Archive for the ‘Music/Rhythm & Views’ Category
December 24th, 2009
|
Author: by Michael Petitti
For those unfortunate souls (present company included) who were unable to attend Tom Waits’ 2008 Glitter and Doom tour comes this gracious holiday present: a two-disc, 18-track compendium of the tour. The second disc, “Tom Tales,” is one long track of assorted stage banter that, believe it or not, is worth several spins. Sample: Male fan: “Hey Tom, I wanna have your baby!” Tom: “Oh, Jesus, well you know, I think nowadays it’s possible. See my manager, Stuart Ross, but…
[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]
Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.
Posted in 
Tags: 
by Eric Swedlund
The uncompromisingly rough country-punk band Lucero is an odd choice for a major-label pickup, but on 1372 Overton Park, the group’s first outing for Universal Republic Records, the band adds the bright horns of Memphis soul to the mix—and the pairing starts making sense. As gruff as ever, singer Ben Nichols recalls “falling in love to the sounds of the city,” but the record is equally about falling in love with the city itself. The horns, arranged by Memphis saxophone…
[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]
Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.
by Michael Petitti
Molina and Johnson, a collaboration that brings together Jason Molina (Songs: Ohia, Magnolia Electric Co.) and Will Johnson (Centro-matic, South San Gabriel), is a gorgeous, spartan collection of haunted folk songs. Written and recorded in a 10-day span, the album’s skeletal songs succeed primarily because Molina and Johnson are legitimate songwriters. Incorporating everything from the singing saw (Johnson’s fevered “All Gone, All Gone”) to Rhodes piano (Molina’s creeping “For as Long as It Will Matter”), Molina and Johnson exhibit craftsmanship…
[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]
Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.
by Jarret Keene
Jazz-indie-rock quartet The Theory has been kicking around Tucson for a few years, and finally, a full-length CD is arriving in time for Christmas. The band comprises members from different geographies—drummer Aleksey Vays is Ukrainian; singer Anastasia Gorbunova is Russian; and keyboardist Jon Powell and bassist Alaric Weber are from the United States. This distinctive melting pot of backgrounds can be heard in everything The Theory delivers, from the spooky Eastern European guitar chords of “Warrior of the Light” to…
[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]
Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.
by Annie Holub
It would be far more interesting to write about a supergroup composed of Dave Grohl, John Paul Jones and Josh Homme if the music sounded nothing like a combination of Nirvana, Led Zeppelin and Queens of the Stone Age. But that is exactly what Them Crooked Vultures sounds like. See the cover of Rolling Stone, Hardeep Phull’s review in The New York Times and the band’s own description of their sound on their Web site for resounding concurrences. But even…
[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]
Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.
by Sean Bottai
To steal an American Idol-ism, a diva is a triple-threat. Lady Gaga’s just threatening. “Take a bite of my bad girl meat … Show me your teeth / The truth is sexy” are some lines announcing that her inner freak’s been unleashed on The Fame Monster. No longer content to “Just Dance,” Gaga wants to show us the dark side of celebrity. It sounds the same as the bright side; just add sadomasochism. One can’t get a handle on Gaga…
[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]
Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.
by Sean Bottai
On Cold Cave’s debut, Love Comes Close, the music works as minimalist dance pop, but everything about the way it’s contextualized is awful. Essentially, what they’re doing is grafting sour grapes onto disco pep. Sonically, they capture the spirit of the endeavor, but the album can’t rise above its own basic stupidity. Though the opening track’s title, “Cebe and Me,” emptily references a remote Romanian commune, I can’t explain how that operates as subject matter, since the lyrics are buried…
[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]
Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.
by Gene Armstrong
On its new album, Blind Divine honors a dreamy dark-ambient tradition, and adds generous helpings of hazy shoegaze, but if you listen more closely, you’ll hear the Tucson-based band exploring something more substantial. Against soundscapes not unlike those created by Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois for U2’s The Unforgettable Fire, guitarists Daniel Martin Diaz and Damian Demetrius Diaz weave vines of leads and rhythm, employing various effects to create fascinating textures and strategically add smears of distortion. The result approximates…
[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]
Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.
by Michael Petitti
The unpunctuated title of Devendra Banhart’s new album reads like a questioning of style and substance. After making the transition from his early ramshackle folk into the bombastic shape-shifting of 2007’s Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon, Banhart attempts here to appropriate his entire career, with mixed results. Opener “Can’t Help but Smiling,” a dreamy, empty tune, and follow-up “Angelika,” a prettily plucked ballad that segues into a jazzy samba number before returning to its innocuous beginnings, are indicative of the…
[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]
Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.
by Jarret Keene
Converge set the metal-core bar so high with 2001’s Jane Doe—a sci-fi-tinged concept album exploring the idea that heartbreak, at times, is akin to brutal first-degree murder—that the Salem, Mass., quartet has struggled ever since to again reach an epic and unforgettable plateau for aggressive music. Clearly, Axe to Fall aims to recapture a bit of the profoundly alien sensibility and weird terror that consistently puts Doe at the top of any metalhead/punker’s desert-island disc list. Thanks to guitarist Kurt…
[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]
Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.