Saturday, June 28, 2003
My review of Grandaddy's Sumday album is up for the weekend. Love the album, just love it. It falls just short of perfection, but it's still easily one of the best albums of the year so far. Speaking of which, I'll post my Best Albums of the Year So Far on July 1. Watch for it.
700 Miles, the new album by Mary Lee's Corvette, is quite an impressive follow-up to their song-for-song cover of Dylan's Blood on the Tracks album. Mary Lee Kortes is utterly beguiling...it's pretty much a straightforward country-folk record, but there are moments that just win you over, like on "700 Miles", "Portland, Michigan", and the light, funky, satirical "More Stupider". I liked it.
Thursday, June 26, 2003
Okay, time to do some catching up. Been slacking off lately. First, two new reviews to mention...First, my rather, erm, blunt take on Liz Phair's new festering pile of garbage. I've had this album since April 4th, and I'm sick to freakin' death of it. I don't want to hear the thing ever again.
Far, far superior, though, is Decoration Day, by the Drive-By Truckers. Read my review...I'm very happy with that one. Popped the album in yesterday after a week or so...it's fantastic. Sort of a darker sequel to their previous album.
I'd better weigh in with my thoughts on the new Fountains of Wayne album, Welcome Interstate Managers. I honestly cannot believe the amount of drooling praise it's been getting from the critics. It's a very likeable album, but with its cutie-pie style and predictable formula (which Adam Schlesinger excels at), it goes on for too long, and in the end, you're just tired of it, as they throw in some annoying filler like a country tune (Hung Up on You") and an unbelievably lame Oasis clone ("Supercollider"). It scores a 94 over at Metacritic, for crying out loud! What the heck are people thinking? I think it should have been pared down to 40 minutes. That said, "Stacy's Mom" is utterly brilliant. I love guitarpop songs like this, when they're done this well. Their best song since "Red Dragon Tattoo". "Hey Julie" and "Mexican Wine" are top-notch, too. Still, it's nowhere near as good as Utopia Parkway.
The BellRays' new CD, called Raw Collection, might be yet another odds-and-sods, contractual obligation album, but it has some moments that just blew me away, especially "Say What You Mean", which sounds like Tina Turner singing as the Stooges, minus Iggy, play "I Wanna Be Your Dog", and their cover of The Saints' classic "Nights in Venice", a six minute blast of adrenaline-fueled rock & roll. Not an essential BellRays album, but it's one that'll make you crave a new album even more. Speaking of which, it's about time they put a new cd out, right?
Sunday, June 22, 2003
My review of Lamb's What Sound Deluxe is now up. Great cd.
Gotta say I really like the new Yes New York charity album. Some terrific NYC area artists on there, from Longwave to Interpol to The Strokes to The Walkmen, but Liars and Ex Models were conspicuously absent. This album has such contagious energy, and it's for a good cause to boot.
I also really like the new Grandaddy album Sumday...in direct contrast to Radiohead's artsy, post-OK Computer direction, where they're slowly losing the ability to write songs with discernable hooks, Grandaddy have gone in the opposite direction, writing more accessible, catchy, and above all else, smart pop rock songs. The result is an album that may be maligned by indie elitists, but in actuality, it's a brave album, a real winner. "Now it's On" is one of the best singles of the year so far.
Thursday, June 19, 2003
New review to point out: my thoughts on the new Serart album, featuring System of a Down's Serj Tankian. But if you're too lazy to look at it, scroll down just bleow here to see a brief summary.
I am absolutely blown away by FatCat Records' incredible sampler cd, called Branches and Routes. It comes out next Tuesday, and I'll bet that you won't find a better mix cd this year.
Even if you're not the biggest indie expert on the board, you know at least a few of FatCat's artists, like Sigur Ros, Mum, Kid 606, and Set Fire to Flames (the GY!BE offshoot), but if you're like me, there's a ton of stuff you've never heard on this double cd that will floor you.
You've got Mum's "Green Grass of Tunnel" (one of the best singles of 2002), and a remix of Bjork's "All is Full of Love", probably the most well-known tracks on the cd, but after that, egads, what a treasure trove of diverse, eclectic, disparate music this is: avant-garde guitarist (and Jim O'Rourke cohort) David Grubbs, Philly space rockers Transient Waves, the stunning Black Dice, the ferocious Xinlisupreme and Programme, a breezy summer dub tune called "Slow Slow Slow" by a guy called Seen, Minnesota post-punkers Party of One, and a gorgeous piano composition by Sylvain Chauveau. Plus, there's a brief new track by Sigur Ros. Not to mention two tracks from e-rmx, the online project that had FatCat artists remixing the songs of the cute Italian-Icelandic Bjork wannabe Emiliana Torrini. And that's not even half the fun. I can't recommend this highly enough.
Saturday, June 14, 2003
I can't believe I haven't updated this page in five days. Guess that's what happens when you're completely inundated with new cd's.
Well, I guess I should mention my review of the new Metallica album, which appeared a few days ago. Again, I like the thing, but it's not as great as initial reviews have indicated. In fact, it's awfully darn flawed, but for 45 of its 75 minutes, I was able to see around it.
Finally got my grubby paws on the new Drive-By Truckers album, called Decoration Day...it comes out next Tuesday, and it's easily one of the year's very best. It's not as epic and ambitious as Southern Rock Opera, and you don't get the fun rockers like "Let There Be Rock" and "Road Cases"...in fact, the band takes things in a bit of a different direction. It might not be a concept album per se, but I think it's more focused than SRO. You've got murder, incest, divorce, suicide, and a hard life on the road as subjects, but the album's central theme of the choices people make and how they live with those choices makes this album pack just as much as a wallop.
Nobody today writes gritty, honest, unpretentious songs as well as these guys do. The music is still heavy on the Southern rock thing, but it's toned down considerably, as they make room for more of a country influence as well, sort of like a harder-edged Sadies. And those lyrics...good grief, they can write: "She ain't revved 'til the rods are thrown"..."Rock & roll means well, but it can't help telling boys lies"..."Don't let me catch you in Kendale with a bucket of wealthy man's paint"..."I might as well have slipped that ring on your finger from a window of a van as it drove away"...I mean, these are lyrics! I've reviewed so much pretentious, oblique, hipster pseudopoetic detritus this year, that this stuff is so refreshing.
Best tracks? Well there's "Marry Me", the closest thing to a balls-out rocker on the cd, "Sink Hole", the best song about farm foreclosures since Mellencamp's "Scarecrow", the gorgeous road song "Heathens", and the stunning title track, which combines Southern rock with the old murder ballads from Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music, climaxing in a swirling, Skynyrdish blast of triple guitar harmonies.
Album of the year? Not quite, but it's a lock for my top ten in December. The Drive-By Truckers are the best indie rock band in America today, hands down.
I also received a copy of Serart, the new album by Serj from System of a Down. He teamed up with Armenian artist Arto Tuncboyaciyan to create one psychotic, spotntaneous, experimental, musical puree of every single musical style they could think of. It's incredibly bold,a dn will be quite a shock to fans of System of a Down...no music fan is as narrowminded as a diehard metal fan (trust me, I was one), so Serj is asking his core following to make a real leap here. It's not a perfect album, but with cool songs like "Devil's Wedding", "Leave Melody Counting Fear", and the superb "Narina", it proves to be a bit reawrding after several listens. And if this cd is able to turn a bunch of Ozzfest kids on to some vastly different music in the process, then there's no harm in that whatsoever.
And lastly, there's the biiiiig cd release of the past week, Radiohead's Hail to the Thief. My opinion hasn't changed much in the past three months (see my March 31 post)...It's decent enough, but it's clear they're starting to lose the plot a bit. "2+2=5", "Sit Down Stand Up", "Punch-Up", and "There There" are all excellent songs, and the rhythm section of Colin Greenwood and Phil Selway is absolutely on fire on the record, but it seems Radiohead is having a harder time figuring out how to write a memorable tune these days. Nothing here that I found repulsive, but nothing spectacular, either. Like the Metallica cd, I don't hate it, but we all know these guys are capable of so much more. Worth the cheap release day sale price, but not much more than that.
Monday, June 9, 2003
I've had Tangiers' debut album Hot New Spirits for several weeks, but I haven't had much of a chance to write about it until this past. Canada's latest entry in the whole New New Wave movement, Tangiers does something not enough young Canadian bands do these days: play simple, boisterous, loud rock & roll music. They might have the Strokes' sport coat/shag hairdo/skinny tie schtick down pat, but unlike the Strokes' obsession with Lou Reed and The Velvet Underground, Tangiers sounds more like a cross between the Buzzcocks and the Rolling Stones, with a little Mooney Suzuki thrown in as well.
The insane, raucous "Keep the Living Bodies Warm" is one of the best singles of 2003, while "Red Stone Rocks", "Return to the Ship", "Ca Va Cool" and the ska-infused "One Thousand Hands" are all tracks that instantly grab you. It's not very original, but it's loads of fun, and in the end, I think they pull off the whole postpunk thing better than the much-hyped Hot Hot Heat.
Few albums have as much an effect on me as Nick Drake's classic album Pink Moon does. I have to stop listening to this at 3 am, but it's really the perfect time to put it on. My east-facing window wide open to the cool night air, blinds up, the rolling prairie hills in the distance, the three radio/telephone towers 20 miles away visible from where I'm sitting. The cd playing quietly, the computer providing its own accompaniment, its steady, low hummmm sounding like an Indian harmonium, the monitor my only source of light.
3:00: Drake's velvety voice soothing you as he delivers foreboding lines in "Pink Moon". 3:02: The weepy misery of "Place to Be". 3:10: The sublime, no-need-for-words "Horn". 3:12: The surreal folk of "Things Behind the Sun". 3:22: The undeniable pop hook of "Free Ride". And then there's "Parasite", one of the greatest songs about an outcast this side of Neil Young's "The Loner"...the payoff line of, "Take a look you may see me in the dirt/For I am the parasite who hangs from your skirt," kills me every time I hear it. Be careful if you listen to this song alone in the dark; it'll make you want to slit your wrists every time.
But by the time 3:30 rolls around, "From the Morning" is now playing, the darkness out the window giving way to a pale blue on the horizon, but not the weak "pale blue" Drake sang about twenty minutes earlier, a tiny trace of hope stirring in your mind as you hear the lines, "So look see the days/The endless coloured ways/And go play the game that you learnt/From the morning."
3:35: Go to bed, feeling happier than you felt half an hour ago.
I had to steal this from one of my posts on the SOMB board...I just like it. And I'm lazy.
Friday, June 6, 2003
My review of Broken Social Scene's You Forgot it in People is now available for your perusal. I like this cd a lot, and it's a contender for my top ten in December, but it's not quite the classic album that certain Toronto papers want you to believe. Still, it's a keeper.
Watched the bonus dvd that came with the new Metallica cd yesterday, and it alone is worht the price of the cd. A full 80 minute run-through of the album, there are times where they eclipse the album versions. It also gives us a chance to see Robert Trujillo play with the band, and he certainly does not look out of place. What Metallica is missing, though, is a good provider of those guttural, growling backing vocals that Jason Newsted excelled at. Without him, the backing vocals by Trujillo and Kirk Hammett just don't cut it. I had never heard Hammett's voice isolated in a Metallica song before, and now that I have, I wish I didn't. To put it bluntly, he sounds like a freakin' moron. I don't think I can ever wath the dvd performance of "Purify" ever again, for that reason alone.
Wrote a 1300 word review of the album last night, in one 90 minute sitting. It was actually fun to do, compared to the five I reeled off last week.
Thursday, June 5, 2003
Fell a bit behind ove the past couple days, but for good reason. But first, of course, I have to mention a couple of new reviews that have appeared. Four Tet's Rounds is a very good IDM album, but I went over that a week or two ago. Read the review. Also, my big review of the deluxe Edition of Sonic Youth's Dirty album is up. Can you believe that I actually traded in my original copy of Dirty a couple months ago? I was either trying to get six bucks off the Drive-By Truckers' Southern Rock Opera, or the live Husker Du live album...hey, it all worked out in the end. Luckily. Got the swanky new version, and my appreciation for that most underrated Sonic Youth album is renewed. However, I'm still a brainless twit for trading the cd in, though.
Anyway, I've been spending the past day and a half getting acquainted with the new Metallica album, which is out today. Much to my surprise, St. Anger is not as bad as I had anticipated. In fact, it's considerably better than many folks are making it out to be; as I had figured, the song "St. Anger" is the weakest on the album, its seven-minute album version muddled and sloppy (further proof that Pro Tools does not belong in metal). Half of the record is just as ordinary, but a handful of songs, though, mark a complete rebirth for Metallica. It's a bumpy ride, and goes on about half an hour too long, but the record's highs redeem it marginally in my eyes.
Like I said in my first post regarding the single, Metallica are playing with a fire under their collective butts for the first time since 1988, and you instantly get that impression on "Frantic", a snarling, lumbering, lurching beast of a song (their best song is a loooong time), as James Hetfield makes an otherwise ridiculous line sound convincing, howling, "My lifestyle determines my deathstyle." "Some Kind of Monster" is a sludgy, eight-minute exercise in tuned-down, churning swamp metal (the type Jason Newsted introduced to the band before he left--see "Minus Human"), while "Dirty Window" cranks up the speed. "My World" seems like nothing more than a metal-by-numbers tune, until you get to the bridge, a blast of Slipknot-esque rage that sends chills down my spine, Hetfield whispering, "Not only do I not know the answer," and then hollering over a sudden blast of noise: "I don't even know what the question is!"
"Sweet Amber" is easily the best track on St. Anger, boasting a slinky blues-rock opening riff, and the most deftly pulled-off time signature changes on the album, evoking memories of their old prog-metal days.
The album is utterly relentless, and starts to get monotonous the further it goes, but "Shoot Me Again" and "Purify" both prove to hold their own. On the other hand, "All Within My Hands" sounds tiresome as it closes out the album, while "Invisible Kid" and "The Unnamed Feeling" are throwaways, nothing more than nu-metalish wastes of time. It wouldn't have killed Metallica to release a 45-50 minute album...for such a raw sound, it gets old really fast, and their message would have been driven home more effectively if the record was more tautly assembled. But no, they always have to go for the overkill.
It's obvious that all of the album's lyrics have Hetfield singing about his personal problems (the rage thing, especially)...he manages to steer clear from touchy-feely sentiment, but his lyrics still are not very strong ("Invisible kid/Never seen what he did/Got stuck where he hid/Falling through the grid"...sheesh). The production is definitely intended to be raw, with the rough guitar mix and Lars Ulrich's hollow snare sound, which sounds like he's banging on a hubcap for 75 minutes, but it's not as annoyingly sloppy as I had thought at first. And no, there are no guitar solos whatsoever. It's total aggro metal...there are some inspired moments where the band goes into uncharted territory, but for the most part, it's one of those back-to-basics records.
Despite its glitches, St. Anger has left me feeling mildly impressed. It's flawed, but it's not the disaster most of us have been expecting. It's like they're starting from scratch, trying to erase what has been a hellish three years, and what you hear on this album is the sound of a band playing with passion. It's an ungodly mess at times, but in the end, the passion won me over enough to give the album a marginal recommendation.
Tuesday, June 3, 2003
Did five large-ish cd reviews last week. A bit drained, but still enjoying some good tunes while recovering. Hopefully, I'll start to reduce this huge pile of cd's that sits before me.
First off, the most recent cd I reviewed was the rerelease of Drugstore's 2001 album Songs For the Jet Set, which has been put out with a second disc of bonus tracks. The album itself is very good, very Mazzy Star meets Catatonia. Some well done, dreamy stuff, best suited for late nights. If you want download suggestions, I recommend "Baby Don't Hurt Yourself" and "The Party is Over".
Also got a (burned) copy of the recently-hyped-by-indie-hipsters album by French duo M83 (I know absolutely nothing about these guys), called Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts. It's more of that laptop music, which is producing some absolutely stellar albums this year. Nice, warm, enveloping sounds, with some rich, lush production. "Beauties Can Die" and "Run Into Flowers" especially blew me away. A very nice album of instrumentals, it's not quite as great as recent albums by Manitoba or The Notwist, but it's still excellent, very moving music.
Wire's album Send is also great. All but four of its tracks come from their two superb Read and Burn EP's last year (which I had gotten into around last December)...some might argue whether or not they made the right choices of exactly what tracks to include here (out of the new songs, "Mr. Marx's Table" works best), but it's still a nasty little piece of noise that shows these guys still have enough energy and passion to pull this off convincingly.
Saturday, May 31, 2003
My Ex Models review has now appeared. What freakin' weird album. I mean that in a good way.
The new album by Hamilton's A Northern Chorus, called Spirit Flags, is quite a nice album to listen to, the type of cd where, if you walked into a store that was playing it, you'd go, "Hmm. Nice." But this Sonic Unyon group from Hamilton, Ontario, go on for 65 spirit-deadening, somnambulistic minutes. Every song goes at the same, slow pace, has the same lovely harmonies, the same sensitive-boy poetry...it all just blends into everything else. "Fragile Day", "Song & I", "Moment Fit to Remind", and especially "Red Carpet Blues" are among the highlights. There are no bad songs on the album...it's just too much of the same thing.
Shorten this album to 40 minutes, and it would be a near-perfect dreampop record. Instead, it's merely a good dreampop record. You have to be in the right mood to listen to this one...it's perfect for when you're standing in the backyard at night staring at the aurora borealis, but it's probably not a good idea to operate heavy machinery while listening.
Friday, May 30, 2003
I have to admit that despite my being Canadian and all, it has taken me a while to catch on to Toronto's Broken Social Scene. Their album You Forgot it in People has been out here for nearly eight months, but I was only familiar with a small handful of tracks. Well, now I have the album, and after a couple days' spent listening to it, I like what I hear.
First off, it's not quite the work of genius that Pitchfork and entire music press in Toronto claims it is, but it's still very, very good. Strightforward indie rock, but it sounds fresh and ambitious. "KC Accidental" sounds like a cross between Trail of Dead and the New Pornographers, while "Stars and Sons" (see the cool video: windows media) is insanely catchy, a song that brings me back to the days of Sebadoh and Dinosaur Jr. Those handclaps clinch it...we need more handclaps in songs. The propulsive "Almost Crimes" sounds positively Strokes-ish, but has more of a sloppy, artsy feel to it (free-form sax does that). The five-minute instrumental "Pacific Theme" is gorgeous, with a cool, West Coast AM radio feel to it, something that deserves to be in a film somewhere.
Meanwhile, "Anthems For a Seventeen Year-Old Girl" is a weird, oddly soothing bit of demented dreampop, with banjo, violin, and some entrancing female vocal harmonies that are tweaked enough to create an unsettling feeling. "Cause=Time" is a total rip-off of Dinosaur Jr., which really isn't so bad, while "Shampoo Suicide" has a nice Yo La Tengo vibe to it, with waves of guitar sounds and drowned-out vocals.
The album's not quite perfect ("Looks Just Like the Sun" and "I'm Still Your Fag" just doesn't do it for me), and starts to run out of steam close to the end, but still, You Forgot it in People is one of the better albums I've heard this year (I don't care if it's 2002 release, I'm adding it to my list in December). So that makes it six or seven great 2003 Canadian albums and counting, and it's not even June. Unreal. As the album ends with the uplifting strains of "Pitter Patter Goes My Heart" (think GY!BE, but less anarchic), the one thought that resounds in my head is the realisation that music from my home country no longer sucks. There's an indie rock renaissance happening here.
Wednesday, May 28, 2003
My review of Manitoba's Up in Flames album is now up. Great album, a sure-fire contender for my Album of the Year.
Tuesday, May 27, 2003
Back in 2001, Lamb's "Heaven" was one of my favourite songs of that year, with that intimate, yet creepy guitar sound provided by Doves' Jimi Goodwin, and Lou Rhodes' angelic voice creating an unforgettable sound. However, until today, I never got around to listening to the entire album, forgetting about it until a few months ago.
The What Sound album has been expanded and reissued, coming now with bonus remixes, b-sides, and a dvd. It's such an accessible blend of chill-out pop and techno, that I'm surprised it wasn't usurped by square yuppie couples who'd hear the cd at Starbucks and play it at home while entertaining friends and drinking Montepulciano. Yeah, it went gold or something in the UK, but aside from "Heaven"'s appearance on Six Feet Under, it went unnoticed in North America. It fits snugly between mainstream stuff like Dubstar (remember them? Wow, was "Stars" ever a pretty song) and more freaky trip-hop, like Goldfrapp's Felt Mountain. "Sweet" is a cool dance single, while "Gabriel" is just plain beautiful. And "Heaven", as mentioned, is simply perfect. An excellent electronic album that doesn't overdo it (Andy Barlow provides the exquisitely tasteful electronic accompaniment), one that's completely devoid of pretension. In retrospect, it's one of 2001's best albums.
Meanwhile, the new album by New York's Elefant is very good. I guess you could call it more of the same derivative New New Wave music that's come out, but unlike the blatant rip-off's by bands like The Rapture, Elefant manages to sound fresh. If the Strokes have a Lou Reed fixation and Tangiers with The Knack, Elefant loves David Bowie. Singer Diego Garcia has those Bowie vocal affectations down perfectly.
Though reviews seem to be name-checking Morrisey a lot, I think, with the hint of a disco sound, Garcia's clever lyrics, and classy melodies, there's more of a Pulp influnce; Sunlight Makes Me Paranoid sounds a lot like, say, Pulp's Separations and His 'n' Hers, more than anything (I also hear a bit of Peter Murphy as well). "Make Up", "Bokkie", and "Sunlight Makes Me Paranoid", and "Tonight Let's Dance" (OMD goes indie rock!) are four brilliant, brilliant songs. it was a wise move to make the album little more than half an hour...the band's sound is one that would get too redundant over 50 or 60 minutes. Instead, it's all over quickly, with not a minute wasted. It makes for a nice 32 minutes spent listening to some excellent music. Seek this one out.
Monday, May 26, 2003
This past weekend, I reviewed two laptop/IDM/folktronica cd's...one is excellent, and the other is even better.
First off, Manitoba's Up in Flames album is the best cd I've heard so far this year. Created by Canadian Dan Snaith, it's an ambitious, wide-eyed sonic collage that is the most joyous electronic album I have heard since Moby's Everything is Wrong in 1995. The album is only 39 minutes long, but it's so full of depth, with layer upon layer of sounds, that you get far more out of it than you'd expect. The whole thing is a marvel to listen to, but the clincher is the climactic track "Every Time She Turns Round It's Her Birthday", an absolutely euphoric tune that'll make you weep with joy (okay, maybe not quite, but you see what I'm getting at). Shamelessly fun, sliskly produced, and above all else, gloriously human. I can't get enough of this album.
Although it's not quite the over-the-top wonder that Up in Flames is, Four Tet's Rounds is still an excellent album, one of the better ones I've heard so far this year. The beautiful "Hands" and "Slow Jam" provide the album with perfect bookends, two surprisingly organic sounding songs that belie the fact they were created on a computer. "She Moves She" is an odd mix of Japanese koto influenced sounds and jarring samples that try to push their way into the song...when I first heard the track a month ago, I was jarred by the sharply contrasting sounds, but now, I hear a weird synchronicity between the two, a give-and-take happening that's strangely comfortable. By far the best track is "Unspoken", a collage of techno, trip-hop, and jazz, a nine and a half minute opus that sounds like a more languid, easygoing version of the freakout section in The Roots' "Water".
I hadn't really gotten into the whole IDM/folktronica thing in the past, but as these months go by, I'm slowly beginning to realise that alums like this one, Up in Flames, The Notwist's Neon Golden (technically a 2002 release), with their aritficially crafted, yet very soulful music, are becoming, in my dumb head anyway, the most invigorating and refreshing sounds of 2003.
Friday, May 23, 2003
Many thanks to Joel Orff, who sent me a signed copy of his extremely cool new book, which has just come out. I couldn't believe it when he told me my Metallica anecdote was included in the book, and seeing it there in print is simply thrilling. And the rest of the book is far more brilliant than my silly little story. Be sure to check it out!
Two new Drive-By Truckers tracks are available for free download, and they're amazing. The new album is out on June 17, but in the meantime, give "Sink Hole" and "Marry me" a listen. You won't be disappointed.
Take a peek at my review of Evanescence's recent album. It's okay, some decent combinations of nu-metal and flitty female singer/songwriter stuff, but what ultimately ruins the album is the lack of musical talent in the band itself, and Amy Lee's propensity to go off on weepy, tinkly piano ballads. Strictly a one-album wonder.
While away, another new review of mine appeared. So here it is, my take on The Apes' Oddeyesee. A splendid little epic concept album. Love that Hammond organ. Can''t get enough of it.
I came home Wednesday night to find a pile of six more cd's waiting for me, so that makes it about fourteen I have to sift through in the next few weeks. Daunting, but it can be done.
The first one I'll mention is a biggie, the new Deluxe Edition of Sonic Youth's Dirty album, and I must admit, it's a real eye-opener. I hadn't listened to the original album much since 1992, and I've even been saying that I was a bit bored with the thing. Well, I was badly mistaken, my opinion on Sonic Youth clouded by the largely subpar music the band has produced in the last decade (with the odd exception here and there). With all my "they'll never beat Daydream Nation" blabbering, I never thought of going back to revisit their 1992 record.
It's certainly no Daydream Nation, but Dirty still ranks on the second tier of excellent, just-short-of-classic Sonic Youth albums, along with Sister and Goo, and this double cd offers a fascinating, closer look at the band circa 91-92. Along with the songs we all know, like "100%", "Sugar Kane", and "Youth Against Fascism", the album itself opened my ears to songs I had completely forgotten about. "Theresa's Sound World" is glorious, "Shoot" is menacing (with some of Kim Gordon's best vocals ever), and Lee Ranaldo's "Wish Fulfillment" is one of the most gorgeous songs the band has ever recorded. Butch Vig and Andy Wallace give the record a kick in the pants, mixing the discordant noise with a Big Rock Sound that actually works better than, say, Nevermind.
The extra goodies on this cd are fascinating. "Stalker" and "Genetic" are both excellent b-sides, while the covers of Alice Cooper's "Is it My Body?" and the New York Dolls' "Personality Crisis", both sung by Kim Gordon, are perfectly suited for the band. The twelve rehearsal recordings are also interesting, but unlike the b-sides, they're not really the type of tracks you revisit from time to time. Recorded in 1991, amidst all the band's messing around (only "Wish Fulfillment" has vocals), you hear the Dirty album take shape, but the sloppiness of the recordings only makes you appreciate Vig's pummeling production on the album even more.
So is Dirty worth the deluxe treatment? It's not as great as the similar versions of The Velvet Underground & Nico or A Love Supreme put out by Universal, but it still makes for some enthralling listening. So sure, why not? It made me appreciate the original album more, but on the other hand, it also made me wish Sonic Youth were able to make an album in recent years that came closer to matching their output from 1987-92 ("The Diamond Sea" is the song that comes closest). Let's hope they put out a deluxe edition of Daydream Nation next time around.
Thursday, May 22, 2003
Well, back from Edmonton. The Coldplay show was excellent. The conference centre it was in was a bit bizarre, a narrow hall that was about one and a half times longer than a hockey arena, but it still made for a refreshingly intimate show. I staked out a spot right in front of the sound booth, a bit removed from the crowd (the best place to be), and enjoyed everything thoroughly.
The Music were unreal as openers...they played all the right songs from their album, including "The Dance", "The People", "Getaway", "The Truth is No Words", and a wicked, effects-laden version of "Take the Long Road" that was more Stone Roses than led Zeppelin, blowing away the album version. Those boys can play the rock & roll, all right, and climaxed with their extended, swirling instrumental "The Walls Get Smaller", which had the crowd mesmerized as the boys rocked in all their Madchester glory.
Coldplay were solid. They take that mellow sound of theirs and play it with gusto in a live setting, which was a bit surprising, and Chris Martin is quite the capably charismatic frontman. The light show was very well done, and the black and white video screens (all from stationary cameras onstage) were a nice touch. It sounded quite good...it's great I got to see a band like this in such a small venue; it's much better than seeing the same show in a cavernous arena. A fun time was had by all...we don't get good UK bands out here anywhere near enough. Here's the setlist:
Politik
God Put a Smile Upon Your Face
Spies
Daylight
The Scientist
One I Love
A Rush of Blood to the Head
Don't Panic
Everything's Not Lost
Poor Me
Yellow
Amsterdam
encore:
Clocks
In My Place
Trouble
The other opening band at the show was a Texas outfit called Eisley, who sounded like a cross between The Cranberries, Lush, and Throwing Muses. They were nice enough, so I picked up a copy of their EP called Laughing City. The band is still obviously in their infancy, but there's big potential here. Gotta love dreampop sung by girls.
Friday, May 16, 2003
Heading off to Edmonton today to see Coldplay and The Music, but I'll probably still be posting if I have the time.
New review again...this time around, it's the superb compilation Gotta Serve Somebody: The Gospel Songs of Bob Dylan. Easily the best tribute album I've heard in a long while.
And who'da thunk it, but Telarc's brand new Bob tribute cd, Blues On Blonde On Blonde is enormously fun. I hated the album's predecessor, The Blues White Album, but this one is a marked improvement. Much looser and relaxed, and each artist takes one song and has a blast with it (I love Sue Foley's cover of "Most Likely You Go Your Way and I Go Mine". Although "4th Time Around" and "Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands" aren't included, and despite the fact that the best blues versions of the Blonde On Blonde songs are still the originals, it still makes for a highly enjoyable time.
Tuesday, May 13, 2003
Another new review to mention. Yes, my rather, er, enthusiastic review of The New Pornographers' Electric Version is out there for your reading pleasure. My review is a bit zealous, but I stand by it. That music makes me so durn happy.
Got a package from Frenchkiss records yesterday, with a couple of very interesting cd's inside. First, there was the new album by New York band Ex Models, called Zoo Psychology. How to describe it? A combination of The Boredoms, Fugazi, and Captain Beefheart, with an insane, screeching monkey for a singer. It's like nothing I'd ever heard before, and lasting no more than twenty minutes (despite having fifteen tracks), it's about all the noise you can bear. Any longer, and I'd be running away screaming. Twenty minutes seems just right, and as a result, I think this album rocks, big time. Now I just have to figure out what the dude is singing...
Also, there was the new album Oddeyesee, by Washington's The Apes. I'd never heard this group either, and was quite surprised to hear such a weirdly compelling combination of stoner rock and prog-rock, all done with organ, bass, drums, and no guitar whatsoever. Better yet, it's a concept album...something about the band travelling on an ark into the jungle in search of a two-headed butterfly, only to be stymied by hunchbacks playing video games, and an evil overlord named Worwiz. I haven't sat down and studied the lyrics yet (I just found them), but the music is very cool, in a Morphine-meets-Vanilla Fudge sort of way. Extremely heavy stuff, with a singer who sounds like Fu Manchu's Scott Hill. It gets a little monotonous, but it's still a really fun cd.
Monday, May 12, 2003
Well, I managed to get one of my more eagerly-anticipated albums of 2003 yesterday. Thanks to some unknown person, the new album by Irish band The Thrills was leaked yesterday (about six weeks before it comes out in the UK), and it doesn't disappoint. The first five songs, especially, are glorious, sunny, West Coast pop: "Santa Cruz (You're Not That Far)" is given a more lush treatment than the single from earlier this year; "One Horse Town" (one of the year's best songs) and "Big Sur", the current single (see the video here), are note-perfect, bubbly pop songs, while "Deckchairs and Cigarettes" evoke thoughts of 70s singer-songwriters. If there's a blip at all, it's in the songs "Old Friends, New Lovers", "Hollywood Kids", and "Just Travelling Through" (they're good, but not as great as the rest), but it's only a momentary valley in an album full of euphoric peaks. It might not be the album of the year, but it's one of the better albums from this year, that's for sure.
Oh, and many thanks to Steverino for picking up Goldfrapp's Black Cherry cd for me (though I've had a burnt copy for two months, I wanted the real thing, but no store in my city had it), as well as the new collection of Haikus by Jack Kerouac. Quite a snazzy little book...can't wait to read it.
Saturday, May 10, 2003
The new album by Evanescence is an interesting cd. It's a total one-trick pony, with its blend of Tori Amos caterwauling and talentless Linkin Park, nu-metal guitars, but it's a combination that's a bit refreshing. Face it, "Bring Me to Life" is a pretty good single. The real surprise here is the number of tinkly piano ballads that just kill the album...nothing but a waste of time, a bunch of lame, Sarah McLachlan-aped bad high school poetry. Cheer up, woman!
That singer Amy Lee has a great voice, and is a real cool hard rock chick, but the band drags her down. She'd be far better off singing more classic heavy metal (what a blend that would be...she'd be a total metal goddess), with a band with more musical chops than the collection of hacks currently behind her. Evanescence (good grief, what an awful name for a band!) tries to be epic and operatic, but they really have to go head-first into the bombastic sounds of Iron Maiden, Queensryche, and Type O Negative to really make it work ("Tourniquet" comes closest, but it's a cover of a song by a Christian rock band). For now, this is nothing but a perfect example of how most most young metal bands just don't get it. Half unbearable, half half-decent, this is a huge missed opportunity. They'd better enjoy the album sales...this has one-album wonder written all over it.
Wednesday, May 7, 2003
Another new review to mention...this time, it's the new album by The Yeah Yeah Yeahs. I haven't mentioned it much on this page, but over the past couple months, it's been really growing on me. The album gets a tiny bit stale midway through, but aside from that, it's an excellent debut, and one of the best albums of the first half of 2003. All three members fo the band show an incredible amount of growth, compared to their first EP, but the real relevation is guitarist Nick Zinner, who sounds like a mix between Cobain and Kevin Shields. His playing on the new album is near-genius.
Hooray, huzzah, the Coldplay tickets arrived today. Three months after I ordered them via the presale, Musictoday were true to their word. Good stuff.
Tuesday, May 6, 2003
New review today: Anxiety Always, by Adult....a pretty good album. Very angry, and a touch disturbing.
Thursday, May 1, 2003
Did a bit of housecleaning here...the last two months' entries have been archived. Link's on the right, if you care...
Been getting into a band called I Can Lick Any Sonofabitch in the House as of late. Their new stuff is very good...sort of like a cross between the swamp rock of Drive-By Truckers and the ticked-off liberal spewing of Steve Earle. Their new album's called Put Here to Bleed, and it's one of the angriest condemnations of Republican America to come out in the past year or two. This band does not mince words...when you dedicate a song called "American F**k Machine" to George Bush, you're pretty much abandoning any hope of lyrical subtlety.
There's also a very funny song called "The Ballad of Courtney Taylor" (download the song here), where the Dandy Warhol himself gets torn apart: "Hey you Mr. A & R would you buy my lunch for me/I’m gonna cake on some makeup then i’ll pass for 23/All you pretty women, best do what I say/If I see one green m&m there’s gonna be hell to pay/What’s that shit some salami on my deli tray?/I’m gonna leak it to the willamette week that i’m bisexual or gay/Cause i’m a rockstar."
The real keeper is the tune "Dear Mr. Heston" (download the song here), a blunt attack on the NRA. You'd think it's just another left-wing anti-gun rant, but it turns out the singer's little brother was killed by another brother who was horsing around with a parent's gun at home, and when you listen to the song, it becomes a powerful indictment of American gun culture:
Josh said I know where mama keeps the gun/She won’t even know that it’s gone/I took a class and I got my license
Now my little brother will never know the love of a girl
And he’ll never drink a cold one
And he’ll never see another sunrise
And he’ll never damn sure damn sure fire that gun/Dear Mr. Heston
If you ever saw a 12 year old boys brains splattered on a kitchen wall
Well you’d hang your head in shame
You rifle totin’ whore
Cold blooded old blooded sick ass man
One of the better songs I've heard this year...
