Author: Jim Washington (Page 1 of 2)

!!!: Strange Weather, Isn’t It?

August 24, 2010 /


RIYL: LCD Soundsystem, The Rapture, Hot Chip

The indie rock/electronic collective !!! doesn’t make things easy on themselves, or music reviewers. A Google search of the band name, for instance, reveals no matches at all, much less lyrics or a band Web site. (Including the name of the new album, however, nets you lyrics of Tom Waits, Marianne Faithfull and Glenn Frey songs.) Of course with a little more extensive searching you can find pretty much anything about the band you might want to know like, say, how to pronounce the name – any repeating hard consonant sound, apparently, usually represented by ‘chk chk chk’.

I’m guessing this is a sly comment on the repetitive nature of much electronic music, but it was probably unnecessary. These guys rise above the noise without much problem with an effective mix of rock guitar, pounding beats and swirling electronica. There are plenty of other acts doing this, of course, but not many have been around since 1996 and garnered the critical praise heaped on !!!. They have not reached the commercial heights of other similar bands, and that probably won’t change with their fourth album Strange Weather, Isn’t It? Not because it’s not an excellent album (it is) but if it hasn’t happened yet, it’s not likely to. Strange Weather is actually the perfect party soundtrack for your late summer, with propulsive tracks like the album opener “AM/FM,” “Jump Back” and “Hammer.” The entire album flows well and goes by surprisingly fast, even when things get a bit disco-y on “Even Judas Gave Jesus a Kiss.”

Lyrically the album seems to land somewhere between the politically-minded “Louden Up Now” and the more booty-shaking “Myth Takes.” In truth the words mainly pass right through, not making as much of an impression as the music’s tempo and mood. You just keep nodding your head and shaking your butt and, before you know it, it’s over. Actually the easiest thing about the band is listening to them. (Warp Records 2010)

Alternative, CD Reviews, Electronica

The Roots: How I Got Over

July 26, 2010 /


RIYL: Common, Mos Def, De La Soul

The most surprising aspect of the Roots’ excellent ninth studio album How I Got Over is not that it’s something of a downer. Looking at the band’s discography going all the way back to 2004’s The Tipping Point shows a group of guys in a bit of a bad mood, which continued through their next two albums, Game Theory and Rising Down. Their gig on Jimmy Fallon’s late-night show, while presumably providing a steady paycheck, has not lightened them up, at least in terms of lyrics and message.

No, what hits you first on the new album is how laid-back and confident they sound while delivering the bad news. The Roots have always drawn on soul and other strands of black music to inform their brand of live instrument-based hip-hop, but this could almost be thought of as their folk album. Guest stars include not just fellow rappers such as Dice Raw, Truck North and P.O.R.N. (none of whom outshine the perpetually slept-on Black Thought), but artists decidedly outside hip-hop circles including Monsters of Folk, Joanna Newsom and the Dirty Projectors. How I Got Over may strike some listeners as a little too mellow at first, but on repeated listens this album is almost guaranteed to grow on you. Black Thought again lives up to his name, relying less on spitting “live rounds that will penetrate a vest” and more on insights that penetrate the mind. And while many of the songs seem like an attempt to catalog as many social ills as possible in rhymes, as the album goes on it picks up in terms of energy and mood. Things culminate with the almost feel-good anthem “The Fire,” an “Eye of the Tiger” for hip-hop heads. (In one of the album’s clever twists, “The Fire” is a collaboration with John Legend, and it follows “Doin’ It Again,” built on a John Legend sample.)

That’s followed up by the straight up ass-kicker “Web 20/20,” a welcome throwback to old-school Roots, and then the album ends with the slow-rolling “Hustla,” which breaks the world down into hustlers and customers. Not the most cheery thought in the world, but what do you want? These are the Roots. They only play happy on TV. (Def Jam 2010)

The Roots MySpace page

CD Reviews, Funk, Hip Hop, Rap, Soul

The National: High Violet

May 24, 2010 /


RIYL: Arcade Fire, Interpol, The Walkmen

Somehow I was one of the few music writers not to swoon for The National’s 2007 critical darling The Boxer. I found it a little boring and hard to get into.

So why, a couple of years later, have I responded so positively to High Violet? It’s not like they’re doing anything radically different. Sweeping and anthemic but still low-key indie rock is this band’s calling card, and has been pretty much since its self-titled debut album came out in 2001.

One element of my turnaround can be credited to seeing the band live last summer during the Virgin FreeFest, or whatever they’re calling it now, at Merriweather Post Pavilion in the Maryland suburbs.

They were sandwiched between Public Enemy and Girl Talk on the second stage, and to be honest I stuck around only because I didn’t feel like fighting the pre-Weezer crowd at the bigger stage up the hill.

Frontman Matt Berninger won a laugh by quipping, “We’re The National, and we’re actually a lot like Public Enemy,” or something similar. They then proceeded to make a believer out of everyone in hearing distance, putting on one of those gripping and uplifting shows that sneaks up on you and makes you reconsider everything you’ve heard from this band before.

Like the show, High Violet is a slow but hard charger. The album takes a while to get going, and being front-loaded with titles such as “Terrible Love,” “Sorrow,” “Little Faith” and “Afraid of Everyone” gives the listener a pretty good sense of the vibe.

And a vibe is pretty much the only guidepost you get lyric-wise. I may be missing something, but lines like “you and your sister live in a lemon world” and “I was carried to Ohio on a swarm of bees” don’t jump out as super-meaningful.

But by the time “Bloodbuzz Ohio” rolled around six tracks in, I began to realize I was entranced, and the excellent “Conversation 16” and “England” kept me listening right until the end. And I’ve kept listening since, again and again. (4AD 2010)

The National MySpace page

Artists, CD QuickTakes, CD Reviews, Rock

21st Century Breakdown: Jim Washington’s Best Albums of the 2000s

January 9, 2010 /

As I compiled my list of the best music of the decade (a much, much longer list than you see here) one inescapable conclusion reared its shaggy head: the last 10 years pretty much belonged to Jack White.

How many other artists produced five stellar albums in the aughts, not to mention a couple of killer side projects and (that old rock critic standby) incendiary live shows?

No one, that’s who.

So, the best album of the decade really came down to which White Stripes album did you like more, White Blood Cells or Elephant.

Thankfully there’s no wrong answer. I first became enamored of “Fell in Love With a Girl,” totally fell for “Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground,” became quite close to “We Are Going to Be Friends” and spent a lot of time in “Hotel Yorba” and “Little Room.”

On the other hand, Elephant had “Seven Nation Army.”

“Seven Nation Army,” motherfuckers. How could a song released in 2003 sound like it invented the bass line? Not just that bass line, but the whole concept of bass lines.

So as we recap our favorites of the decade, rock lives on into the new century in various forms, from low down and dirty to high and arty to pulsating and poppy, while what was once the cutting-edge hip-hop has devolved into auto-tuned disco synth. No doubt something new will emerge in the next decade to take our minds off it.

1. The White Stripes: White Blood Cells (or Elephant)
2. Wilco: Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
3. Outkast: Stankonia (or Speakerboxx/The Love Below)
4. Green Day: American Idiot
5. The New Pornographers: Electric Version (or maybe Mass Romantic)
6. The Flaming Lips: Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
7. LCD SoundsystemL Sounds of Silver
8. TV on the Radio: Return to Cookie Mountain
9. Jay-Z: The Blueprint
10. The Strokes: Is This It?

Just a few of the runner-ups:

Queens of the Stone Age: Songs for the Deaf, Rated R
Belle & Sebastian: Dear Catastrophe Waitress
Drive By Truckers: Southern Rock Opera, Dirty South
Sufjan Stevens: Come On Feel the Illinoise
Arcade Fire: Funeral
Franz Ferdinand: Franz Ferdinand
Decemberists: Picaresque, Crane Wife
Radiohead: In Rainbows
Ben Folds: Rockin’ the Suburbs
Missy Elliott: Miss E…So Addictive
The Roots: Phrenology

Alternative, Americana, Artists, Funk, Lists, Pop, Power Pop, Progressive, Punk, R&B, Rock

Ronnie Milsap: Then Sings My Soul

March 6, 2009 /

Country singers can always release a gospel album when things are going badly. And many times, that’s how the album works – badly. There are exceptions of course, but Ronnie Milsap’s Then Sings My Soul is not one of them. It’s too bad, since the singer’s 2006 autobiographical album My Life was considered something of a comeback. All the usual suspects are present on Soul, including “I’ll Fly Away,” “Amazing Grace,” “Rock of Ages” and “The Old Rugged Cross,” but they’re robbed of any soul by the slick production and Milsap’s uninspiring vocals. One doesn’t want to be too hard on the man, and some might ask, “what did you expect from the guy behind ’Smokey Mountain Rain’ and ’(There’s) No Getting Over Me.’? ” It might have been more surprising if Milsap had actually found something new in the old classics. Here’s hoping this can be chalked up as a misstep, and Milsap can get back on track. (EMI CMG 2009)

CD QuickTakes, CD Reviews, Christian, Country

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