Either Queensryche doesn't love the songs on Take Cover or they are completely incapable of conveying their love. Either way, this album is a failure even among all the failures that make up this sad new convention practiced by bands that are desperately trying to show their relevance.
It shouldn’t come as a big surprise that White Chalk is another interesting slice of Harvey that is calmer but just as pleasing beginning with “The Devil” and continuing on with “Dear Darkness.” Perhaps the album brings to mind her “Dance Hall At Louse Point” period most clearly during the carnival-tinged “Grow Grow Grow” that is quirky, unsettling and yet strong. Throughout it all, Harvey plays the light, airy vocals to a tee, especially on the haunting, retro-laced title track.
On John Fogerty’s new album Revival the ex-leader of Creedence Clearwater Revival acknowledges the brilliance of his past work rather than deny it. But the wry likes of “Creedence Song” notwithstanding, an air of self-consciousness pervades the album, which begs the question of whether Fogerty’s embrace of his past now overcompensates for that period he boycotted it over twenty-years ago?
Although Le Concorde has only been around since 2003, they sound like pop rock veterans on their newest EP, Suite. Stephen Becker, the mastermind behind the band from Chicago, gets how to write a catchy song—and this new batch brings plenty of energy. The gem here is “All These Fragile Unions,” which uses Becker’s rhythm and wonderfully awkward sense of melody and sounds to form almost three minutes of suiteness. The bar has officially been raised for their next full-length album.
The Detroit-based, Electric Six’s fourth and latest release on Metropolis borrows its name from a drawing by the German artist George Grosz which depicts and grotesquely satirizes the gluttony, greed and excess of Berlin between World War 1 and World War II. And although I Shall Exterminate Everything around Me doesn’t focus on 1920s Berlin, it does focus on and satirize excess.
The reissue of the Grateful Dead’s very first two archive titles, simultaneous with the release of Three From the Vault, reaffirms how endlessly fascinating it is to follow this band. And it’s not just the music, but also the way the group meshed aesthetic and business activities.
Master collaborator James Lavelle has arisen again as UNKLE, releasing UNKLE’s third album, War Stories, after a four-year hiatus since Never, Never, Land. Unsurprisingly, given that UNKLE is the work of a multi-person collaborative effort, War Stories is a mixed bag of quality tracks and songs that will be gone from your recollection as soon as they end.
Though guitarist Jack Antonoff may be best known for his (former) relationship with sultry actress Scarlett Johansson, his band, Steel Train—which he formed as a duo with singer Scott Irby-Ranniar in New York City in 1999—evinces enough indie-pop power to make him famous in his own right.
Listening to this record will result in immediate obsession and audiences should prepare to be both fascinated and aurally wooed.
Prize Country have rightly focused on anger and emotion, allowing focus to fall upon their art as a whole, not its component parts in isolation. Like so many great rock n roll albums before it, Lottery of Recognition doesn't hold anything back. It's pure visceral, angry energy
