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Check
out what’s going on
around Winnipeg tonight! |
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Check
out this week’s
online CD reviews by our
music staff |
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The
Carnations
In Good Time
(Ductape/Universal)
B+
Website:
www.ductape.com
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To make classic adult
pop music is to remember that a great hook is best delivered
with a sting – left to float inside the listener’s
consciousness without being bothersome over the long haul.
The first eight songs on the latest album from Toronto’s
Carnations are as inventive and powerful as any “mature”
pop music you’ll hear this year. The quartet blends
ace, understated chops with big arrangement ideas to create
an appealing gem – one that pulls you back to listen
again and again. Singer Thomas D’Arcy lifts his adenoidal
howl to dizzying heights and idiosyncratic lows. Cameras Everywhere
reaches a brilliant crescendo as it ends – which really
only works if the music leading up to it gets you there. In
Good Time may only be polite and powerful Canuck-pop but this
kind of juicy creativity really is good any time.
Jeff Monk |
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Danko
Jones
We Sweat Blood
(Universal)
B
Website:
www.dankojones.com |
His name is Danko
Jones. He dresses in black. He sweats blood. He plays blues-based
rock ’n’ roll. His band is a lean, mean, three-piece
machine. Their name is Danko Jones, too. They dress in black.
Like him, they sweat blood. They’re huge in Europe.
Their new album, We Sweat Blood, rocks. Not as much as their
first album, Born a Lion. But it still rocks. In…short…sharp…
bursts… it rocks. Danko Jones keeps it simple. Sometimes
their songs sound similar. Sometimes they repeat them-selves.
They like women. They believe in rock ’n’ roll.
They don’t like being hurt by women. But they still
rock. Call it primal minimalism. Call it AC/DC meets Nirvana.
Call it an update of ZZ Top. Call it what you will…
Danko Jones sweats blood. Their new album rocks. But not as
much as Born a Lion.
John Kendle
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Joe
Strummer & The Mescaleros
Streetcore
(Hellcat/Epitaph)
B+
Website: www.strummersite.com |
The saddest day of
last year was Dec. 22 – the day Joe Strummer died. Quite
simply, he was a hero to me. Since the dissolution of The
Clash, it had been heartening to hear that Strummer wanted
no part of a reunion cash-in, choosing instead to emerge with
a new group, the Mescaleros, and an urgent, meandering global
rock sound. So it was with trepidation that I approached Streetcore,
the project Strummer and the Mescaleros were working on when
he died. I feared this may be a collection of half-realized
tracks never meant to be heard. Instead, guitarists Scott
Shields and Martin Slattery have pieced together 10 cuts that
provide a coherent document of the music Joe was making last
winter. Songs such as Coma Girl and Arms Aloft are essentially
finished, while Long Shadow (written for Johnny Cash) and
a wonderfully spare cover of Bob Marley’s Redemption
Song are simple, guitar-and-voice reminders of the man’s
innate musicality. He will be missed.
John Kendle |
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Manishevitz
City Life
(Jagjaguwar/Sonic Unyon)
B+
Website: www.jagjaguwar.com |
The Chicago Reader’s
Peter Margasak recently called Manishevitz singer Adam Busch’s
Bryan Ferry impersonation on City Life “endearingly
deficient,” and I couldn’t have put it better
myself. Where Ferry comes off as smooth and unctuous, former
mumbler Busch sounds nervous and sort of sweaty as he forces
his herky-jerky voice into a quavering falsetto – but
it works, as all of City Life does, as a glimpse of nostalgia
through a cracked mirror. On Manishevitz’s third album,
Busch’s band (which includes guitarist Via Nuon and
ubiquitous cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm) helps him make the transition
from the insular, semi-orchestral indie-folk sound of 2001’s
Rollover to a strutting art-rock vibe complete with squalling
saxophones. Back in the Day has the muffled calliope sound
of the Russian Futurists, while Private Lines is brash and
beautiful in a way that vaguely recalls Television.
Jill Wilson |
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MxPx
Before Everything & After
(A&M/Universal)
C
|
Kicking off its second
decade as a band, MxPx has come out with the grandly titled
Before Everything & After. And it’s a fun little
disc, no arguments there. But the bottom line is that for
all their skate-punk cred (and Christian-punk roots), MxPx
is just not the world’s most interesting band. Nor was
it ever, really, although it used to find some messy little
niches of punk-rock joy. This time around, even the frothy
singalongs of Play It Loud and the bouncy rhythms of Everything
Sucks When You’re Gone seem terribly rehashed. Not to
accuse them of being derivative – with a career that
long, most of today’s punk bands are ripping them off
– but the band’s failure to evolve and discover
a sound befitting pop-punk veterans is what makes the difference
between them and Green Day.
Melissa Martin |
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The
Unicorns
Who Will Cut Our Hair When We’re Gone?
(Alien 8)
A-
Website: www.alien8recordings.com
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The sophomore release
from the Montreal-based Unicorns is unabashedly low-fi; it’s
clamorous, tinny, fuzzy, ramshackle and close to brilliant.
In among the penny whistles, the weedy, cracked vocals, the
oh-so-retro synths, and the popping, hissing and general chaos
lurk some magical pop songs, slyly crafted by Nicholas (Niel)
Diamond, Alden Ginger and new member Jaime Tambour to sound
casually tossed-off. Or maybe they are casually tossed off.
Maybe the Unicorns are a group of savants who instinctively
know just where to place a mechanical drum beat under a wavering,
off-key keyboard, or how to write a propulsive, boppy ditty
about their namesake (“we’re more than horses”).
If they’re this crazy on disc, one can only imagine
the live show, where shenanigans allegedly reign supreme.
See for yourself when The Unicorns open for Hot Hot Heat at
the Pyramid on Nov. 25.
Jill Wilson |
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The
Wannadies
Before & After
(Int/True North)
B+
|
Perhaps the Wannadies
have been lumped in too easily with sticky-sweet Swedish pop
peers the Cardigans. Though never gaining the international
following of that band, the parallels are obvious –
the coy melodies and spritely delivery, for instance. But
on Before & After, the Wannadies are a more bitingly ironic
entity than their cohorts. Take the sugary high harmonies
on the wickedly wry chorus of Piss on You, for instance, or
the deliberately quirky verse rhythms of Nothing Wrong. Balanced
between the perky and the atmospheric moodiness of second-half
songs like Singalong Son, the Wannadies have created a sparse
and euphonic record that capitalizes on melody and personality.
There’s an occasional lack of forward momentum, but
the summery mood lets all be forgiven.
Melissa Martin |
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Various
Artists
The Sound of Young New York
(Plant/Fusion3)
B+
Website: www.plantmusic.com |
Since The Rapture
and their production partners DFA unleashed last year’s
surprise vinyl-only hit, House of Jealous Lovers, all eyes
have been on New York’s underground dance scene. It’s
no surprise that a slew of compilations are hitting the street
that push the sound of the emerging dance-punk culture. Propelled
by repressive nightlife laws and a stripped-down, low-fi mix
of crunchy disco beats and punk’s who-gives-a-fuck attitude,
the city has become the centre of the second wave of this
hybrid sound. Mixed by scenster/label owner Dominique Keeghan
and featuring three cuts from heavyweight producers DFA, along
with a handful of up-and-coming acts, The Sound of Young New
York is the perfect introduction to the city’s thriving
electronic music culture and the artists who are shaping it.
Anthony Augustine |
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Rodney
Crowell
Fate’s Right Hand
(DMZ/Epic)
A
Website: www.rodneycrowell.com
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The 2001 CD The Houston
Kid was the sound of Crowell celebrating and shaking off his
past, set to a jubilant soundtrack infused with elements of
bluegrass, folk, blues and rock. Fate’s Right Hand finds
Crowell riding herd over the same musical territory –
melodies fired by acoustic guitar and mandolin, Hammond B-3
bathing songs in exquisite washes, beautiful solos taken at
precisely the right moments. Thematically, though, he has
moved on from the sentiment of Kid to stock-taking of the
here and now. In Earthbound, he says both the divine and the
mundane can provide the joy that keeps us on this mortal coil,
while Time to Go Inward is an avowed recognition of the Golden
Rule. Life, he suggests, is a long, hard search for truth,
but it needn’t be unhappy or unrequited. It’s
all up to us. I’ll buy that.
John Kendle |
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