It’s a challenge to get through this album sitting down and I imagine that is just what Behrens and Turner envisioned. Just like Rajon Rondo ran circles around NBA defenses last year, so too will his namesake of an album run through your head and leave you in wonder and awe.
The release of 100 Miles from Memphis was preceded by more buzz than is typical of a Sheryl Crow album, mostly because of the news that it would be a soul album. Though many people were excited, most were skeptical. Whenever talented artists step outside their comfort level to take on a new type of music, the results can be profound (Cat Power’s The Greatest) or disastrous (Chris Cornell’s Scream). Luckily, Crow’s latest effort is an example of the former.
It has been 20 years since the Vaselines have been in the studio to record a new album. Their new recording titled Sex with an X on Sub Pop Records, is worth the wait. The Vaselines may have gone by without many people knowing much about the Scottish duo in the late ‘80’s if Nirvana hadn’t covered their songs that include: “Son Of A Gun”, Molly’s Lips,” and “Jesus Doesn’t Want Me for a Sunbeam.”
Heavy on the Vine's appeal isn't nearly as broad as the palette of musical styles featured on the album. By the same token, there are a lot of reasons to like it. Fans of soulful white-boy pop looking for more songs to sing in the car will likely swoon, while those with edgier tastes will want to look elsewhere. The band's wide-open approach means that the album is equally wide-open to interpretation, and reactions will largely depend on the mindset of the listener.
If you thought that Raising Sand, Plant’s dabbling in country, with modern bluegrass great Krauss, was an unlikely musical success story, Band of Joy will be every bit as much of a pleasant surprise.
In the music world it so common to hear the phrase: “you got to listen to the CD a number of times before it sinks in.” Sure, kind of like hearing “practice makes perfect. “ We can keep doing it over and over, but to what extent? David Gray’s recent double album Foundling is like that, 18 songs that are sink or swim.Shane
Upon first listen to The Red River’s Little Songs About The Big Picture, I was grabbed by its nods to Iron and Wine, Sufjan Stevens, the Cave Singers, and Animal Collective (and even occasional hints of early Bright Eyes, as on “Grand Fasse”). However, it’s got something more… it feels like something one could listen to on one’s porch, happily sipping some summery drink while rocking back and forth. It carries a melancholic joie de vivre, if that’s possible – a sense of awareness of things beyond one’s vision, carried all the while on a melody that reminds one of life’s short, bittersweet nature.
what really makes this a fantastic effort is the delivery. Rather than just remaster their old stuff, the band chose to head back into the studio and re-record each song. Sure, it’s not the original version, but it was a genius move, as not only will passive fans get an excellent compilation of moe. tunes, but long-time fans get to hear new, fresh versions of those comfortable originals.
Listening to Dweezil Zappa’s Return of The Son of …, one is reminded of the genius and musical originality of Frank Zappa, who died at age 53, in 1993, of prostate cancer. Dweezil, one of Zappa’s four children, is a musical master and prodigy in his own right, and this heartfelt tribute is rife with Frank Zappa classics, fourteen to be exact.
With their new self-titled LP, Interpol fail to awake from their nap and instead have created an album that wraps the listener in a blanket, slips them a sleeping pill and puts them to bed for the night. Loosely based on the concept of a disintegrating relationship, the band shuffles out one tired, mopey dirge after the next as they fail to give the listener any reason to care about the lyrics let alone turn up the volume dial and rock out.
