Started in ’99, they’ve released some killer albums, toured with big names, and really built up a massive reputation. They’re positively iconic, and their new album, “Happiness Is” just furthered my love for them and their music.
From the over textured drums that open the EP and “She gets me high, she gets me low” level of lyrics, to the generic anemic “The Sand I Brought To The Beach” plodder which finds Luke high and dry and lonely with his pals at Panama City, and the four songs in the middle, this is painful.
So, yeah Kid Cudi has this one brooding, introspective blue note synth deep bass sound and whether he is searching for life on the moon or sex on terra firma, he plays it over and over again and the ten song sudden release newbie does what he does and he does it well but he doesn’t do it exactly memorably.
I listened to the album a few times over time, a track here and there, and I thought that it was decent. Once I got the chance to sit down and listen to it in its entirety, without any distractions, in the quiet with some headphones, I didn’t want to stop listening, It’s epic. It’s cerebral, a little introspective and full of brilliant lyrics
In these songs, Dahl exemplifies a musical intensity, a meeting of soulfulness and electricity, “Green Tourmaline” is built around a crystalline guitar break that brings life to her metaphor for love, it is so strong it draws you up and gives you pause, it makes you think
Listen to “Billie Jean” for a song that seemed everywhere and nowhere, the song is so deep in the closet we still don’t know for certain what closet it is hiding in. Nothing Pharrell does, very little Timberlake, Usher, any of the pretenders do, can get beyond emotional checkers
Where weak spots on early DBT records could be overlooked due to momentum and energy, now every composition stands alone. This is an album about bruising regret, pensive remembrances, and inevitable loss.
The album feels like a real experience, it feels all of a piece and when heard as a piece it all works well, it all becomes the story of a misplaced romantic whose twang is so deep it will soon disappear and whose romantic disillusionment is worthy of early Elvis Costello
this is not crossover, not with Santana featured, not with Drake or Minaj, and not with Marc Anthony: this is too laid back for mainstream, it is too slow and Santos voice… well, I guess it helps being 6’2″ and handsome when selling such lukewarm stuff.
Burn Your Witness For No Fire – Angel Olsen – With her sophomore album, Angel redefines her singer songwriter loner folk Billy “Prince” Billy approved experimental classic songs for electronic full band and it works on nearly every track. High five.
With the single “Heaven Knows” as the opening song and “Jackie”, the other single, as the penultimate moment on the seven song EP, great songs anchor the set. “Why Don’t You Tell Her” adds twang and “Sunshine” a guitar solo
You won’t confuse Iron Orchard with a bunch of big city pretty boys. These are twang rockers that buy PBR because they can’t afford a premium brand and sing about a man married to his semi-truck.
It doesn’t live up to the hype; in theory the sound of modern EDM finds a young English woman in search of more than dancing after the lights on the disco are turned on. In practise, one too many ballad makes it a little less than the tight grip on the dancefloor we were hoping for
MJ and the Romantics are arrangement chuckles, digging into the songs, the paranoia of “Billie Jean” and the intense “Talking In Your sleep”, “Between The Bars” revisits their indie roots with a very credible Elliott Smith take and best of all “Sour Times”, gone is the heavy throb and dub.
The album is an exercise in old forms that stand up well today, two voices together and apart fretting over a relationship ending, apparently because of his infidelity. Given Babyface’s adeptness at everything from funk (Bootsy Collins gave him the nickname) to New Jack, even at its liveliest this is a mid-tempo affair
It is a gloriously beautiful piece of music that elevates us as high as we can possibly go and is so inclusive the only reason not to embrace it is misanthropy. Why only Tomas Doncker is heralding this album is beyond me. A magnificent piece of music that should be heard and heard again.
Ikonoklast Bill Laswell for this article, he spoke of the lineage from which the three original soundscapes (and much of the overall “vibe” of ELEVATION) emerged.This music has to be felt, not analyzed, compared, judged or even listened to. It exists in the distance… past and future. Its’ roots go as far back as Miles Davis’ “In a silent way”. It’s beyond music. It’s part of the fabric. It’s Culture”.
Drowners are the one thing they absolute can not be. They are boring. Not terrible boring, I like the album well enough, maybe four really good songs out of 13, tight as fuck. But I don’t fet all the self effacement and I don’t see why it isn’t louder, harder and faster.
The thing is, Croz works much better as background music, certainly every time you hear a lyric you will wonder why you’re bothering to listen unless you’re in the market for stuff like “Fear is the antithesis of peace.” It doesn’t pay to think too hard on the mutton headed quasi-hippie weirdness and melancholia.
With The Beatles was innocence peppered with wiseness. It was the thrill of young life coupled with the insecurites of love, it was the face of the future and in the long haired charming boys from the UK, all the lines of defense, all the bewildered post-WW II spoils of combat disappeared for the children of the greatest generation
This is all sort of boring and sort of pretty and I don’t think I’d recognize it again but I like and I guess admire it in some way. Mogwai do what they do, I ignore what I ignore. What do you choose?
“Quit Yr Job” is the first tune off a 8-track release called “Being Nice Is Still Cool”. I love how it starts with powerful group vocals, cos it caused me to be instantly captivated. It’s an angsty tune and flows right into “High Waisted Shorts”, a beautifully composed piece that I can’t stop listening to.
the band jumps into the 27-second jam “Black Mass”, and it’s probably my favorite track of the whole album. Though incredibly quick, it forces you to listen to it over and over again because it leaves you hungry for more, and hey, I’m not complaining.
On Adventures In Bluesland, along with producer Kevin Tooley, Don Fiorino on lap steel guitar and banjo, Richard Demler on bass, Tooley on drums and percussion, and Joseph Nieves on backing vocals, Phil doesn’t have a bad song on in the bunch on this perfectly executed faux-blues album
We are dealing with the album we want, 1974’s Gunfight At Carnegie Hall and if there is anything other than irony on “I Ain’t Marching Any More” being followed by “Okie From Muskogee” I can’t hear it. I don’t dislike Och’s version but I don’t really care one way or the other
The stories, the album, is unthreatening and yet steady through its positive force. It attacks nobody but remains true to its vision of a world where opportunities for both girls and boys are blossoming and people are free to be who they are.
Half-Life exists in a place similar to Yoko Ono’s Double Fantasy, it is where spoken word and experimentation meets the discipline of song writing and recording. Co-written with Doncker, these tracks play with genre’s to exercise Marla in pursuit of a vision one half self involved and one half global
Wrecking Ball was a fair to middling album that acted a little too big for its britches with its all its got debts no answer man can pay repeated over and over again for an hour of heavy handed rock and folk.
I love how the band experiments with tempos and isn’t afraid to break patterns; it keeps their music exciting and unique and strange. The punk element of their music shines through in this song with the shouty vocals and intense drums. It feels rushed and classic, like it could be from a punk band who was big in the late 70s. It’s brilliant.
I was expecting something way out there, but for all her poetics and rage against the terrible childhood: this is mainstream hip hop and a little better with a good rapper and singer and a sometimes excellent lyricist.
Rockin My Life Away – Jerry Lee Lewis Tell Her I Said So – James Hollywood – Michael Buble Include Me Out – Robyn Check It Out – Nicki Minaj
