This year marks the 40th anniversary of Abbey Road, the last album recorded by a small, virtually unknown group from Liverpool called The Beatles. Now that their entire catalogue has just been re-released in re-mastered form, it seems only right to take a new look at the new Abbey Road.
Rolling Stone's recent blurb on Lowell Thompson shouldn't build false preconceptions or wayward expectations. The Vermonter's self titled first album with the band Crown Pilot is a remarkably mature, self-assured piece of work.
Anomaly is the latest release from Ace Frehley, but it's also a good description of Space Ace himself in a sense. After all, he's the only member of KISS to make any good records on his own. So, score one for Ace. On the other hand, it's been twenty years since he's released a studio album. A long layoff from recording alone raises questions, so it's hard to predict what we'll get.
For Pearl Jam’s last album, the first single (for a band that still cares about Rock and Roll singles) was the cataclysmically-intense “World Wide Suicide” which jarred listeners. This time around the band’s first release off of Backspacer is the pop-rock, easy-swinging “The Fixer” which will cause more hopping and sing-a-longs then soul searching and rages against the machine.
Coming two years after their promising debut, Trio BC shows a young band that has done some significant maturing as musicians. The album maintains their early punkish edge, but expands the sound well beyond that. Nina Diaz elevates herself to a rough-around-the-edges Patsy Cline, particularly on the yearning, tender melancholy of "El Monte."
Young Dubliners has been around for 21 years, and their newest release, Saints and Sinners, is an example of why they'll be around for another couple of decades.
Scotland has become a hotbed for some engaging indie/pop/rock lately with Frightened Rabbit and We Were Promised Jetpacks each putting out excellent albums recently and Twin Atlantic continues this tradition albeit it in a heavier style. Somewhere between EP and full length comes Vivarium, a “mini album” from this Glasgow four piece.
So Many Dynamos prove on their third release that you don’t have to play three chords and two melodies to smash guitars anymore. On The Loud Wars, the St. Louis four-piece cuts and pastes warp speed beats and thrash-happy hooks over punk’s spit, piss and blood and ends up with a chaos-soaked pile of snarled lips, gashed thumbs and ringing ears that just might be one of the year’s best records.
Then there are CDs worthy of more listening, and a precious few worthy of joining my regular playlist. Nitin Sawhney’s new release, London Undersound, is one of those albums. It is a masterpiece.
Gov't Mule's By A Thread might be the closest thing we ever get to a modern day Warren Haynes solo effort (unless rumors of such a project from the last few months turn out to be true.) Every individual element of style favored by the guitarist/vocalist/songwriter is covered within the album's hour-plus running time, which might make for a splintered sound except that his connection to Gov't Mule as a group is absolutely unyielding. And vice-versa.
