Category: CD QuickTakes (Page 23 of 149)

Tracey Thorn: Love and Its Opposite

June 2, 2010 /


RIYL: Everything But The Girl, Beth Orton, Amy Rigby

TraceyThornThough it’s a bit jarring to consider, it has been 11 years since the last proper Everything but the Girl studio album (1999’s Temperamental), and singer Tracey Thorn’s solo output in that period has been relatively sparse. Love and Its Opposite, her first new disc in three years, is worth the wait—an extraordinary adult pop record, full of meditations on middle age, its disappointments, and tiny victories.

The somber piano ballad “Oh, the Divorces!” opens the record, with Thorn employing her distinctive, languid voice to emanate empathy as she imagines the sad scenes leading toward a relationship’s downfall and aftermath. She ponders the reticence to wed in the first place, in “Long White Dress,” casting the wedding gown as love’s “opposite,” while quietly celebrating those who demur. Fear of loneliness, however, sends the protagonist to the “Singles Bar,” where life as a cougar ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. “Can you guess my age in this light?” she asks. “Who will be taking me home tonight?” This triptych forms the foundation of the record, delivering a melancholy take on aging, romance, and sexuality.

Elsewhere, Thorn’s wit pokes through on the up-tempo “Hormones,” and she floats on the danceable groove of “Why Does the Wind?” making one miss Everything But The Girl just a little bit. In all, however, Love and Its Opposite argues convincingly for Thorn’s continued viability as an artist, solo or otherwise, and as a chronicler of the everyday. (Merge 2010)

Tracey Thorn Myspace Page
Click to buy Love and Its Opposite from Amazon

Alternative, CD QuickTakes, CD Reviews, Pop

The Purrs: Tearing Down Paisley Garden

May 31, 2010 /


RIYL: The Jesus and Mary Chain, The Velvet Underground, The Brian Jonestown Massacre

The Purrs Tearing Down Paisly GardenThere’s much to be said for a band like the Purrs, with ten years together and six solid releases under its belt. They might not be household names, but they’ve never compromised their music to raise their profile. This is where the music comes out ahead, and Tearing Down Paisley Garden is yet another winner.

At seven songs, Paisley is not quite an EP, though had it been released in 1972, it still might have been considered a full-length album. And then, looking at the makeup of the songs themselves, Paisley could even be called an “odds and ends” kind of collection. “Only Dreaming” and “I Move Around” are covers of songs by ’80s goth rockers Red Lorry Yellow Lorry and the late Nancy Sinatra collaborator Lee Hazlewood, respectively. And “Just a Little More” and “It Could Be So Wonderful” are new recordings of old songs, which explains the oddly out of time reference to “the president” in the former.

In spite of what could easily have been a set-up for a major bomb, Paisley plays like a strikingly cohesive collection, exhibiting all the Purrs trademarks – Jason Milne’s cutting lead guitar lines, Jima’s lackadaisically cool detachment and sarcastic wit, and that reverb-laden, psychedelic shoegazey sound married to seasoned pop songcraft. If there’s anything different about the Purrs this time around, it’s a subtle but noticeable uptick in their mood compared to last year’s excellent Amused, Confused and More Bad News that comes through even in a downer like “I’m Slipping” – which in this case keeps a song about sexual transgressions against a friend from devolving into a pity party. And in the case of the disc’s closing tune, “Always Something In My Way,” the title ends up coming across less as a complaint and more as a celebration of the challenges that would crush a lesser person. Clearly, these Seattle stalwarts are having more fun than ever, which is exactly how a good rock record should sound. (self released 2010)

The Purrs MySpace page

Alternative, CD QuickTakes, CD Reviews, Psychedelic, Rock

Carole King and James Taylor: Live at the Troubadour

May 25, 2010 /


RIYL: Jackson Browne, Joni Mitchell, Crosby, Stills & Nash

Like a charity softball game that trots out a pair of aging power hitters for a leisurely stroll around the bases between innings, Live at the Troubadour presents a couple of Hall of Famers revisiting past glories one more goddamn time, sharing a warm nostalgia bath with an audience glad for nothing more than evidence that their heroes – and, by extension, the audience members themselves – are still alive. If you could put this CD/DVD package on one of those old-fashioned sailor’s maps of the world, it’d fall under the heading “beyond this place lie geezers.”

That’s the cynical point of view about a project like this, anyway. And it’s easy to be cynical about Live at the Troubadour — both James Taylor and Carole King have released live CDs and/or DVDs in the last few years, and Taylor has been dog-paddling through a happy period of creative loafing since releasing October Road way back in 2002. Who needs to hear another version of “You’ve Got a Friend,” “It’s Too Late,” “I Feel the Earth Move,” or, God help us, “Sweet Baby James”? No one, probably, and if you skip the DVD part of the program and head straight to the audio portion of this live set, no one will blame you for falling asleep halfway through. As Taylor quips before breaking out “You’ve Got a Friend,” he’s been performing this song every night for most of his life; everything here has been done, and done, and done again. And better, too – King’s vocals remain as warm and honey-coated as ever, but you can hear the first signs of fraying in her upper register. As a live album, Live at the Troubadour is hardly definitive.

But its real appeal doesn’t lie on the CD. Playing one’s hits in an intimate acoustic setting has become part of the creative death spiral of the heritage rock act, but to watch Taylor and King return to their old haunt is to remember not only why “unplugged” became a fad in the first place, but to be struck all over again by the sheer quality of both performers’ early work. You can still hear the sound of barrel-scraping if that’s what you’re listening for, but there’s something undeniably appealing about watching two old friends rifle through their songbooks’ back pages, and you can tell that Taylor and King aren’t just doing it for the applause — they’re doing it for themselves, and for each other. Die hard fans will be thrilled with Live at the Troubadour, and if it’s something less than essential for the rest of us, it’s hard to quibble with songcraft this elegantly (and joyously) displayed. (Hear Music 2010)

James Taylor MySpace page

Adult Contemporary, CD QuickTakes, CD Reviews, Folk, Pop

Truth & Salvage Company: Truth & Salvage Company

May 25, 2010 /


RIYL: Black Crowes, Georgia Satellites, Lynyrd Skynyrd

“Hail, hail, the gang’s all here / With our heads full of reefer and our bellies full of beer,” begins Truth & Salvage Company’s excellent debut album, but this six-piece outfit has more on its mind than the munchies; in fact, this sinewy 12-track collection wastes no time in getting down to the business of delivering a dirty boot to your rock-starved ass, and keeps it there for a solid 46 minutes and 12 seconds. Laced with Wurlitzer and Hammond organ, shot through with loud guitars and punchy drums, and recorded by guys with tons of hair and names like Walker and Smitty, Truth & Salvage Company proves you can still make a damn fine record with nothing more than a few chords and a healthy stack of amps.

As a songwriting unit, the band doesn’t really offer anything you haven’t already heard from the Loud ‘N Shaggy section of your record collection – it’s clear they’re no strangers to the Allmans/Skynyrd/Faces axis – but their rock swagger feels more like a real attitude, not a pose, and even if there are already a million songs about hard-livin’ dudes on the road and the slutty-yet-totally-respectable babes who love them, these guys cover the territory so well (and with so many plaintive, drawl-tinged harmonies) that it’s hard to question their logic. Why did bands stop making records like this, anyway? Can these guys maybe do something about all that Godsmack and Drowning Pool on the radio?

Anyone who loves rock & roll knows the road is littered with the corpses of bands with tattoo-ready logos and song titles like “Pure Mountain Angel,” and with a debut as hard to top as Truth & Salvage Company, odds are high that these guys will join that list sooner than later. In the meantime, though, this sure is fun to crank at full volume. (Megaforce 2010)

Truth & Salvage Company MySpace page

CD QuickTakes, CD Reviews, Rock

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

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