Author: James B. Eldred (Page 10 of 21)

21st Century Breakdown: Overl00ked: James Eldred’s List of the Best Music of the 2000s That You Never Heard

December 17, 2009 / James B. Eldred

A lot of music came out this decade, some might say too much. (Definitely too much. -Ed.) Definitely more than any one person could keep track of. So as a public service, in our ongoing series on Music in the 2000s, here are some of the best songs and albums that you most likely haven’t heard (especially if you live in America). Some of these tracks are by established artists that have waned in popularity, so no one took note of their new material no matter how good it was. Others are by up-and-coming young artists, so hopefully they’ll serve as a solid foundation for which to build a solid fan base off of in the future. But sadly the best of the bunch here has since disbanded, so way to go for not discovering them sooner.

10. Oasis: “Falling Down (A Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble Remix)”
Most of latter-day Oasis was okay, but boring. And their last album (if their recent break-up sticks) didn’t really change that. However, this 22-minute remix of that album’s best single was a home run. Done by the guys from the Future Sound Of London, it transforms the simple Brit-pop ditty into a psychedelic freakout of epic proportions. Bring your own acid.

9. Polly Scattergood: “I Hate The Way”
Definitely an artist to watch in the coming decade, Scattergood lived up to her name on her debut, delivering a scattershot collection of piano-based rock that missed the mark as much as it hit it. And nothing on that record fulfilled the promise of this opening number, an seven-minute confessional that tumbles back and forth between “You Oughta Know” anger and “Landslide”-style sadness. If she keeps this up, she could be the next Tori Amos.

8. Division Day: “Ricky”
Beartrap Island was a perfectly fine record with perfectly fine songs. It was also boring as hell. The exception being this pulse-pounding trip into paranoia filled about one hell of a dangerous river (or something, it’s kind of vague). Since Beartrap Island, Division Day has changed their sound dramatically, so they’ll never record a track like this again, which is a shame since it’s what they do best, even if they don’t know it.

7. King Biscuit Time: “I Walk The Earth”
Steve Mason from the Beta Band seemingly had so many great songs in him during first half of this millennium that he released some solo under this awful stage name. The best of the bunch was this beautiful, minimalist track, which also had an awesome video. The Beta Band is gone, but King Biscuit Time remains, and Mason is still releasing amazing music under the moniker, but this track from the rarely heard No Style EP remains the best of the bunch.

6. The Young Knives: “Terra Firma”
Man, British nerd rock is way nerdier than American nerd rock. Check out the chorus for this wacky little number: “Fake rabbit, real snake, terra firma terra firma!” Wait, what? Don’t think about it too much, your head might explode. If you know a TMBG fan and you want to get them into post-punk, this track, and Superabundance, the 2008 album it comes from, is the way to go.

5. Ludo: Broken Bride
Ludo is a band on the rise for sure, and their 2008 album You’re Awful I Love You was one of the smartest pop-punk albums in recent memory (and you can read my interview with lead singer Andrew Volpe here). However, they preceded that record with this infinitely bizarre EP, a rock opera about a time-traveling scientist trying to save the life of his wife who died in a car accident in 1985. Instead his invention takes him to the time of dinosaurs, where he has to fight pterodactyls, and eventually to the Rapture. The subject matter is done dead serious and beautiful, if a little impossible to describe.

4. Tub Ring: “Bite the Wax Tadpole”
Mr. Bungle inspired (and produced) hardcore metal about a guy who dreams about a formula for cold fusion but is disappointed with its texture and flavor. It’s twice as awesome as it sounds. This Chicago-based act opens for Mindless Self Indulgence a lot, but they might even be weirder than that lot. Which is really saying something.

4. Bran Van 3000: Discosis
Best known for their minor-hit “Drinking In LA” from their 1997 debut Glee, Bran Van 3000 (aka BV3) really knocked one out of the park for their 2001 sophomore album. There was the brilliantly funky “Astounded” (which featured an unused Curtis Mayfield vocal), the spacey pop of “Speed” and the crazy two parter “Go Shoppin’/More Shopping,” which featured dub-style rap and Pet Shop Boys-style singing all at once. Unfortunately what they didn’t have was American distribution, since their label, the Beastie Boys’ Grand Royal, folded right before the record was due to be released.

2. Air Traffic: “Charlotte”
Where the hell did this one come from? Air Traffic’s debut album Fractured Life was good but bland, with the sole exception being this brilliant piece of Brit-pop so good that it not only rivals anything Oasis and Blur did this decade, but last decade as well. This was a hit single in the UK, but not nearly as big as it should have been. In America I think it’s a safe bet that next to no one has heard it. Damn shame, since it’s probably one of the 10 best songs of the decade.

1. Vaux: Beyond Virtue, Beyond Vice
One of the greatest musical tragedies of the 20th century so far is that no one has heard of this now-defunct Denver rock band who truly defied all genres with their brilliant (and entirely unheard) second album. The band was signed to Atlantic in 2005, but the label refused to release the album for reasons beyond me (they must not want to be associated with commercially viable rock music with artistic merit). The album sounds like a hardcore version of Muse’s Black Holes and Revelations, which is really amazing when you consider it was complete (if unreleased) a full year before that record.

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Pelican: What We All Come to Need

December 1, 2009 / James B. Eldred

RIYL: Isis, Godspeed You Black Emperor, Sun O)))

Pelican, by far the most notable instrumental post-metal art rock band named after a waterfowl, left indie-metal label Hydra Head Records last year and joined up with Southern Lord Records, home to such experimental icons as Sun O))) and Earth. So perhaps it’s not coincidental that their first release on the label, What We All Come to Need, is a slight return to more experimental ground. Their 2007 release City of Echoes got some flak for being too “mainstream” due to some slightly more traditional sonic arrangements that were far shorter and more restrained than the epic-length opuses that the band was known for in the past. On What We All Come to Need, the band has seemingly split the difference between the “pop” sound of their last album and the unabridged soundscapes that was their earlier work. While there are no droning 10-to 20-minute epics on What We All Come to Need, most of the tracks hover around the seven-minute mark, giving the listener enough time to get lost in the songs’ dark, melodic world without descending into tedium. That being said, perhaps they cut a bit too much of the fat away. The menacing “The Creeper” and riff-heavy “Glimmer” could benefit from being a little longer, and shorter cuts like “An Inch Above Sand” and “Strung Up From The Sky” never really get a chance to develop. However, tracks like “Ephemeral” show that bigger isn’t always better by pounding its way through your cortex with its thunderous riffs in a scant five-minute running time.

Will the hardcore among the art-metal fans enjoy it? Probably not – it’s still a bit too “traditional” sounding for them. But metal heads who are curious to see what all this “post-metal” talk is about would do good to start with What We All Come to Need, as it’s a perfect bridge between the hardcore droning sludge of groups like Isis and progressive metal such as Mastodon. (Southern Lord Records 2009)

Pelican MySpace Page

Alternative, Ambient, CD Reviews, Instrumental, Metal

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AC/DC: Backtracks

November 30, 2009 / James B. Eldred

RIYL: Motorhead, Kiss, Van Halen

Backtracks is AC/DC’s second compilation, and the first to include anything from the post-Bon Scott era. There are a lot of rarities out there in the AC/DC catalog, thanks to an abundance of B-sides, cut tracks and “international” editions of their records, which in the past routinely featured different tracks than the Australian editions. And while Backtracks does a great job of collecting all those rarities, the quality of said rarities is a little lacking.

While some of the lost cuts are great, such as the rollicking “R.I.P. (Rock In Peace),” most were buried for a reason. “Love Song” is just that, a love-dovey ballad that is the thematic opposite of nearly every other song AC/DC ever recorded and other Oz-only tracks like “Fling Thing” and “Stick Around” aren’t as bad, but they’re entirely forgettable. Some later-era stuff is here as well, and it holds up a bit better. The Blow Up Your Video B-side “Borrowed Time” is actually better than most of the tracks that made that album, and then there’s “Big Gun,” the standout from the excellent “Last Action Hero” soundtrack and probably one of the last truly great songs the band released.

The live disc is good, but is nothing that the stellar AC/DC Live didn’t already do better, and the music video DVD should really appeal to completists, literally in fact, as it completes the “Family Jewels” DVD collection that first came out in 2005, picking up where that set left off with the video for “Big Gun” and ending with Black Ice clips “Rock N Roll Train” and “Anything Goes.” Watch and be amazed that an AC/DC video from 1991 and an AC/DC video from 2009 are nearly identical, the only things that have changed are softer focus and kinder lighting.

As AC/DC goes, this set is a little uneven, so if you only own Highway to Hell and Back in Black, then this box set isn’t for you. And if you’re still holding out for a greatest hits album or online release (the band remains one of the few iTunes holdouts), then this box set isn’t for you, either. However, do you own the Australian and American versions of all their albums, and have an AC/DC tattoo on your shoulder that you like to show off when you rock the sleeveless shirt at your local rib-off? Then, oddly, this box set isn’t for you either; instead, you’d want the deluxe edition. That comes with an additional CD and DVD of live material, a huge coffee table book, tons of memorabilia and a bonus LP that includes highlights from the rarities CD (which is expanded for the deluxe edition to include several more songs). The packaging for the deluxe edition is equally excessive, as it’s a working guitar amp. That’s the way to go. This regular edition is for pussies. (Columbia 2009)

AC/DC MySpace Page

CD QuickTakes, CD Reviews, Metal, Rock

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Nirvana: Live at Reading

November 16, 2009 / James B. Eldred

RIYL: Pearl Jam, Mudhoney, The Melvins

Although they’re credited with “changing everything” nowadays, more people remember remember Nirvana for the tragedy surrounding Kurt Cobain’s life and untimely death than their killer live shows. Live at Reading should help remedy that. This 1992 performance by the band, recorded at the height of their popularity, shows everything that was great, exciting and dangerous about not only Nirvana, but the “grunge” rock scene as a whole. Surrounded not only by unheard-of popularity but also rumors about Kurt’s drug use, his health and his relationship with Courtney Love (who just gave birth to daughter Frances Bean less than two weeks earlier) the group seemed to focus all that energy, both negative and positive, into what has since gone down in history as one of their best performances. Everything is perfect here, from the set list (which includes just about everything you’d want to hear), to the feedback-drenched guitars and an ecstatic audience that goes absolutely batshit crazy for “Lithium.” From the Muddy Banks of the Wishkah was good, but Live at Reading is absolutely essential. If you were a fan of Nirvana back in “the day,” then watching live footage now sometimes usually be a bit of a downer. But Live at Reading is so powerful, energetic and flawless that it can even lift the band out of its own dark legacy. At least for a little while. (Geffen 2009)

Nirvana MySpace Page

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The Cribs: Ignore the Ignorant

November 10, 2009 / James B. Eldred

RIYL: Ash, Arctic Monkeys, Oasis

Johnny Marr is a well-documented band slut. Since leaving the Smiths in 1987, the dude has been a formal member of the Pretenders, The The, Electronic, his own band Johnny Marr and The Healers, and most recently Modest Mouse. Although he has yet to quit Modest Mouse (give him time, he’ll do it) he recently joined the Cribs, who are quite the thing in the UK, but quite the nothing here in the States. His decision to team up with the Cribs is his most befuddling yet, because while his recruitment into Modest Mouse certainly was out of left field, they are a respected band with a unique sound and large following, The Cribs just kind of…are. There’s nothing particularly bad about their first three records, but there’s nothing really worth mentioning, either. It’s banal post-punk indie rock that’s also post-interesting and post-worthwhile. The inclusion of Marr hasn’t changed that at all; the three brothers Jarman, aided by Marr, are still cranking out their bland brand of whatever on their latest album, Ignore the Ignorant. There are a few highlights to be had here, the early cut “Cheat on Me” shows some energy and promise, and Marr’s guitar work, which is largely anonymous throughout most of the album, shows up for a some powerful moments on “City of Bugs,” but for the most part this is a generic and utterly forgettable affair. The most interesting aspect of the album is that Johnny Marr is on it. But his touch (if he indeed has one) is barely more than a whisper. Still, there’s little doubt that the Cribs will enjoy a boost in popularity because of Marr’s involvement alone. That’s because Johnny Marr is interesting. The Cribs, on the other hand, are the very definition of “meh.” (Warner Bros. 2009)

The Cribs’ MySpace Page