Be Here Now: Snap Shot Reviews Of New Album Releases 6-24-14

Phish Album Of The Week (the Quiet week) Shocker

Sea When Absent – A Sunny Day In Glasgow – The art poppers grow up and this is their easiest and most populist album of their career. Some of it is the usual wall of sound stuff but even then the melody inches its way forward till it takes over song after song – B+

Noise Vs beauty – Bassnectar – A huge fave of rock nyc’s EDM collective, this is easily the best dance album of a week crowded with them; perhaps this is what everybody does but Bassnectar did it first and a towering track like “You And Me” and any time the great Rye Rye makes herself felt is gonna make it first in class – A-

Mad On McCosh Mill Road – Bubba Sparxxx – Never moving on too far from the Southern rock meets rap roots he once shared with Kid Rock, this is more of the same – C+

While(1<2) – Deadmau5 – This sort of uber-sampled digital electronic music drives me up the wall, I didn’t like Moby when he did it and I dislike this guy even more. Both of Trent Reznor’s bands help a little but not enough – D+

X – Ed Sheeran – I get the caveats, he is a soppy bastard, he is all over the place, and he can’t write modern pop or get away with being a stud. But it has its moments. “Thinking Out Loud” is as good as it gets, reminds me of the guy he wrote “Legoland” even if he has forgotten. Plus it will do the trick, he can full arenas behind it. Reminds me a little of Red, at least in that it is state of the art and true to itself – B-

Mexico – GusGus – The Swedish band sometimes remind me of the mood music of mid-period Bryan ferry –an echoey spacey lush sound on some tracks, electronic boom bats on others – B-

Kitten – Kitten – The band behind “Cut It Out” are better on mid-tempo synth pop like “I’ll be Your Girl” than on come ons like the disco beat “Sex Drive”, but the sound is , though not jaded, dated – B-

Once More Round The Sun – Mastadon – This is a big big hard rock sound, less hardcore than nearest rivals Lamb Of God, it moves in the same areas Metallica used to with one gigantic riff after another. A very sharp yet blunt headbanging instrument and exactly what they have done all century, only a little better – B+

Fuego – Phish – here’s a switch up, their New years Eve run at MSG in December was a disappointment but this is as good as Phish has ever gotten on record, “Devotion To A Dream” is better than “Backwards Down the Number Line” , the two lead songs are at service to the melody not the jam and while it can go deep, more or less this is a tight well written collection of songs. Like the Grateful Dead with jazz replacing country – A-

Somewhere Else – Zed’s Dead – Dubstep dance duo, not to my taste, not even with Perry Farrell lending his voice. Some of these are reall songs – C-