Category: CD Reviews (Page 144 of 399)

Mark Stuart and the Bastard Sons: Bend in the Road

September 17, 2009 /

There’s something comforting about hearing the voice of one of your favorite singers, and Mark Stuart’s familiar husky, twangy vocals might be just that if you favor his brand of Americana. Of course, Stuart, former front man for Bastard Sons of Johnny Cash, has jaunted off on his own, calling his new project Mark Stuart and the Bastard Sons. The debut album of this project, Bend in the Road, is much more in the vein of traditional alt-country than Bastard Sons of Johnny Cash, a band whose sound at times bordered on alternative rock. Bend In the Road even starts with a cover, Billy Joe Shaver’s “I’m Just an Old Chunk of Coal,” but then features eleven of Stuart’s own songs, beginning with “Restless Ramblin’ Man,” a twang-fest if there ever was one, with its banjo and fiddle and slick three-part harmonies. There are moments that are pop/rock-tinged, like on “When Love Comes a Callin’” or “Way Down the Road,” as well as the blistering honky-tonk of “Miles to Memphis.” Stuart even turns down the volume nicely on “Carolina,” which also has some really nice pedal steel play. Depending on why you became a fan of Stuart or BSOJC, you’re either going to love this record or feel a bit cheated, but there is no question the guy can write solid Americana, and his voice is as strong as ever. (Texacali 2009)

Mark Stuart and the Bastard Sons MySpace Page

Americana, CD QuickTakes, CD Reviews, Rock

The Clean: Mister Pop

September 17, 2009 /

There’s always been a hint of a Pink Floyd fixation in the Clean’s efforts; the title of their 2003 live album, Syd’s Pink Wiring System being but one indication. On their new album, the New Zealand ensemble – which celebrated their 30th anniversary this past year – make further bows to those psychedelic forebears in ways that leave no doubt as to both their references and reverence. Make no mistake, Mister Pop also lives up to its title’s billing, but given the glassy-eyed chants of “Are You Really On Drugs,” the psychedelic stirrings of “Asleep in the Tunnels” and the celestial send-ups of instrumentals like “Loog” and “Simple Fix,” the band’s cosmic inclinations remain all too evident. Happily, the Clean can still rock – or, shall we say, romp – with songs such as “In the Dream Life You Need a Rubber Soul,” “Tensile” and “Back in the Day,” conveying a distinctly appealing and infectious sound that clings just as mightily to those aforementioned pop precepts. When taken in tandem, Mister Pop provides a strangely surreal serenade. (Merge 2009)

The Clean MySpace page

Artists, CD QuickTakes, CD Reviews, Power Pop, Psychedelic

Various Artists: New Tales to Tell: A Tribute to Love & Rockets

September 16, 2009 /

Say this for New Tales to Tell: A Tribute to Love & Rockets: at 18 tracks, it is one of the most thorough tribute albums we’ve seen come down the pipe in a while, possibly ever. While this makes for a longer listen than is probably necessary, it stands as a testament to Love & Rockets that so many bands – and so many different kinds of bands, at that – were eager to contribute. Black Francis does his Black Francis thing on “All in My Mind” – it should come as no surprise that the band’s 1986 breakthrough Express is the most covered album, with every song but two appearing here – and the Flaming Lips flip “Kundalini Express” inside out, downplaying the drum track and guitar while running the vocals though what sounds like an old ELO-era voice processor. Better Than Ezra, of all bands, does a straight but effective version of “So Alive,” and Chantal Claret teams up with No Doubt drummer Adrian Young to turn “Lazy” into a frisky striptease. Funny, then, that a tribute album featuring 18 songs would not include some of the band’s best-known tunes; “Haunted When the Minutes Drag,” “Yin and Yang the Flower Pot Men,” “Sweet Lover Hangover” and “Redbird” were all skipped over in favor of deep cuts, and while that’s a diehard fan’s wet dream, it’s a bit of a head-scratcher from a label standpoint. Still, it’s hard to argue with the results, which hit a lot more often than they miss. (Justice Records 2009)

New Tales to Tell MySpace page

Alternative, Artists, CD QuickTakes, CD Reviews, Gothic, Pop, Rock

Bruce Hornsby and the Noisemakers: Levitate

September 16, 2009 /

His last two releases were a bluegrass record with Ricky Skaggs and a jazz trio album with Christian McBride and Jack DeJohnette, and a few songs from his latest are already earmarked for a stage musical – but Bruce Hornsby hasn’t forgotten about pop music, as evidenced by the strong, eclectic batch of tunes he lined up for his 11th studio album (and the first co-credited to his longtime backing band, the Noisemakers), Levitate. These dozen tracks tie together a handful of Hornsby’s multitudinous pop personae – piano balladeer, funk-loving programmer, raucous bandleader – without any one element overshadowing the rest. Where Levitate deviates from previous efforts is in its lack of piano solos. Hornsby and the Noisemakers aren’t afraid to lay back and blow – “Continents Drift,” for example, clocks in at almost seven and a half minutes – but the focus here is on the songs, which Hornsby pares down to their most essential parts without robbing the arrangements of any of their robust vitality. He continues his streak of cockeyed lyrical musings, too, weighing in on the role of disease in colonial American history (“The Black Rats of London”), Teddy Roosevelt (“Prairie Dog Town”), and the beloved eccentricities of Southern living (“In the Low Country”). Hornsby’s audience might have lost quite a bit of its heft since his “The Way It Is” days, but his music is better than ever. (Verve Forecast 2009)

Bruce Hornsby MySpace page

CD QuickTakes, CD Reviews, Pop, Rock

Joe Pernice: It Feels So Good When I Stop

September 16, 2009 /

Keeping tabs on Joe Pernice’s career has occasionally proven something of a challenge. His first band, an Americana outfit dubbed the Scud Mountain Boys, eventually morphed into the more pop-pronounced Pernice Brothers. Still, Pernice’s ambitions didn’t stop there, and a solo outing released under the moniker of Big Tobacco found him spinning off his surplus material and garnering good reviews in the process. While the Pernice Brothers have remained an ongoing entity, Joe’s recently expanded into the literary world, penning an autobiographical novel titled “It Feels So Good When I Stop” and recording an accompanying “novel soundtrack” that takes the same backward glance.

Although it’s not formally billed as such, the new effort is strictly a covers album featuring songs that helped shape Pernice’s musical palette. “I always thought Del Shannon was right down there with Pat Boone,” he remarks during a spoken word segment that precedes a harmonious “I Fall to Pieces.” “Why? Because I didn’t know what the fuck I was talking about.” He’s less critical in his approach to the material itself, rendering Steve Wynn’s “Tell Me When It’s Over” with a chiming Byrds-like shimmer, “I’m Your Puppet” as a lush serenade, and a surprise pick, the Mary Poppins lynchpin “Chim Cheree,” with delicate but purposeful grace. The only time the mood turns melancholy is when he prefaces a darkly confessional take on “Hello It’s Me” with a tirade against Todd for stirring up his teenage emotions. It’s then, and only then, that the album title offers truth in advertising. (Ashmont Records 2009)

Joe Pernice website

Americana, CD QuickTakes, CD Reviews, Folk, Melodramatic, Pop, Rock

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