Proto-Kaw
Before Became After (Inside Out Music) - April 6, 2004
“Okay Dunphy, don’t go all ‘Memento’ on us now…”
I can explain. My initial review of this disc had a fatal flaw in that it was a pre-release promo version. Somewhere in-between before becoming after, the tracklisting changed, a cover of the Cryan Shames’ “Greenburg, Glickstein, Charles, David, Smith and Jones” was added and I received several e-mails letting me know about it…
But the good news is that even though the cover song feels really out of place here, nothing can knock the originals and the four stars still stand. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go tattoo myself to remind myself not to review the disc for a third time.
Seventh Key
The Raging Fire (Inside Out Music) - March 9, 2004
Despite giving this disc only two and a half stars, I have to qualify my awarding by saying it is actually a really good disc, provided you’re in the right frame of mind. Having been on an 80s rock bender, I sandwiched a listen to the disc between Def Leppard’s “Hysteria” and Bon Jovi’s first album and, oddly enough, found “The Raging Fire” suitable to fit right in. It’s almost gleefully ignorant of the cynicism of 90s rock music, but therein lies the problem.
Pop this disc on without the proper mental place-setting and the style of swaggering arena rock comes across as almost naïve, so while I actually appreciated what I heard for what it was, I can’t say that it is going to be everyone’s cup of Jolt Cola, nor can I say that it will have the same effect on even its admirers each and every time.
Charlie Peacock
Full Circle – A Celebration Of Songs And Friends (Sparrow / EMI) - February 24, 2004
Well, this should be a no-brainer. Charlie Peacock revisits some of his best songs, including the one he’s most known for (“Every Heartbeat” as was recorded by Amy Grant). On the disc, he’s joined by guests such as guitar legend Phil Keaggy, Bela Fleck, Brent Bourgeois, Sixpence None The Richer, Steve Taylor, Mike Roe and DC Talk in various assembly. And yes, everyone performs well and the production meets Peacock’s technical perfection, as I expected.
What I didn’t expect was the feeling that every track was better in its original incarnation, aside from the aforementioned “Every Heartbeat”. I never warmed to the idea that Grant mimicked Peacock’s verbal intonation down to a ‘t’, so hearing Charlie’s presentation was kind of a treat. But I just love the original versions of “Down In The Lowlands”, “Lie Down In The Grass” and “Monkeys At The Zoo” so much that these well-done versions still feeling lacking. That the dearly departed Vince Ebo isn’t on the new version of “The Way Of Love” is almost as chilling as if his voice actually did find its way there.
For initiates, this is a great starter to a guy who writes pop, jazz and soul with equal versatility. To old fans, it’s also pretty good… But the originals still win out.
Starflyer 59
I Am The Portuguese Blues (Tooth And Nail) - February 24, 2004
I am just full of faint praise this time, aren’t I?
Having given in fully to the ghost of Bolan, Starflyer 59’s latest feels fully possessed with the greasy, sleazy stomp that rocked classic T. Rex. Gone are the synths and the balladry, here to stay (at least for now) is an altogether different beast. Or is it?
After a couple of listens, you start to see that the body is intimidating and ready to crush stuff under foot, but the internal structure is very much the same as other SF59 tunes, and sometimes that verisimilitude smacks of lack of growth. Sure, it sounds awesome on the outside, but it is rather clear that chief writer Jason Martin needs to step up and take some new risks.
Again, if you’re new to SF59 you’re going to love to crank this up. It’s so good in a trashy, glam kind of way. But if you’re a longtime fan like me, you have to be wondering if Martin and company have hit the glass ceiling for how far the band can go.
Pink Floyd
The Final Cut (EMI) - May 4, 2004
This reissue from EMI is not drastically different from the one
Columbia
put out in the late 90s, but that’s trivia. The important thing to note is that this, the last Floyd featuring Roger Waters, is a grossly underappreciated piece of work.
After the acclaim and bombast of “The Wall”, I guess people weren’t ready for tender pieces like “Southampton Dock” or “Paranoid Eyes”, or even the theatricality of the one-two punch “Get Your Filthy Hands Off My Desert” and “The Fletcher Memorial Home”. Maybe in Ronald Reagan’s
America
or Margaret Thatcher’s
Britain
, music this pointedly political just wasn’t “happy enough”?
I don’t honestly know. For years, I saw people clinging voraciously to their copies of “The Wall” and “Dark Side Of The Moon”, rejecting “The Final Cut” with equal fervor. Was it because David Gilmour sings only on one track, the venomous workingman’s rant “Not Now John”? Was it because it was clear that the release was more Roger Waters solo with Pink Floyd literally “the surrogate band”? It’s a fair cop. But I’d suggest that fans of PF give it another go, especially the wonderful and terrible “The Gunner’s Dream”, a song that should be one of the band’s milestones but is relegated to footnotes.
“Dark Side…” is a five star effort, no question. But I think as a cap of a musical era, and as a capsule of a political era, “The Final Cut” is equally valid and deserves some new attention.
________________________________________________________________________
Tortoise
It’s All Around You (Thrill Jockey) - April 6, 2004
I’ve always had a soft spot of the independent neo-fusion of Tortoise, but even during their epic period of songs like “Djed”, I couldn’t tell people to rush out and experience it. First, because it is instrumental music and all the long held, boring arguments remain: instrumental, inaccessible, sounds funny coming from my car, blah, blah, blah, yakkity schmacketty. You need a nice, refreshing glass of o.j.
Or maybe you need Tortoise’s latest, “It’s All Around You”. Many of the songs here don’t seek to cave in to demands so much as they do what this band does best, integrating accessibility into this rock/jazz/funk sound. “Stretch (You Are All Right)” does the lazy, funky bounce in the nicest sort of way, unhampered by lyrics that, in other bands’ circumstances, would probably be awful. “Salt The Skies” has a bed of tortured guitar shredding while vibraphone floats just above it.
And this release achieves something more. For the first time in my experience, I’ve been forced to repeat a track. It’s never happened with a Tortoise disc before because that usually “breaks a mood”, but man, “Crest” is a majestic piece of instrumental rock and now stands even above “Millions Now Living…”s “Glass Museum” as my favorite piece from the band.
“It’s All Around You” is made for you, not them. Do check it out.
www.thrilljockey.com
Truck
4X4X4 (Neverhood Music)
From the warped imaginations of Earthworm Jim creator Doug TenNapel, Ed Schofield and Mike G. come Truck, asking the question Zappa posed so long ago, can there be humor in music? Well, it depends on your sense of humor. The band sounds like rawer, less cerebral They Might Be Giants and have songs titled “IPOD” and “Doppelganger Clan At Lake Titicaca”. My favorite track, “Coffee In Church”, sports the lyrics:
“We must invite this elixir / we must welcome in the Joe / for I’m no conniving trickster / Just a coffee-loving bro”
I like it a lot, but as I have noted in several previous reviews where a comic bent is displayed in the music, results may vary. Some people will be impressed and laugh and enjoy. Others will turn up their nose and say, “that’s stupid”. Oh well. In deference to that bias, I had to take away a half star. Still, if you like TMBG but don’t want to hear another song about dead architects of the Bauhaus movement, Truck may be just what you’re looking for.
Threshold
Wireless – Acoustic Sessions (NonStopMusic) - 2003 (Fan Club Release)
UK
prog metal Threshold always puzzled me. I have enjoyed several of their releases over the years, their instrumentation is fantastic and their lead singer Mac has a great, powerful and booming sound. The puzzling thing though is that as good as some of the songs were, they seemed to be wearing not always complimentary clothes.
We’ll call it the MTV Unplugged Theory In Reverse. Remember how, during the end of that remarkable series, everyone was turning off the amps, even those who had no right to, as loudness was their only redeeming factor? Well, Threshold isn’t a band that needs to be pumped up to survive; on the contrary, their reinterpretations on their web-only release “Wireless – Acoustic Sessions” show sides of their music only previously hinted at.
As good as favorites “Falling Away” and “Fragmentation” were before, they are even better now, revealing that they probably were written on acoustics to begin with. The big revelation is on “The Sheltering Sky”, a track originally from the “Hypothetical” disc, which was a
high point
on that one but is so much roomier on this. There are a couple of tracks where the theory doesn’t hold, and the tempo demands feedback that isn’t there, but taken as a whole I can say that this is the Threshold release I’ve enjoyed the most, and that’s not left-handed praise in the least.
This disc is a great introduction to the band’s work without the, often, imposing connotation of “metal”. The band is currently working on a new album and I look forward to it, with one request: a little more like this?
www.thresh.net
Wicked Immigrant
Reunion
Of Cynics (Friendly Psychics Music)
Members of the group UpState, a band we profiled here on MusicTAP, have joined together as duo Wicked Immigrants. Centered on John Wenzel (vocals, guitar, keys) and Chris Jones (bass), the release continues the long flow of worthwhile independent music coming from Friendly Psychics. With unique songs like “Passenger Being” and “Hours Underwater” you can tell that there’s a lot these artists want to say and, in the best sense of it, they’re doing it for themselves.
My favorite track, the instantly sing able “Right Hand Man”, finds a nice balance between the song and the lack of percussion on the entire disc, insofar as the beat never seemed to be necessary. Honestly though, some of the tunes do seem to require a backbeat and don’t connect with the listener as easily as others can.
Another bone of contention is, dare I say it, the name of the group spelled out in old (spelled Olde) English font. If you weren’t tipped off beforehand, you’d be expecting either slobberingly bad cheese-metal or Renn-Faire wannabe madrigals, neither of which are (thank God) here.
But that’s all quibbling, because the positives certainly outweigh the negatives. We’re looking at the beginning of a long career for these performers and if you enjoy indie rock that still clings to the promise of the D.I.Y. ethic, you have to give Wicked Immigrants a try.
www.friendlypsychicsmusic.com
The Speaking Canaries
Get Out Alive: The Last Type Story (Scat Records) - October 28, 2003
Coming somewhere in-between rock guitar heroics and tension-filled Shellac mathematics, The Speaking Canaries’ “Get Out Alive: The Last Type Story” walks the tightrope with a great deal of confidence. Mostly comprised of Damon Che, with Noah Ledger (drums) and Jon Purse (bass) appearing on a portion of the tunes, the music sometimes sounds like a summer fairground ride, whipping from one feel to the next, not unpleasantly but not always expectedly either.
Starting off the disc with strong instrumental skill, “I Wear Glasses In The Most Brutal Sport Ever Invented” sets the pace for what is to come, with attitude, string bends, and a scrappy backbeat, it works nicely for when you leave a place angry and want something to blast. Another standout track, “Last Side Of Town Pt. 2” seems to imagine if Steve Albini wrote “Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love” instead of Van Halen, and the guitar work mid-track is solid stuff indeed.
The best track is the uncomfortably titled “Menopause Diaries”, an awesome pop-rocker with a strange vocal delivery. It typifies The Canaries’ modus operandi: give a little, take a little, and doesn’t suffer at all for it. On the other hand, the last track, “Theme From Hospital Comedian”, takes a lot and leaves you dangling. Another instrumental, and recorded in the raw, it features Che building up on a guitar line, retreating, building up, retreating again. You know that when this kicks into gear, it’s going to be hot. Ten minutes in, here we go! Then everything grinds to a halt and, like a character in a Hanna Barbera cartoon, your legs are spinning around but you’re treading air. The slight noodling continues and feels more like taunting as you plummet down the rocky cliffs (don’t worry, it’s only a cartoon).
So there is much to get from “Get Out Alive: The Last Type Story”, but I can’t be too excited over that last track, coming off as rather a dirty trick after having been so pumped up by what came before it. I’m still recommending the rest of the release to those who like their rock terse and punchy.
www.scatrecords.com
Pallas
The Sentinel (Inside Out Music) - February 24, 2004
For cheddar cheese to be really good, it has to age. It takes time and curing for that sharpness to come through, and there are few things as satisfying as a piece of cheddar cheese that’s been aged to perfection. And then there’s “The Sentinel”.
Prog rock fans have told me that I had to check this out, as it seemed to be a Holy Grail of the genre, coming from the
UK
in the early 80s. You like Marillion? You’ll love Pallas. You’re into the big, long form Yes songs? “The Sentinel” is kind of one long song, based on the Atlantis legend. In fact Eddie Offord, who helmed some of Yes’ classic discs, such as “Close To The Edge and Fragile”, produced it. How could I go wrong?
Well, unlike cheddar, “The Sentinel” has aged badly. The synth marches that probably sounded bold and impressive in the early 80s now sound tinny and very dated. The beats sound locked into, synthetic and programmed. And songs like “Arrive Alive!” induced more cringing than sympathy. And this is an important point to make: I wanted to be sympathetic toward this release, I really did. It’s not a new thing and suffers from the technology of the time. It was still in an era where prog rock seemed hellbent on reviving the minstrel medium, only with bigger guitars. It can’t possibly sound fresh or relevant now.
Well, let’s see. Yes’ “Drama” came out around that time and, even with Trevor Horn as vocalist and not Jon Anderson, the disc holds up fine. The same goes for Marillion’s “Fugazi”, even though Pallas seemed to use them as the closest parallel. Marillion’s next would be “Misplaced Childhood” which would blow everything before it away, both in presentation and in content. I don’t know if Pallas’ disc after “The Sentinel” had the same up-tick in growth, but the fact remains that those discs survive and this one doesn’t.
Perhaps the most damning part of this is the vocals that are highly theatrical (i/e oftentimes hammy). I mean, if you present the vocals in a musical theater manner, you need a musical theater sound. The incongruity of such a presentation of such a style of music is jarring, and I can forgive a lot, but not being calculatedly being placed in-between two opposing forces. I was waiting for full-blown bombast and got a scale replica of
Stonehenge
with a little person dancing a jig around it.
If anyone would like to suggest a Pallas release that could change my mind, I’d welcome it sincerely. I’m not out to hatchet this band, but I have to wake up and smell the dairy-air for what it is. “The Sentinel” isn’t aged to perfection. It’s pretty stale, damn near indigestible and, sadly, very very cheesy.
