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Lucy Schwartz: Life in Letters

September 22, 2010 /


RIYL:Brandi Carlile, Aimee Mann, Jon Brion

Lucy Schwartz’s Life in Letters contains the kind of songs that must make the producers of “Grey’s Anatomy” orgasm. Her music is spirited, melodic, and yet mellow enough to be the perfect accompaniment for the navel-gazing doctors on ABC’s drama. With beautiful harmonies, intricate guitars, subtle keyboards and muted drums, Schwarz’s music is pleasant to listen to, yet it feels like there’s something missing.

Let’s be clear, this is an album full of rich, excellent material. Schwartz’s voice is reminiscent of Brandi Carlisle in its fullness and the way she wraps it around the words. “My Darling” is a haunting opening number that rests in the back of your mind like caramel stuck in your teeth.  “Graveyard” has some wonderful, fun harmonies, “Shadow Man” chugs along like a well-tuned Chevy and “Morning” is a lovely ballad that closes the record.  Everything is pretty and neatly in its place.

Acclaimed producer Mitchell Froom oversaw Life in Letters, and he brings to it the same precision he’s brought to every artist he’s worked with, from Crowded House to Los Lobos to Sheryl Crow. Yet, it feels as if Schwartz’s passion has been tamped down, the reins pulled in, making the record too pretty and too mellow. You keep waiting, hoping, for the moment in which the singer loses her shit and lets out a guttural howl or some throat-shredding scream. Anything to indicate that she’s actually feeling all of the emotions she’s singing about. Life in Letters needs that on a couple of tracks, at least.

Without this type of feeling, Schwartz’s album is like a cup of decaf in the middle of the afternoon: It perks you up, but doesn’t give you a jolt. While Life in Letters has some finely crafted musicianship (especially when listening through headphones), nothing grabs you by the throat, or the heart, and pulls you back for repeated listens. (Fortunate Fool Records 2010)

Lucy Schwartz MySpace Page

Adult Contemporary, Artists, CD QuickTakes, CD Reviews, Pop, Rock Babes

Maroon 5: Hands All Over

September 21, 2010 /


RIYL: Stevie Wonder, Jamiroquai, Train

Maroon-5-Hands-All-Over-album-cover-art[1] Just when you thought there wasn’t an errant molecule left to be polished off Maroon 5’s squeaky-clean pop-funk sound, along comes legendary producer Robert John “Mutt” Lange to add his layers of platinum gloss. Lange’s antiseptic stacks o’ tracks approach helped Def Leppard own the late ’80s (and made it acceptable for a snare drum to sound like a wet sack of potatoes being hit with a two-by-four in reverse), so when word got out that he was producing Hands All Over, eyebrows were raised in anticipation. What do you get when you cross Maroon 5 with the guy who produced world-beating hits for AC/DC, Bryan Adams, Shania Twain, and Nickelback?

The answer, as it turns out, isn’t appreciably different from previous Maroon 5 records – not in terms of sound, anyway. Hands All Over is a little more arid than the band’s earlier material, and the nipping and tucking applied to lead singer Adam Levine’s voice is more obvious than usual, but they’ve never been anyone’s idea of a gritty band; Lange’s production style is unmistakably slick, but he’s also smart enough to know there are only so many layers of gloss you can add before the underlying material disappears.

And it’s on that underlying material that Lange seems to have had the biggest influence. Though the band’s songwriting has never really been an issue, Hands All Over presents Maroon 5 at their most radio-ready; even the filler tracks, of which there are a few, sound as sleek and lean as obvious singles fodder like “Misery” and “Never Gonna Leave This Bed.” Much as he’s been guilty of fattening up the sounds of the bands he’s worked with, Lange is a remarkably savvy songwriter with a sharp ear for a song’s inessential bits, and it sounds like he took a judicious scalpel to each of Hands All Over‘s dozen cuts. The end result is as slick as it is hummable.

Of course, it’s also sheer product, but unapologetically so, and at least the product in question is one worth selling. If you’re the type of listener who looks for raw power in your music, Hands All Over is absolutely not for you, but if you’re just looking for a fresh batch of safe, hip-shaking pop to get you through your day – or if you have any kind of appreciation for that elusive sweet spot where airtight pop songcraft and unabashed commerce meet – this is one guilty pleasure you may not need to feel guilty about. (A&M/Octone 2010)

Maroon 5 MySpace page

CD QuickTakes, CD Reviews, Pop

Serj Tankian: Imperfect Harmonies

September 21, 2010 /


RIYL: …give us a minute…

Serj Tankian’s first solo album, 2007’s Elect the Dead, was certainly less metal than anything he put out with System of a Down, but it still had an edge to it, a certain level of manic insanity that captured the craziness of SOAD’s best tracks, even if the heavy metal thunder was lacking. Plus, it had a song called “Beethoven’s C*nt,” and that shit’s just funny.

This shit, however, is just shit. While Elect the Dead barely had enough metal in it to quality as a metal album, Imperfect Harmonies barely has enough in it qualify as a rock album. If it wasn’t for Serj’s ever-crazy vocal delivery, tracks like “Beatus” and “Borders Are…” would be cleared to play on your local soft-rock radio station, sandwiched in between Phil Collins and Peter Cetera rockers. Even with all the surreal lyrics and occasional stellar vocal performance by Serj, nothing can change the fact that the music behind his madness, on every single track, is an unwavering blah of mid-tempo, violin-driven sludge (not sludge-metal, just sludge) devoid of any memorable melody or hook. The symphonic sound on Imperfect Harmonies sucks the rock right out if it, and in fact, it just kind of sucks all together. (Reprise/Serjical Strike 2010)

Serj Tankian MySpace Page

Americana, CD QuickTakes, CD Reviews, Metal, Progressive, Rock

Chatelaine: Take a Line for a Walk

September 21, 2010 /


RIYL: Annie Lennox, Goldfrapp, Ghost vs Sanne

We’re not sure how this one slipped past us – actually, we do know how it slipped past us; it’s because there are over 30,000 albums released each year, so it’s easy to miss one when you’re not expecting it – but better late than never when it comes to former Curve singer Toni Halliday. Her new band Chatelaine is decidedly different than her former one, opting for string-kissed, mid-tempo meditations augmented with the occasional synth. “Oh Daddy” bears strong resemblance to Annie Lennox’s cover of “No More I Love You’s,” but the rest of the album is less passive, with Halliday singing softer than she did in Curve while maintaining a pointedness in her delivery. “Stripped Out” would have fit in perfectly on last year’s grossly overlooked album by Swedish blue-eyed soulsters Ghost vs. Sanne, and “Shifting Sands” injects a dark synth line as proof that Halliday hasn’t forgotten her roots. Hard-edged techno is a young man’s game, so it makes sense that Halliday would leave those days behind her. With Take a Line for a Walk, Halliday acts her age without caving to soft-focus melodrama, which is as win-win as it gets. (Chatelaine 2010)

Download Chatelaine’s “Stripped Out” here

Chatelaine MySpace page
Click to buy Take a Line for a Walk from Amazon

Adult Contemporary, Artists, CD Reviews, Electronica, Pop, Rock Babes

Jeff Beck: Emotion & Commotion

September 20, 2010 /


RIYL: The Jeff Beck Group, Robert Fripp, Joe Satriani

Emotion & Commotion is a misleading title. One would assume with “Commotion” in the title, Beck would be ripping and shredding away throughout this 10-track recording. Instead, the enigmatic and talented Beck puts together a record of beauty and subtlety. He is reserved, melodic and letting the subtleties and nuances of his playing center the record. There is beauty throughout, like “Corpus Cristi Carol,” a Middle English Hymn which was re-interpreted by Jeff Buckley in 1994. Beck, inspired by Buckley, starts the record with his guitar accompanied quietly by an orchestra. The piece is two minutes and 40 seconds of peace and sadness. Irish Singer Imelda May is featured on another song Buckley recorded, “Lilac Wine,” and like “Carol” this song features a beautifully understated orchestra in the background and Beck’s emotive and deliberate playing.

Joss Stone contributes her ridiculously talented vocals to two tracks including a riveting reading of the classic, “I Put a Spell on You.” I am convinced she could sing the menu from a Chinese restaurant and make it intense and enjoyable. While Stone vamps it up, Beck and the rest of the folks play it straight to deliver a terrific new interpretation of a classic. The record never really comes close to chaos. It features clean production – every note, every instrument has its own space to breathe. The liner notes are good, with Beck sharing his motivations for picking the tracks. It has a very relaxing and laid back tone consistently demonstrating that less is more. Again, Beck puts something out that you might not have expected. Clapton is the popular guitarist, consistently producing music that sells by melding his influences into the pop structure. Beck never quite had a consistent vision or production schedule. Beck is a brilliant guitarist who, when he does work, usually makes something you wouldn’t expect. Emotion & Commotion might be mislabeled, but it is an excellent addition to the Beck catalog. (Atco 2010)

Jeff Beck on MySpace

CD Reviews, Progressive, Rock

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