 |
 |
 |
Check out
what’s going on
around Winnipeg tonight! |
 |
|
 |
|
Check out
this week’s
online CD reviews by our
music staff |
|
|
|
 |
Blue Rodeo
Are You Ready
(Warner Music Canada)
B
Website: www.bluerodeo.com
|
Blue Rodeo is in a comfortable
place, and this new record — the group’s 10th studio
recording — sounds like the band is sure of itself, relaxed
and having fun. Jim Cuddy’s romantic love letters to family
and friends abound on this disc, and his sweetness is, as usual,
tempered by Greg Keelor’s laments for friends and lovers
going and gone — as well as his father, whose passing is
the subject of the deceptively uptempo title track. There is a
simple quality and openness to these arrangements that we haven’t
heard since Five Days in July. The band paints beautiful melodies
and solos using pedal steel, 12-string guitars, tin whistle, trumpets,
harmonica, ride cymbal and a pump organ to gently support each
song. Blue Rodeo isn’t breaking new ground here, but the
band will break a few hearts.
Chris Brown
|
|
|
Various
Artists
Twelve Inches of Pleasure: BBE Singles Part One
(BBE)
C-
Website: www.bbemusic.com
|
Twelve inches of pleasure?
Try 12 inches of faking it. This disc revisits a time when BBE
released 12-inch records in London’s sketchy Soho area.
The liner notes say many of the old Soho vinyl shops are long
gone, and if they only sold BBE releases then I’m not
surprised. This disc aims to memorialize a small part of music
‘history,’ but the oldest track is from 1997. In
any case, 12-inch releases should not be compiled onto discs
for the average music fan. Nobody wants to listen to two back-to-back
extended versions of the same track, as on Ramsay and Co.’s
Love Call. There are plenty of pulsating house beats, funky
disco samples and soaring strings but, like hearing high school
stories about the good ol’ days, these tracks get pretty
dull quick. Let’s just move on.
Shannon Ander |
|
|
Benjamin Diamond
Out of Myself
(!K7)
B+
Website: www.k7.com
|
Finally a pop album that
doesn’t need skin-tight clothes, bleached-blond hair and
cheesy dance moves to get attention. Dance music lovers will no
doubt recognize Diamond as the funky voice behind Stardust’s
Music Sounds Better with You, but this isn’t a dance album.
On his first !K7 release Diamond doesn’t sound anything
like the deep voice behind the house hit — now he’s
an indie pop master. Diamond composed all the tracks and oversaw
all studio sessions — like a real artist should —
instead of practicing his choreography. On Let’s get High,
his voice is like a warm sunny day. If you’re desperate
for some beats, the Alan Braxe remix of the track will probably
be on several chillout compilations, and you can check it out
on the !K7 website. The track I Wish is unbelievably catchy and,
if you listen carefully, you just might feel like doing a little
self-improvement.
Shannon Ander
|
|
|
Drive-By Truckers
The Dirty South
(New West)
B-
Website: www.drivebytruckers.com
|
Fans of ’70s Southern
rock will want to check out this gritty five-piece from Muscle
Shoals, Ala. What sets this band apart is its intense songwriting
and the fact there are three singer/songwriters in the band —
Patterson Hood, Mike Cooley and Jason Isbel. These boys sing scuffed
tunes about Carl Perkins’ Cadillac, tornadoes, Iwo Jima,
pissin’ people off and jokers in the White House, telling
stories that are the flip sides of the ones we think we know.
Big, distorted rockers such as The Buford Stick (about Sheriff
Buford Pusser, the real-life inspiration for the movie Walking
Tall) are balanced by acoustic ballads with attitude (Cottonseed).
Steve Earle, Marshall Tucker, and the Allman Bros. can all be
seen in the busted rear-view mirrors of these Truckers as they
kick up dust and careen along their dirt-track road.
Chris Brown |
|
|
The Mainliners
Bring on the Sweetlife
(Get Hip)
C
Website: www.themainliners.com
|
It seems somebody discovered
a time capsule somewhere in the fjords of Sweden, opened it and
found The Mainliners. Out they jumped, playing vintage blues-based
rock ’n’ roll, throwing in some reverb vocals, harmonies
and a bunch of “shananananas” for good measure. There
are elements of everything from Velvet Underground to Mott the
Hoople to Chuck Berry here, and this quintet seems to be having
a pretty good time rocking out in the rumpus room. At its best
Bring on the Sweetlife hits a nice vibe and calls for a Weezer-esque
video filmed in Al’s Diner, but at its worst the album just
seems unnecessary. Rockabilly brought something new to ’50s
and ’60s rock ’n’ roll, but this seems a little
too close the original — even if it is fun. Don’t
even bother telling these guys Elvis is dead.
Mike Warkentin |
|
|
Paradise Hotel
Paradise Hotel
(Fusion III)
C+
Website: www.paradisetheband.com
|
Paradise Hotel wants to
take you on a sleazy tour of the hotels of the world. What else
would you do after making an album called Rock Anthropologists
on the Kon-Tiki Voyage? If you want to come along you better bring
cash, a few leisure suits, a desire to rock hard and an axe —
you know, for those 3 a.m. in-suite alterations that seem necessary
after a few shots of Jag. Whether you’re looking for dirty
love at the Super 8, high-rollin’ at the Stardust or shooting
dice at the Lady Luck, let Paradise Hotel be your guide. The Montreal-based
three-piece also wisely brought Voivod drummer Michel Langevin
along for this AC/DC-influenced, Crüe-style ride. Put this
rocker in, turn it up and get a little Keith Moon on a motel room.
Not brilliant, but ballsy.
Mike Warkentin |
|
|
The
Sights
The Sights
(New Line Records)
B+
Website: www.wearethesights.com
|
Detroit’s The Sights
are destined to turn heads with their self-titled third album.
It seems the tide of musical taste that would allow them to wash
into the greater consciousness is now at hand, and leader/guitarist
Eddie Baranek, organist Bobby Emmett, drummer Mike Trombley and
producer Jim Diamond are ready. Baranek enjoys a multi-hued muse
— he draws equally from musical precedents such as classic
soul, pop and psychedelia and mixes them to create a hybrid that
is unique while sounding somehow timeless. This is a band driven
to create honest music without dumbing down technique to fit some
fickle formula. Obviously these gentlemen are fans of The Move,
The Zombies, Traffic and The Creation, but since they’re
from Detroit there is no missing their no-messing stance and ability
to rave up mightily at a moment’s notice.
Jeff Monk |
|
|
Tom Russell
Hotwalker
(Hightone Records)
A
Website: www.hightone.com
|
The new album from
Texas troubadour Tom Russell is subtitled Charles Bukowski and
a Ballad for Gone America, and if you hear one classic, weird
album this year, make it this one. For 19 tracks Russell, with
help from masterful mixer Mark Hallman, creates a faultless,
almost cinematic homage to a few of his favorite cultish beat
writers, musicians and a circus entertainer named Little Jack
Horton. By using actual recordings by Bukowski, Jack Kerouac
and others, Russell knits together a startlingly cohesive historic
perspective on the Los Angeles/New York beatnik scene of the
late 1950s and early 1960s. In it he posits that these people
were run off the rails of their own genius by a square America
that couldn’t cope with artists who really scratched beneath
the surface of the so-called American Dream. Eccentric and provocative,
Hotwalker may be difficult for Russell to top.
Jeff Monk |
|
Tori Amos
The Beekeeper
(Epic)
A
Website: www.toriamos.com
|
With The Beekeeper,
Tori Amos has constructed a musical journey of 19 songs, a concept
album of sorts that takes us through six different “gardens”
where beautiful music grows. Taking a walk through the elixirs
and herbs, there is the jazzy Sweet the Sing. “Elixir”
is right — this song is intoxicatingly sexy and even arousing.
Better get out of this part of the garden before you embarrass
yourself. On to the orchard to try some more tasty tunes. Listen
to Original Sinsuality. Lay back. Relax. Take it all in. Hey,
eat an orange. Life is good. Time to explore the rock garden.
This garden concept makes sense — the rock garden rocks.
Hoochie Woman kicks it up a notch. It’s another sexy track,
but this time you’re aroused and dancing. Confession of
a metalhead: I like this album.
Jared Story |
|
|
Uptown
Magazine - Winnipeg's Online Source for Arts, Entertainment & News