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Check
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around Winnipeg tonight! |
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Check
out this week’s
online CD reviews by our
music staff |
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Cesaria
Evora
Voz D'Amor
(BMG Music)
A
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I listened to this
CD as background to a night of reading over a rye and a couple
of cigarettes. As I fell into my book, I was easily overtaken
by the soft, smooth backdrop of Cesaria Evora's languidly
unobtrusive vocals spread over simple, breezy Latin arrangements.
Since Ry Cooder introduced us to Cuban music, I have purchased
a number of the Buena Vista offshoots, and couldn’t
have been happier. Cesaria is no exception. A few years ago,
I spent the winter in Cuba and I must say, it is as romantic
as this album would suggest. On every street corner at all
times of the day you can find an impromptu musical show that
will last well into the night. Over a Cuban rum and a cigar,
the hours drift by. As I sat in my apartment with some rye,
a cigarette and Cesaria Evora filling my room, I wondered
where I would spend this coming winter.
Kristjan Harris
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Crash
Test Dummies
Puss ’n’ Boots
(Cha-Ching)
A
Website:
www.crashtestdummies.com |
Now that he’s
all grown up and decided he’s a serious musician rather
than the wild-eyed party boy of a couple of summers ago, Brad
Roberts goes ahead and proves it. Furthering the musical growth
evident on Give Yourself a Hand and I Don’t Care That
You Don’t Mind, Roberts blends the former’s hip-hop
vibe with the latter’s straight-up lyrics and concocts
a downtown funk album that will probably not be heard, as
people long ago dismissed the Dummies as quirky one-hit wonders.
Too bad, because Roberts is a better singer these days and,
in Stuart Cameron, he seems to have found a collaborator capable
of articulating the slinky SoHo vibe he’s so in love
with these days.
John Kendle |
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Dakona
Perfect Change
(Maverick)
D
Website: www.dakona.ca |
Judging the members
of a band by their appearance isn’t the most objective
way to handle a CD review, but when the sound of said band
precisely matches that which their shaggy hair and pouting
lips suggest, it’s hard to not mention it. The Moffatts-meet-Nickelback
sound copped by bands like Lifehouse and Default is heard
again as performed by these four young men from Abbotsford.
They have threatening stares beneath their lush, teen angst-ridden
eyelashes. They’ve loved and lost. They’ve hit
rock bottom and come full-circle and you, yes you, could be
the girl these guys want to spend the rest of their lives
with. Our Lady Peace producer Arnold Lanni has cultivated
this fiasco, helping the band out as co-producer for their
first album on Madonna’s label. Perfect Change’s
first single, Good (I’ve Got A Lot To Learn), is already
all over lite-rock radio, but for those who can’t get
enough, there is a video-enhanced CD.
Kari D. |
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The
Distillers
Coral Fang
(Hellcat/Sire
/Warner)
A
Website: www.thedistillers.com |
Obvious Hole comparisons
abound and they’ve been drawn elsewhere ad nauseam.
What you need to know is that Brody is no longer an Armstrong;
she’s back to Dalle after her acrimonious split with
Rancid’s Tim. The band’s new lineup kicks and
mixmaster Andy Wallace gives these songs a sheen that pushes
Brody’s voice to the forefront while toning down the
hell-bent-for-leather assault of the past two recordings.
Purists will cry sellout far too quickly, ignoring the rawness
of lyrics such as Die on a Rope, The Gallow is God and the
title track. This is a reflectively angry album, almost the
flipside to Rancid’s recent Indestructible. That was
Tim’s breakup album. This is Brody’s. Pain still
makes the best art.
John Kendle |
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Fireside
Get Shot
(V2 / Startracks / BMG)
B+
Website: www.firesidemusic.com
|
Despite being one
of the first bands out of the gate during Sweden’s mid’90s
rock revival, Fireside has experienced more mixed success
in North America than cohorts lRandy and the Refused. They
were going places in the late ’90s, but their expansive
2000 concept album was a bust, and failed to gain distribution
in America. Which brings us to Get Shot, their sixth record.
Opening with the pleasing, lo-fi, Strokes-like All You Had,
the record builds into a more complete creation, dishing out
lots of ’70s rock and lots of big, grand riffs. While
the ringing instrumental leadout of Follow Follow seems too
self-serving, in most cases they stick to the songs’
brisker forms, and centre each around a simple basic sound
— be it the cutesy pounding drumbeat of Backwards Over
Germany or the cacophonous noise-guitar intro to Problem (To
You). That said, there’s something here that doesn’t
always connect. Fireside is trying too hard to be too angular
and odd, I suspect; but this is a pleasing romp.
Melissa Martin
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Mayor
McCa
El Limb Men Oh Pee
(Independent)
A
Website: www.mayormcca.com
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Mayor McCa (Christian
Anderson Smith) is like the human crock pot of indie music;
each of his four albums have been an eclectic mix of genres.
This is also very true of El Limb Men Oh Pee, the first album
McCa has released since parting ways with longtime label Sonic
Unyon. This 14-song mix of indie, rock, hip hop, folk and
near child-like plunks on xylophone and piano is McCa’s
most diverse collection to date. It is also his most evolved
and cohesive project. The Mayor, who actually ran for mayor
in his hometown of Hamilton in 2000, welcomes a number of
guests on the record, including Warsawpack’s Lee Raback,
who provides vocals on the riff-heavy I Can’t Pay The
Rent. McCa’s penchant for goofy song (and album) titles
continues here; tracks like Funky Fresh Beets and A Liddabidda
Fun lend to the overall playful feel of this record that will
win your vote.
Kari D. |
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Story
of the Year
Page Avenue
(Maverick/Warner)
B
Website: www.maverick.com/storyoftheyear
|
This St. Louis quintet
stole the show from Goldfinger at Le R in June. With four
men in the air at the same time, all the time, the guys in
SOTY play like the most important thing in their lives —
the only thing in their lives — is being in this band;
commitment that is sorely lacking in so much rock ’n’
roll these days. The music is Def Leppard meets SNFU —
a rock-steady rhythm section, soaring, singalong vocals and
a crisp, maddeningly proficient dual-guitar attack. The debut
album blunts the live sonics somewhat — too many mid-tempo
tunes, not enough riotous energy and the production of Goldfinger’s
John Feldmann is surprisingly slick. Nevertheless, singer
Dan Marsala is a serious talent and an opening troika of And
the Hero Will Drown, Until the Day I Die and Anthem of Our
Dying Day is hard to beat.
John Kendle |
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Travis
12 Memories
(Sony)
A
Website: www.travisonline.com |
Glasgow’s Travis
hit it big with Why Does It Always Rain On Me, the standout
track from their 1999 breakthrough album The Man Who. Since
then the quartet has steadily released melodic, Brit-popish
music that never recaptured the commercial success gained
from the band’s big single, but did win over audiences
across Europe and North America. The lads in Travis are often
lumped in with the Radiohead/ Coldplay set, and the 12 songs
on 12 Memories won’t do much to reduce the parallels
drawn by the average Brit-pop enthusiast. The punchy march
and fuzzy distortion on the guitars in Peace the Fuck Out
are reminiscent of Sgt. Pepper, while the upbeat Somewhere
Else starts out sounding like the theme to a ‘70s sitcom
before bending into an acoustically-driven, plunking pop song.
Somewhere is only slightly more left of centre than Love Will
Come Through, with its perfect A-B tradeoff and vocalist Fran
Healy’s smooth tenor delivery.
Kari D.
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Twilight
Singers
Blackberry Belle
(One Little Indian)
B
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I couldn’t help
but look for something with which to compare the instrumentally
packed sound of Greg Dulli’s California band. Halfway
through the second song, I heard faint echoes of Mercury Rev.
Anyway, as I carried on into the album, comfortable with my
comparison, Twilight Singers began to emerge in their own
light. The album became epic, which both intrigued and bored
me, like watching a Cecil B. Demille movie on Christmas Eve.
Given the band’s reference to God throughout the album,
I don’t think they’d mind the simile. Though the
songs are well-constructed, there's still a certain goofiness
to them — as though Twilight Singers don’t necessarily
take themselves too seriously. I suspect that, like Mercury
Rev, they don’t.
Kristjan Harris |
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