5 posts tagged “newmusic”
Big week for music: new albums from hard rock heavyweights Tool and Pearl Jam, and indie rock newcomers "Band of Horses." Also, I finally found the remastered version of Dead Set from Rhino Records, which features an entire bonus disk of live material from the same shows, which on first listen sounded better to me than the actual album.
Grateful Dead live albums are a bit hit or miss, which is bizarre considering that they built their reputation on being a live band. Live/Dead and Europe '72 are clasics, but "Steal Your Face" is universally reviled as their worst official release of all time; utterly inexplicable because of the wealth of great live shows in that era that have since come to light.
Tool's new album sees them moving in the same direction they were at the end of Lateralus-a bit slowed, still a lot of very flat-sounding but deep guitars, leavened with some eastern percussion like tabla. Not really an album it's easy to say too much about after just one listen. Like all their works, it's going to take a long time for it to really sink in.
Critics have hailed "Pearl Jam" as a return to rocking form, a second "Ten" (maybe they should have titled it "Twenty"-now that would have been funny) and so far I have to agree. About the fact that it rocks. Not sure it's really a second "Ten" or that it should be. But the album does feel like an album that some extra care was taken with, which can be a good thing, sometimes. The true test of the songs, though, will come on the road, which is when Pearl Jam's music really seems to come, well, "Alive." Like the Dead, they're studio output is a mixed bag, but no band anywhere (except maybe the Drive-By Truckers) can play excellent shows night after night, no two of whcih are ever the same.
One other thing I have to mention is the abum cover: I can't decide if it's the worst album cover of all time, or the best. It's completely unexpected, and very un-Pearl Jam, which is probably the point. Are they saying that life is like an avocado: a nasty tasting brittle skin on the outside, delicious soft goop below that, but inside that a huge inedible pit? Is that what they're saying?
For no reason, I made a collection of the same albums, just to remind myself of how clunky the collections feature really is.
Still working through my credit. I picked up the new Drive-By Truckers album, Sufjan Steven's critically lauded "Come On Feel the Illinoise!", plus two cheap things I found the used section: the Rolling Stones rarities album from last year and one of the few Neil Young albums I don't already own: "Hawks and Doves." I was unable to find, though, the new Fiery Furnaces. Not sure why-seems like the kind of thing you'd be able to find at Amoeba.
The best thing is that even after all this splurging, I still have credit remaining for all of the epic albums coming out in May. Amoeba credit r00lz.
Pitchfork reviews Fiery Furnaces "A Bitter Tea"
Billboard previews Drive-By Truckers' "A Blessing and a Curse"
Also I heard the new TOOL song this morning, "Vicarious" on Live 105's Morning Music Co-op, the morning show the station slapped together after losing Howard Stern to Sirius. It rocked, not unsurprisingly-I thought it sounded a bit like "46 & 2", but the DJs on the show thought it was like "Schism." I couldn't really understand the lyrics, so I have no idea what the song is actually about. Hopefully it will be released on ITMS tomorrow. Actually maybe not... Tool are one of those retrograde bands not on the ITMS. Perhaps they will, like the Red Hot Chili Peppers, take the opportunity to get themselves on there.
With Drive-By Truckers' new album, A Blessing and a Curse, coming out this Tuesday, reviews are starting to filter. This one, form Paste Magazine, is a positive one, but not a rave. The reviewer seems hung up on the "southern thing":
But it’s true that when DBT wraps its songs around a familiar Southern theme, its work jumps from being good, solid rock ’n’ roll to being great American music as deep as a country well and ancient as an old-time Appalachian love song or murder ballad. Blessing is merely good, solid rock.
Basically putting DBT in a no-win position-if they write about the south they get pigeon-holed as a regional band, but if they try to break out of that ghetto, they get criticized for straying from what makes them special-or at least easily categorizable to a music critic.
I've been listening to A Blessing and a Curse a lot (because I pre-ordered from Amazon I got to listen to a preview stream of the album which I then ripped using Audio HIjack) and enjoying it more and more. It is very different-my half-brother, possibly an even bigger DBT fan than I am, doesn't like it at all. It seems like an album more about small statements then one big one, and about consolidating artistic advances rather than making new ones. After three big concept albums in a row (Southern Rock Opera, Decoration Day and The Dirty South) that seems like a good call. Musically, after the arena rock theatrics of the southern trilogy, ABAAC seems to harken back to DBT's punk rock roots, especially early Replacements. The stuff Patterson Hood was listening to when it his classmates were cranking Skynrd in the parking lot.
If you want to hear A Blessing and a Curse now, a cool QuickTime app is available that streams the entire album, along with artwork and verbiage for each song.
in mp3 form, using my upload as photo hack. First is the new song from David Gilmour, returning to his Pink Floyd roots. Next is the new single from Yeah Yeah Yeahs, a bit more mellow than their previous album, but not as poppy as "Maps." Finally, southern rockers the Drive-By Truckers return with Feb. 14, Patterson Hood's archetypal break-up song.
