrics and beautifully crafted instrumentation, Dan Glendinning makes a play for a place in the building UK singer-songwriter renaissance. Deservedly and unreservedly achieved in one release.
Cranebuilders: Just Idleness
The Scouse Velvet Underground for those of you that aspire to lazy journalistic comparisons. It gives Belle & Sebastian a swift kicking and even salutes Snow Patrol on the way to being naggingly catchy.
Future Kings Of Spain: Your Starlight
All of a sudden Dublin has lots of very good bands. None which sound like U2, Enya or the Dubliners. High of stadium angst and low on faux-cool, FKOS sound like Ash with a raging boner. It's nicer than it sounds. Err....
I Am Kloot: Life In A Day
The last I Am Kloot single was, frankly, wishy-washy crap; this is GREAT! Big noise, raw sound - in fact, everyhing we love the Kloot for. Johnny Bramwell - your band's reputation has been restored.
Nylon Pylon: Foot In Mouth
The Mancunian obsession with low bass and electro plundering continues with the fourth single from Oldham's pretty boys. It's disco in verse and throat throttling in chorus. The Pylon are emerging as electro trash you can dance to drunk or sober. Excellent.
The Hommos: Hommos Cosmos Rock
More Swedish shenanigans coming on like a '60s-inspired rock opera: part Beatles, part Deep Purple. Theatrical vocals in the mode of David Burn and some pretty nifty guitar fingering all round. Beatniks gone mad on Scandi vodka and Greek food. Bags of character.
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You mean Nylon Pylon's Foot In Mouth is a new single!? That song is well over a year and a half old. Don't they have anything new to push?
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Originally posted by Yank:
From 14/6 NME:
Dead Meadow: Shivering Kings And Others
All wah-wah pedals and occult fascination, the seven-minute symphony of this Washington DC stoner-rock trio's 'I Love You Too' is a homage to vintage Black Sabbath. Suffering the same drugged up daydreams as The Warlocks, Dead Meadow also treat you to a southern boogie skin-graft alongside the electro-shock therapy. Ambient metal riffs dive through 'Golden Cloud' and 'Good Moanin'', while 'Shivering King' could cause brain damage in the casual listener.
They're dirty drone-rock boys with guns set to stun and then destroy. Kelly Osbourne be damned. Dead Meadow are Ozzy's true devil sprogs.
8/10
So Dead Meadow made it in to NME? Strange.
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From today's NY Times:
ARTS / MUSIC | June 17, 2003
Skipping the Niches, Going for Pop
By NEIL STRAUSS (NYT)
These albums strive for pop perfection and are certainly as catchy as anything on the radio yet remain on the margins of what is popular.
June 17, 2003
Skipping the Niches, Going for Pop
By NEIL STRAUSS
There are two types of pop music. The first is simply the ever-changing, ineluctable tissue of songs that are popular. The second is music that aspires to the classic sound of a previous era's pop band, be it the Beatles, the Beach Boys or even the Spice Girls. It is possible to be too pop to be popular, especially since this decade's best-selling genres are niches like rap and country.
The albums below strive for pop perfection and are certainly as catchy and likable as anything on the radio yet remain on the margins of what is popular. Perhaps they are the right albums at the wrong time.
Welcome Interstate Managers
Fountains of Wayne
The number of CD's released annually that aspire to the sound of the British Invasion is staggering. The number of CD's of this type that are actually good is minuscule. Interestingly, the recordings that are good sound as if they were easy to create, while the bad ones sound as if it took a lot of effort to miss the mark.
"Welcome Interstate Managers" (S-Curve), the third album by the New York band Fountains of Wayne, falls into the category of the good and easy. It is an album of 16 summer songs; even "Valley Winter Song" sounds like a summer song.
As in its previous album, "Utopia Parkway" (an album so poppy that the band was dropped from Atlantic Records afterward), Fountains of Wayne sets its vignettes in and around the New York region. In "Hackensack" a man working for his father waits for the improbable return home of an old friend who left town and became a successful actress. (Sample internal rhyme: "I saw you talking to Christopher Walken on my TV screen.") "Fire Island" chronicles the mischief of schoolchildren home alone while their parents are on Fire Island. (Sample mischief: "Driving on the lawn, sleeping on the roof, drinking all the alcohol.")
The band tries its hand at country music, Burt Bacharach-style strings, and Zombies-like harpsichord on "Welcome Interstate Managers." But whatever direction Fountains of Wayne seems to turn, all points face the sun.
Passionoia
Black Box Recorder
Black Box Recorder's relationship with pop is a strange one. Its music exists as a critique of mainstream culture, conformity and values. Yet with each new CD its music takes on a more shallow vision of pop.
Its first release, "England Made Me," was brimming with precious, understated pop arrangements in the spirit of Burt Bacharach and Thom Bell; its follow-up, "The Facts of Life," especially the title song, sounded eerily close on occasion to English girl bands like the All Saints. And its new "Passionoia" (One Little Indian) â?? named after a line from a song on the album mocking personal ads, in which a woman has gone "from passionate to paranoid" â?? could be mistaken for 90's Europop.
The strength of Black Box Recorder is the way it balances manners and breeding with darkness and sin. Its album artwork depicts the band members drinking Champagne around a pool, oblivious to the dead body floating in it. Its songs are just as sociopathic, with the cold, breathy, seductive voice of Sarah Nixey singing arch lyrics written mostly by Luke Haines (of the Auteurs). This album tears apart conventional British life and ambitions, from the mundane details that keep people going ("These Are the Things") to the grand ambitions that keep others dreaming ("The New Diana," "Girls Guide for the Modern Diva").
This is a good album, though the macabre pop of Black Box Recorder doesn't work best to dance beats or trip-hop electronics, but to the more classic, swooning arrangements that appear less frequently here.
Supernatural Equinox
Outrageous Cherry
Here are two bands grappling with perfect pop. On its latest album, "Supernatural Equinox" (Rainbow Quartz), Outrageous Cherry further mines its obsession with garage-pop psychedelia. Yet the gold is never separated from the ore, and as a result one hears what sounds like a demo tape of a masterpiece.
On "Mouthfuls" (Sub Pop), the duo the Fruit Bats leans to the folksy side of psychedelia, sitting somewhere on the spectrum of semi-unpopular pop between the lush jangle of the Shins and the country sweep of Holopaw. "Mouthfuls" may not come on as hard as the power-pop detonation of Fountains of Wayne, but over time it seeps in just as deeply.
Velvet Tinmine
Various Artists
Here finally is a chronicle of pop bands that were never popular and sure-fire hits that never quite fired. "Velvet Tinmine," two volumes sold separately on RPM Records, excavates early 70's glam-rock to come up with a litany of explosively catchy choruses and rock 'n' roll attitude from bands that only the most ardent record collector has heard of.
Just listen to "Rebels Rule" by Iron Virgin and try to figure out why you've never heard it before. Then sample the pubescent Ricky Wilde's squeaky "I Wanna Go to a Disco" and hope that you never have to hear it again.
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Originally posted by eertedaj:
Originally posted by Yank:
From 14/6 NME:
Dead Meadow: Shivering Kings And Others
All wah-wah pedals and occult fascination, the seven-minute symphony of this Washington DC stoner-rock trio's 'I Love You Too' is a homage to vintage Black Sabbath. Suffering the same drugged up daydreams as The Warlocks, Dead Meadow also treat you to a southern boogie skin-graft alongside the electro-shock therapy. Ambient metal riffs dive through 'Golden Cloud' and 'Good Moanin'', while 'Shivering King' could cause brain damage in the casual listener.
They're dirty drone-rock boys with guns set to stun and then destroy. Kelly Osbourne be damned. Dead Meadow are Ozzy's true devil sprogs.
8/10
So Dead Meadow made it in to NME? Strange. [/b]
Not only the NME but the July issue of Mojo too:
Dead Meadow: Shivering King and Others
Third album from Washington DC trio, another 'loudest band on Earth'.
Kicking-off with a riff that patently missed out on the last 30 years of rock evolution, Dead Meadow lay their cards on the table from the get-go. Harking back to an age when rock bands walked the Earth with the swinging, lumbering heaviness of a brontosaurus, this surprisngly fresh-faced three-piece update the bluesy '70s rock blueprint without ever once falling into stoner rock cliche. At home driving dinosaur riffage through your cranium, getting lost in sky-kissing acid rock or mellowing out with Zep-style acoustic interludes, Dead Meadow follow a distinctive path. It's well-worn, but when you're on the same trail as previous low-end masters Sleep, St Vitus, Blue Cheer and The Obsessed, something is definitely right.
4/5 Stars
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Originally posted by Jaguär:
You mean Nylon Pylon's Foot In Mouth is a new single!? That song is well over a year and a half old. Don't they have anything new to push?
They're on a major label now (London) and they've re-recorded the song. I think a full length is due out soon.
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Originally posted by Yank:
Whirlwind Heat: Do Rabbits Wonder?
It's no surprise Jack White let us get to know The Von Bondies before introducing us to this trio. The are, with all due respect, fucking insane.
Biffy Clyro: The Vertigo Of Bliss
They may not look much but behind the compact power-trio frame lies a distilled emo-core aggression that's been superglued to some polished thrift-store melodies.
It's a fractured but thrilling outcome.
I finally heard a Whirlwind Heat song and loved it. Agree with insane verdict. I'm looking forward to their live show. And as for Biffy Clyro, my friends in Glasgow and London have been raving about them since last year. So much that they go to multiple shows when they tour. I would really like to see them.
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Biffy Clyro are a little too hard rocking for me but I think that you would really like them, Kurosawa. They are good at that kind of music.
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From the 21 June 2003 NME:
Of Arrowe Hill: The Spring Heel Penny Dreadful And Other Tales Of Morbid Curiosity
Merseyside mystics make cosmos-shagging debut.
Like Radiohead, Scouse stoners Of Arrowe Hill are masters of sprawling progadelia about English summers spent "deep in the gloaming", all slathered in the doodlings of a deranged Victorian pamphleteer. But there the likeness ends. At heart, OAH put a more toxic spin on the madcap whimsy of The Coral, cooking up ruffneck symphonies of sneering surrealism with the deadpan bile of Liam or Lennon.
It's both totally 1968 and totally 2003, with a few epics to match single 'Gadfly Adolescence', plus enough sarcastic wordplay and shudders of sonic slurry to balance the cosmic psych-outs. The future is theirs, even if it takes place in a parallel universe.
7/10
Medicine: The Mechanical Forces Of Love
The world's been turned upside down, and enigmatic Californians Medicine are at the helm. When Brad Laner decided to resurrect his long-forgotten group, who swam in the slipstream of My Bloody Valentine and were signed to Alan McGee's Creation Records, few would've expected this.
With new vocalist Shannon Lee, daughter of late martial arts icon Bruce, he's come up with a demented, feminished, electronic extrapolation of the Beach Boys ethos in which everything's gone askew. The treated vocals, shards of guitars, extraneous noises and synthetics of 'As You Do' slowly but determinedly morph and evolve over 50 minutes into the closing, string-laden dark psychedelics on 'And Sometimes Y'. It's all quite a trip.
7/10
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Just received the Waterboys latest (via ebay)Universal Hall.
It's a nice return back to the stuff that Waterboys fans love. Although it's more like his two solo albums than Waterboys, being more mellow and spiritual...I think the boy's in love!
Not his best work but still very good.
For those who like the new crap were the singer screams at the top of his lungs trying to cover up awful musicians, while humping the microphone stand....it's probably not for you!
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From the July 2003 Mojo:
John Foxx And Louis Gordon: Crash And Burn
Under real name Dennis Leigh, Foxx did the jacket artwork for Salman Rushie's The Moor's Last Sigh.
Ah, them were the days, when people born in Chorley could become synth-addled art poppers with cultural references beyond York Notes revision aids and not look foolish. Togheter with Louis Gordon, Foxx, the original leader of Ultravox, has produced and arch, left-field pop record of the sort that defined the UK mainstream 20 odd years ago, and is now in the process of returning as a minority pleasure. Some of the droll rhythms and obsession with movies, driving, bar-crawling and other banal facets of modern culture on Cinema and Sidewalking are reminiscent of Iggy's droll Nightclubbing and The Passenger from his Berlin phase. She Robot, though, is almost as shameless a slab of Kraftwerk as The Chemical Brothers' Music: Response. Best of all? Dust And Light, with its creepy, intelligent electronica.
3/5
Various: Under The Influence - Morrissey
The first in a new series of artist compilations from the people who brought us All Back To Mine.
Perhaps one should approach the scaffold and unhang the DJ. Featuring Morrissey as mixmaster, this set demands as much - the 15 song selection amounts to a radio broadcast of rare and inspired eclecticism. It won't surprise the average Morrissey fan to find selections from Diana Dors, The New York Dolls and Sparks, but only the most hardened Moz maniac would have correctly anticipated unhinged, drunken Cajun from Lesa Cormier & The Sundown Playboys. But, then again, the Sparks' track, Arts And Crafts Spectacular, is a previously unreleased demo. Alongside beguiling selections from Ludus, Tyrannosaurus Rex and the Ramones, there's also The Cats with their 1969 rocksteady version of Swan Lake.
4/5
Stereophonics: You Gotta Go There To Come Back
The solo works of The Who keyboard man John 'Rabbit' Bundrick include a composition called Taxi To Gatwick. It's a title that encapsulates the world of the rock journeyman - the travel may be exotic, but all glamour dissolves in the face of manly phlegmaticism and a due respect for flight cases. This mood oozes from this Stereophonics album. There's an impressive degree of traditional hand finishing on the likes of Jealousy, but still this seems an album too far. The lyrics are full of fleeting assignations and gruff, bumper-sticker wisdoms, apparently seeking to draw hard-bitten romance from the business of being in a band. However, the net result is less some poignant black-and-white photograph of the endless road, more a bleary 3am Polaroid of a roadie gamely assembling an amusing tableau from beer cans, porn mags and a box of paracetamol.
2/5
Canyon: Empty Rooms
Unlikely country-rock from former emo scenesters.
Brandon Bulter and Joe Winkle seem a little geographically confused: starting out in Kansas City's punk scene, the singer and guitarist then moved to Fugazi's DC stronghold to launch the country part of their career. Their second album as Canyon seems similarly lost, compasss needle spinning between beaten-track, tourist-attraction Americana and the promise of big-sky psychedelia. Unlike the easy grace of labelmates My Morning Jacket, Canyon never quite cross the power of the old with the forces of the new - although they are capable of transcending their sturdy bulk. Mansion On The Mountain's sleighbell stompor the closing drifts of Blankets And Shields even show they can sling a rope bridge between the ordinary and the outstanding. A good starting point, if not a destination in itself.
2/5
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Klang: Love/No Thing
The debut single from Klang, they include Donna Matthews from Elastica in their ranks and this is the first music she has released since she quit after the first Elastica album. She sings and plays guitar and is backed by Isobel who plays bass and keyboards and K who plays drums. The two songs were recorded in EMI publishing's demo studio and they will be featured on the new "Sonic Mook.." and "Art Rocker" compilations. However this is not rock 'n' roll as we know it. It sounds like a female Mark E Smith singing on top of the rhythm section from PIL on mogadons. It sounds like an unearthed gem from the 80s when music had time to breathe and anything went!!!
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28 June 2003 NME
Kings Of Leon: Youth And Young Manhood
Don't put it down to coincidence that The Strokes and Oasis have been mentioned in the same breath as Kings Of Leon in the past couple of weeks - it won't be the last time. The Strokes took time out from recording their new album to hang out with the Kings in New York and Noel Gallagher recently declared, "The Kings Of Leon are my new fucking favourite band." With 'Youth And Young Manhood' the Kings haven't just bested the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' 'Fever To Tell' for the debut LP of 2003 crown, they've gone and made an album that's up there with The Strokes 'This Is It' and Oasis' 'Definitely Maybe' as one of the most exciting rock'n'roll debuts of the last ten years.
Like The Strokes, The White Stripes, The Coral and all the exciting bands around right now, the Kings take as their starting point the music of the past (in their case drug-crazed '70s MOR rockers the Eagles, '60s beardos The Band and Southern rockers Lynyrd Skynyrd). But it's all recast with an insane sense of swagger, rowdiness and, yes, youth. Their sound is a boisterous boogie, a hard-drinking, hard-rocking sound from somewhere south of the old Mason-Dixon line.
On 'Youth And Young Manhood' KOL do for ballsy country rock what The White Stripes and The Strokes did for striped down blues and New York new wave respectively. They are to 2003 what Oasis were to 1994 and the Strokes were to 2001 - the most exciting new rock band of the year. All hail to the kings.
9/10
Marlowe: A Day In July
Marlowe's second LP has all the hallmarks of the bedsit indie band: fragile Belle & Sebastian vocals, love life messier than Har Mar's sheets and a unique ability to make John Peel play your records.
Somewhere within their grotty bedsit however, they've found room to sleep with an entire orchestra. It's most prominent on 'I'm The Kinda Guy Who Takes Advantage Of A Woman Like You', which forgets that crescendos are supposed to end somewhere. They also sweeten their romantic woe with humour. Reassuring that such heart-tugging music still lurks on the indie fringes.
7/10
Aidan Smith: At Home With Aidan Smith 2
Beguilingly lo-fi singer songwriter from Manchester wows local crowds and releases quirky albums riddled with absurdist modern references and scratchy vocals. Sound familiar? Don't even think about Badly Drawn Boy comparisons, because lurking in Aidan Smith's endearingly crap keyboard sounds and fluffed song endings are moments of immense beauty like nuggets of toffee in a tub of ice cream.
The quality of his songwriting since his debut suggests that commercial forces will try to clean up his act, clean up his sound and then clean up on a film soundtrack before the year is out, but someone with a gift for the chorus like this man shouldn't hide his light under the indie bushel anyway.
8/10
Bardo Pond: On The Ellipse
Longtime Philadelphia caners Bardo Pond have perfected their formula, it seems. Turn all amps to melting point, go through your weight in sticky brown resin and psych-metal out roughly for eternity. An NME review of the previous Bardo Pond opus simply concluded: "Christ, it's heavy". It demanded few words, for it was, but if anything they've got even heavier.
Album number six 'On The Ellipse' averages out at around nine minutes a track, and is pitched mainly at the bizarre midpoint between Spiritualized and stoner lords Electric Wizard, with a host of evil elves on hand to squirt LSD in your eyes. It's a dizzying sonic downward spiral, and in the context of such swirling whorls of low gravity as 'JD' and 'Test', the effect is stunning.
8/10
Simple Minds: Early Gold
Hundreds of years ago, Simple Minds ruled the planet. While the '80s raged, Jim Kerr leered 'Don't You Forget About Me' from every transistor in Christendom, and right-minded music lovers vowed that one day, they'd do just that.
Twenty years on it is time for amnesty. Simple Minds may have been among the stadium dinosaurs (think a Scottish version of U2 circa 'The Joshua Tree') but like many such bands their early stuff was fab.
'Chelsea Girl' is Bowie on a student loan; 'Promised You A Miracle' epic tosh to match Bono on mushrooms. 'Life In A Day' even got played at London's Nag Nag Nag last week, which says it all really.
Scarily good.
7/10
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This is the album I'm anxiously awaiting.
From 05 July 2003 NME
The Coral: Magic And Medicine
Let's get this straight from the start: there will not be many better albums from these shores this year. The Coral's second album in as many summers suggests even more urgently that the landmark album that's so patently within their grasp is tantalisingly close. This, however, is not it, not quite. It is still nevertheless a quite dazzling album.
And it's still infinitely more imaginative than the output of most British guitar bands. At this point in their short career, The Coral remain in love with their own fabulous playing abilities, with their magpie gift for appropriation of just about any musical style they try to fully realise. They can do bossa nova, they can do country, blues, psych-out, psychedelia, bluegrass, folk, vaudeville....it's all within their powers, sometimes all at once. But what they do most effectively is write brutally concise and beautiful pop songs, and they're writing more and more of them.
The two singles on this album are good each-way bets for the single of the year trophy: 'Don't Think You're The First' and 'Pass It On' are both bittersweet ruminations on the nature of love and death, the former reeking of a psychedelic nobility not heard of since The Teardrop Explodes, the latter shining like some lost Gram Parsons jewel. Both are short, melodic and moulded into shape by James Skelly's majestically soulful howl. Is there a better young white singer in the UK today? Nope. Is there a more experimentally gifted group of musicians in the country (especially supernatural guitarist Bill)? Probably not, and thereby hangs The Coral's gift and curse.
At times, it's like they've discovered they're brilliant linguists and have all decided to speak different languages at once. The result, as on 'Gypsy Market Blues' and the latter half of 'Confessions Of A DDD', is confusing. What are they trying to say? Where are they trying to take us? To far-out, faraway places? Well, they manage those feats so much better on the aforementioned singles, and on other flashes of concise inspiration such as the organ-driven mystery of 'In The Forest', the contemplative folk laments of 'Leizah' and 'Careless Hands', or the Tamla jam-bop of 'Bill McCai'. Some of the wackiness works, such as 'Milkwood Blues' with its sudden burst of mysteriious violin and piano. But often, it obscures the band's real gifts.
These are nothing more, though, than the frustrated quibbles of a parent with a particularly brilliant child. The Coral will get there, they will make their masterpiece and soon. Alas, to get there key members will probably have to endure broken hearts, wrecked dreams and betrayal, but a little painful living intruding on their psychedelic dreams will do us all good. In the meantime, we'll have to make do with nothing more than brilliance.
8/10
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I am looking forward to getting that coral album.... Its a relief that it is getting good reviews.
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From today's ny times:
July 22, 2003
In the Present, Echoes of the Past
By NEIL STRAUSS
In rock music at the moment, the best new bands seem to be the ones with the best record collections. The Darkness is mining its collection of 70's glam-rock and heavy metal to become one of the most promising new British bands, one you can simultaneously laugh at and pump your fist in the air to, while Interpol has become one of New York's favorite exports with brooding post-punk similar to that of Joy Division. Below are three relatively new bands from overseas that, at times, ape their favorite albums from the 60's. The Sleepy Jackson quotes Bob Dylan, the Thrills quote the Monkees, and the Super Furry Animals sample the more obscure Wendy and Bonnie. Yet at the same time, all three acts have enough personality to transcend their record collections and release these consistently engaging â?? at times breathtaking â?? albums.
So Much for the City
The Thrills
At some point in their roughly 23 years on this earth, the six young members of the Dublin band the Thrills fell in love with California. Their best songs make more than passing mention of Santa Cruz, Big Sur and, on two different tracks, San Diego. Their music pays homage to the West Coast rock and pop of the 60's. And their videos depict beaches, surfing, blondes in bikinis and band members wearing U.C.L.A. and Mickey Mouse T-shirts. In fact, on their first full-length CD, "So Much for the City" (Virgin U.K.), the Thrills make the retro-pop confections that Rooney (an actual California band of the moment) fell short of on its recent debut.
Shot through with pumping piano, brittle banjo melodies, swooning pop harmonies and the occasional harmonica solo, the music is made for a road trip along the coast, with the sun high in the sky, the convertible top down and the smell of sea spray in the breeze. What makes the music stand out from the hordes of 60's revivalists already questing for the perfect pop moment is Conor Deasy, who sings each song in a high, breathy, almost strained voice, similar to that of Jason Lytle of Grandaddy (another California band, naturally). The first six songs on this CD are so stellar that it's hard to keep from backing up the album over and over again, never making it to the end.
Lovers
The Sleepy Jackson
Like the Thrills, the Sleepy Jackson, led by 23-year-old Luke Steele, takes its cue from the classic pop of the 60's, mixing it with the neo-psychedelia of groups like the Flaming Lips. But where the Thrills stay in a tight, well-defined niche, the Sleepy Jackson is all over the place. On first impression, its debut American CD, "Lovers" (Virgin), sounds like a compilation. There's the swaying falsetto pop of "Good Dancers," the post-punk hammering of "Velvet Racecourse," the Beatles-go-country of "This Day," the low-fi poetry reading of "Feed Me With Apples," the Bob Dylan references of "Old Dirt Farmer" and the Burt Bacharach vocal arrangements of "Don't You Know." As if that isn't eclectic enough, there's a lullaby, "Morning Bird," sung by a 10-year-old girl.
This is not a stable album, and, judging by the music and the constantly changing lineup of the Sleepy Jackson, Mr. Steele does not seem like a stable man. But he wields unwieldiness like a weapon. It is his strength. He is a perfectionist and eccentric, somewhere on the spectrum between Brian Wilson and Daniel Johnston. "Lovers" has the strength of sounding so familiar yet so unusual, owing to Mr. Steele's combination of talent, taste and technique with weirdness, obsessiveness and delusions of grandeur. When in the right balance, these traits lead to artists' being portrayed by their admirers as geniuses. But just when one wants to bow down to Mr. Steele as this fantastic album unfolds, he neutralizes high expectations with lyrics like, "If I was a girl, I'd wear a miniskirt into town."
Phantom Power
Super Furry Animals
"Phantom Power" (XL/Beggar's Group) begins like a 60's duet and then moves through pedal-steel country, psychedelic rock and Burt Bacharach arrangements. It sounds like the learned classic pop eclecticism of the Sleepy Jackson all over again.
The Super Furry Animals have been releasing CD's, each one a new concept and revelation, since the mid-90's. Yet through all the band's changes â?? from its Scott Walker obsession to its techno flirtation â?? the unmistakable accent of the singer Gruff Rhys has given it a consistent sound.
Though the group and many fans point to its previous album, "Rings Around the World," as its masterpiece, its first full CD, "Fuzzy Logic" from 1996, remains the one that best grabs hold of the listener, with unforgettable pop melodies combining with the sea legs of band members getting used to singing in English (as opposed to their native Welsh) for the first time on album.
The mercurial "Phantom Power" is less ambitious than "Rings Around the World" and less catchy than "Fuzzy Logic," but it is saturated with aching pop moments and sophisticated arrangements, each one coming on like a distant dream of a favorite 60's song. And though the songs may at first glance seem whimsical (named after dogs, valets and Venus and Serena Williams), they often serve here as gateways to deeper reflections on war (be it in the Falklands or the Persian Gulf), nuclear power and the tarnished American Dream.
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From the 26/07/03 NME:
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club: Take Them On, On Your Own (edited...because I'm too lazy to type the whole review)
Right now, there are a million bands out there paying lip service to the ideas of independence and freedom of expression, but you can count the number actually practising what they preach on the fingers on one hand. BRMC, though, are definitely one of them.
'Take Them On, On Your Own' is a sensational record for many reasons. Not only is it an album that, in the words of the band, tackles "death, guns, drugs, religion, family, politics, music and sex", but it does so with a precise and relentless intensity that bulldozes the competition.
There's a starkly personal thread running through the album. Two of the most emotionally resonant songs - 'And I'm Aching' and 'Shade Of Blue' (both sung by Peter Hayes) - are ones with a far more obviously autobiographical slant.
Before you get down into the dirt of the lyrical content, though, the first thing that's going to hit you about this record is its overwhelming jet-engine sound. A lot of records have already been heralded as this year's landmark releases, but 'TTO,OYO' feels like the real front runner - and it's going to take something truly incredible to dislodge it from that position.
It begins in suitably imperious fashion. The band have talked a lot in interviews about how they wanted to make a propulsive record with "no fat" and "faster tempos". Well, opening track (and first single) 'Stop' is just that. Relentlessly distorted and equipped with a pummelling chorus, it's a thrilling introduction to a great record. The fact that it's immediately bettered by the second track 'Six Barrel Shotgun' (this record's 'Whatever Happened To My Rock 'N' Roll (Punk Song), with their greatest and most insistent riff yet) almost defies belief.
From here, there's no respite. With the exception of the slightly unformed 'Ha Ha High Babe', every song bears the hallmarks of what makes BRMC such an innovative group. The sonics are so full and so heavy that they make the Yeah Yeah Yeahs record sound like leaves being blown down a street. The songs themselves (particularly the swagger of 'We're All In Love' and the breathtaking 'In Like The Rose') are cleverly arranged and accessible throughout.
The album ends with the seven-minute epic 'Heart And Soul'. An adrenalised rock'n'roll assault powered by Nick Jago's high speed drumming. It's the perfect finale.
'Take Them On, On Your Own' is a masterpiece. You should get hold of it as soon as possible.
9/10
Longview: Mercury
Sadchester middleweights' debut with a pure heart.
There's an inherent problem with Longview. Much as their delicate harmonies and the lip-trembling vocals of Rob McYey might pluck at ones' inner regions, it's hard to escape the feeling that those buttons are there for anyone to push, irrespective of how much the pusher in question might mean it. Just because ER makes you cry, doesn't mean you're not manipulated.
This is grand, heartfelt rock in the tradition of Doves or Coldplay, like the breathy ballad of 'I Would' or the big guitar strides of 'Nowhere', but they basically sound like a great band who've had all the interesting edges knocked off by production that's slick enough to drown seagulls. It's a shame, because in 'Falling For You' they've got at least one heart-bruising anthem.
6/10
Magnet: On Your Side
The influence of Jeff Buckley's 'Grace' still hangs over music. The latest to fall under his seductive spell is Magnet, aka Even Johansen. From Scotland via Norway, Even's lazy, sensitive coo and ethereal country flutters certainly resonate with that same sense of majestic drama.
But Magnet has more tricks up his sleeve than mere karaoke fanboyisms. 'The Day We Left Town' has a ghostly, Bjork-like, electronicia sheen, while 'Where Happiness Lives' is Elliot Smith bunking into the Grand Ole Opry. But it's the suckerpunch refrain of magnificent opener 'Everything's Perfect' ("You said you'll die for me/So why can't you live for me?") that reveals just where this fragile soul's bread is buttered. 'On Your Side' is simply a lovely, lovely record.
8/10
Killing Joke: Killing Joke
In the '80s Killing Joke cooked up intense, expansive, voodoo rock, with singer and arch-shamen Jaz Coleman pretty much inventing the psycho-sexual nutjob chic that Marilyn Manson would turn into a shitload of money a decade later. In the '90s Nirvana were accused of stealing the Joke's track 'Eighties' for 'Come As Your Are', but, with Dave Grohl now on drums, it's obviously all love in the KJ camp. Well, nearly.
Age has barely mellowed Killing Joke. 'Total Invasion' and 'Asteroid' are both gutteral, red-hot howls pulsing over superheavy garage riffs, while 'Dark Forces' and 'Seeing Red' are classic KJ arena-sized evil.
First Jane's Addiction and now another comeback album that isn't embarrassing rubbish - is this some kind of record?
7/10
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BRMC/Longview/Magnet - You picked these just for me, didn't you? :D ;)
I love BRMC's Ha Ha High Babe and I've had Longview's song Further in my head for days now...in a good way. Magnet is good too for those quiet moods. Rhett, you might want to check out Magnet but you may find him under the name Even Johnasen here in the States. He did tell a friend of mine the other week that he has finally decided to be more consistant and stick with the name Magnet in the US for the new material.
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Originally posted by mankie:
Just received the Waterboys latest (via ebay)Universal Hall.
It's a nice return back to the stuff that Waterboys fans love. Although it's more like his two solo albums than Waterboys, being more mellow and spiritual...I think the boy's in love!
Not his best work but still very good.
For those who like the new crap were the singer screams at the top of his lungs trying to cover up awful musicians, while humping the microphone stand....it's probably not for you!
I will get the new Waterboys album, however, I doubt that they can get to the quality of their 80s and early 90s albums. Room to Roam was an incredible album (will never understand how it got so mediocr reviews), but after that Mike has fallen down and down. I still admire the Waterboys and would not mind at all having to travel to another city to see them live, but I am very skeptical about the potential quality of any of their future releases.
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That review of BRMC was not very helpful -- doesn't say much at all about the actual sound of the band, the music or the album; it's good if you already know BRMC, but i don't (though I've gotten the feeling I should).
Thanks for posting Yank; sometimes NME reviews bug me though.
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Oh, Bags. :D
Just think.....Shoegaze with black leather balls.
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Originally posted by Jaguär:
Oh, Bags. :D
Just think.....Shoegaze with black leather balls.
Look, I just got to be honest with you people! It's the only way you'll know best how to help me!
:D
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Live Reviews (http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/reviews/livepop/)
from the guardian.
Featuring:
Elbow
Coral
Mars Volta
Paul Weller
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.....and Shack. :D