Category: CD QuickTakes (Page 95 of 149)

Erin McCarley: Love, Save the Empty

February 6, 2009 /

How does a solo artist stand out in a crowd these days? It’s not an easy task, due to the sheer number of singers and/or songwriters that seem to be on every street corner no matter what part of the globe you’re on. To help listeners and fans find you, it helps to be quite talented, and that can be said about newcomer Erin McCarley and her debut album, Love, Save the Empty. McCarley has the kind of radio-ready sound that is sure to please the “One Tree Hill” producers and fan base alike, but this sultry vocalist writes songs that run deeper and darker than that. What you’ll hear on most of Love, Save the Empty is a gloomy undertone, and McCarley openly admits that she is most inspired when sad. But that dark feel, akin to maybe Fiona Apple or Alanis Morissette, is also tempered by an accessible yet sophisticated side to her songwriting – think Aimee Mann or Luscious Jackson’s Jill Cunniff. And while McCarley does have a nice set of songs to debut to the world, the wispy Hotel Café vocal thing does get a bit tiresome after a while. It’s also what is selling right now, so you can’t fault the artist or label. Among 11 great pieces, the ones you should keep coming back to are the opening single, “Pony (It’s OK),” the peppy “Sleep Walking” and the beautifully melancholy “Lovesick Mistake,” easily the album’s best track. (Universal Republic 2009)

Erin McCarley MySpace Page

Alternative, CD QuickTakes, CD Reviews, Pop, Rock, Rock Babes

Chantry: The Emancipation of Elizabeth

February 6, 2009 /

If you like a lot of guitar with your cheese, then chances are you’ll love Chantry, an Italian one-man band featuring Alessandro Monopoli exploding all over this disc’s ten tracks. The first tune “Shine” sounds like it would have been amazing back in the mid ‘70s when Rush and Yes were cranking out epic concept albums, with its slightly majestic pretension and show-off guitar work. But then it becomes clear that this is one of those egomaniacal releases with each subsequent track finding Monopoli shoving every little silly guitar trick and bad production technique into his compositions, whether they fit or not. I can’t tell if the drums on this disc are real or programmed, but they’re so over-the-top and obnoxious that I’m leaning towards programmed. Just listen to “Stars,” “Emergence” or “Flawed Archetype,” and you’ll see what I mean. Dude, are the ridiculous 100 mph kick drums really that necessary? Not at all, but then neither is the majority of this disc. (self-released

Chantry MySpace

CD QuickTakes, CD Reviews, Instrumental

Daniel Park: These Illusions

February 6, 2009 /

I’m sure Daniel Park probably has a legion of fans somewhere. He’s got a professional look, his voice is pleasant, and his songs are the sorts of creations you could imagine hearing on your local college radio station. The problem is that he doesn’t seem to have anything beyond just being pleasant. So many of the tracks here – especially the first three – have an easygoing quality to them that never becomes fully defined. Park doesn’t seem to care about memorable melodies as much as just sounding soothing. How many mid-tempo, acoustic-based tracks can you sit through before you get itchy? When he goes for something more upbeat (“Shipwrecked”), he still undermines himself with the nice guy factor. Elsewhere, he’s just noodling around aimlessly (“Prelude”) or trying to sound Important (“DTR”), but remains busy going nowhere because of his mere pleasantness. You hear one song on here, and you’ve pretty much heard them all. It gets boring fast, quite frankly, but again this is the sort of stuff that hits are often made of, so it wouldn’t surprise me to see him getting something bigger from this release. (self-released)

Daniel Park MySpace page

CD QuickTakes, CD Reviews, Pop

Twisted Sister: Live at the Astoria

February 6, 2009 /

Twisted Sister may be best remembered for that hilarious video for “I Wanna Rock,” in which some mullet-wearing kid declares just that to his bow-tie sporting teacher and winds up banging heads with the band. But the band has a deeper history than that, and it began in the ‘70’s as Twisted Sister rocked clubs, amusement parks and radio airwaves until that record deal could not be kept from them. They used an anti-disco stance in their early years, but mostly they just rocked with a live fury few bands could ever equal. Of course, the band is still together and Snider is still a wild front man, but if you can’t see them live, at least you can check out something like Live at the Astoria, recorded in 2004 at the famed London theater, with a companion DVD. The band agrees to a man that this was one of their greatest shows ever, and who can argue with them? The only problem is that shows like this just never quite translate to CD or even DVD the way they do to actually being there. Still, you can’t fault Twisted Sister for that. The songs are as explosive as ever, right from the start of “What You Don’t Know (Sure Can Hurt You)” to their big hit “Under the Blade” to some of their lesser-known anthems such as “The Price.” Of course, no Twisted Sister show would be complete without “S.M.F,” which stands for “Sick Mother Fucker” and is Snider-speak for, well, being a non-conformist. And what doesn’t say “R-O-C-K” like that? (DVE 2008)

Twisted Sister MySpace Page

CD QuickTakes, CD Reviews, DVD Quicktakes, Rock

Seven Mile Ride: Seven Mile Ride

February 6, 2009 /

Seven Mile Ride cranks out music that fits squarely within that sort of journeyman rock groove that has been well trodden before by many other like-minded groups. Vocalist and guitarist Shayne Rushton has one of those semi-gravelly voices that compels you to keep listening, and at times his guitar work can bring to mind the great Roky Erickson (check out those searing notes that cut through the intro on “Take Me Home”). “Face in the Crowd” kicks things off with an almost jazzy vibe that signals this might be something different. When the third tune “Always” rolls around, though, Seven Mile Ride starts sounding more like typical bar band fare than anything seriously breakout. That’s nothing bad in their case; indeed, “Dance Song” is fun and funky, and “Keep to Myself” has a solid strutting rhythm to it. But overall this is pretty safe stuff that doesn’t take too many chances. (Macaca Fuscata Records)

Seven Mile Ride MySpace page

CD QuickTakes, CD Reviews, Rock

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