Album Review #15: Bush - Black And White Rainbows

Three years after Man On The Run, alternative rockers Bush return with their seventh album, and  third with their new lineup.  On Black And White Rainbows mastermind Gavin Rossdale leads the quartet through 15 songs, each one polished with fat, lush production, and each one powered by explosive choruses that feel as though the music and lyrics were plugged into a mathematical formula.  Full of grandeur, the blueprint the band works with here feels surfeit in the end.

Since Sixteen Stone (the British band’s 1994 debut), Rossdale has remained the driving force, and main songwriter.  It’s a crown he’s worn well considering that it’s his tunes that helped sell 10 million records in the United States alone.  But sales aside, the secret weapon that made older albums exciting is now evident with the release of this one.  He’s always collaborated.  Whether Steve Albini, Bob Rock, Page Hamilton (for the short lived, but great Institute), or the team of Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley (who I think brought out the best in Bush), it was these producers (though Albini prefers “recording engineer”) that added texture, and variation to each effort.  

On Rainbows Rossdale assumes all responsibility.  He’s credited as writer, producer, and even mixer.  This is clearly a personal effort.  Even without the tabloid fodder of his recent divorce from singer Gwen Stefani, the record’s lyrics and mellow vibe promulgate that this is a record about a man trying to find the color and vitality in his life.  “Mad Love,” with its double entendre title, is an infectiously great ballad, and defines the pace and mood of the album.  “I was feeling a prisoner,” Rossdale sings, and as past tense suggests, he no longer does, but I can’t help but feel that the music says otherwise.  

The band has stripped Black And White Rainbows of any abruptness, of any surprises.  Every song is boxed in by similar progressions (verse, pre chorus, chorus, rinse and repeat) that impede the expanse the band roams in.  There are moments of excitement, but they’re few and far between.  Perhaps Rossdale is a prisoner of apprehension, of what audiences have come to expect from him as an artist, and him assuming what they’d want to hear.

Inside the sleeve, even before we get any music, we get an excerpt from Thus Spoke Zarathustra, a text written by German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. The book deals with the concepts of eternal return, and will to power, among other heavy themes.  One would think that the soul searching quote, one that depicts “bold adventurers embarking on dreadful seas,” to paraphrase Nietzsche, would be examined profoundly, rather than executed with lines like “hang onto yourself babe.”  And when Rossdale does escape his marital woes, he skims the surface of “people at war,” and “polar bears weeping over melting ice caps,” analyzing these social issues merely as a bystander, an announcer without rumination, without a personal point of view.    

Much like Neil Krug’s photos for this album (blurs of light and landscape, a woman’s neck and chest, obscured shots of flowers, oversaturated colors), we get snippets of goodness, snippets of depth.  Unfortunately, it never coheres.

There’s the orchestration of the Dave Stewart co-penned “Lost In You,” with its gorgeous harmonies; the alpine guitar arpeggios on the “sister rose” segment of “Nurse” helps the track soar; drummer Robin Goodridge pounding his way through the gloom of stand out track “Ravens” is visceral; the melancholic interplay between bassist Corey Britz and the ever fabulous guitarist Chris Traynor on the verses of “The Edge of Love” lifts Rossdale’s vocals.

Speaking of singing, I loved Rossdale’s instinctive surrender on the second verse of “Sky Turns Day Glo,” full of stretched notes, and gasps for air.  It’s a moment of humanity on a record that feels drained of it.  “Water” with its trip-hop groove, and chiming guitars shimmer against the “kaleidoscope of emotions,” and proves that Traynor can dredge more from sustained, harmonizing notes than the formulated staccato riffs that plague the rest of this album.  Even the verses of “The Beat of Your Heart” showcase a band in perfect synch with one another.  But then that chorus hits.  

Overall, it’s not enough.  From the awkward “Peace-s,” with its title turned into an acronym cheerleader chant, to the Rihanna tinged “Dystopia,” to the synths on “Ray of Light,” I can’t help but wonder what would happen if Rossdale stripped down the production a bit, if he took some left turns.  It’s all on point, the harmonies, the tones, but there’s no variety.  What if “Toma Mi Corazon,” was slowed to a reggae groove, something more fun to fit the sexiness of the track, and the Spanish singing, something more “beautiful and bizarre.”  Oh well.    

As Rossdale sings on “Lost In You,” “I’ve seen the red of the sun, but it’s dull compared to what I have done,” I hope that he lives up to this line next time around.  Bush.  Thank you.   

SMOOCH-O-METER:

Album Review #14: Incubus - 8

“Where do we go from here,” lead singer Brandon Boyd asks on “Throw Out The Map,” the last track on Incubus’ 8th studio album.  Incubus is an American band that formed in 1991, and hails from California.  They achieved mainstream success with “Drive,” a track from their 1999 breakthrough release Make Yourself.  Throughout their career the band has stayed fresh, releasing solid efforts that always see the quintet following their intuition.  On 8 nothing is different.  

So, “where do we go from here,” Boyd asks.  The answer could very well lie in the song’s title, and in turn, act as a statement for the album.  The groundwork is ‘fun’ here, with a capital F, even if the opening track is called “No Fun.”  The album as a whole is a hot mess.  This is its strength.  The only consistent thing we get is stellar (no pun intended) musicianship.  The band sounds reinvigorated (compared to their previous, somber release If Not Now When, which I loved very much), and Boyd announces it on the anthemic bridge of “Undefeated.”  “I’m not dead yet.  I’m bent, but not broken.”

The apical example of this vigor and jest is illustrated on the 56 second track “When I Became A Man,” which finds the band goofing about juicy girls teaching boys how to shower, set to what sounds like vintage Hawaiian music. The fact that it comes right after the co-produced Skrillex track “Loneliest,” which is bolstered by drum machines, harmonizer processed vocals, and a keyboard line not out of place in a 90s West Coast hip-hop song, represents a band that’s thrown out the rule book, if one even exists in art.  With industry rearing its ugly head, it’s commendable  that Incubus stay true to their vision. Though this deep in the game, the band should be afforded some deference, and in turn, thruway.

“How do you spill the paint, and then fit it into a frame,” Boyd sings on lead single “Nimble Bastard.”  It’s an accurate averment about the album.  It also points to how honest the band is about cohering the lunacy on these tracks. They never over indulge.  

“State of the Art” swims in acoustic guitars, and pulses with a steady beat that assists Boyd’s vocal intonations.  The band manages here, to capture the bittersweet warp that emerges when music magically explains the lyrics and visa versa.  “Your blissful ignorance is everything they like.”  It’s an unspoken, beautiful thing.

On “Familiar Faces” epic textures similar to the ones explored on their  2015 Trust Fall (Side A) EP emerge.  DJ/Keyboardist Chris Kilmore creates sonic landscapes that resemble what aliens adorning the furthest reaches of space with a son et lumière might attempt.

“Love In A Time of Surveillance,” is hit or miss, but Jose Pasillas II starts the track with solid galloping, and displays the versatility his fans have come to admire.  Bassist Ben Kenney also turns in some solid fuzz on the chorus.  

Whether it’s the metallic ping pong crunch of “Nimble Bastard,” or the saxophone sounding leads on instrumental “Make No Sound In The Digital Forest,” guitarist Mike Einziger once again sets the foundation for the songs, widening textures, cambering, and oscillating, but never overplaying.  In fact, no one overplays.  The clean and centering production mellows, pops, and accelerates in all the right places, showcasing how well these guys compliment one another, and how each helps the other illumine.  This occurs particularly well on the closing track, with its drum and guitar syncopations, prowling bass lines, clanking pianos, and Boyd’s echo yelps.  

Boyd’s voice is as versatile and luminous as it was in 2001.  The melodies and line break choices feel familiar yet daring, and new, particularly on the first verse of “Glitterbomb.”  His glottal fry on the track is immensely rewarding as well, like popping bubble wrap.  

In numerology the number 8 implies balance and power, beginnings and success, and I think that’s what we get from Incubus here: a band comfortable with each other, their career, and their output.  Or maybe it’s just “Chaka Khan motherfuckers,” as Boyd declares at the end of the album.  Either way, 8 is worth the price of admission.  Incubus.  Thank you. 

SMOOCH-O-METER:

Album Review #13: Depeche Mode - Spirit

Depeche Mode are an electronic band from England.  Since their 1981 debut, Speak & Spell, they’ve grown into a worldwide sensation known for catchy melodies, and stalwart sincerity.  Their honest approach to songwriting in the past three decades has helped them sustain a career replete with a dedicated fanbase, and music that simultaneously transcends genre, and feels perennial.  

On their 14th studio album, aptly titled Spirit, primary songwriter Martin Gore delves into topics like political discord, and social tension, the latter, a theme he’s skimmed on albums like A Broken Frame, and Construction Time Again. He hits more directly this time around, embracing the discombobulations of these topics.  The band succeeds on the vitalities of concrete song writing and lead singer Dave Gahan, who never sounds like he’s pontificating Gore’s words. He creates tension, and delivers something genuine and personal to the compositions.  

Producer James Ford counters the emotional unrest with mixes that are warm and welcoming.  He also takes on drum duties, and although they sound electronic, invigorate the music, and contribute to its sensual elasticity.  

Hearing lead single “Where’s The Revolution,” I couldn’t help, but feel that Depeche Mode answered their own question by releasing, what on the first few spins, sounded like a band out of steam.  But then, that slow chugging bridge with its “the engine’s humming, so get on board,” refrain won me over.  What sounded exiguous, particularly compared to the gritty, and lyrically richer opener “Going Backwards,”  is clearly Gore giving us a good ol’ fashioned protest song, à la the 1960s.  It’s direct.  It’s solid.  It works.

On the Gore/Gahan penned “You Move,” which beeps with electronic flourishes, and sparse modulations (something the former toyed with on previous effort Delta Machine), we’re reminded that despite the flags, and marching boots of the album cover, “spirit” does not only have political or social connotations.  It’s in our day to day interactions, in our chemistry, personalities, our consciousness, and in this case our sexuality.  “I like the way you move for me tonight,” the pair sing.  The song acts as a candor reminder that during social upheaval, we need to remember to live with as much passion, and love as possible, even if we’re losing that love to external circumstances:  “you talk to me about the life we could’ve had, but we don’t have that life no more.”  

Gahan, who on the past few albums added songwriting credits to the DM cannon turns in solid cuts here as well.  On “Poison Heart,” his voice drips with the dreamlike aura of a 50s crooner.  On “No More (This Is The Last Time),” cowritten with Kurt Uenala, the duo build a melancholic foundation coated with glossy apathy.  “Our crimes will pass us by.  Crimes, they all fade and die,” Gahan declares over brassy bass and labyrinthian synths.  It’s hard to tell whether he’s addressing a personal or political figure here, but it’s in that vague space, in the way that he might be playing chicken with his emotions, that exudes so much.  He shines on the Gore penned “Scum,” a tune that showcases the swampy rasp he’s been perfecting since Exciter.

For the die hard fans out there there’s the Gore sung “Eternal.”  We actually also get “Fail,” a better tune, but the former sounds like a classic Gore solo: mellow, romantic, dare I say, sappy.  In 2017 it’s reassuring that we can still trust in those trademarks.  However, lyrics like “I will look you in the eye, and kiss you, and give you all my love,” juxtaposed with tribal drums that sporadically pound and disappear like acid rain, amidst keyboards that sound like bagpipes melting during a funeral procession, for me, conjure an image of doomed lovers during wartime.  It’s downright macabre.    

Anton Corbijn’s visuals and art direction, as always, augment the musical compositions, in this case, with either black and white photography or stills of the the trio getting ready to strike cement with sledgehammers in what looks like an abandoned factory town ravaged by combat.  Deep blues, and dark reds stand as exposition of the auditory textures communicated.

The message is clear on Spirit.  From the title and theme, to the artwork, and songs, it’s a solid effort from a band still in control of their craft.  As Gahan and Gore repeat the line “there is so much love in me,” among the shimmering guitars, and well crafted harmonies of “So Much Love,” it is obvious the spirit is very well much alive.  Depeche Mode.  Thank you.

SMOOCH-O-METER:

Album Review #12: Tori Amos - Under The Pink

On her sophomore release, American singer-songwriter Tori Amos navigates the listener through well crafted tunes that test the balance of reality and the ineffable.  Her delicacy, which swirls with chaos and awareness, and which she sustains throughout the album’s entirety is alluring, even empowering.  In Amos’ autobiography Piece by Piece (co-written by music journalist Ann Powers) she mentions that “the song appears as light filament,” as something “euphoric.” It’s an accurate statement for the journey she takes us on on Under the Pink.

Amos is searching here.  It’s in the lyrical content.  It’s in the musical arrangements.  Bitter-sweet opener “Pretty Good Year,” plays with this concept immediately, building soft verses with dissonant bass clef notes, and warm strings that eventually explode with a bridge of distorted bass guitar and pounding drums courtesy of George Porter Jr. and Carlo Nuccio respectively. Two songs later, on the haunting and bare “Bells For Her,” the music evokes images of branches covered in ice on an empty, tenebrous road, as Amos appears to be debating with herself: “And now I speak to you.  Are you in there? You have her face and her eyes, but you are not her.”

Less is more.  Most tunes are fleshed out by Amos’ voice and piano, and the subtlety of strings, arranged by John Philip Shenale, and conducted by Scott Smalley, that serve to coruscate the bottomless magnitudes here.  Backed by dexterity (Amos is classically trained), lyrics that traverse themes as vast as social injustice and spirituality become more poignant, and visceral.

On “Icicle” Amos is suited for battle.  For nearly two minutes the piano teases between cacophony, and harmony, eventually easing into sustain, which then chaperons the listener into a world where Amos fights for sexual freedom against her strict Christian upbringing.  “Greeting the monster in our Easter dresses.  Father says bow your head like the good book says.  Well I think the good book is missing some pages,” she sings.  The nakedness, intensity, and tender isolation with which she allows listeners in as she’s “getting off while they’re all downstairs singing prayers,” is liberating.  She’s exposing herself and she doesn’t give a shit.  It’s cathartic.

Women are a strength on this album, figuratively and literally.  Merry Clayton, famous for that killer vocal performance on The Rolling Stones’ “Gimme Shelter,” gives another on lead single “Cornflake Girl.”  The song itself, which is about female circumcision, and much like “Icicle,” deals with feminine sexuality on a social level.  Both stand as pieces that showcase the sexual enigma women are portrayed as in our society, and the fear that exudes, because of such characterizations.  “Past the Mission” (which features Trent Reznor, an interesting collaborator) examines Amos’ personal experiences with sexual violence, rape, and becomes a mechanism for surpassing victimhood: “past the mission, I smell the roses.”  

On the near 10 minute closer “Yes, Anastasia,” a song that came to Amos in a vision one night after eating bad crabs in Maryland, also references women. This time Anastasia Romanova.  The youngest daughter of Tsar Nicholas II, one of the greatest mysteries of the 20th century was her possible survival of the extrajudicial execution by the Bolsheviks in the family’s basement in 1918.  A line like “we’ll see how brave you are, we’ll see how fast you’ll be running,” is no more literal, than it is a metaphor for the demons Amos is fighting on this album.  How brave is Amos?  How is she willing to cope?  The alternative could be that she is taking on the voice of the killer, the captor.  She is in control of the situation.  She’s the one holding the weapon.  She’s the one slaying her demons, making them run.  Much like the rest of the album, it feels as if she’s playing dual roles, accepting both responsibilities.  

As dark as the album gets,  Amos never loses sight of the light, the movements, the balance of life.  From the bar-room percussion groove of “Cornflake Girl,” to the sexy swagger, and rhythmic interplay on “God,” there’s a sense of gaiety throughout.  Even on “The Waitress,” in which the singer tests her patience with a coworker she wants to murder, she manages to find humor in the situation, singing in the chorus “I believe in peace, bitch, I believe in peace.”  There’s also the strange “Space Dog,” a potpourri of references as disparate as the mythology of Andromeda, pigeoned with “secret societies,” trailer park girls pissing in rivers, and turtles who race grapefruits.

Just like Cindy Palmano’s photography and art direction, which finds Amos crouched and sleeping in proportionate size to the delicate objects (e.g., bird wings, eggs, bones, one blue butterfly, drug paraphernalia, and light bulbs) around her, it’s the ominous silence that the former evokes (which is reminiscent of Russell Mill’s artwork for Nine Inch Nails’ 1994 soul searching masterpiece The Downward Spiral) that acts as a backdrop to the music, and portrays an artist who is in complete control of her craft, who understands what it’s like to be powerful yet delicate, vulnerable and direct.  It’s evident on this album that Amos is an artist not afraid to venture to the awkward places within herself, to retrieve and document it, to leave a blueprint for others who are struggling through their own obstacles.  “I don’t believe I went too far, I said I was willing,” she sings on “Baker Baker.”  I don’t think she did either.  I think she got it just right.  Tori Amos.  Thank you.

Album Review #11: Feral Child - Enfanterrible

“You’ll see me wandering,” Feral Child, a.k.a. OTHRMOTHER, sings at the end of “Born Lost,” a track off his self released, debut mixtape Enfanterrible.  The Queens based alternative hip-hop artist who has been working on low-key instrumental tracks for years, who is half of duo Proper Grandeur, who also recently released their debut Window Generation & Tings Significant Or The Story Of Ethics (yes, it’s a mouthful) has finally found his stride, to say the least. He has cooked up something quite good here.  Better than good actually.  The craft, the effort, the abundance of lush orchestration, formulated beats, the synthesis of silly and smart lyrics, it’s all here.

Just like the cover, a ghostly, low lit photo of a dilapidated, barren yard, palm trees breaking the monotony of the night sky, the name dripping pink, the music investigates that indeterminate space between the ho hum of everyday life, and its melancholic beauty.

The album appropriately opens with the overture “Does the Internet Dream of Itself.”  The track, set to luxuriant strings that conjure a forest scene in a Disney cartoon, as filmmaker Werner Herzog discusses the internet being a representation of who we are, and of things that are “deeply embedded in our souls,” is a bizarre consolidation of moods and ideas, but surely acts as a zeitgeist.  As an intro, it serves to establish the soul searching found on these 10 tracks.  

Song titles paint the portrait of a modern day man transfixed by mysticism, desperately seeking answers: “Born Lost,” “Numinous,” “Hearse Supernova,” to the blatant, “Love Peace, Hate War (I’ve Been Searching).”  Here is a guy broken by the universe, by love, by life, by the Western world.  Through these tracks he struggles to reconstruct himself.

The songs feel punk-rock short, and end just as they begin.  That’s fine, because there’s so much to unpack here lyrically, and musically, that anything more would be overwhelming.  “I go chase the sun like the caveman, Almanac star seeker, the lightning, the thunder thighs, and when that hunger comes, the soul food fries up a ponder upon the river.”  Exactly my point.  

The mood is so firm and robust here that we forget how much effort one person is cramming into 30 minutes:  he embodies crooner swag on “Old Boots,” kills it with cadence on “Lamp Chop,” with lines like “we on the metaphysical moving invisible without the principles of earth and the third dimension,” and then loosens things up with “Y.F.B.,” a track that wavers between Vegas lounge act, and quiet storm.  The acronym stands for You Fucking Bitch, by the way.

“Enfant terrible” is a French expression said to describe an unruly child.  However, in the creative arts world it implies “genius,” someone who is unorthodox, and rebellious, but successful.  I’m not sure if the title is meant to be taken with a grain of salt, but the music here does tread new territory.  It’s strange and beautiful at times, doesn’t stick to a specific genre, and is fueled by OTHRMOTHER’s temperament.  That said, it succeeds.

The beats that overflow with warm, looped, brush grooves in juxtaposition to the jazzy organ riffs on “Born Lost,” the mellow horns, and bluesy guitars on “Numinous,” the vocal harmonies on “Hearse Supernova,” the sexy percussion on “Love Girl,” the rallying chants on the outro of  “Love Peace, Hate War,” all that hard work, it’s all so delectable.  If his early instrumentals, and the Proper Grandeur debut were food then this album is like the third bowl of porridge.

As OTHRMOTHER sing-speaks “beyond this room there’s a thousand more,” I can’t help but trust him, want to follow him in.  Go open some doors.  Feral Child.  Thank you.

SMOOCH-O-METER:

Album Review #10: Steam Donkey - Wod Of Gar

A steam donkey is a nickname for a steam-powered winch, a mechanical device that was used to pull in or let out rope.  It was invented in Eureka, California in 1881, and was mainly used for logging, and mining.  With the development of the tractor crawler, steam donkeys became an obsolete machine, and today reside in museums, while many are still abandoned in forests.    

The steam donkey’s purpose, and demise can be seen as a metaphor for Wod of Gar, the second album from American artist Jeremy Cagle.  Call it what you will, experimental, doom, noise, the music on these 8 tracks is here to serve a purpose.  This is a mood machine.  There’s nothing fancy here, no bullshit, nothing pretty.  Its function is to emphasize the back and forth, the  sentiment of our current social climate.

“And What Was I?” opens with meditative strings, a deceptive maneuver to the cacophony that follows.  The rest is a roundhouse of screeching guitars, demented voices, and vexatious rhythmic shifts that push and pull, constantly tricking us, preventing any comfort from seeping through its core.  It’s exactly what you'd expect from a cover that depicts a portrait of a bloody Jesus wearing a crown of thorns (though it looks more like nails), his eyes concealed by the title.

Tension and industrial pounding flesh out these short (but not sweet) tunes.  It’s intended. Spoken word which is irritatingly inaudible (a calculated choice) signals the apocalypse.  

The panned instruments that feel like a bee trapped in a propeller engine in “LFD,” the glossolalia in “Wod Of Gar,” the air raid siren at the end of “Ghoul Scout Cookie,” it’s all done with tact.

On closer “Recoil,” which is bookended by what sounds like flies buzzing around the dead, we get a memorandum: “free yourself from all that is material,” Cagle warns us through what sounds like a ham radio.

He wants to “ask a question,” rather questions on this track: “Are you afraid to die?  Do you believe in God?  Does evil exist?”  Rhetorical or not, one can’t help, but deliberate their own mortality, and the forces that arbitrarily dictate it, in the album’s case: war, corruption, religion, and the inherent belief systems built around these issues that systematically dismantle us as a society.  Do we recoil or fight?  Cagle lets us choose.

Aesthetically the music feels cinematic, conjuring the ugliness and abrasiveness of films like Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Full Metal Jacket, Clockwork Orange, hell, even Ransom.  I won’t go into specific details.  Go watch them.  I heard that if you get stoned and listen to this album while watching Texas Chainsaw Massacre on mute they sync perfectly.  Insert smirk here.

Everything on this album is calculated, especially the mess.  That’s its paradox. That’s its driving force.  It’s about the search.

Is the tribe in “Lost Tribe” really lost?  Are we the lost tribe?  Are we over indulging in our social distractions?  And how about “Ghoul Scout Cookie?”  Have we, in the Western world, transformed ourselves into zombies, crude machines that are fed beliefs and ideas we instinctively digest?  Are all our social distractions bundled in pretty packages full of sugar?  Does the song suggest that we’re not aware?  I think so.  

What does the acronym in “LFD” stand for: long fucking day, left for dead, maybe licensed funeral director?  

Why “1977?”  It’s the year Radio Shack officially began creating the TRS-80, a desktop microcomputer; the year an oil tanker exploded west of Honolulu, spilling 31 million gallons; the year the US Supreme Court gave drivers the right to not display state mottos on their licenses; the year the first killer whale was born in captivity; the year the CIA released documents under the Freedom Information Act, revealing it had engaged in mind control experiments; the year EMI dropped punk band The Sex Pistols; the year Coneheads debuted on SNL. The song reminds us that good and bad things happen simultaneously.  It’s the cycle of life.  You decide what’s important.

Maybe the album’s not meant to be taken too seriously.  As the comedic, helium filled spoken word on “Another Beer” suggests, “I had another beer and it went to my head.”  This album did the same.  Still, I can’t help but feel that there’s something darker on display here.  And hey, just like the comedy tragedy masks of the Greek Theatre, maybe this album is meant to encapsulate, and amalgamate both genres.

I’d like for someone to download this album (which is free on Bandcamp), onto their electronic device, and bury said device (with a charger of course) for the 22nd Century to excavate.  Will the feelings contained here ring true?  Don’t expect an answer.  Expect to rummage through the debris looking though.  So be it.  Steam Donkey.  Thank you.

SMOOCH-O-METER:

Album Review #9: Second Still - Early Forms

It’s evident on debut EP Early Forms, that Los Angeles based trio Second Still have done their homework.  There is a clear admiration for the post-punk/cold wave movement that outlines these four tunes, but the influence merely acts as a blueprint for compositions that throb with ardor and idiosyncrasy.  

The infrastructure here is icy layers of repetitive guitar riffs, drum machines, and legato bass lines.  That’s all fine and dandy, but it’s when the band knows what to carve away or expand on, that gives these songs a pulse: a fast hi-hat rhythms over here, a flanger lead over there, distorted chords on choruses.  These guys know what they’re doing when it comes to songwriting.  That’s where the real magic lies, within the textures, within the details.

I didn’t sit through the sessions for this EP, but it feels like deliberate consideration was taken both in the writing and mixing processes.  

Even though the songs pump with steady glacial beats, it’s what Second Still do with them that counts.  “7/4” glints with odd time signatures, and brims with blood, with feeling, something a listener of this genre may not get oftentimes.  It’s also hard not to bob your head along to the galloping of “Try Not To Hide.”  There’s definitely a humanoid quality in the robotic realms displayed on this album.  It’s deep down there, but it’s there.    

Lead singer Suki San does a fantastic job of building harmonic layers on the track “Two Reasons.”  On “Jo” her melodies coil around the music, but still leave room for Ryan Walker and Alex Hartman to build mood with guitar and bass respectively.

The band’s influences work both as a strength and weakness here.  They’re easily labeled, which is good, but the fear might be that they’d be just as easily lost amongst their predecessors.  Still, I think they bring a contemporary perspective to the medium they’re working in.  In the end genre is coloration, and songs are songs, and the songs are good enough to work in any context.  

Just as the title suggests, this is only the beginning.  I look forward to the future. Check it out for yourselves.  Second Still.  Thank you.

SMOOCH-O-METER:

Album Review #8: A Tribe Called Quest - We Got It From Here...Thank You 4 Your Service

“Gotta get it together, let’s make something happen.”  These are the first few lines we’re hit with on the Queens based hip-hop band’s first album in 18 years.  On “The Space Program,” we get what you’d expect from A Tribe Called Quest album: solid songwriting rife with jazz keys, a head-bopping beat, and rhymes about social consciousness interfused with playful, abstract poetry.  It’s a heavy-duty opener that sets the tone, and makes the long wait worthwhile.

MC and mastermind, Q-Tip, gets it together, and makes something happen for sure.  The album is a confident hodgepodge of top notch musicians (guitarist Chris Sholar, Casey Benjamin on Fender Rhodes), tiptop collaborations (Elton John, Jack White, Kendrick Lamar, Talib Kweli), and diverse samples (CAN, Black Sabbath, Musical Youth).

The band has never veered off paths as much as they’ve paved roads.  Each subsequent release has built on the previous album’s blue print.  It’s always been the band’s strength, and still is.

That said, musically, and socially, a lot has changed in the two decades since their last effort The Love Movement.  Though Q-Tip finds a way to stay true to his muse, a viable source throughout his career, there’s a fracture here, which works to highlight the social, political, and personal climates this album addresses.  As music though, oftentimes, it falls short.  

Q-Tip moves through these 16 cuts with confidence, maturity, and prudence.  However, that perfect balance of jest and earnestness that lined previous albums is a bit subdued this time around.  It’s not fallacious though, just bittersweet, like skimming old photographs.

The passage of time is a theme that skulks beneath the surface, and extenuates the band’s presence.  Tribe here is a myth, a brand, an entity, which is simultaneously strange and unique.

The absence of Phife Dawg (the yang to Q-Tip’s yin) is certainly felt.  He recently passed away, and though he appears on the album sporadically, for the most part is a specter.  When he does, his verses are peppered with patois, a texture he used in the past to add flavor, though now feels trite.  Producer Ali Shaheed, busy working on music for Luke Cage, is not present at all.  Even Q-Tip is subjacent, concentrating solely on writing and production on tracks like “The Killing Season,” and “Mobius.”  Jarobi White, who left after the band’s debut, holds center stage (which is cool).

Tribe has always been about collaboration.  In the early 90s they were part of a like-minded, conscious hip-hop collective known as Native Tongues, which featured other prominent artists like De La Soul.  Here though, the all-star collaborations feel like compensation, like they’re filling a void.  Busta Rhymes’ verse is too abrasive for the percussive “Mobius.”  It’s been a while since we’ve sampled that OutKast flavor, and it resonates on the Andre 3000 featured “Kids,” though it feels like filler.  The Kanye West chorus on “The Killing Season” is catchy as hell, but do we really need Kanye West for that small a part?  

None of this makes sense until, 12 tracks in we get “Lost Somebody,” an elegy for Phife, where Q-Tip and Jarobi share stories, memories, and love for the great MC.  And here comes the epiphany.  This is an album about life.  Q-Tip is an artist expressing.  It’s not linear, and it doesn’t have to be.  It just goes.  Just like life.  Approaching the music this way makes it that much more poignant, silly, and smart.

From “Lost Somebody,” and on, the album gels.  Even if Tribe is not there, they are.  In the end the album is a solid coda, but also a passing of the torch.  Tip is still building, still creating, definitely taking chances, and what more can a fan ask for?  It’s fresh.  Just listen to lines like “now they wanna condemn me for my freedom of speech, cause I see things in black and white like Lisa and Screech,” turned in by constant collaborator, Consequence, and it’s hard not to feel the energy that made Tribe such a colossal force to begin with.  And with Kendrick Lamar turning in verses like “devils and demons and Deuteronomy, fumigate our economy, illuminate broken dreams, and manifest all insanity,” on the superb, socially charged, “Conrad Tokyo,” one doesn’t need to look far to see the influence Tribe had, and still has.  

It’s safe to say that the band has left their mark, a planetary one, and that their legacy is in tact, and being held up by strong hands.  Don’t worry.  They got it from here.  A Tribe Called Quest.  Thank you.    

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Album Review #7: Erykah Badu - New Amerykah Part One (4th World War)

Let’s start with the magic that is an Erykah Badu album: they’re growers, and with each subsequent listen become more tuneful, soulful, haunting, and exemplify again, and again, a tenacious artist in complete control of her course, even when charting new territories, as she does on her fourth studio album, New Amerykah Part One (4th World War).  

The Texas born R&B singer doesn’t rush.  With melodies, tempos, theme, it’s her sedate (but never hesitant) sentient absorption, and reactions to the world around her, and her personal place in it that make for a unique and gratifying listen.

This is a collection of songs that address massive subjects like the repercussions of poverty (“The Cell”), urban violence (“Soldier”),  and drug abuse (“That Hump”).  It’s here that she takes these social problems and creates a melange through her own personal struggles with them.  In the process the album becomes as much a zeitgeist, as it is a way for Badu to explore her cultural identity through the lens of these issues.

Sometimes the lyrics may fall in a space between generalizations, observations, first hand experiences, or maybe even role play: “lord knows I’m trying, say that I’m tired [of] this dope, but it make it better, but it’s dragging me lower, and I know it,” she sings on “The Hump”.  Wherever these words may fall, it doesn’t really matter.  Badu has the platform, and she’s using it.  These are issues that are happening, are obviously important to the artist, and in my opinion, grant justice, since they will reach a larger audience that may feel inspired to take positive action, in reaction to her exhorting.

New Amerykah is an album that admits to its growing pains (personal and social).  It’s an album for connecting the dots of African American History, while moving towards the amelioration of social injustice, and finding a place to just be.    

Wrought with somber subject matters (even the artwork, a fantastic compendium to the music, is laden with needles, wailing fetuses, and skeletons with dollar signs tattooed on their skulls, preaching to herds of headless bodies from podiums painted with pyramid symbols), Badu finds techniques to brighten the gloom.  The album opens with the funky and tongue in cheek “Amerykahn Promise,” which sounds like the soundtrack to a lost Blaxploitation movie.  There are plenty of ankhs (an ancient Egyptian symbol for life) in the artwork, and a drawing of a robotic child with the number 7 (a number that represents a seeker, and searcher of Truth) painted on his chest, watering a turntable with musical notes, as it blooms into a flower.  

There’s balance here, peace and evil, and Badu basks in both.

Overall, it comes down to basics.  She has a gorgeous voice, and a fresh perspective, not just socially, but musically.  I mean, this is a music review after all, and this is an album that transcends communication.  The music heightens the lyrics as much as the lyrics elevate the tunes.  

In fact the tunes are so sexy, sultry, and slow, that we almost forget the horrors and sadness she’s singing about.  The soft shakers, muted brass, clean guitar arpeggios, the warm cadenced bass grooves of the ever amazing Stephen “Thunder Cat” Bruner, it’s all there, and that’s just a description of “Me,” the third song.  Nothing is overpowering.  There’s plenty of space for harmonies and instrumental interplay.  

What more does an album need to do?  It’s full of interludes, exitludes (sometimes in the span of one song), psychedelia, key changes, and just plain experimentation (Omar Rodriguez-Lopez, guitarist for The Mars Volta, makes a cameo on “Twinkle”).  Even when shit gets esoteric:  “children of the matrix be hittin’ them car switches, seen some Virgin Virgos hangin’ out with Venus Bitches,” it’s her performance that punctures, and makes the album a success.

On tracks like “Me,” and the shimmering closer “Telephone,” where she’s at her most vulnerable, yet resilient, is truly where the power of this album penetrates.  Badu is Badu and she uses that honesty to her advantage.

I wrote the review, but I’m hardly done with this album.  There’s more work to be done here.  The message is clear though.  As she sings “a beautiful world I’m trying to find,” on the Curtis Mayfield sampled “Master Teacher,” I can’t help but want to roam alongside, even though the road may not be paved with gold.  Erykah Badu.  Thank you.

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Album Review #6: John Mellencamp - Uh-Huh

On Uh-Huh, his seventh studio album American singer/songwriter John Mellencamp, serves us a slab of rock music that, although made over thirty years ago still rings true today.  The nine songs on this album are candor, but never simple.  Issues about where we fit in socially, politically, and existentially, are main topics here.   “Crumblin’ Down,” with its rockabilly shoulder swayin’ groove, makes for a strong opener, and sums up what we’re getting here: an amazingly strong rhythm section that bolsters the song writing, a powerful vocal performance, and all the colors you’d hope to find on an album (a really good mix, harmonies, instrumental interplay, a strong theme, and just in case you needed more cow bell, well you get it).   An acoustic guitar and hi-hat count accentuates the I’m-right-here-with-you attitude of single “Pink Houses,” as Mellencamp earnestly sings about what the American dream means, and its harsh realities: “there’s winners and there’s losers, but they ain’t no big deal.” Inside the booklet, in bold letters it says “this album was written, arranged, and recorded during a sixteen day blow-out at THE SHACK.”  Apparently the band set up a recording studio in an R.V. and just went for it.  You can definitely hear the spontaneity, and it’s impressive.   That said, most of the tunes tread similar territory.  Uh-huh is basically fleshed out songs that blend danceability with profound queries about the state of our nation.  Listen to “Authority Song,” and you’ll hear an example of that amalgamation.  Hell, the bridge is even comprised of only vocals, drums, and hand clapping.  Less is definitely more here.   Things get a bit strange on “Jackie O.”  Nothing else sounds like the muzak encompassed here.  It’s basically drum machines, and bells.  A bit off the deep end, but I wish Mellencamp and Co. would’ve gone further in this direction, or at least found a balance between the two genres explored here.   Back on track with “Play Guitar,” we get lyrics about how learning the instrument will get you more chicks than fast cars, and stylish haircuts.  I feel like Mellencamp is exploring celebritism here.  Not much different to the climate we live in today, except that the “frosting” of rock stardom has been replaced by sex tapes, and social media accounts.  “All women around the world want a phony rock star who plays guitar.”  Amen to that.  The flip side to this song is perhaps, that you should forget the sybaritic trappings of fame, and just play the damn thing for fun. After the bar room swing and polyrhythms of “Lovin’ Mother Fo Ya,” Mellencamp pulls a classic album closer, and ends things with the mellow “Golden Gates.”  The intro of this tune, with its güiro, tremolo guitars, and cartoonish strings evokes (a personal note) the “Kiss The Girl” scene in A Little Mermaid. I don’t know.  I’m just riffing here.  It’s a bittersweet number with strong lyrics about the social themes that underpin this album, and truly sets the tone for “these days of uncertain futures,” that we’re living in now.  John Mellencamp.  Thank you.   

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Album Review #5: Taking Back Sunday - Tidal Wave

Taking Back Sunday is a New York based band formed in 1999.  On Tidal Wave, their seventh studio album, and third since the reformation of their original line-up, the quintet doesn’t stray too far from the sound delved into on recent records, though this time the music has a sense of urgency that makes for a fervent and intimate outing.

The guys sustain their “classic” sound: dual vocal attack, breakdown bridges, and driving, palm-muted riffs, but unearth a sense of maturity in the process.  

“Death Wolf,” the first track, sets the tone for the album: fast paced pounding (courtesy of the relentless Mark O’ Connell), atmospheric inclinations (the intro), and lyrics that find lead singer Adam Lazzara in a state of purgatory.  Whether it’s politics (“Tidal Wave”), rehab (”You Can’t Look Back”), lack of communication (”In The Middle Of It All”), existentialism (”All Excess”), family (”Fences”), this is a guy searching for himself, searching for answers that are self imposed, and universal. 

Lazzara’s delivery on this album is gut wrenching and honest.  He’s healing, giving it his all, and the level of tension he sustains on these 12 tracks is cathartic.  Guitarists Ed Reyes, and John Nolan deepen the mood with bone-white distortions, and make lines like “there was nothing, but rain for days and days,” drip with emotion.  

In a genre that’s been on a steady decline (depending on what famous musician’s rant you read), this album honorably rocks out.  That said, I approached this album as music.  Period.  And the songs speak.  Strings swell, and guitar arpeggios wash over “Fences”; fast high-hats, falsetto harmonies, and fuzzed-out guitar strums build “All Excess”; deep bass notes (courtesy of Shaun Cooper) anchor the gentle interplay on the verses of “Holy Water.”  I’m going to go out on a limb and say every song is great, and catchy, and the production and mixing duties that Mike Sapone and Claudius Mittendorfer handle respectively add extreme amounts of texture that never feel crammed.  Put bluntly, it’s a blast to listen to. 

As Lazzara sings “I felt dirty and I didn’t know why,” all I want to do is go on this journey with him and the band.  Even if there’s no answer, it’s worth the trip.  Taking Back Sunday.  Thank you.

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