Thus Continues the Top 25 for 2010 Countdown (with No. 22)

Welcome to the top 25 for 2010 Countdown! Each day we'll countdown, today we continue with number 22, culminating with our (okay, my) numero uno album of the year. When they're handy I'll borrow my earlier reviews from the KC Free Press, as I have in this case. In the event one of my top 25 selections isn't something I've reviewed previously I'll dash off a new review.

I welcome all comments, criticisms, questions and dialog in general.

25. Jon Langford - Old Devils (Bloodshot)
24. Vaselines - Sex with an X (Sub Pop)
23. Drive-By Truckers - The Big To-Do (ATO) 

22. Magnetic Fields - Realism (Nonesuch)

"Merritt(orious) work from prolific songsmith and his ensemble"

By my count, “Realism” is the ninth record from the Magnetic Fields, an ensemble that’s essentially a vehicle for the songwriter Stephin Merritt. Merritt is a busy guy, sitting around in gay bars writing songs all day. Hey, that’s what he says. He sure is prolific. Between Magnetic Fields, The Gothic Archies, the 6ths, and Future Bible Heroes, heck, he barely has time to eat, although he is fond of Scandinavian dairy products. But I digress.

Glad to be unhappy (Rodgers-Hart reference – Merritt would like that), Mr. Merritt lives in a world of melody and wit. And by golly if you relish such qualities Magnetic Fields is for you. Having made his masterpiece, the sprawling “69 Love Songs” in 1999, Merritt amuses himself with varying the sonic textures of his work — he's completely abandoned the synth-pop that established his work. The Magnetic Fields' last record, “Distortion,” lived up to its name, avowedly something of a tribute to the Jesus and Mary Chain (although Merritt is capable of the glibly facetious), the song craft was still pure Merritt. “Realism” dials back the decibels, eschewing electric instrumentation almost entirely and employing diverse instrumentation (how about flugelhorn, Cajon, accordion, banjo, etc.) well beyond the usual folkie palette. Both, the volume dial-back and the acoustic instrumentation are perfect for these hurt, bitter, but oddly blithe songs.

One could spend the day quoting from Merritt’s dour, witty songs. I shan’t. Vaguely comparable: Stuart Murdoch’s writing for Belle & Sebastian and God Help the Girl, although Murdoch is a sad humanist and Merritt is a borderline misanthrope — albeit a lovable one. Neil Hannon’s work with the Divine Comedy has a kinship with Merritt’s, but Hannon is a morally ambivalent European flatterer while Merritt is something of a New England scold for all his love of personal liberty. What else can you call the author of a jolly, but scathing putdown like “You Must Be Out of Your Mind?” It’s hard to imagine any other contemporary songwriter producing a Rudy Valli-like, Twenties homage/parody with the nod and a wink ambivalence of “Seduced and Abandoned” — Randy Newman, maybe?

Finally, Stephin Merritt is a post-rock Stephen Sondheim in search of a new Broadway, perhaps a Broadway for smarter people, indeed smarter people than those who typically support Broadway. Such is his dilemma. He’s too blisteringly direct for the polite set. And he’s too literate for ninety-percent of, well, college rockers. The gentleman sure has a way with words and tunes, though, and a lovely, refined recital like “Realism” makes a fine case for his art.

Reverberating: 8.6 (original), upgraded to 8.7

Thus continues the Top 25 for 2010 Countdown!

Welcome to the top 25 for 2010 Countdown! Each day we'll countdown, today we continue with number 23, culminating with our (okay, my) numero uno album of the year. When they're handy I'll borrow my earlier reviews from the KC Free Press, as I have in this case. In the event one of my top 25 selections isn't something I've reviewed previously I'll dash off a new review.

I welcome all comments, criticisms, questions and dialog in general.

25. Jon Langford - Old Devils (Bloodshot)
24. Vaselines - Sex with an X (Sub Pop)
23. Drive-By Truckers - The Big To-Do (ATO)

"Southern-rock to the bone, minus embarrassment"

Twelve years and eight studio records into a substantial career, the Drive-By Truckers are exemplars of smart, swaggering Southern rock. On The Big To-Do Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley’s tales of underclass tragedy — some reportorial, some skeptical, and some empathetic — are sharply rendered. Hood and Cooley are North Alabamans who migrated to the college music Mecca of Athens. That migration is telling; if this is southern rock, it’s southern rock that has more in common with Flannery O’Conner or Missouri’s Daniel Woodrell than the Allman Brothers first-person blues drones. And as pocket-deep as the rhythm section plays, guitarists Cooley and Jeff Neff interpret Johnny Thunders through the gospel of Warner Hodges (Jason and the Nashville Scorchers) and mimic Neil Young more than they do Garry Rossington or Dickey Betts.

Patterson Hood, son of Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section stalwart bassist David Hood, whose strained tenor and Paul Westerberg crosses the Mason-Dixon line sensibilities have come to define the band’s character, is the de facto band leader here with songwriting credits on eight of the albums' thirteen songs. Hood’s solo record Murdering Oscar was one of my 2009 faves. On Murdering Oscar, his guitar arrangements were sparer, evoking Mike Campbell or Richard Thompson. The Drive-By Truckers is a more lumbering beast, but even with the occasional sludge that the three guitars trip creates, for the most part the band is a formidable outfit, firing on all six cylinders like a heavier Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers or a Hold Steady covered in kudzu.

Hood’s songs are drunkard’s laments (“The Fourth Night of My Drinking”), stories of the sexual mania underlying religious conservatism (the preacher’s wife kills the reprobate rev in "The Wig He Made Her Wear"), and tales of downward mobility (he’s a southern Springsteen in “This Fucking Job”), and a host of other real-life scenarios. Cooley’s “Birthday Boy” is told from the point of view of a stripper/hooker named Trixie (get it?) and “Get Downtown” concerns a deadbeat boyfriends’ remonstrations that his girlfriend find work instead of his working for her dad. Bassist Shonna Tucker’s simple love (lorn) ditties provide a little generic relief; the simple, but effective “You Got Another” is especially appealing with its Gillian Welch/David Rawlings harmonies on the refrain.

Paternity must be on the minds of Hood and Cooley. The album opens with “Daddy Learned to Fly,” a son’s lament for his departed (dead?) father, ingeniously dressed up in a southern “Space Oddity” motif, and closes with Cooley’s “Eyes Like Glue,” a bittersweet recognition of fatherhood’s role modeling obligations.

They write smart, homespun songs. They play the hell out of them. Their humor is infectious, poetic, and sometimes profound. There’s plenty to love about the Drive-By Truckers. The Big To-Do is an inspired testimony to their musical chemistry.

Reverberating: 8.4 (original), upgraded to 8.7

Thus continues the Top 25 for 2010 Countdown!

Welcome to the top 25 for 2010 Countdown! Each day we'll countdown, today we continue with number 24, culminating with our (okay, my) numero uno album of the year. When they're handy I'll borrow my earlier reviews from the KC Free Press, as I have in this case. In the event one of my top 25 selections isn't something I've reviewed previously I'll dash off a new review.

I welcome all comments, criticisms, questions and dialog in general.

25. Jon Langford - Old Devils (Bloodshot)
24. Vaselines - Sex with an X (Sub Pop)

“They’re back; they’re still Scots, still clever, still charming”

Kurt Cobain loved the Vaselines. I think Cobain coveted their cheeky innocence and melodic ease, qualities denied to him in the River’s Edge-flannel, sourpuss machismo of the Seattle scene circa 1988-1993. Songs like “Molly’s Lips,” and “Rory Ride Me Raw” gave him the nerve to dash off ditties like “Sliver.”

Eugene Kelly and Frances McKee wrote songs with the off the cuff charm of the sing-a-long, hootenanny folk era, only the their tunes were smutty-sweet anthems to young libido and infatuation – a liberation of a sort, but not one anticipated by the Pete Seeger set. Their brief non-career is best surveyed on the excellent Sub Pop retrospective Enter the Vaselines. Nirvana covers of “Molly’s Lips,” “Son of a Gun,” and “Jesus Wants Me For a Sunbeam” probably helped pay the bills over the ensuing two decades as Kelly fronted Eugenius and McKee casually pursued a solo career.

The Vaselines reformation has picked up steam since a first reunion in 2006. This year finds them selected by fellow Glaswegians Belle and Sebastian for this year’s All Tomorrow’s Parties fest. They won’t be sticking to their lovely catalog; they’ll have a new release, to promote. Fortunately, it’s a corker that stands confidently next to their old material. This time their lineup is a bit more of a straight up rocking outfit, but their songs, singing and collaborative charm are unchanged.

“Ruined” is 2:10 of churning anti-star (dom) polemics. The title song opines “it feels so good it must be bad for me; let’s do it, do it again,” Kelly and McKee tipping their hat to their Calvinist baggage and giving it the finger at the same time. “The Devil’s Inside Me” is “Sex with an X’s” darker cousin (“made me push you against the wall”) and has a brooding intensity that begs certain Vaselines/Nirvana and chicken or the egg questions.

“Overweight but Over You” is as catchy as a “Chinnichap” number (Mike Chapman and Nicky Chinn produced hard pop hits for the likes of Sweet and Suzy Quatro back in the Seventies) and manages to connect erotic depression and food abuse. The Vaselines’ Kinks-love is evidenced on tracks like “Such a Fool,” and “Poison Pen,” the latter borrowing heavily from Muswell Hill’s finest (“Tired of Waiting”). “I Hate the 80’s” is dead funny and a bit more ambivalent than the title suggests. As Kelly and McKee observe “it wasn’t all Duran Duran.” And while they hedge their bets in memory of fellow travelers like the Pastels and Orange Juice, the Vaselines finally conclude the decade “was shit.”

“Whitechapel” resembles the Raveonettes a bit, saluting a “wonderful night,” but not without an undercurrent of foreboding. The Vaselines’ funny take on religious certitude “My God’s Bigger Than Your God” is representative of the band’s wit and charmed pop naiveté. “Exit the Vaselines” puns on their recent retrospective and remains cryptic about the band’s future. Whatever that future may hold, Sex with an X is testimony to the Vaselines’ unique and enduring charms.

Reverberating: 8.5 (original), upgraded to 8.7

Thus begins the Top 25 for 2010 Countdown!

Welcome to the top 25 for 2010 Countdown! Each day we'll countdown, starting with (yup, you guessed it!) number 25 and culminating with our (okay, my) numero uno album of the year. When they're handy I'll borrow my earlier reviews from the KC Free Press, as I have in this case. In the event one of my top 25 selections isn't something I've reviewed previously I'll dash off a new review.

I welcome all comments, criticisms, questions and dialog in general.

25.
Jon Langford and Skull Orchard – Old Devils (Bloodshot)
“Jon Langford has quietly put together one of rock’s great resumes”

Jon Langford’s thirty year plus career has produced upward of forty records between his solo work and his various bands. A founding member of one of the most enduring groups of the last three decades, the Mekons, Langford also records as or with the Pine Valley Cosmonauts, the Three Johns and the Waco Brothers.


His output is consistently satisfying, sometimes stunning. Langford’s painting and visual art production is also striking and prolific. His new record may be called Old Devils, but it’s clear that Langford’s hands are rarely idle.

The Mekons began life as a punk band, but by 1985’s Fear and Whiskey they began to incorporate American country influences into their sound. As fellow Mekon Tom Greenhalgh put it “the difference between the three chords of country and the three chords of punk became blurred.” Thus a gang of Brits who met in Leeds became seminal figures in the American alt-country movement. Among several brilliant recordings the Mekons’ 1989 release Rock n’ Roll is especially commanding.

Old Devils, recorded with Skull Orchard, which includes some of Langford’s Waco Bros. sidekicks, shows that Langford isn’t loosing any steam. Its’ combination of busker punk and country licks is fresh throughout. Like Billy Bragg, Langford is modest and vernacular as a singer, but like Bragg he’s dauntless with his material. Imagine a Welsh Johnny Cash who’s digested the critical theory of Terry Eagleton and the historical works of E.P. Thompson. Langford’s learned, but he’s not pretentious. His analytical eye is sharp and he keeps his emotions in his hip pocket. Like a true artist he invites you to perceive things from his perspective; he doesn’t tell you what to think.

“1234 Ever” establishes Langford’s distinct combination of styles. While country is at play, here the sound is closer to the sagebrush exoticism of Giant Sand and Thin White Rope than Jason and the Scorchers. “Book of Your Life” is for Langford a straightforward lament (“wish it was me in the book of your life”), but his intellectual proclivities are never far behind (“laws of physics abandoned to produce a happy ending”). Here his singing reminds at once of Joe Strummer and Procol Harum’s Gary Brooker. “Getting Used to Uselessness” is a catchy Social Distortion goes to college number, climaxed by Jim Elkington’s searching guitar solo.

“Pieces of the Past” is just your average rock ditty about slavery and man’s inhumanity. Prefaced by Andre William’s leering recitative (“Captain Henry Morgan was a very, very bad man”), Langford describes Bristol’s streets “paved in gold and blood;” it’s a chilling, evocative song that suggests and approaches Dylan’s “Blind Willie McTell.” “Haunted” vibrates with self-recognition – the New Orleans horns complementing Langford’s delivery, oddly suggesting the Libertine’s Carl Barat. The title track, perhaps loosely inspired by Kingsley Amis’s novel of the same name,” finds Langford confessing “I believe without reason there’s nothing to belief in anymore” as strings redolent of Van Morrison’s Caledonia Soul period provide counterpoint.

Old Devils is quintessential Jon Langford. Literate, sharply observed lyrics of both a personal and sociological nature paired with his seamless blend of punk, country and other idioms. If you’re not already a fan, Old Devils is a really fine record and not a bad place to start getting acquainted with Langford’s work.
Reverberating: 8.7

J. Roddy Walston and the Business Rock!

J. Roddy Walston and the Business - s/t (Vagrant)

"Boys from Baltimore rock like their lives depend on it, and they probably do."


How to describe J. Roddy Walston and the Business?

They do play some rock ‘n’ roll. Big ol’ rock ‘n’ roll, too, damn it. It’s too crazed and punk-tinged to be “classic rock,” and it’s insufficiently parochial to qualify under the current definitions of garage-rock; too much retro-garage stuff is either too nice (mannered) or too naughty (crappy playing and recording=authenticity).

This music has roots, but it sounds like it blew right out of the barroom – fresh and ready. Frankly, Walston and the Business sound like a train wreck. Jerry Lee Lewis could be the engineer. Slade, AC/DC and T. Rex are drunk in the dining car. Led Zeppelin is high and staring down the tracks from the observation deck at the back of the train. They don’t see the crash coming, an approaching head-on featuring two cars, careening in opposite directions – one’s filled with members of the Replacements and the Stones (rock critic approved); the other is driven by Kid Rock, and Black Oak Arkansas are partying in the back seat. Yup, this Southern rock dynamo is not a straight line Pitchfork cinch. Hipster alert – if you’re scared of beautiful, vulgar rock ‘n’ roll music beware: Scurry home to your Bon Iver and Animal Collective records, now!

Emerging from this glorious train wreck, J. Roddy and his gang sound like kids who ran from the Baptist church, but still full of fervor they are ready to blow the roof off any dump they play.

I can’t tell what the hell J. Roddy is on about all of the time. It’s down to the bone stuff – living, loving, and drinking. He dances on the proverbial edge (“Brave Man’s Death”), and parties (“Don’t Break the Needle” with its dirty double entendre) to be sure. On “Don’t Get Old” Walston implores his ladylove to (not) do exactly that. Next, he launches into a roadhouse stomper called “I Don’t Want to Hear” which mixes the band’s Zeppelin II stomp with ‘c’mon everybody’ vocals straight outta Springsteen and his love for Gary U.S. Bonds. Throughout, Walston pounds the ivories (a genuine piano) like a man possessed. Logan Davis (bass) and Steve Colmus (drums) approximate the Jones-Bonham tandem beautifully, while guitarist Billy Gordon lets fly like Ariel Bender in Mott the Hoople.

J. Roddy Walston and his boys practically defy criticism. This is music for driving too fast in your death-to-the-environment mobile. Not that they sound like Kings of Leon, but they provide a lot (rather than a little) of what those preacher’s boys promised on their first album, way back when they sounded like avatars of a new suck-free Southern rock, before they started dating models and dreaming of U2. That promise was that the rough beast that blew out of the American south ecstatic and guilty, black and white, sacred and sexy would never die. If J. Roddy Walston and the Business are any indication, that great beast still roars.

Reverberating: 9.0

Aloe Blacc - Good Things

(Stones Throw)









Panamanian born Aloe Blacc brings the skills he developed as a rapper
(a decade in the hip-hop duo Emanon) to his second record as a neo/retro
soul singer on the Stones Throw label, and the results are splendid. His
vocal influences range from Marvin Gaye to Gil Scott-Heron, but over the
course of Good Things Blacc asserts his own soul vision. He may not have
the chops of Marvin, but he’s a soulful, supple singer whose hip-hop informed
phrasing gives him a clear identity.

The production by the Stones Throw crew evokes old school, Seventies soul
music, but it’s fresh enough to sound totally contemporary. Leon
Michels, on keys, guitar and sax, knows his Curtis Mayfield, Marvin Gaye
(What’s Goin’ On), and Charles Wright and the 103rd Street Rhythm band -
bringing the funk and enhancing the songs. Nick Movshon’s bass playing is an
encyclopedia of soul and funk bass, endlessly inventive, moving the songs,
sometimes stealing the show by not trying to steal the show.

Blacc’s songs honor his heritage while extending it. If the catchy, arresting
capitalist critique ‘I Need a Dollar’ isn’t an anthem for these times, I don’t
know what is. And “Life So Hard,” with its There’s a Riot Goin’ On vibe isn’t
far behind. Blacc shows his stylistic range with a knowing, nuanced take on
Lou Reed’s ‘Femme Fatale.’ His ‘Mama Hold My Hand’ echoes both Bill Withers and 2Pac, while standing confidently in their esteemed company.

There’s a not so quiet revolution going on in contemporary rhythm ‘n’ blues.
Singers as diverse as Raphael Saadiq and Eli ‘Paperboy’ Reed, or Mayer
Hawthorne and John Legend are going to the well of classic soul and drawing
waters of melody, invention and humanity that are bringing a genre thirsting for real human emotion back to life. Good Things absolutely lives up to its name; it’s a fresh, original collection of songs from a singer-songwriter who understands that modern black music has to look back in order to move ahead.

Reverberating: 9.0

Corin Tucker Band - 1,000 Years

Corin Tucker Band – 1,000 Years (KRS)





The shrieking axe strangler (I mean that in a good way) from
Sleater-Kinney emerges from the band’s indefinite hiatus with
her first solo record. Corin Tucker, the quintessence of Riot Grrrl,
is now a grown Riot Wmmmn. Yes, that means she’s toned it down, a little.

If mid-period Sleater-Kinney was Tucker as the Nineties/Noughties
embodiment of post-punk, as latter day Patti Smith circa Radio Ethiopia,
think of 1,000 Years as Tucker’s Dream of Life. The songs are concise,
even catchy. Tucker’s band is lean and muscular, and she keeps her wail
in check, aiming for something more intimate and smoldering.
Mission accomplished.

Tucker’s left of center pop adds a lot by taking a little away. And when
she unleashes the beast, as she does on “Riley” and “Doubt” it’s still
(and all the more) powerful.

Reverberating: 8.1

Demon's Claws/Eric Clapton/No Age reviews

Demon’s Claws – The Defrosting of * (In the Red Records)




“The Demon’s Claws scratch out weirdo folk tales
with garage-punk punch”


Demon’s Claws – The Defrosting of *

Montreal’s Demon’s Claws combine a perverse sense of country-folk absurdity with a spiky approach to classic two-guitar rock fireworks. A casual listen to The Defrosting of, their second record on the In the Red label, lends the impression that the Claws are another drunky-punk outfit cut from the same cloth as the Black Lips. And yeah, they have plenty in common. At closer inspection, there’s something distinctive going on here. The interlocked guitars of chief songwriter and singer Jeff Clarke and Pat Bourbonnais are either the product of terrific empathy or deceptive craft, probably both. Their work on the beer-stained “Mona’s Lunch” recalls the Michael Bruce-Glenn Buxton fireworks with Alice Cooper. “Last Time at the Pool” sounds like a party the Dead Boys threw for the Replacements. “Laser Beams” combines fierce Rocket from the Tombs style licks with a pretty repeated figure straight out of Johnny Marr.

A little more work on lyrics wouldn’t hurt some of these songs, several like “At the Disco” are rooted in the Ramones “second verse same as the first” school of notebook economy. On the other hand, songs like “All Three Eyes” and the 13th Floor Elevators influenced “Trip to the Clinic” are creepily evocative.

On some songs Clarke sings in an updated, marble-mouthed Mick Jagger fashion and the mix doesn’t always give him front and center. It works because many of these songs benefit from a certain murk of atmosphere. The mix is a little clearer on songs like “Fed From Her Hand” and “Catch Her by the Tail,” little morality plays and cautionary tales told at the intersection of modern junk culture and warped old Americana.

From the chilling charms of “All Three Eyes” to the surreal, fevered “Fucked on Ketamine” to the shit-kickerfied “Weird Ways” the Demon’s Claws are powered by the Tennessee Three meets Voidoids drumming of Brian Hildebrand. Sometimes he plays too much, sometimes he almost loses the groove, but without him the DC would be a different band, and probably not as interesting.

The wracked Woody Guthrie travelogue of ‘You’ll Always be my Friend” ends The Defrosting of on a sweetly cracked note, Clarke serenading friendship like some dork version of Stiv Bators. The Demon’s Claws are the sound of tall-boy Bohemian detritus, of boys picking their way through the slag heap of working class mythology and its confinements - and having more than few laughs along the way.

* The original title was The Defrosting of Walt Disney, as you can imagine there were issues.

Reverberating: 8.2


Eric Clapton – Clapton (Reprise Records)




“Spent icon delivers another tepid set”


Eric Clapton is a three-time initiate into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (with the Yardbirds and Cream, and as a solo artist). Is it too much to ask that he actually rock (and roll) once in a while? If Clapton is any indication the answer is yes. Sadly, that’s been the case for the majority of Clapton’s solo career. Oh, he has moments. When he appeared at the concert to celebrate Bob Dylan’s 30th anniversary as a recording artist in 1992 he delivered a smoldering version of “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” that blew the roof off the dump. That was a rare exception.

Always a product of his environment, Clapton’s playing has risen to the level of his inspirations and their provocation. The Derek and the Domino’s classic Layla (and other assorted love songs) was informed by his love for the Band, the songwriting influence of his friend George Harrison (can you imagine him writing a song with a tune like “Bell Bottom Blues” since) and the sparring of guitarist Duane Allman. Surrounded for decades by talented yes-men (and women), he hasn’t had any real fire for years.

Clapton starts promisingly enough with his take on Melvin Jackson’s “Travelin’ Alone.” Walt Richmond’s spectral Hammond organ playing complements Clapton’s guitar work, producing a sound reminiscent of Dylan’s Time Out of Mind record. The rest of the record, though, lays (sic) there, and stays there.

Clapton lacks the personality to negotiate Hoagy Carmichael’s “Rocking Chair.” The background vocals on “Judgment Day” are too perky and undercut the sentiment of Snooky Pryor’s original. Several tracks feature a who’s who of New Orleans musicians, including Wynton Marsalis, Trombone Shorty, Dr. Michael White and Allen Toussaint. But try as they might even their presence can’t cover for Clapton’s lackluster phrasing on “When Somebody Thinks You’re Wonderful,” or his bloated Nawlins version of “That’ s No Way to Get Along;” on the latter he employs the service of nineteen singers and players to emasculate Robert Wilkins’s simple guitar and vocal original.

I’m no stickler for consistency between the artist’s persona and real life, but when multi-millionaire Clapton sings about going “to the factory this morning” on his version of Lane Hardin’s “Hard Time Blues” you have a hard time, given his history as an artist, buying into his Bruce Springsteen makeover.

Clapton’s tepid set ends with a truly insipid rendition of the old chestnut “Autumn Leaves.” It’s an oft-essayed song, and rarely this poorly. It’s a perfect conclusion to a real dud of an album.

Reverberating: 5.5


No Age – Everything In Between (Sub Pop Records)




“Noise is the new silence to No Age’s generation of indie-punk”



No Age is a pure product of indie-rock culture, and part of a generation raised on noise. Sonic Youth may as well be the Beatles to a generation brought up to fear silence. But on their third and best record yet, Everything In Between, No Age have discovered dynamics. It’s not the loud-soft dichotomization of the Nirvana era, but a dynamic based on the epic swell of obligatory sonic overload, rising and falling with each song’s emotional nuances. Not space exactly, but an approximation.

It is a mammoth sound that guitarist Randy Randall and drummer Dean Spunt make. But it’s not without it’s light and shade, its drama and intimacy. “Life Prowler” is Joy Division meets Sonic Youth (w/touches of Suicide), Spunt repeating, “I don’t have time.” Randall’s Frippertronic guitar tempest and Spunt’s cheerleader stomp drumming propel “Glitter,” Spunt claiming “I don’t fear God, I don’t fear anything,” then pleading “I want you back underneath my skin,” as if the lack of love could stir fear that God can’t. “Fever Dreaming” is close to straight up Stooges/Ramones punk roar. “Depletion” is punk rebellion turned into style, the band blasting away like a distortion saturated version of the Vibrators.

No Age intersperses instrumental segues like “Katerpillar” and “Positive Amputation” into Everything In Between’s program like palate cleansers, lbreakdowns with roots in the sonics of Bowie-Eno material like “Warszawa.”

Part of No Age’s balancing act is to alternate the under mixed vocals, like the Dave Vanian meets Thurston Moore vocal persona of “Valley Hump Crash,” with more out front pop mixes like “Sorts,” the latter which starts out a trashed out La’s and evolves into a snotty pop snarl that reminds of bands like the Original Sins. “Shed and Transcend” has elements of both approaches, sounding like pop-punk under an avalanche of Randall’s guitar noise. “Chem Trails,” on the other hand, is a flat out catchy tune – all “Band on the Run” trills and “Pretty in Pink” chord changes.

No Age’s basic vision is of the alienated individual struggling in a stifling culture, it’s there in Spunt’s direct lyrics, and sometimes represented by the transcendent, overwhelming noises that Randall coaxes from his guitars. The photography of Zen Sekizawa, which pays homage to Robert Mapplethorpe’s evocation of aesthetic rebellion for Patti Smith’s Radio Ethiopia, and the constructivist/Factory Records graphic sensibilities of Brian Roettinger’s packaging are fine translations of No Age’s sensibility into visual language.

With Everything In Between No Age have become better songwriters and more versatile, dynamic arrangers. With just a touch of roll off on the distortion they aren’t too damned far from the Eighties angst-pop of Echo and the Bunnymen or the Psychedelic Furs. It will be fun to see where their development takes them.

Reverberating: 8.2

These reviews first appeared in the KC Free Press:http://www.kcfreepress.com/news/2010/oct/05/steve-wilson-takes-demons-claws-eric-clapton-and-n/

Manic Street Preachers/Fistful of Mercy reviews

Manic Street Preachers – Postcards From a Young Man (import)

“A great rock band from Wales, still virtually unknown in America”

Manic Street Preachers – Postcards From a Young Man

A popular and respected act around the world, especially in their native Britain, the Manic Street Preachers from Blackwood, Wales remain a cult band in the States. Their ambitions are too grand and their music too immodest for the tastemakers who set the boundaries of the American underground. Still, all but one of their nine previous albums has secured an American release (2004’s Lifeblood being an exception). The U.S. release of their tenth album Postcards From a Young Man isn’t imminent. Too bad, it’s among their best.

The central fact of the Manics’ career is the disappearance and presumed suicide of Richey Edwards after completing sessions for the band’s third album, The Holy Bible. Bible was a scabrous thing. The lyrics by Edwards and bassist Nicky Wire explored every manner of human folly, barbarism and degradation; they made Joy Division sound like Air Supply. The music was a curious mix of guilty (given the lyrics) pop pleasures and pulverizing rock, a sound that mixed punk and arena rock in a seamless, authoritative way.

Brutal thing it was, The Holy Bible was Edward’s last will and testament. After the album’s release and Edward’s disappearance the Manics soldiered on as a trio, becoming hit makers in the U.K with their fourth record Everything Must Go and its’ generational anthem “A Design for Life.” Everything Must Go combined rock with a grandiose pop sound. The latter has occasionally overwhelmed the Manics. On albums like This is My Truth, Tell Me Yours and especially Lifeblood the Manics’ forgot to rock and turned out schmaltz that even Wire’s situationist/Marxist lyrics couldn’t overcome.

The band’s eighth album Send Away the Tigers struck a fine balance between their classic rock and punk tendencies. Then came A Journal for Plague Lovers, an album of blistering pop brilliance that was more vital than anything one might have anticipated from an eighteen year old band, especially one set for early self-destruction (between Edward’s abuse issues and Wire’s statements about going out in a blaze of young glory). The songs for Journal were based on lyrics that Richey Edwards had left behind. Guitarist James Dean Bradfield and Sean Moore (the band’s consistently powerful, musical drummer) came up with arresting tunes and arrangements and the band’s power was captured by Steve Albini’s verite production methods.

The Manic Street Preachers continue to ride the wave that Tigers began and Journal accelerated. Postcards from a Young Man is a big, swaggering record, full of strong melodies and some of Wire’s best lyrics. The band employs string arrangements on several tracks and a vocal chorus on four songs, but the performances on Postcards From a Young Man are never overwhelmed by such augmentation. The Manic Street Preachers are such a confident, cohesive unit by now that they rock with a punch that can withstand production that would be top-heavy for lesser bands.

Bradfield’s tenor is a remarkable instrument, capable of tremendous tenderness and venom alike, but ultimately too Freddie Mercury for Animal Collective fans. As a guitarist Bradfield is brilliant, but he’s an old school, flash guitar hero. His playing is a cross between Mick Jones, Mick Ronson, Slash, and Eric Clapton at his long gone, most rock incendiary. His solo on “The Descent (Pages 1 & 2) is beautifully composed. His Mick Ronson-esque licks drive “Auto-Intoxication.” He covers territory from Brian May to Thin Lizzy to Johnny Thunders, all in one song on “A Billion Balconies Facing the Sun,” and melds Lou Reed with Bruce Springsteen (“Badlands, particularly) on “All We Make is Entertainment,” which also features Wire’s brilliantly self-castigating lyrics – words that the song’s passionate performance only subverts.

The Manics’ diverse sensibilities are represented by their choice of musical guests on Postcards, incorporating contributions from a British post-punk icon, a Godfather of the punk underground and a strutting American rock star. “Some Kind of Nothingness” features guest vocals from Echo and the Bunnymen’s Ian McCulloch and interpolates bits of Echo’s “Never Stop.” “Auto-Intoxication” includes keyboard and “noise” performances from John Cale. Duff McKagan (Guns n’Roses/Velvet Revolver) plays bass on “A Billion Balconies Facing the Sun.” Impressionable working class lads from a wee town in south Wales, the Manics embraced each of these disparate characters as heroes.

Wire still converses with Richey Edwards’ ghost on the title track and “The Descent.” The revolution he once believed in seems like a cruel joke on songs like “Auto-Intoxication,” “A Billion Balconies Facing the Sun,” and “Don’t Be Evil,” as Wire stares into the present’s black holes of consumerism and alienation. Weary and disenchanted, Wire nonetheless continues to rage against the dying of the light, rather like another great Welshman Dylan Thomas. According to Wire and the band Postcards From a Young Man is a final Manics assault on the charts – a last ditch attempt to inoculate the world with disillusionment (thanks, Henry Miller). Wire is prone to wild pronouncements, though, so who knows. One senses, however, from the passion that drives Postcards that Wire and the Manics won’t be going gentle into that good night.

Reverberating: 9.2

Fistful of Mercy – As I Call You Down (Hot Records)

“Promising trio fails to deliver the goods”

Fistful of Mercy

Fistful of Mercy is a curious trio. Ben Harper and Joseph Arthur have considerable solo catalogs. Harper's a soulful singer and songwriter. I've never been a big fan, but certainly an admirer. Arthur's erratic, but his last release Temporary People was a peak, full of good songs and performances in a slacker-Stones mode. The third player in this threesome is Dhani Harrison. If you aren't familiar with his recorded history it's because it's limited to one release with the group thenewno2. Dhani is better known as the offspring of George Harrison.

Harrison’s performance here is as strong as anyone’s. It doesn’t salvage what’s basically an uninspired session. Fistful of Mercy’s debut, titled As I Call You Down, opens with “In Vain or True. “ It’s an intimate, acoustic performance that suggests the back porch informality of the early Band and the balladic grace of Badfinger. Since the sound is persuasive, it’s easy to embrace the simplicity of the lyrics. A few songs into As I Call You Down, though, that simplicity begins to sound merely banal.

The relaxed, largely acoustic performance idiom, which at first charmed, begins to sound enervated. The close, intimate harmonies never get robust. In fact, some of the trio’s attempts at soulful blues based moans sound like cats mewling; the democratic approach Fistful of Mercy pursue never really allowing a strong lead vocal performance to emerge.

The program’s a little skimpy too, featuring only nine tracks. Among them, only “Father’s Son” combusts - a spare, blues stomp with stronger lyrics and rotating lead vocals, “Father’s Son” has an energy and authority that most of these performances simply lack. There’s enough talent here to suggest a missed opportunity. Perhaps a sympathetic, but strong willed producer might have coaxed less puny performances and demanded sharper lyrics from Fistful of Mercy. Unfortunately, their comfort zone on As I Call You Down results only in largely desultory work.

Reverberating: 5.9

record store reverie

i'll preface this post with a bit of explanation. one of my friends in a yahoo group called the music roundtable had posted this message:
"Didn't you just love it back when reviewers actually listened to, and were
moved by the music they
reviewed? Back in the day when a single note, emotion, inflection or
lyric could carry an entire
album because you knew what they really meant and went along for the ride?"
(the roundtable is composed of bunch of guys with kansas city and lawrence backgrounds, most of whom have been involved in the music industry. some of the names here may be meaningless to those outside the vicinity, but you can insert the names of record stores from your past and your area.)

yeah, that was nice. them days. my son eddie and i went to the cbe, college
basketball experience today. fun for what it was. then, as usual when i'm
in kc, i drop by a fave place or two (d'bronx and broadway coffee house
this time around). but as i drove by what's left of streetside i thought
about music exchange being gone. and even recycled. then i just had to
drive along mission road to show eddie where caper's had been,
architecturally unprepossessing as it is. and it made me sad.

here's the deal. i'm fifty-five. i'm grateful for all of the experiences and
memories that i have from decades as a record junkie and dealer, as a
musician, and as a writer. it's been great. and it still is. and at
fifty-five i'm grateful for the measure of comfort i've found in my soul. i
won't pretend to grace or peace, but i know i'm not the frustrated hothead
that i once was. on the other hand, the music mise en scene that i
experienced as a hothead i would trade for in a new york minute against the
cyber-saturated fool's paradise i live in now.

sure, i enjoy the roundtable. truly. but i'm here because i met all of you
guys back in the day - inside of kief's, caper's, love, exile, the exchange,
and even my sometimes nemeses streetside and penny lane. i can't help but be
nostalgic for the day when the record store was the hub of music excitement
and communication. kief's is still around. thank god. but our role is
diminished by the ravages of an online, internet, click and download world.
and in kansas city? what the fuck is there? one half-ass streetside left and
a handful of vinyl nostalgists.

where do the children play? i thought about don mclean. and 'american pie.'
i guess for every generation there is some place, some occasion where the
music 'dies.' i always found his contention, if you will, premature and
dramatic. but in my own way i'm experiencing the feeling. there was no day
the music died. certainly, in important ways the music itself has not died.
cannot die. but the world in which we grew up, a world which significantly nurtured
our ideas about music and its and our places in the world, is passed or
passing. i don't think it's been replaced by something as good. that simple.

it's nice that i can audition any music in the world with a google search.
yet in some ways the very lack of effort involved is part and parcel of what
i believe has led to a diminished sense of attachment to the art that i perceive on
the part of today's listener, especially the young. it's all accessible, but
it's all disposable and ephemeral, too. it's horizontally on a par with
video games, movies, comic books, whatever the hell else the media saturated
young are soaking in. it's not central, not unique, not the very blood in
their veins that it was for us. it's another consumable, rendered less full
of life, if not lifeless, by corporate culture. maybe the man did bust our
music. and us, i suppose.

well, happy sunday.