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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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Alice
Cooper
The Eyes of Alice Cooper
(Eagle Rock)
C
Website:
www.EagleRockEnt.com
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Unfortunately, Alice
Cooper has released more crap records in his career than he
ever had “back-in-the-day” great ones. If you’re
The Coop you’re doing your level best just to keep making
some dead presidents in an industry that doesn’t easily
suffer anachronism. When he isn’t out on the links with
his cronies ol’ Vince delivers some decent middle-of-the-highway,
mid-tempo metal. Eyes… surely has its enjoyable moments
and the trademark lewd ’n’ crude, lowbrow lyrical
content (“I burned all of my porno ’cause you
were PMS-ing” is one example) is sometimes idiotic enough
to be interesting. His band is comprised of some talented,
young-ish cats, which makes sense since Alice is really old
and scowls a lot. Expect nothing and you may get a little
from these eyes.
Jeff Monk |
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British
Sea Power
The Decline of British Sea Power
(Rough Trade)
A
Website:
www.britishseapower.co.uk |
The fact that British
Sea Power dons vintage military uniforms on stage is certainly
intriguing, but it’s the music of this U.K. quintet
that’s the most fascinating. It’s such a strange,
inventive mix of raw-edged rock ’n’ roll, a cynically
refreshing collision of angular rhythms and screeching guitars,
topped by an iconoclastic attitude Frank Black should approve
of. There are dashes of the Cure underscored by more modern
hardcore guitars and the grating gloom of Joy Division, but
the entire record vigorously rejects categorization, preferring
to rely on frontman Yan’s devilishly off-kilter and
formal lyrics and ironically delivered moodiness. Decline…
is an odd and utterly enveloping record, a throwback to the
earliest days of “alternative” music as seen through
modern eyes. In all of its various forms and moods, however,
Decline is a pure delight.
Melissa Martin |
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Hide
Your Daughters
Twisted And Distorted Gender Relations 101
(No List)
C+
Website: www.hideyourdaughters.com |
When you combine the
elements of three distinct musical projects – ex-Meatrack
frontman Jeff LaPlante and members of KEN Mode and Electro
Quarterstaff – one might hope for a greater departure
from the type of rock on Hide Your Daughters’ debut,
which is usually most rewarding live and sometimes a bit flat
on disc. The Winnipeg band delivers enough discordant guitar
trickery (à la Jesus Lizard) mid-tempo heaviness (by
way of Black Sabbath and early Isis) and pissed, tough vocal
delivery (Damaged-era Black Flag) to resemble an entire catalogue
of bands left forgotten on the Amphetamine Reptile and Blast
First imprints. So with all the name-dropping, why the fair-to-middling
grade? This is a disc that should be purchased based on your
evaluation of the band’s live performances, something,
regrettably, I haven’t yet been able to do. That said,
this band’s story is far from being told.
Sam Smith |
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Jet
Get Born
(Elektra/Warner)
A
Website: www.jettheband.com |
What a refreshing
blast. Leave it to some roiling rockers from the southern
hemisphere to deliver new-style garage rock with all the horsepower
and requisite woozy ballad-ability of some of the best. Jet
makes no real claim to anything especially futuristic on Get
Born, but their cool rear-view melodies are right on the money.
Expect plenty of throaty workouts on the rockers (Last Chance
and the pounding Rollover D.J.) and musical cues dragged in
from B.T.O, the Rolling Stones, The Sweet and Wings. What
makes Jet stand out is the near complete absence of attitude.
These dudes sound like they dig just getting that ’70s
vibe naturally, without messing with the recipe too much.
Playing like they meant it – as trite as that may sound
– gives them a guitar-neck up on even the grooviest
competition.
Jeff Monk |
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Joel
Plaskett Emergency
Truthfully, Truthfully
(MapleMusic/
Universal)
B
Website: www.joelplaskett.com
|
Maybe it’s Joel
Plaskett’s own fault. By releasing such an effortlessly
great album in 2001’s Down at the Khyber, the former
Thrush Hermit guitarist might have been setting himself, and
us, up for a disappointing followup. If Truthfully, Truthfully
– his band’s first album for the powerhouse semi-indie
MapleMusic – stood alone, it would probably be
more impressive, but as it is, the disc’s several lacklustre,
enervated tracks seem more noteworthy than they should. For
every solid, catchy winner, there’s a The Day You Walked
Away, whose loping, aimless pace is seriously lacking in momentum,
or Come On, Teacher, which, despite some nice guitar workouts,
is blandly singsong. That said, Plaskett’s riff-heavy
’70s style is always a nice counterpoint to his pop
sensibility and clever lyrics. But truthfully, these aren’t
his most engaging songs.
Jill Wilson
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Lyle
Lovett
My Baby Don’t Tolerate
(Lost Highway/Curb/
Universal)
A+
|
Lyle Lovett is a long,
tall drink of wry who has taken far, far too long to release
an album of new material. Seven years, in fact. Unlike his
baby of the title, though, we’ll forgive dear Lyle for
staying out “till half-past-when” if he continues
to create such exquisitely crafted music. The 14 songs here
explore Lovett’s familiar themes of romantic bemusement,
out-and-out lust, misty-eyed nostalgia and uplifting spirituality.
His tales of skinny women, Nashville pill-poppers, and lovers
past and future are rendered with the keen eye of a seasoned
observer (he was trained as a journalist). From stark folk
to wailin’ hard country to romping blues and steamy
gospel, fiddles soar, horns blast with gusto and the pedal
steel guitar moans while Lyle spins his lyrical magic. If
you’re a fan, you won’t simply tolerate this recording
– you’ll … well, you’ll like it a
lot.
John Kendle |
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OutKast
Speakerboxxx/The Love Below
(Arista/BMG)
A-
|
Atlanta’s OutKast
– Andre (3000) Benjamin and Antwan (Big Boi) Patton
– divide and conquer on their much lauded new release,
a double disc that combines their two solo efforts. The difference
between their styles is made clear in the song titles: Andre
makes his sexed-up, soulful Prince mission clear with tracks
called Where Are My Panties and She Lives in My Lap; Big Boi’s
Ghettomusick and Tomb of the Boom spell out his commitment
to P-Funk-ified, strutting hip-hop. Boi’s is the more
sonically interesting album, his rapid-fire raps wrapped around
propulsive electro beats that segue into smooth R&B samples
and bleating horns, but Andre’s over-the-top mack-daddy
moves are more conventionally appealing. If the two had pruned
the skits and weaker tracks, their best songs could probably
have fit handily on one album, but there’s no denying
that each one stands on its own.
Jill Wilson |
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Rob
Zombie
Past, Present & Future
(Geffen/Universal)
C
Website: www.geffen.com |
Rob Zombie has to
be given credit for taking his brand of industrial gore-metal
to the lofty heights of registered trademarks. Maybe it just
seems as if every song on the music disc (a DVD is included)
sounds unnecessarily the same. Zombie got it mostly right
early in his career, recording with the like-minded warpos
who made up the balance of the band White Zombie, and opening
this best-of with six tracks of hot Zombie action is stacking
the CD in the listener’s favour. More Human Than Human
became a near template for the Zombie sound and it exists
proudly to this day. It could be ZZ Top with louder guitars
and a few more heartily endowed female undead. Death, dismemberment,
pus-engorged, bikini-clad walking dead and their Frankenstein
boyfriends – now that’s rock and roll!
Jeff Monk
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Thursday
War All the Time
(Island/Universal)
A-
Website: www.thursday.net
|
Three albums and one
brand new major-label deal into a promising emo-core career,
New Jersey’s Thursday has released a masterful but hardly
definitive exploration of the genre. Set over a raw and ragged
distorted base, Thursday paints a murkily complex sonic landscape,
generally relying on complex rhythmic shifts and vicious intertwining
riffs, dipping into synth and keyboards to add an orchestral
flair to songs like Signals Over the Air, while the piano-and-vocals
simplicity of This Song Brought To You By a Falling Bomb is
tremendously moving. Some tricks fall flat – the sudden
modern-rock verse of the otherwise spectacular For The Workforce,
Drowning kills the song’s momentum – but
in general the music’s myriad instrumentals are tastefully
and dramatically conceived. The lyrics could be the band’s
defining feature; passionate and political, but filled with
enough obscure metaphor to intrigue and delight.
Melissa Martin |
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