Category: CD QuickTakes (Page 27 of 149)

Big Audio Dynamite: This Is Big Audio Dynamite (Legacy Edition)

April 22, 2010 /


RIYL: Public Image Ltd., Primal Scream, The Clash

Big Audio Dynamite are kind of a “lost” bands of the ’80s. Sure, you may still hear “The Globe” a cut from the band’s second incarnation Big Audio Dynamite II, on retro playlists, but aside from that they’ve all but vanished from the pop culture lexicon, not that they were that big a presence on it to begin with. The band’s measured success remains befuddling when you consider it was Mick Jones’ baby, the group he put together after getting fired from the Clash in 1983.

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Hopefully this new Legacy Edition re-issue of the group’s 1985 debut will open the band up for re-evaluation. The importance of This Is Big Audio Dynamite has faded over time, but when it came out it was a technological wonder, the first rock record to embrace the sampling movement of rap music and take it to a direction never heard before. While singles like “E=MC²” and “The Bottom Line” may seem a little quaint now, they were revolutionary at the time in how the took samples from movies and other sources and seamlessly incorporated them into the music. It’s a style you saw resurface just a few years later in bands like Massive Attack and Portishead. Ahead of their time back then, it now sounds dated in the most charming of ways.

The bonus disc is what makes this re-issue really worthwhile though, because while the album versions of their singles were always good, the 12” remixes was where the band really shined. Making the package an even sweeter deal are excellent b-sides such as “Electric Vandal” and the forgotten title track, which is a condensed amalgamation of nearly every sample that appeared on the album. Even the goofier bonuses, such as the vocoder version of “BAD” and the beyond-silly “Albert Einstein Meets the Human Beatbox” are welcome time capsules of a bygone era where stuff like this was groundbreaking and cutting-edge. A must-buy for fans of the band as well as fans of dance-punk who want to see where it all started. (Columbia 2010)

Alternative, CD QuickTakes, CD Reviews, Dance, Dub, Electronica, Punk, Reggae, Rock

Melissa Etheridge: Fearless Love

April 21, 2010 /


RIYL: Sheryl Crow, Lone Justice, Rod Stewart

With her early albums, Melissa Etheridge helped erase the last bit of novelty from the sight of a girl with a guitar. She wasn’t the first female rock star – not by a long shot – but unlike a lot of her forebears, she didn’t really have an image: She wasn’t cute like the Bangles, or vaguely threatening like Joan Jett, or a hippie intellectual like Joni Mitchell. She was just a musician who happened to be a woman, and one with a knack for combining easily identifiable messages with big, broad, radio-ready melodies. Remember “Come to My Window”? Of course you do.

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Seventeen years later, Etheridge isn’t quite the radio mainstay she once was, but she’s still doing exactly what she’s always done – to a fault, in fact. The last decade has seen her release a pair of live albums, a Christmas album, and a greatest hits collection, in addition to four albums of new material – and Fearless Love, her latest, suggests it might be time for a vacation. It’s certainly a step back from 2007’s The Awakening, which found her using those reach-for-the-sky choruses in service of a spiritual, autobiographical song cycle; in contrast, Fearless Love comes loaded for bear with a dozen tracks of platitudes as corny as its title.

Still, there’s something heartwarming about a performer this unflinchingly sincere, especially in the midst of such a cynical, irony-drenched era for music. Even when Etheridge is singing hoary lines like “Long nights in the small room with the big dreams / Oh, Indiana,” there’s never any doubt that she really means what she’s saying. Maybe next time, she’ll come up with a message worthy of that conviction. (Island 2010)

Melissa Etheridge MySpace page

CD QuickTakes, CD Reviews, Rock

Kate Nash: My Best Friend Is You

April 19, 2010 /


RIYL: Lily Allen, The Pigeon Detectives, Regina Spektor

It’s got to be annoying to win a Brit Award for your debut album, only to draw a hundred unfavorable comparisons to Lily Allen in the process. Of course, among the current batch of pop chanteuses, Allen’s no slouch, but just because Kate Nash is young and boasts an adorable British accent, that doesn’t mean she deserves to be lumped in with her – or anyone else.

Now three years removed from her debut – and the ripe old age of 22 – Nash has re-emerged with My Best Friend Is You, which bends over backwards, and every other which way, to build a case for Nash as a sharply eclectic songwriter who’s equally at home channeling the Shirelles and Rosie Thomas. In other words, the album is a mess, and although it seems safe to assume Nash planned it that way, that doesn’t make Best Friend any more of an engaging listen.

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It’s got its moments, to be sure – the album kicks off with the sparkling one-two punch of “Paris” and “Kiss That Grrrl,” both of which emphasize Nash’s way with jaunty pop hooks and sunny melodies; the latter, in fact, is one of the best things she’s done, thanks in part to Bernard Butler’s Phil Spector production. “Don’t You Want to Share the Guilt?” unspools a breezy blend of chimes, acoustic guitars, and a plaintive electric lead, framing a portrait of a relationship in decline with Nash’s trademark bittersweet lyrics.

Toward the end of “Guilt,” though, Nash launches into a babbling stream of spoken-word nonsense, and you can sense the screws coming loose at the joints, and things fall apart completely with “I Just Love You More,” which sounds like the Breeders getting high with the Cure and forgetting to turn off the recorder. Blink and the album does a sharp U-turn back into catchy pop territory for the first single, “Do-Wah-Doo,” and then there’s “Take Me to a Higher Place,” which kicks off with a Dexys flourish, and then…well, you get the idea. Nash is as brave and restless as any young artist, bristling with ideas and eager to share them all. Her willingness to go out on a cracked limb with her sophomore release is commendable, but listening to stuff like the borderline atonal “I’ve Got a Secret,” or the inane “I Hate Seagulls,” it’s hard not to wish Nash’s label still had a strong A&R person or two – someone who could have kept Best Friend‘s weaker bits in the vaults, where they belong. During “Mansion Song,” Nash spits out, “I want to be fucked and then rolled over.” Once Best Friend meets its fate in the marketplace, she might get her wish in more ways than she intended. (Geffen 2010)

Kate Nash MySpace page

CD QuickTakes, CD Reviews, Pop

Sevendust: Cold Day Memory

April 19, 2010 /


RIYL: Disturbed, Staind, melodic hard rock

If there’s a more consistent hard rock band out there than Sevendust, I sure haven’t found them. These guys, even after losing a founding member in Clint Lowery (who makes his studio return here), for five years, continue to produce stellar material, and Cold Day Memory should please their ever-growing fan base. Though not quite as solid as 2001’s Animosity (their masterpiece, in my opinion) or the much-angrier Home, this release deserves to be in the upper echelon of the Sevendust catalog.

Faithful fans know these cats always start an album off with a bang, and “Splinter” is no exception. Clint Lowery, returning after five years off to work with Dark New Day and Korn, makes his presence immediately felt with superb background vocals and his signature guitar riffs. “Forever,” the first song from the album officially released online, is a beast unto itself. Lowery, along with guitarist John Connolly, bassist Vinnie Hornsby, and drummer Morgan Rose, are as tight rhythmically as I’ve ever heard them. It’s as if Lowery never left.  The signature melodic choruses really kick into gear on songs such as “Unraveling” (the first single), “Last Breath,” “Confessions,” and “Here and Now.”

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The true separator for Sevendust over the years has been singer Lajon Witherspoon. He’s had the most soulful and diverse voice in the genre since the band burst onto the scene in the late ’90s, and he hasn’t lost a step on Cold Day Memory. He’s what makes the band’s sudden changes between brutal and beautiful possible – and successful.

Fans as well as the uninitiated will find little to complain about with this release. A part of me was really hoping for something a little more experimental – what they did with “Burn” on Alpha was truly transcendent for them, and I’d love to see them build upon it at some point – but nevertheless we still have another dozen solid Sevendust songs. That alone is superior to a lot of the other stuff out there. (7Bros. Records/ILG)

Sevendust MySpace page

CD QuickTakes, CD Reviews, Metal, Rock

Ratt: Infestation

April 16, 2010 /


RIYL: ’80s rock, cold beer, hot women

The ’90s were dark days for the hard rock bands that made their bones in the previous decade. Some of them may have achieved their greatest chart success between 1990 and 1993, but that owes more to the dawning of the Soundscan era than the band’s Q factor. There is a story about A&R reps calling their bands on the road when Nirvana’s Nevermind went supernova, telling them, “Come on home, boys. It’s over.” There was simply no room for hair metal in the new grunge order.

And who should come to hair metal’s rescue but…Mickey Rourke. As former wrestling superstar Randy “The Ram” Robinson in Darren Aronofsky’s “The Wrestler,” Rourke gave voice to the frustrations of more than a few disgruntled rock hounds when he dismissively observed how “that Cobain pussy had to come along and ruin it all.” Of course, this rallying cry came about a decade too late, as most of the bands from the era had either burned out (Motley Crue), gone the reality TV route (Poison), or morphed into bitter codgers, like Warrant’s Jani “I’m the ‘Cherry Pie’ guy” Lane.

Which brings us to Ratt, a band 20 years removed from their last gold album and a good 25 years removed from their last really good album. (“Way Cool Jr.” was fun, but let’s be honest here, people.) Infighting and drugs have dominated the band’s existence since 1992 – guitarist Robbin Crosby died of an overdose in 2006 – but Stephen Pearcy, Warren DiMartini and Bobby Blotzer have circled the wagons with two new members to make Infestation, the band’s first album in 11 years and a no-nonsense throwback to the band’s early ’80s glory days. Randy the Ram would have loved this record.

With nary a power ballad in sight, Ratt tears through these 11 songs like they’re running from the Devil himself. Similarities to earlier Ratt songs are unavoidable, as “Look Out Below” bears resemblance to “Slip of the Lip,” and “Best of Me” is this album’s “I Want a Woman.” Yes, the song titles (“Last Call,” “Garden of Eden,” “Take a Big Bite”) would empty the Rock Cliche Police’s ticket book, and Pearcy’s voice is a little worse for wear. (Great understatement, that.) Still, weathered or not, Pearcy has one of the most unique voices of the ’80s hard rock scene, even if he’s lost an octave off the top, and the songwriting here is surprisingly good. Anyone who misses sure-as-shit guitar solos and rock bands who just want to have a good time will consider Infestation a sight for sore ears. In truth, it’s a three-star album, but they get an extra half-star for exceeding our expectations so greatly. (Roadrunner 2010)

Ratt MySpace page
Click to buy Infestation from Amazon

Artists, CD QuickTakes, CD Reviews, Metal, Rock

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