A laid back precision may be Bright Examples hallmark. That place where music surges gracefully like a passing river in a crystal moonlit night. This music is simultaneously hushed and vibrant, pulsing and meticulous, lucid and a little scruffy.
On Kaputt, Bejar’s full-length follow-up to 2009’s Bay of Pigs EP, the formula that has worked so well on past releases returns, however, this time with a twist: an ‘80’s jazz-fused, electronic sound more in line with Roxy Music and Spandau Ballet than previous albums have revealed.
Tom Petty & the Heartbreaker’s Damn the Torpedoes was the band’s breakthrough album, launching an ascent to rock icon status via a painstaking (and often painful) creative process. The combination of the band’s third album in an expanded package with a simultaneously released DVD would’ve made for a truly deluxe edition.
The Greenhornes fourth album is cleverly and aptly titled as they return to the retro-garage-psychedelic-pop proceedings that they perfected at the beginning of the millennium. The jangle and aggression have been turned down to focus hardcore on keyboards, simple song structures and trippy blends of sound; all of which are evident on the eastern tempo change mayhem of “Cave Drawings” and the classic soul ringing “Better Off Without It”.
The Promise consists of material Bruce Springsteen wrote and recorded in 1977 and 1978 in the process of preparing Darkness on the Edge of Town. In his essay in the accompanying booklet, Springsteen tries to explain why he’s gone to such lengths in revisiting this album but he ultimately misses the point in describing the significance of the most musically and emotionally pure work he’s ever recorded (this side of Tunnel of Love).
After a seven year sabbatical taken to concentrate on family, New Jersey singer/songwriter Kate Jacobs returns with her fifth album. Recorded with her long-time band, Paul Moschella, James MacMillan, and Dave Schramm, who also produced the album, Home Game is a delightful collection devoted to the art of the three minute acoustic pop song, though two of them do clock in at a comparatively long four minutes.
What made Cage the Elephant’s self-titled debut so appealing was that it had both a raw and uncompromising feel to it, while still being a very digestible album. Matt Shultz was able to capture a live sounding, in-your-face, type of style that applied a choke hold on many a person’s first listens. Their second record, Thank You Happy Birthday (Jive), continues to have that blend of distorted chaos that combines aggressive rhythmic chords with edgy sarcastic lyrics, though it is slightly more difficult to chew this time around.
The Original Mono Recordings of Bob Dylan are almost as much of a revelation as those of The Beatles, albeit for different reasons. The Bard from Minnesota never took recording as seriously as the Liverpool quartet, but his music lends itself better to the vintage recording technique. A fifteen-track collection culled from his first eight albums illustrates why.
On his debut solo album, Mikey James rebrands himself under the pseudonym Mikey Jukebox and reinvents himself by packaging a disparate collection of influences. It’s not surprising, given the artist’s background. James cut his teeth as a drummer for post-punk band Longwave and a frontman for punk rockers The Blood. That work is contrasted by endeavors as far from punk as possible – fronting DJ Dick James/Footage and power pop band The Mercies.
Does the world really need another young woman with an acoustic guitar, soulful voice and ear for melody? Yes, it does. Don’t take my word for it, though. Goodnight Company, the third album by Jane Lui, exists because the people demanded it. With half of the album financed by donations from fans on PledgeMusic.com, Lui’s new album is the direct result of making music that the world wants to hear.
