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Administration0@blogcritics.org Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2006/04/23/220210.php uaoArtist: Album (label, release date) 1-5 starsMugison: Little Trip (Ipecac, April 18, 2006) **** Memphis Slim: I Am The Blues (Passport Audio, April 18, 2006) ***** Rita Lee: Bossa 'n' Beatles (Ghordo Music, April 18, 2006) **** Anaal Nakrakh: When Fire Rains Down from the Sky, Mankind Will Reap as It Has Sown (Earache, April 18, 2006) ***Mugison: Little Trip In the wake of Bjork, Goldfrapp, Sigur Ros and other Icelandic electronica acts, the record biz is dusting off some of the second tier of recent electronica albums from the volcanic island nation of 280,000. Given that the entire population of the country is only two thirds that of Fresno, California, one has to start wondering just how deep the trough can run. Mugison, a former sailor from the northwestern corner of the island, almost a stone's throw from the north pole, has released three albums over the last few years, and appeared at Scotland's Triptych festival in 2004, which gained him international interest. He tours with all of his equipment in a single suitcase; he and his family hand-stitched the elaborate packaging for 10,000 copies of his 2003 debut, Lonely Mountain. Little Trip, the soundtrack to Baltasar Kormakur's 2005 of the same name, has been given a new push in 2006 by Ipecac, and offers a handy jumping-in point. So, is this another boldly innovative Icelander who will teach the continentals a thing or two about the possibilities in music? Well not really, but he keeps some conventions in circulation, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Half of this album is ambient balladry, featuring romantic vocals (sung in English most of the time) like on the fairly irrestistable "Little Trip to Heaven," which boasts a tranquil, almost Pacific Island-affected slide guitar, and gentle brushes on the drums. Elsewhere, like on "Alone In The Office," we get a somnambular chillout groove with muted horns that sounds a lot more like conventional British electronica. On still other pieces, mostly on fragments under two minutes, we have abrasive white-noise constructs as on "Mugicone, Part 2", where the disc really does sound like movie music. Those expecting something to grab them by the lapels will greet this with a big yawn. However, it's certainly inoffensive, and if nothing here is really new, it reshuffles them into a likeable sleepy-time collage. Memphis Slim: I Am The Blues Memphis Slim (born John "Peter" Chatman, 1915-1988) was a piano player extraordinaire on the Memphis circuit following World War II, where he largely inherited the crown of Big Bill Broonzy as Memphis' most respected ivory tinkler. His rich, earthy, always in-control voice was commanding, and he was a gifted songwriter as well, penning classics that were covered by Lowell Fulson, Joe Williams, and B.B. King among others. I Am The Blues is a budget-priced 14-song compilation, originally released on Prestige Elite in 2002, that collects most of his best-known sides that he recorded for Chicago's United Records in the early 1950s. On all of these cuts, which range from slow to midtempo, Memphis Slim displays a warmth and ambiance that displays an urban sophistication rarely heard outside of Chicago, yet nothing comes across as forced or self-conscious. Instead the good times roll by with numbers like "Ballin' The Jack", "I Am The Blues", "Sassy Mae", and "Ramble This Highway"; all should be accessible to blues novices and favorites of electric blues aficionados. Liner notes are virtually non-existent, but the price is right; a good, concise introduction.Rita Lee: Bossa 'n' Beatles Rita Lee had been a member of Brazil's most influential rock group, the seminal Os Mutantes in the late 1960s. Bossa 'n' Beatles is her idiosyncratic 2002 take on the Beatles, with the bossa nova rhythms the title promises, but with a refreshingly iconoclastic art-pop sensibility that makes this more than yet another vanity collection of Beatle covers. The opener, "A Hard Days Night," is given a colorful funk-rock treatment that only hints at bossa-nova in its beats; "All My Loving" is more in the traditional vein of Astrud Gilberto. "If I Fell", on the other hand, is given a more modern bossa treatment. "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds", which is based on on electronically treated piano and features blurry whooshes and sound effects is at once sensual and experimental; "If I Fell" and "In My Life" appear in both English versions and Portuguese versions. There's no shortage of Beatle tribute albums, and most are pretty ho-hum; this one actually merits more than one spin. While the song selection, which also includes "Michelle", "She Loves You", "I Want To Hold Your Hand", "With A Little Help From My Friends" and "Here, There, And Everywhere" is not the most inspired or eclectic selection of possible songs to cover, Lee manages to infuse enough distinct character into each to get these old workhorses to reveal something new about themselves. Not for everybody, but those who consider the "Girl From Ipenema" a guilty pleasure will enjoy this stuff.Anaal Nakrakh: When Fire Rains Down from the Sky, Mankind Will Reap as It Has Sown An English duo of vocalist V.I.T.R.I.O.L. (Dave Hunt, ex-Mistress, ex-Benediction) and Irrumator (Mick Kenney, owner of Nekrodeath studios and former member of Aborym, Frost, Mistress) Anaal Nakrakh's stated purpose is to provide the soundtrack to the apocalypse. Formed in 1999, the band adapts Norwegain-style death metal for the English speaking masses, and pretty much delivers the goods. How much you need these goods depends on your tolerance level for demonic roars over hyperspeed metal; with me, I like it in small doses. So When Fire Rains Down from the Sky, Mankind Will Reap as It Has Sown, originally released in 2003, a six-song EP, is good enough for me."Never Fucking Again" is a great song to play when you're careening through the hills on a two-lane at midnight at excessive speeds. In fact, so are "Cataclysm Nihilism", "Genesis of the Antichrist", and the title cut, the best things here. Lyrically, I assume the titles tell the story; very little of V.I.T.R.I.O.L.'s roar is intelligible. But give the machine-gun drummer here some due; and the guitar riffs pound like oppression itself. Can't say I'll play this very often, and I imagine the apocalypse sounding more like Jessica Simpson, truth be told, but as far as death metal goes, I got the thrills I bargained for. The reissue pads things out with three more songs; damned if I can tell the difference between them.Also out this week: A serviceable 2002 hits-oriented single disc best-of, Ultimate Dolly Parton on Sony International; post-rock experimental Chicago band The Race's 2002 album The Perfect Gift on Flameshovel; some 4-disc boxed collections of old albums by America, Argent, Rosemary Clooney, Vic Damone, The Four Lads, The Modernaires, and Jerry Vale, all called Collectables Classics on Collectables; Den of Thieves by the Trews, a 2002 Jack Douglas production that flopped, on Red Ink; Collection: 2006 Edition by Kiwi new-wavers Split Enz on EMI; the U.K. versions of Aftermath, Between The Buttons and Out of Our Heads by the Rolling Stones on Universal Japan; and Constant Pressure, by electronica act Beat Pharmacy, on Wave.<div id="authorbio">uao isn't my real name. </div> Music46750@blogcritics.org Sun, 23 Apr 2006 22:02:10 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/12/31/172326.php uao Artist: Album (label, release date) 1-5 starsThe Association: Windy & Other Hits (Collectables, December 27, 2005) ** Ambrosia: How Much I Feel and Other Hits (Collectables, December 27, 2005) ** The Spinners: I'll Be Around & Other Hits (Collectables, December 27, 2005) *** Average White Band: Pick Up the Pieces (Collectables, December 27, 2005) ***The lack of Weekend Reissue Roundups this month haven't been due to laziness; there have been far fewer reissues this month than usual, including this week. However, the sometimes-good, sometimes-lousy reissue label Collectables have dusted off four 10-song budget-priced Rhino Flashback titles this week; while none are satisfactory compilations, they may come in handy for those filling gaps in their collections. The caveats are described below.The Association: Windy & Other Hits This Association compilation is a perfect example of what's wrong with these releases. While it does have the #1 1967 hit "Windy", it manages to leave out "Never My Love" (the second most played song on the radio in history), a #2 hit from 1967 and perhaps their most sublime moment of pop brilliance. Also absent is the familiar lush pop standard "Cherish", which reached #1 in 1966. Not here too, is their psychedelic stab at acid rock, "Six Man Band" which charted in 1969. That's their three best songs missing; the best of the lot here is "Windy", "Everything That Touches You", a 1969 top-10 that sounds like a re-write of "Cherish", and the band's 1966 debut hit "Along Comes Mary". The Association weren't a heavy 60's band; their sound had more in common with the Four Freshman than Jefferson Airplane. But they did play at the Monterey Pop Festival, and managed to chart albums until 1972. Formed in Los Angeles in 1964 as a 13-member group called the Men, they originally pursued a folk-rock sound, but by the time of their debut they had been trimmed to a six-member group and pretty much gone strictly pop. Their best hits, especially "Never My Love", are pretty good, and their occasional forays into rock weren't embarrassments. Most noteworthy was the lush production, done by Curt Boettcher. The Association's Greatest Hits on Warners is still the best introduction.Ambrosia: How Much I Feel and Other Hits Just like the other discs in the series, this doesn't even pretend to be inclusive. Most people know Los Angeles-based Ambrosia through the mellow pseudo-soul pop/rock of "How Much I Feel", easily their best hit, one of the better FM pop hits of 1978. Prior to 1978, Ambrosia was more of a progressive rock band, mixing orchestral sounds with pop, as on their earlier chart hits "Holdin' on to Yesterday" and "Nice, Nice, Very Nice", as well as their version of the Beatles' "Magical Mystery Tour" none of which are included here. Which would be OK, we can start from 1978 with the pop stuff and not miss much. But "Biggest Part of Me", a #3 hit from 1978 isn't here either. The bland "You're The Only Woman" is here, as is "I Just Can't Let Go", and that covers the "Other Hits" in the title. The rest are album cuts mainly from their two biggest albums Life After L.A. from 1978 and One Eighty from 1980, and sound like weak Hall and Oates cuts. Try the much better Anthology on Warners.The Spinners: I'll Be Around & Other Hits A good Spinners anthology is a good thing to have; the Spinners were very arguably the best early 70's Philly soul group (transplanted from Detroit) in a crowded field of good groups; their hits from their 1971-1976 peak are quite memorable; "Could It Be I'm Falling In Love", "They Just Can't Stop It (Games People Play)", and "Then Came You" are great songs that dressed up the wasteland of AM radio in their day, and still sound great now; sweet, sexy, and soulful. And yes, you guessed it, none of these seminal hits are included on this disc. What is here? The hits "I'll Be Around", "The Rubberband Man", "Ghetto Child", "I'm Coming Home", "One of A Kind (Love Affair)" and five ringers; needless to say nothing from their earlier (and spottier) years at Motown in the 1960's is included. A little better than the Ambrosia and Association discs, but the album to buy here is The Best of The Spinners, on Atlantic.Average White Band: Pick Up the Pieces This band always had a very truthful name. A white funk/r&b band, specializing in instrumentals, they had an enormous #1 hit in 1975 with "Pick Up the Pieces", a funky little number that turns up in movies and commercials every day. It's probably their best hit, although their second best and second biggest hit, "Cut The Cake", is missing. "School Boy Crush", "Queen of My Soul", and "If I Ever Lose This Heaven" make it in, fortunately, making this an almost okay collection of the band's hits. Which raises the question: why leave out "Cut The Cake?" What was Rhino thinking when they compiled these? It's true they're budget releases, but who would want any of these releases? The record to buy here is Pickin' Up the Pieces: The Best of Average White Band (1974-1980), on Rhino.Also out this week: three albums from obscure 70's prog-rock group Jak the Lad, Its Jak (sic), Old Straight Track, and Rough Diamonds on EMI; Miles Davis' Cellar Door Sessions 1970, on Sony, and Marc Almond and the Willing Sinners' Mother Fist and Her Five Daughters, on Some Bizarre. Be sure to visit Freeway JamImage Shack hosts my images.<div id="authorbio">uao isn't my real name. </div> Music41653@blogcritics.org Sat, 31 Dec 2005 17:23:26 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/12/10/132816.php uao Artist: Album (label, release date), 1-5 starsAlanis Morissette: The Collection (Maverick, Dec. 6, 2005) **** Night Ranger: Midnight Madness (Lemon, Dec. 6, 2005) *** John Lee Hooker/Canned Heat: Hooker 'n' Heat (Beat Goes On, Dec. 6, 2005) **** Dolenz Jones Boyce & Hart: Dolenz Jones Boyce & Hart (El, Dec. 6, 2005) **Alanis Morissette: The Collection Over ten years have passed since Morissette broke out with Jagged Little Pill, one of the best selling records in history, and one of the most distinctive releases of the 1990's. Since then, she's managed a fairly solid string of hits, although she's never come close to repeating the unrepeatable success of Jagged Little Pill. Earlier this year, she released an unplugged version of that album; depending how you look at it, it was either a bonus for fans or a sure sign she's running out of ideas. Now we have The Collection; a nicely assembled best-of, the first of her career. It's both a useful collection and also a somewhat frustrating one simultaneously. On the plus side, all the big hits are here, including "You Oughta Know", "Ironic", "Head Over Feet", et. al. Also on the plus side, are the inclusion of several non-album cuts, including one of her very best, the psychedelic, droning, keening, trip-hoppy "Still" (from the film Dogma), plus "Uninvited" (from The City of Angels), "Mercy" (from The Power Cycle) and Cole Porter's "Let's Do It (Let's Fall in Love)" (from De-Lovely). As bonus unreleased bait, there's a version of Seal's "Crazy" which sticks close to the original and isn't as good as Seal's, and an unremarkable "Princes Familiar" from MTV Unplugged. As such, this isn't quite a best-of (missing are major songs like "All I Really Want", "So Pure", and "Unsent", among others) as much as it is a best-of/rarities hybrid. Which renders it a bumpier ride than one might hope for. It's very useful for the movie songs, and the best of the best is here; it's up to you to decide if it's all you really want. A 14-song DVD is included in the package released on Dec. 6, 2005.Night Ranger: Midnight Madness How times have changed. Back in the day, Night Ranger was scoffed at by any serious critic; they were a primary example of what was wrong with rock in 1983. Big, gigantic, air-pumped vocals, arena-friendly cock-rock guitar, plenty of dreaded power ballads mixed in with the hard rock. Time has been somewhat kind to them; "Sister Christian", the only song most people remember from this album, is now considered a classic of sorts, and Night Ranger is remembered as more of a front-runner than they ever really were. With the re-issue of Midnight Madness, their biggest album, we have a chance to re-examine the evidence. "(You Can Still) Rock In America" is a guitar-rich hard rocker with a new-wave beat and synth line and an instantly catchy chorus, "Chippin' Away" is an uptempo rocker with another new-wave beat and synth line and a pretty good chorus, "When You Close Your Eyes" is a mid-tempo rocker with yet another new-wave beat and synth line and good chorus. And herein lies the rub; Night Ranger was too pop/new-wave to be metal, and too metal to be pop. However, Night Ranger sounds much better if you forget any "metal" connotation at all and think of them as a heavy-leaning power-pop band instead; on those terms, Midnight Madness is a perfectly inoffensive, intermittently fun listen. Every cut screams 1983 at the top of its lungs, for better and worse, but when compared to some of their competitors of the day they still sound fairly fresh. For fans only, but casual listeners might like this too as long as they don't set their expectations too high. Night Ranger had a hit with their next album, 7 Wishes, but the sales dried up after that, although they released albums well into the 1990's.John Lee Hooker/Canned Heat: Hooker 'n' Heat This album always looked better on paper than it sounded on the stereo. Recorded in 1970, as Canned Heat was riding their Woodstock notoriety, it featured a new lineup of the band; Alan "Blind Owl" Wilson and Bob "Bear" Hite are present, with Henry "Sunflower" Vestine on guitar and Antonio "Tony" de la Barreda on bass. It was the last recording to feature pianist/guitarist/harmonica player/blues historian Wilson; within months he'd die of an overdose. John Lee Hooker, of course, is the maverick 53-year-old bluesman famous for his boogie-style playing and strange, primitive, one-chord grooves. Canned Heat were a good boogie band as well as blues band, and the combination does click in many places, if not consistently. Hooker handles the vocals, making this more of a Hooker album than a Canned Heat one. As it is, it's not bad at all; Hooker is in good form, and Canned Heat has some electrifying moments. The biggest problems are in the uneven material, Hooker's songs are pretty good; the ones that Canned Heat gets credit on are more hit-and-miss. There's a definately ragged quality to the sessions, with studio chatter between some of the cuts, and the playing on songs like "Whiskey and Wimmin'", the best cut here, is a little lumpen; both Hooker and Canned Heat have done better. That said, as far as blues albums featuring rock groups go, it is one of the better ones, and fans of either artist should enjoy it. But it's also a novelty; those looking for a good Hooker album can do better.Dolenz Jones Boyce & Hart: Dolenz Jones Boyce & Hart Okay, I'm going to have to qualify the ** I gave this. Monkees fanatics will like this album a lot, and it has developed something of a semi-legendary status over the years. However, few others will find this of interest, for reasons Monkees fans are willing to overlook. First, some backstory. The Monkees TV show (the only reason why they existed in the first place) was cancelled in 1968. In 1969, Peter Tork left the Monkees, reducing them to a trio for a pair of albums. Mike Nesmith split in 1970; the last Monkees album, Changes, featured only Davy Jones and Micky Dolenz (had one more quit, the remaining one could have put out an album credited to The Monkey). Neither Jones nor Dolenz, who weren't blessed with good voices or songwriting talent, were able to get a solo career going. Enter the songwriting duo of Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart, who had penned many of the Monkees' most memorable hits, and had also had a modestly successful recording career as a duo before running out of gas by the turn of the 70's. In 1976, a new quartet was formed, a tour launched, an album released. Few albums hit the cutout bin faster than this one, and it has always been relatively difficult to find. As for the music, it's both what you'd expect and what you wouldn't expect. It's lightweight pop to be sure, more in a 70's California pop vein than the faux-British Invasion or country/rock the Monkees specialized in. At its best, like on "Sail On Sailor", it's perfectly serviceable, well-produced pop. At its worst, like on "Along Came Jones", the old Coasters hit, it borders on amateur. Most of it is okay-ish, but only if you make discounts for the likable personalities involved. Monkee fans, get it while you can. Anyone else, you're not missing a whole lot. Tork, Jones, and Dolenz would reunite as the Monkees in 1986 for Pool It! (even Monkees fans hate that one), and Nesmith would turn up on their second (and better) reunion album, Justus, in 1996. Boyce committed suicide in 1994.Also out this week: Three fine albums from Kate Bush, Dreaming, Hounds of Love, Never For Ever, on Toshiba EMI; the hard-to-find Waiting For A Song by Denny Doherty on El; Phil Seymour by Phil Seymour on Collector's Choice, Martin Denny's classic Hypnotique on Rev-Ola, and Peanut Butter Rock 'n' Roll by rockabilly/psychobilly maverick Hasil Adkins, on Norton.Weekend Reissue Roundup, on haitus for a few weeks, is back as a weekly feature.Be sure to visit Freeway JamImage Shack hosts my images.<div id="authorbio">uao isn't my real name. </div> Music40793@blogcritics.org Sat, 10 Dec 2005 13:28:16 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/11/13/095703.php uao Artist: Album (label, release date) 1-5 starsLenny Kravitz: Greatest Hits [Special Edition] (Virgin, November 8, 2005) **** T. Rex: The Slider [Expanded Edition] (Rhino/WEA, November 8, 2005) **** John Entwistle: Smash Your Head Against The Wall (Sanctuary, November 8, 2005) **** Cat Stevens: Chronicles (A&M, November 8, 2005) ****Lenny Kravitz: Greatest Hits [Special Edition] This is a very attractive Kravitz package complete with a bonus DVD featuring six tracks. It's easy to overlook Kravitz sometimes; despite plenty of MTV exposure and an impressive list of hits, he's never really been considered a heavyweight. Also, his retro early 70's funk/psychedelic sound is, by its very nature, backward looking; Kravitz is seldom considered an innovator. Still, as evidenced by this collection, he's not-so-quietly amassed a body of work worthy of an anthology. And he's managed to keep what is essentially a classic rock format sounding fresh. So, "Let Love Rule", a novelty when it was new, sounds like the classic it has now become. "Are You Gonna Go My Way" and "Fly Away" also sound like familiar hits from the 70's, when in fact they are inspired simulations. His career has had its ups and downs; his noisy cover of "American Woman" never made anyone forget the Guess Who, and his most recent album, Baptism, represented by "Where Are We Runnin'," got panned, although that song's Rolling Stones vibe works fine. The album's programming is not chronological, probably a good idea. Can't really quibble with the song selection; if Kravitz has been among your guilty pleasures, here's a good guilt-free collection.T. Rex: The Slider [Expanded Edition] Rhino/WEA has been busy reissuing the T. Rex catalog; this week, in addition to The Slider, the expanded editions of Dandy in the Underworld, Zinc Alloy and the Hidden Riders of Tomorrow, and T. Rex Wax Co. Singles: A's & B's 1972-77, return to the shops as well. The copious amounts of unreleased material appended to these albums in 2002 (Slider received 18 new cuts, compared to 13 on the original album) makes these expanded issues essential for T. Rex maniacs; for normal people, they may be a little much. The Slider is peak period T. Rex, released in 1972. It's a brash record with glam rock trappings, a big meaty sound, and plenty of production surprises. "Metal Guru" opens things up with a catchy pop number with Beach Boys style backing vocals plus horns and strings. "Telegram Sam" pairs a ragged "Bang a Gong" style riff with one of Marc Bolan's best leering vocals. The title track is a spare uptempo bass-drums-and-guitar driven little crunch rocker with Bolan alternating between breathy and buzzed, a good string quartet shows up for the bridge. Even the lesser known songs, "Ballrooms of Mars", "Baby Boomerang", and "Rock On" sound like hits. Bolan/T. Rex never really got the acclaim in the States they had in the U.K., but the music holds up well; it's crisp, hook laden, and not just a little funny. And it's all rock 'n' roll.John Entwistle: Smash Your Head Against The Wall Entwistle was a good songwriter in a band that had a great one, namely The Who. Consequently, he didn't get many chances to shine beyond his bass playing. However, some of his compositions, like "Boris The Spider" (written on the spot, when the Who were low on finished numbers) and "My Wife" a highlight of Who's Next, rank among the Who's best moments. Most of his songwriting, and singing therefore was relegated to solo albums, of which Entwistle released five between 1971 and 1981 (and another in 1996). Smash Your Head Against The Wall was the first and by far the best, released in 1971, the same year Who's Next came out. It kicks off with "My Size", a great heavy hard rock number with a killer riff that sounds like a cross between Black Sabbath and T. Rex; it would have made a great Who record. "I Believe In Everything" is a surprisingly tuneful and sweet pop song, with airy vocals that recall Bob Welch-era Fleetwood Mac; it breaks into a bizarre chorus of "Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer" at its end. "Heaven and Hell" and "You're Mine" demonstrate Entwistle's darker side, which was always at the edge of his music. A surprise is Neil Young's "Cinnamon Girl", one of nine bonus cuts, which stays fairly close to the original. Entwistle's voice can be thin sometimes, but it's servicable, and the album is well-played. A fine album Who fans should own, and 70's rock fans ought to hear.Cat Stevens: Chronicles Chronicles is really a boxed set of three Stevens albums: Mona Bone Jakon (1970), Tea For The Tillerman (1970), and Teaser and the Firecat (197i). While there's no particularly good reason these three albums should be packaged together, they do shed a little insight on what made Stevens briefly a major star; all three arguably do constitute his best work, as well. Of the three, Mona Bone Jakon is arguably the best and most interesting. It predates Stevens' first U.S. hits, although he had made a name for himself in the U.K. with his 1967 debut. Mona Bone Jakon was recorded after Stevens, once considered a prodigy, had recovered from a near-fatal bout of tuberculosis; as such, it's full of subtle intimations of death and loss, like on the acoustic "Maybe You're Right" and the strings-aided "Lillywhite"; elsewhere he gets progressive with his piano arrangements, almost sounding like a stripped down Yes on the ivories. Tea For The Tillerman was Stevens' big breakthough; it has the hits "Wild World" and "Hard Headed Woman". It also displayed a patronizing streak towards women in Stevens' music that has always been there; "Hard Headed Woman" "Wild World" and "Sad Lisa" are all about women who are punished for essentially standing their own ground. Teaser and the Firecat is usually regarded as Stevens' maturation; songs like "Morning Has Broken" and "Peace Train" are classics now. Stevens is a frustrating performer. At his best, he was truly unique; a good deal more interesting than many of his singer/songwriter contemporaries. At his worst, he was a pseudo-mystical fool with a misogynist streak. Chronicles is a handy way to judge for yourself; there are enough good moments on all three discs to make it worth it.Also out this week: Patti Smith: Horses [30th Anniversary Legacy Edition] on Arista; contains a bonus live in 2005 disc, featuring a lineup with Lenny Kaye and Tom Verlaine. I haven't heard it yet, but it's on my buy list, although I do wish they would release the live disc separately.Weekend Reissue Roundup is a weekly feature. Be sure to visit Freeway JamImage Shack hosts my images.<div id="authorbio">uao isn't my real name. </div> Music39467@blogcritics.org Sun, 13 Nov 2005 09:57:03 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/10/29/122448.php uao Artist: Title (label, release date) 1-5 starsThe Art of Noise: (Who's Afraid Of?) The Art Of Noise! (ZTT, October 25, 2005) **** Dave Edmunds: Twangin' (Wounded Bird, October 25, 2005) **** Gun Club: Mother Juno (Sympathy for the Record Industry, October 25, 2005) **** The Meteors: Sewertime Blues (Anagram, October 25, 2005) ****The Art of Noise: (Who's Afraid Of?) The Art Of Noise! A decade before trip-hop, there was The Art of Noise. An offshoot of (ex-Buggles, ex-Yes, ex-Asia) producer Trevor Horn's studio band, The Art of Noise produced ambient downtempo proto-electronica that earned a lot of club play and significant radio play in the early 1980's. Their 1984 debut album, (Who's Afraid Of?) The Art of Noise!, remains their definitive statement. An album chock full of advanced-in-its-day studio trickery, including sampling, tape splicing, programmed beats, and plenty of other weird sounds, it alienated traditional rock fans while becoming a cult item among pop sophisticates. Much of the textures and experiments have since became commonplace in trip-hop and electronica; Prodigy's big club hit "Firestarter" takes a key sample from the most well-known song here, "(Close To) The Edit". The title is a challenge; the Art of Noise were deconstructionists, who shattered conventions in pursuit of the now, one of the most self-consciously modern units of the early 1980's. Many of the textures they created were unsettlingly alien to the typical 1984 listener; herein lies their appeal. "(Close To) The Edit" is a mix of aggressive snippets, loops, and samples atop a fretless bass and cacophony of percussion. The same synthetic orchestral blurt sampled by Yes and Duran Duran in their 1983 hits turns up here; the closest thing to a lyric is Anne Dudley's intoning of a single line midway through. Most of the rest of this album is similar in spirit and style. "Moments in Love" is built around a synthetic panpipe sample, as accompanying synthetic effects and instrumentation build a slow, ambient downtempo groove. "Beat Box (Diversion One)", the trio's biggest hit, is reminiscent of Herbie Hancock's "Rockit" in a house of mirrors, with the title machine the center attraction. The other six tracks are more variations on the same essential theme. Art of Noise's essential message was that anything could be a musical instrument, and if it couldn't, it could be manipulated into one electronically. This, of course, is old news now. But what might be a surprise is that (Who's Afraid Of?) The Art of Noise! manages to sound extremely crisp and fresh two decades later, long after such music was considered old hat.Dave Edmunds: Twangin' Twangin' was originally released in 1981, when Edmund's backing group Rockpile was breaking up. Consequently, it isn't very much of a Rockpile record; the playing is perfunctory and spare, and unnaturally crisp. However, it's a very-good-to-excellent Edmunds album, reflecting just how good he was in his late 70's/early 80's peak. What he delivers is what the Edmunds buyer looks for, strongly played, well constructed traditional roots rock with a punch to the rhythm. Its most vibrant moment is when he has the Stray Cats backing him on a version of the old George Jones classic "The Race Is On", which is a jaunty rockabilly. His cover of John Fogerty's "Almost Saturday Night" sticks close to the original but carries a punch; its playing and backing vocals are closest to classic Rockpile. "Cheap Talk, Patter, and Jive" is a great Faces-style hard rocker. "You'll Never Get Me Up In One Of Those" opens with a chiming hard rock guitar before settling into a Stones-like groove with a rockabilly rhythm underneath. "It's Been So Long" is a Brinsley Schwarz number given a new wave power-pop updating. Twangin' marked the end of an era in Edmunds' career, and while it isn't the best album of that era, it is good enough to stay with you after you've played it. Wounded Bird is also simultaneously releasing his first post-Rockpile disc, D.E. 7th, from 1982.Gun Club: Mother Juno Psychobilly legends from L.A., Gun Club was largely a rollercoaster ride of a band, dependant on erratic frontman/wildman Jeffrey Lee Pierce's moods and whims until he died in 1996. Their 1981 debut Fire of Love remains one of the most essential indie releases of all time; everything was up and down after that. Mother Juno, from 1987, was a surprise when it appeared (to those who noticed it; it wasn't even released in the U.S. until the 90's). Following The Las Vegas Story in 1984, Pierce broke up the band and embarked on a reckless solo career. In 1987, he and guitarist Kid Congo Powers unexpectedly put together a new Gun Club. Pierce's girlfriend Romi Mori took over bass, and Nick Sanderson drums. Mother Juno is no Fire of Love or Las Vegas Story, but it is an excellent album. The choice of producer was a peculiar one; Robin Guthrie, who was best known for producing the ornate dream-pop of the Cocteau Twins. The biggest difference from prior releases is in the diminished role rockabilly plays; "Lupita Screams" is a slab of proto-grunge with big chords and a staggering rhythm, Peirce's voice almost sounds like The Cult's Ian Astbury. "Crab Dance", on the other hand, is jangly pop-punk, somewhat reminiscent of The Replacements. "The Breaking Hands" is Cocteau Twins-style dream pop set apart by Pierce's buried but anguished vocal. "Bill Bailey", which leads off the album, is the closest to Gun Club's traditional psychobilly, and gets one of Pierce's best wavery, yowling vocals. Kid Congo Powers (who Pierce lured back from The Cramps) deserves special praise for his guitarwork throughout the album, there isn't a song here that doesn't feature an immediately arresting guitar solo or chime. Gun Club would have a few more highs and lows before Pierce's demise in 1996.The Meteors: Sewertime Blues On the subject of psychobilly, arguments persist as to its originator. Some champion Gun Club or fellow Angelenos X and the Blasters, others the Cramps. However, one band that might have the strongest claim on the title is the Meteors, who developed their own strain of rockabilly fried punk across the Atlantic in England, far from the American bands who usually come to mind first. "Sewertime Blues" has always been a difficult record to find; released in 1986, it usually turns up as part of a twofer with Big Bang Fruit; here it gets its own release. The title track sounds like a rockabilly T-Rex with real attitude; it's a menace. 'Deep Dark Jungle" relies on a jangling guitar before drifting into a bizarre punk-blues; it then breaks into a fast-tempo rockabilly. "Surf City" isn't the Jan and Dean hit, but an absurdist rant with killer lead guitar and propulsive two-string bass. "So Sad" gets a head of steam brewing fast, and has the momentum of a feight train as it approaches a rave in the middle. "Here's Johnny" essentially takes the chords of "Jailhouse Rock" and brutalizes them in the service of another rapidfire rockabilly with an intense, screaming vocal from Paul Fenech, who is also responsible for the album's bevy of great guitar sounds. While the trio on Sewertime Blues isn't the original trio (Fenech has been the only constant in the band's 25-year-plus history), it's from the mid-80's version of the band, which was equally capable of murderous playing. Fans of Gun Club, the Cramps, or any psychobilly would love this record.Also out this week: Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks: Mary Lou , a collection on Collectables; The Jam: The Jam at the BBC on Fontana Intl.; Destiny's Child: #1's, a best-of on Sony; The Dictators: Bloodbrothers on Wounded Bird; Southside Johnny and the Asbury Dukes: Hearts of Stone on Beat Goes On; D.O.A.: War on 45 on Sudden Death.Weekly Reissue Roundup is a weekly feature.Be sure to visit Freeway JamImage Shack hosts my images.<div id="authorbio">uao isn't my real name. </div> Music38733@blogcritics.org Sat, 29 Oct 2005 12:24:48 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/10/23/182916.php uao Artist: Album (label, release date) 1-5 starsDead Can Dance: Momento: The Very Best of Dead Can Dance (Rhino, October 25, 2005) **** Josh Joplin Group: The Best of the Josh Joplin Group (Artemis Nashville, October 18, 2005)*** Susan Tedeschi: The Best of Susan Tedeschi (Tone Cool, October 18, 2005) *** Boy Sets Fire: The Day The Sun Went Out (Equal Vision, October 18, 2005) *** Dead Can Dance: Momento: The Very Best of Dead Can Dance In some respects, I've always been resistant to Dead Can Dance. I always thought of them as exotica more than anything else; languid grooves with a smorgasboard of sounds and textures copped from the world; worldbeat for people who can't take the real thing undiluted. However, after encountering them in enough sets and settings in a variety of situations, I've come to appreciate their experimentation and their studio obsessive fusion of eastern and western motifs. So "The Ubiquitous Mr. Lovegrove" is sultry and sinister, and Brendan Perry's vocal has some soul. "Enigma of the Absolute" is wrapped around chiming keyboards and a string quartet, buried like ghosts under layers of studio haze. "The Song Of The Sibyl" benefits from Lisa Gerrard's vocals, which mixes middle-eastern call-to-prayer touches with Gothic European. "Neirieka" offers a stew of eastern cues that is ominious and invigorating, with its cutting vocal and forward leaning percussion. It all still adds up to a lot of signifying that probably means nothing. But it ain't pop music, and its studio accomplishments are pretty breathtaking. And nothing wrong with exotica either, you just have to be in the right frame of mind. Momento: The Very Best of Dead Can Dance is a handy fifteen-track sampler, probably all a non-convert needs. For those wanting more, Rhino's earlier multimedia box Dead Can Dance 1981-1998 offers a complete portrait at a heftier price tag.Josh Joplin Group: The Best of the Josh Joplin Group If R.E.M. deserves credit for inspiring many 80's roots-rock and jangle-pop bands, they should also be credited, for better and worse, for inspiring many 90's adult alternative acts, too. Josh Joplin's (no relation to Janis, nor Scott, for that matter) voice is almost a ringer for Michael Stipe, and his group has the guitars-with-muted-textures-in-back of 90's era R.E.M. The lyrics tend towards impressionistic and vague, and the production is always tasteful. However, this isn't necessarily a bad thing. The semi-hit "Camera One" is an excellent piece of radio fare; "Human" is an acoustic epic with a lilting melody and nice guitar work on the fills that builds into an almost psychedelic crescendo, the lyrics are overambitious but don't trip themselves up. However, "I Am Not The Only Cowboy" opens with a ridiculous spoken rap over acoustic guitar before Joplin, sounding like Stipe again, sings the opening of the first verse, earnestly, "I am not the only cowboy in this one horse metaphor". Then, the ridiculous rap returns after the verse. An enormous-sounding strings production wells up before the third rap. The rest of this displays similar pros and cons; some good vocals, some bad ones, some good ideas, some bad ones. The playing is solid throughout, even if the production gets a little corny. An apt comparison might also be Dave Matthews, who is a lot better. Best of Josh Joplin Group is kind of a misnomer; it collects only material from two of his five albums. Susan Tedeschi: The Best of Susan Tedeschi Tedeschi has been a somewhat controversial figure among blues aficionados since her debut album appeared in 1998. A white woman from a Boston suburb, her biography doesn't read like a blues musician's. She went to Berklee and was in a gospel ensemble; she formed her first road band in 1991 with singer/guitarist Adrienne Hayes. However, she's played many blues festivals since then, and has remained true to the form. As a performer, she sounds a lot like a younger Bonnie Raitt, a good guitar practitioner and possessor of a rich, expressive voice. Like many 90's-00's blues performers, Tedeschi's arrangements have a vaguely ornate, pop-oriented lilt to them and can tend towards wistful more than blue. Still, it's pretty good stuff, the best being "Alone", with its soulful horns, and the vaguely 50's flavored "It Hurt So Bad". Her version of Dylan's "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right" gets a gritty vocal and nice accompaniment by Tedeschi on guitar and a gospel-inflected organ solo. The Best of Susan Tedeschi is a 13-song sampler from blues lable Tone Cool that features 11 highlights from her two Tone Cool albums plus a pair of live cuts. It doesn't include her more recent work for Verve. Boy Sets Fire: The Day The Sun Went Out Boy Sets Fire, from Delaware, is one of the many progressive punk/emo bands that emergered in the latter half of the alternative rock era. They made their full-length debut in 1997 with Day The Sun Went Out on Initial records. Like all emo, Nathan Gray's vocals are a little on the histrionic side; however, he mixes things up enough to keep things fresh. Instrumentally, the band sounds like any number of punk post-grunge bands; on "In Hope" we get some good metallic riffs and plenty of tempo changes, "Pure" has propulsion and convincing rage, "Another Badge of Courage" is a pounder in the style of Rage Against The Machine. The band's best assets are the twin guitars of Joshua Latshaw and Chad Istvan which play off each other or pummel in tandem. Matt Krupanski's drums are crisp and always busy, bassist Darrell Hyde gets some good solos in. Their politics generally keep with emo culture; self-awareness, personal responsibility, independence without getting too specific. They get it all together on "The Power Remains The Same" which is also the closest they get to true punk, which has great guitar and drums, and Hyde's most acute singing. In short; a pretty good record, but not one that stays with you long. Boy Sets Fire recorded another album for Initial in 1998, before going major. Their most recend disc, Tomorrow Come Today, came out in 2003.Weekend Reissue Roundup appears weekly.Be sure to visit Freeway JamImage Shack hosts my images.<div id="authorbio">uao isn't my real name. </div> Music38379@blogcritics.org Sun, 23 Oct 2005 18:29:16 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/10/16/155831.php uao Artist: Album (label, release date) 1-5 starsWire: Pink Flag (EMI, October 11, 2005) ***** The Waterboys: Best of the Waterboys 81-90 (EMI, October 11, 2005) **** Styx: The Best of Times: The Best of Styx (Universal International, October 11, 2005) ** Tom Verlaine: Warm and Cool (Thrill Jockey, October 11, 2005) ****Wire: Pink Flag Any argument about punk's genesis also has to include the debut album Pink Flag by Wire, released in 1977, the same year Never Mind the Bullocks was released. There's no denying the album is a punk album, but Wire took a more art-school approach to the concept. One of the first thing that people noticed about the album was the extreme brevity of the songs; fifteen of the album's original twenty one tracks are under two minutes and six are under one minute. Their artiness is closer to the Pere Ubu school of sculpting noise more than the grad school artiness of the Talking Heads; as Brits, they avoided the overt politics of the Clash and Sex Pistols but nontheless displayed a wry and sardonic wit. The brevity of the songs keeps their focus honed and direct, but somehow doesn't make them sound like fragments; each works as its own little song. Picking favorites is tough, but on the title track (which clocks in at nearly four minutes, an epic) guitarists Colin Newman and George Gill lay a rough texture underneath as the rhythm section of bassist Graham Lewis and drummer Robert Gotobed builds a tightly-wound tension that is released in a climax of chanting and screeching and collapses into rubble. Colin Newman's drawled out "loove" on "What Is This Thing Called Love?" displays the right irony, as the band crunches out a Troggs-like backing with Animals-style vocal harmonies. "Dot Dash" could be a toe-tapping pop single. "The Commercial", and instrumental rides in on a rollicking bass and chiming chords and establishes itself in just 49 seconds. The opener, "Reuters" opens with a slow groove over which Newman intones headlines from an apocalyptic future that sounds more relevant today. And on and on; words cannot do it justice. Wire changed directions with nearly every release (and went on long hiatus twice, rather than release uninspired stuff). One of the few bands punks and art-rockers can agree on.The Waterboys: Best of the Waterboys 81-90 The Waterboys are more well-known in their native England, but produced some of the best U.K. college rock of the 1980's. This collection encompasses two distinct phases of the band's career; the first through the 1985 album This is the Sea with Mike Scott and Anthony Thistlethwaite with drummer Kevin Wilkinson, keyboardist Karl Wallinger and trumpeter Roddy Lorimer. 1986-1990 saw Scott and Thistlethwaite relocate to Ireland and work with a completely new band, fiddler Steve Wickham, drummer Dave Ruffy, keyboardist Guy Chambers, and bassist Marco Weissman, which specialized in a homespun folk mixed with country sound with Celtic touches. In 1991, Scott relocated again, to New York, and pursued a rock sound again. All of these phases fall under the Waterboys moniker; the first two are covered on Best of the Waterboys 1981-1990, originally released in 1991 by Ensign/Chrysalis, now part of the EMI fold. "The Fisherman" is an excellent example of their Irish period, it sounds a lot like the off-kilter zonked c&w Camper Van Beethoven sometimes dabbled in. "All The Things She Gave Me" is a good example of their earlier, indie rock sound which borrows from soul, ska, and new wave more than the folk influence. "The Whole of the Moon" is their best-known hit, a gorgeous song that features shimmering guitar, pounding piano, and Scott's wildly romantic vocal. Styx: The Best of Times: The Best of Styx This compilation originally appeared in 1997 on A&M, and since Styx hasn't had any hits since then, Universal International must've decided it'll suffice. It doesn't suffice, really. You get twelve of Styx' greatest hits, plus three 'new' songs, a 1995 re-recording of "Lady" instead of the original, and two 1997 songs. Obviously absent is anything from the three studio albums Styx has released since then, although those three are minus Dennis DeYoung. So this is a best of the DeYoung years, and as such, it still fails, missing "The Grand Illusion" and "Come Sail Away" among other key hits. Come Sail Away: The Styx Anthology on A&M, does a far better job over two discs. If you really couldn't care less about Styx, and just want a place saver so you can boast completism, this will do. As for the songs that are included, you know most of them. "Renegade" and "Too Much Time on My Hands" are probably the best, and "Babe" and "Mr. Roboto" probably the worst. Tom Verlaine: Warm and Cool Tom Verlaine, as founder of Television, gained instant recognition for his creative, idiosyncratic guitar style that set him apart from his New York punk peers. When Television broke up after two albums (the first one of the essential albums of the 1970's), his cult stayed with him; a notoriously hard-to-please bunch, they've often given the impression of being disappointed in Verlaine's further adventures, largely because they didn't sound like Television. Verlaine can't be blamed for this; half of Television was dependent on Richard Lloyd's guitar too. As a solo artist, he's had his ups and downs; getting the most acclaim whenever he kinda sounded like Television. Warm and Cool, from 1992, was something of a kiss-off, or a new direction. It's an instrumental album of cool jazz guitar coupled with a spaciness that recalls Jerry Garcia or Carlos Santana, of all people. "Saucer Crash" is one of the most elegant pieces; stately and spacey, it builds up an intricate latticework of crisp guitar accompanied by cymbals and bass. It demonstrates what a lot of people have claimed all along; Verlaine's distinctive style had a jazziness to it that could make the most bare-bones structure seem dense and compelling. At its best, Warm and Cool suggests a modernized, stripped In A Silent Way in places. At its worst, it noodles aimlessly, but even the noodles are pretty good. The album was poorly received by his fans, and Verlaine, for whatever reason, hasn't released a solo album since.Be sure to visit Freeway Jam.Image Shack hosts my images. <div id="authorbio">uao isn't my real name. </div> Music37998@blogcritics.org Sun, 16 Oct 2005 15:58:31 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/10/10/094157.php uao Artist: Album (label, release date) 1-5 starsThe Residents: The Third Reich 'n' Roll (Mute U.S., October 4, 2005) **** Zero 7: AnotherLateNight (AnotherLateNight, October 4, 2005) **** Pentangle: Sweet Child (Castle Magic UK, October 4, 2005) **** Tyrannosaurus Rex: My People Were Fair and Had Sky in Their Hair... But Now They're Content to Wear Stars on Their Brows (Universal International, October 4, 2005) ****The Residents: The Third Reich 'n' Roll This is a title that one may draw instant conclusions from, especially when coupled at first listen to the cacophony of demolition going on as well as the album art. Also uninviting is the fact that the album is comprised of two side-long songs with the titles "Swastikas on Parade" and "Hitler Was A Vegetarian". But no, this isn't xenophobic punk rock run amok; far from it. Who are the Residents? Nobody knows for sure; the band, now in its 4th decade, has never revealed their identities beyond the inner sanctum of the Cryptic Connection, the band's representational wing. They are a San Francisco based group of avant-garde dadaist mixed media performance artists who have released mountains of strange, experimental, anonymous music since 1974. Third Reich and Roll, their third album, appeared in 1976 and was accompanied by a single performance, in Berkeley, where the band performed behind a screen wrapped like mummies. As for the concept at work here, we have literally dozens of pop classics strung together and overlapped, being deconstructed and destroyed in an abrasive, fascist orgy of frightening vocals and instrumentation that sounds like Martin Denny, Captain Beefheart, Frank Zappa, Sun Ra, and John Cage tripping out together. It's a tough and challenging listen by any standards, and the unease one feels as the parade of warped, twisted pop ditties march by grows more discomfiting as each old tune, all of which had once been friends, reveals itself in a new ugly light. But it is an interesting and even fun listen nonetheless; and picking out the song fragments can take up a bizarro afternoon. When the expereince is over, you'll never hear music quite the same way again, and you might feel a little self-conscious the next time you sing along with a meaningless ditty on the car stereo. What did the Residents intend by this epic? You'll have to ask them.Zero 7: AnotherLateNight There's a lot of misperception about electronica among non-listeners; it's accused of being soulless, inorganic, outside the pop music lineage and continuum. While this is sometimes true, as a truism it falls short. Zero 7 is a good case in point. Zero 7 is the moniker of producers Henry Binns and Sam Hardaker, who plunder the most dimly-lit corners of soul and hip-hop for reference points in their downtempo chillout music, AnotherLateNight was recorded for Kinetic records' AnotherLateNight remix series, which had previously issued remix albums by heavyweights Howie B. and Fila Brazilia; it was also Zero 7's second album of new material, following their extremely well received Simple Things in 2001. Zero 7's choice of source material is astonishing in its breadth; experimental/avant-garde/part-time Sonic Youth collaborator Jim O'Rourke's "Ghost Ship In A Storm" is recast as a sultry pop song with a rollicking piano-bass-snare with flourishes of pedal steel and synth, and harmonic vocals that sound like a soulful CSN. Elsewhere, a Matthew Herbert remix of Serge Gainsbourg/Brigitte Bardot's "Bonnie and Clyde" shows off the technician side of the duo, with its heavily sampled and synthetic instrumentation and vocals. "Real Eyes" by late-90's cult hip-hop act Quasimoto gets mileage from its bouncy bassline and sampled flute flourish. The closer is the Stylistics' "People Make the World Go Round", with its soulful organ, muted synth, guitar, and backward guitar washes and spine-tingling female chorus that reaches a glorious crescendo. Zero 7's Anotherlatenight succeeds by always sounding rooted in musical history, finding connections where none seem apparant. While this gets a little overwhelming in places, at its best, it's a true revelation. Fans of Zero 7's own albums, Simple Things and When It Falls, would enjoy this, as would anyone with a fondness for soul and rock looking for some chillout space.Pentangle: Sweet Child That's "Pentangle" not "Pentagram"; no, this isn't an overlooked satanic metal band from the 60's. Pentangle probably can best be described as progressive folk; their music is largely acoustic, but draws from a myriad of influences shared by the progressive rock bands of its day: English folk, classical, Celtic, jazz. The double-LP Sweet Child is their sophomore album, released in 1968, and is framed by the guitars of Bert Jansch and John Renbourn (who also sing) and vocalist Jacqui McShee, who recall a more mystical and Celtic Fairport Convention. About half of the songs are covers of mostly traditional material plus two Charles Mingus originals, most of the rest are creditied to all band members. At its most glorious, like on the vaguely country-tinged "Touch the Stars", the chilly island folk of "The Trees They Do Grow High", and the ethereal acoustic pop of "In Your Mind", Pentangle is in its own world entirely, the ensemble crafting a music that is instantly accessable by fans of late 60's psychedelic and progressive music, but without betraying their folk roots. Shel Talmy, known for his work with the Kinks and the Who, produced.Tyrannosaurus Rex: My People Were Fair and Had Sky in Their Hair... But Now They're Content to Wear Stars on Their Brows Fiona Apple did not invent the unweildy album title. Tyrannosaurus Rex predates the rise of T-Rex and Marc Bolan; Bolan formed it with Steve Peregrin Took, a bongo player, in 1967 and as a duo, they released four albums from 1968-1970. These albums are a far cry from the glam-rock of T-Rex. My People Were Fair... was their debut album, and they reached #15 in the U.K. with it. Pop producer Tony Visconti presided over the sessions, which primarily consist of Bolan's manic acoustic guitar playing and Took's rapidfire bongoes, plus an array of peculiar instrumentation, including glockenspiels, pixiephones, gongs, strange harum choruses, and a mystical, eastern-sounding aura and sensibility. Also evident is Bolan's strange Lord of the Rings fixation (he renamed Took after a character in the trilogy), which manifests itself in a Tolkien recital by deejay John Peel on "Frowning Atahuallpa". "Child Star" is the best known, one of the loveliest things here, melodic and sweet even as it comes at you from the misty otherworld. Most of the songs are in the under 3-minute range, four are less than 2 minutes. In some respects, this is a quintessential 60's relic, right down to its title and bongos. In other respects, it's a fascinating glimpse into the formative years of the mercurial Bolan, who would become the biggest star in England in the early 70's, before his untimely death in 1977. Not essential, but interesting. The new Universal International re-issue is a deluxe package, full of goodies. Be sure to visit Freeway JamImage Shack hosts my images.<div id="authorbio">uao isn't my real name. </div> Music37691@blogcritics.org Mon, 10 Oct 2005 09:41:57 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/10/02/150654.php uao Artist: Album (label, release date) 1-5 starsBlind Melon: The Best of Blind Melon (Capitol, September 27, 2005) **** The Yardbirds: Very Best of the Yardbirds (Metro, September 27, 2005) **** Natalie Merchant: Retrospective 1995-2005 (Rhino, September 27, 2005) **** The Clash: The Essential Plus (Legacy, September 27, 2005) *****Blind Melon: The Best of Blind Melon It's not easy to cobble together a best-of from a band that only released two albums in their lifetime. However, Capitol tries its best, taking six songs from Blind Melon, six from Soup, adds "Three is the Magic Number" from the Schoolhouse Rock Rocks! "tribute" album, and a handful of tunes from the posthumous Nico odds and sods collection. You can buy this with or without the bonus DVD of concert and video clips. The package is beautifully constructed, with revealing, and sometimes sad, liner notes by guitarist Roger Stevens. Blind Melon were an anomaly in their day; a product of late 80's Sunset Strip, which was all glam-metal in those days, Blind Melon kept an earthy rootsiness to their music that bore some metal influence, but also southern rock, jam-band, and traces of Neil Young; the doomed Shannon Hoon's high-pitched expressive voice remains one of the most distinctive of the 1990's. Soup, an excellent album, largely tanked when it was released in 1995, but it was a fine album, even though its sessions were famous for chaos, a drug arrest, and Hoon's downward spiral. Here's a chance to hear the full range of this band in one place; it's a pity things turned out as they did.The Yardbirds: The Very Best of the Yardbirds Nice try. No, this isn't the "very best" of the Yardbirds; it's mostly selections from the 1964 album Five Live Yardbirds, the 1965 album Having A Rave Up plus "For Your Love", Chuck Berry's "Talking 'Bout You" and Jimmy Reed's "Baby What's Wrong". Missing is anything from Roger The Engineer (Over Under Sideways Down in America) (1966) or Little Games (1967). Thus, this compilation touches on the Clapton era, and is weighted towards the Beck era; Jimmy Page's era is absent, unless "Stroll On" (from the film Blow Up) counts (Page isn't on it, but he appears with the band, as does Beck, in the film). Of the group's 9 singles to chart in America, 5 are missing. "Heart Full of Soul" is not the hit version, but the rarer version with sitar. Is this collection worth it? Not if you want a thorough overview on the band's notoriously confusing discography. However, there's nothing wrong with the 20 cuts it includes, and they do cover the band's best period. One wanting a complete picture should get Rhino's pricier 52-track Ultimate!, from 2001, which cross-licenses all Yardbirds material from the beginning to the end. If you want a cheap fix, this will do.Natalie Merchant: Retrospective 1995-2005 I've said plenty of nasty things about record companies many times here and elsewhere, but I always have only kind words for Rhino. With Rhino's new Natalie Merchant retrospective, her first solo best-of, they do the smart thing. They have released two versions of the album; one is a straight 13-cut best-of, with no rarities, for non-diehards who just want the hits and key album cuts. The other one is for the fans, with a bonus disc of 15 additional tracks including rarities and non-album cuts like her work with R.E.M., Billy Bragg, and the Chieftains. Merchant has released four studio albums since leaving 10,000 Maniacs, all are represented here. While some 10,000 Maniacs fans have been disappointed in her solo career, which for the most part is a moody, atmospheric but somewhat slick professional pop, it's hard to deny the hooks of "Kind and Generous" and "Carnival"; most of the rest of the single disc is of a similar caliber. The double-disc is probably too much for the casual listener, but it's the better of the two; much of her best work aren't the obvious singles. It also boasts three unreleased cuts. For some strange reason, Amazon and other websites call this package "Greatest Hits", although the CD itself is labeled "Retrospective".The Clash: Essential Plus If I wanted to get into a splendid argument, I could call the Clash 'The Beatles of Punk'. How else to describe the enormous impact they had not just on the music of their day, but their lasting cultural significance? Of course, that'd be a silly comparison, but this godsend of a compilation is every bit as essential as The Beatles Anthology collections. Clash fans already have this stuff; the double CD Essential Clash came out in 2003, and the DVD Essential Clash came out the same year. Legacy combines them into one three disc package here, giving the Clash the most thorough and representative audio/video compilation you can get in one shot. The CD's contain 40 cuts, spanning from the 1977 debut through the 1985 Mick Jones-less Cut The Crap album. Fans can argue about what should and shouldn't be here, but the track selection is very inclusive and smart, and is presented chronologically. The DVD is a riot, with their videos, interview clips, a trailer for The Clash on Broadway, and other goodies. Anyone who has meant to check out the Clash, but have hesitated thusfar, here's what you've been waiting for. This will keep you busy for weeks. Also noteworthy: Universal Music Group has released Chronicles collections for Asia, The Carpenters, Cher, John Hiatt, Elton John, Tom Jones, The Moody Blues, Velvet Underground, and Whitesnake. Each of these repackages three original albums into a single new package, with new cover art. I can't really recommend these, unless you like the tall, unweldly boxes they come in, which don't fit in my CD rack. The albums aren't remastered, and there are no additional notes. The Velvet Underground one is best by far on the quality of the music, Elton John and John Hiatt are probably next. Why anyone would need a three-CD box of Whitesnake is beyond me, but it's there if you want it.Weekend Reissue Roundup appears every weekend.Be sure to visit Freeway JamImage Shack hosts my images. <div id="authorbio">uao isn't my real name. </div> Music37258@blogcritics.org Sun, 2 Oct 2005 15:06:54 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/09/26/103856.php uao Artist: Album (label, release date) 1-5 starsGary Moore Band: Grinding Stone (Reportoire, September 20, 2005) **** Muse: Origin Of Symmetry [Enhanced] (Warner Brothers, September 20, 2005) *** Herb Alpert: Whipped Cream And Other Delights (King Japan, September 20, 2005) ** Krishna Das: Pilgrim Heart (Triloka, September 20, 2005) **You know it's a slow week for reissues when Gary Moore has the most interesting one, and Herb Alpert and Krishna Das make the list. But we work with what we have.Gary Moore Band: Grinding Stone Gary Moore is barely known in the U.S., although he's managed to keep a cult audience in England and Europe over the years. A guitarist in the style of Peter Green, who helped him land his first record deal, Moore's mostly-instrumental Grinding Stone was his first project following the disbanding of his first band, Skid Row (not the 80's hair metal guys), in 1972. Grinding Stone is from 1973, and the band consisted of Moore on vocals and guitar, Pearse Kelly on drums, and John Curtis on bass. Grinding Stone is something of a transitional effort; a little amplified blues rock, like Moore's earliest work, and the barest hints of fusion, which hints at his later work with Colosseum II. The nine minute title track gets a pretty good groove on, while "Time To Heal" is a blues-boogie featuring Moore's fairly ragged vocals. "Sail Across The Mountain" is slower and soulful; the 17-minute "Spirit" crosses the line from bluesy metal into fullblown progressive rock. Is there an audience for this? Depends how much you like Moore's guitar, which still does recall Green's, but with less fluidity. It's a lumpen album in the worst excessive tradition of the the early 70's, which isn't really a put-down, but as a guitar album or a power-trio album it delivers the goods, and is fairly unique for its time.Muse: Origin Of Symmetry [Enhanced] English trio Muse is best known in the States for "Hyper Music", from their 2001 sophomore album Origin Of Symmetry. Origin Of Symmetry was frequently compared to Radiohead when it was released, and while Muse is a little softer focus, the comparison still holds to a degree. Many of the songs on Origin of Symmetry take a similar approach even if they wind up in different realms; spooky quiet intros with muted piano or organ that erupt into uptempo, busy numbers with shaggy, loud vocals and a dusting of white noise. The album is anything but subtle; the riffs, organs, and screams are defiantly over-the-top. "Feeling Good" with its intensely silly filtered vocals and bogus blues progression is maybe the best thing here; the single "Hyper Music" and neo-prog-rock "Bliss" other standouts. Vocalist and primary songwriter Matthew Bellamy recalls Jeff Buckley at times. Herb Alpert: Whipped Cream and Other Delights The title is a giveaway. Herb Alpert was the king of lightweight, easy listening confection, and this album is about as tasty and ultimately sickly-sweet and unsatisfying as a bowl of whipped cream. Its re-issue is noteworthy as a curio; here we have an instrumental concept album with nearly every song given the title of some kind of food ("Whipped Cream", "A Taste Of Honey", "Peanuts", "Lollipops And Roses"), the album cover features a pretty young nude model wearing only whipped cream, and the album itself was Alpert's big commercial breakthrough in 1965. While it's easy to say Alpert's records all sound alike, there are subtle differences; "Love Potion No. 9" gets a brassy treatment that would've sounded at home in a 60's strip club, while "A Taste Of Honey" shows off its complex time signatures and made the top-10. "Whipped Cream" sounds almost like Alpert's later hit "Spanish Flea". Can't really recommend this to hardcore rock fans, but fans of 60's kitsch may find it amusing.Krishna Das: Pilgrim Heart Pick your spiritual leaders carefully. Krishna Das is strongly recommended by Timothy Leary's former partner-turned-guru Ram Dass, which ought to be a tip-off from the start. Krishna Das is Long Island raised Jeffrey Kagel, whose life apparently was changed by a several-hours meeting with Ram Dass in 1968; in 1970 he went on spiritual retreat to India. Flashing forward to 1990, Krishna Das formed his own record label, Triloka Records, which specializes in new agey World albums. Pilgrim Heart, from 1998, is his second album (he started recording late in life). It is pretty much what you might expect; devout, solemn, trance-inducing, somewhat treacly and sweet. Still, the vocals are quite pretty in places, particularly on "Govinda Hare" and "The Goddess Suite-Mother Song" which display Das' rich baritone in interesting juxtaposition with his backing vocalists. Sting puts in an appearance on "Mountain Hare Krishna". What does it all mean? Probably nothing; the new age always was vague on specifics. But if you're looking for something pseudo-profound to do your yoga to, you could probably do worse. Or better.Weekend Reissue Roundup is a weekly feature.Be sure to visit Freeway JamImage Shack hosts my images.<div id="authorbio">uao isn't my real name. </div> Music36827@blogcritics.org Mon, 26 Sep 2005 10:38:56 EDT