Tricky
Pre-Millenium Tension
(Fourth & Broadway)
When you look back at it 'Maxinque' was easy. The genius of Tricky was very well signposted; the blinding lyrical skill, the deep beats and the dope-filled melody all signified something very, very special. The Nearly God project then seemed a reaction agianst this. It had two of Tricky's finest songs, 'Poems' and 'I Be The Prophet', but proved too dislocated and sketchy to really make an impact. 'Pre-Millennium Tension' then falls between these two. It's far more difficult and challenging than 'Maxinquaye' yet not the unlistenable statement of intent that was 'Nearly God'. As such it is magnificent. It is the sound of Tricky coming to terms with being famous, with his life after Maxinquaye. It is a reaction against the coffee table trip hop that he spawned and a reaction the persona people have placed on him. As such there are times when he is defiant and devilish and others where he sinks into a paranoid suffocation. It is a fascinating album.
It has an unnerving habit of mutating each time you listen to it. One listen and you will be sucked into the bravado and trickery (sorry) of 'Tricky Kid'. Another and 'Lyrics of Fury' will bore into your head with it's insistant beat and flurry of words and images. Each listen and another aspect of the album will become apparent and one more track will emerge from the chaos to make a vague kind of sense. Lyrics blur in and out of consciousness as connections and themes whir around your head and each track seems a good five minutes too short. You get used to the strange rhythm and then it stops. You figure out some lyrics and then another turn of the CD brings another set of problems.
Tracks that particularly stand out are the afformentioned 'Tricky Kid', the only really beautiful track on the album 'Makes Me Wanna Die', the heavy Jamaican dub of 'Ghetto Youth' and the two last tracks. These two are just killers. 'My Evil Is Strong' manages to be both suffocating and minimal with a jarring drum pattern and whispered vocals. 'Piano' then finishes the album off with a simple melody haunted and beaten up by Tricky's lyrics and the strange off- tempo beats. It's stunning.
Tiger are generally recognised for three, slightly dubious attributes: their hair, being on an N.M.E., 'new underground' tape, and subsequently going overground faster than a tube train destined for Bromley, and sounding a bit like Bis. This comparison is a lazy one, yes they have a male singer and a female keyboard player who contributes backing vocals that sound similar to someone attempting to vomit tunefully, but Tiger are diluted Bis, they are comprised of the above, Bis-like ingredients but are (at their best) infinitely more listenable, melodic (remember the comparison, this is not a difficult feat) and ultimately, less irritating.
Having said that Tiger and their offering are not that good. There is one outstanding track on 'We Are Puppets': 'Race', which comes compete with discernible tune, classic, knowingly annoying vocals and guitars for which the words, 'lead', 'riff' and 'solo' are obviously not in the vocabulary: brilliant. But Tiger are under the sad illusion that an album can be comprised of a single good track and variations of it, some tracks sound like 'Race' slowed down, others sound like the writing was simply a matter of chord re-arrangement. A lack of imagination may be a survival tactic, for when Tiger do occasionally go for a different approach, they sacrifice their best asset, Dan Laidlaw's wonderfully affected, nasal vocals, for a deeper but forced, natural tone, and tracks like the truly abysmal 'Ray Traveys' result.
'We Are Puppets' sticks to a formula that works for a couple of tracks such as 'Race' and 'My Puppet Pal' but becomes irritating and tired. After listening to this album, I wondered why the better than average 'Shining In The Woods' hadn't been included - it certainly hadn't been omitted because of a wealth of diverse material.
Vic Chesnutt's fifth album, 'About to choke' may as well have been his first as far as I am concerned as I have yet to hear any of his previous four. On the evidence of this collection I would describe Vic as a Neil Young/ Leonard Cohen hybrid. Chesnutt has all of Young's rustic vivacity and spikiness yet retaining Cohen's (barely) controlled anger and talent for producing intelligent, personal and topical lyrics. Luckily, Cohen's influence has led to Vic reaching for a pipe instead of an overdrive pedal and an axe which, on the evidence of Young's performance at this years Phoenix Festival, is a good thing. Doubly lucky is that Vic has inherited neither of the above's looks.
From the outset this album is a standard-alternative-folk-rock album which could have been created by Cohen, Young or even Pavement or The Tindersticks. However, what makes this album different is its sheer timelessness - it could have been written any time since the start of this century. It seems that the lo-fi music, folklore lyrics and Vic's village idiot delivery create the feel, but Vic is far too clever to make it that obvious. I can just see him with rucksack, geeetar and a cheesy grin, on the Boston-Atlanta train, watching copyists flounder on the track behind him.
Musically this album is so-so. Vic's voice is at best of times inoffensive and his guitar playing is proficiently basic, only occasionally producing some great chord changes. You need about four listens to start to find any meaning in the majority of the lyrics and I am still trying to decipher his occasional cricket references. Yes, cricket.
Vic Chesnutt is a learned hermit with a far firmer grip on his pen than his plectrum. He is also prone to fits of mischievous experiments as shown on tracks six and seven where his outing with #50 keyboard rhythms has led to as much success as Wham!'s ingeniously titled 'Wham Rap'. It seems that these two blips on the score have compromised my enjoyment of what is an intelligent and individual album. Who says that creative freedom is a good thing?
The first time I heard Stina Nordenstam, I was struck at how the beauty of her songs was actually quite discomforting. In many ways this latest album is an extended effort in that discomfort. Her voice is as ever childlike and vulnerable, but now the lighter moments have completely dissapeared. She was working her way there - 'And She Closed Her Eyes' was brimming with tales of hurt - but now it's a much scarier, more violent message. The music has changed accordingly - whereas before the songs had a more gentle acoustic sound, this album takes fills the sound out with dark guitar lines, tense strings, and at times almost industrial drums and percussion.
It's no overstimation to say that every song stands out as being particularly good. If she did a version of 'Old MacDonald', it would become the damned scariest, most moving song about farmyard animals youíd ever hear. But it's not just the vocal delivery, it's the songwriting, which just gets sharper and sharper. Is it the classic that 'And She Closed Her Eyes' was? Perhaps it's too early to say, but what is certain is that she doesn't cease to impress - not resting on past acheivements, but pushing herself even further, and there have been so many albums this year (some even quite good ones ), that I haven't been able to say that about.
For fear of discovering something brown, and most probably slimy, lurking in the darkness, some stones are left unturned. Be brave though. Push apprehension aside because you can never be sure what delights could pass you by. 'Pisces Iscariot' stands as testament to that. Rather than being the agglomeration of "not quites" and "maybes" it could have been, it is that brilliant jewel, nestling beneath grey rock, which could so easily have been overlooked by all but the most avid bounty hunter.
Beginning with the sad, beautifully poignant 'Soothe', with only Billy Corgan's vocals and an acoustic guitar, the mood is immediately shattered by an electrifying bombardment of riffs and soaring guitar solos. Delivered with such intensity, there is an almost tangible feeling of heat and the dazzling glare from a lighting rig. But there's more. The diversity is endless, ranging from sweet, innocent love songs to the unbridled anger of 'Pissant'. This could be the album to provide the soundtrack for any occasion, from sixties road movie (Landslide) to 'Spaced', with slide guitar and distant, distorted speech which captures the mood perfectly. With the aid of a programmable CD player it is the ultimate pick 'n' mix.
Surprisingly though, 'Pisces Iscariot' is as cohesive as it is diverse. With b-sides of singles from 'Gish' and 'Siamese Dream', together with a couple of outtakes, session tracks, and tracks from the 'Lull' EP, just as each track can be viewed in isolation, each intertwines neatly. The result is something which may be distinguished as an album, as opposed to an unstructured jumble, which will not so much lurk as nestle between 'Gish' and 'Siamese Dream'.
Fluffy, light and serene are three words it would be inadvisable to use to describe FSOL's 'Dead Cities' soundscape. Gone are the days of running streams and space hoppers that was 'Lifeforms' and 'Papua New Guinea' remains but a faraway holiday retreat. Instead FSOL have expanded on the montage of breakbeats of 'ISDN' and created an entirely new world - that of one after the nuclear strike. The dark and agitated side of post-techno in 'Dead Cities' shows us the funkiness of the ghettos of the new urban hell. That is not to say there aren't moments of optimism.
'Her Face Forms in Summertime' proves that once the smoke clears echoing semi-acoustic guitars, soft beats and high-hats can chime, offering glimmers of hope. Angels chorus from above until a legion of androids reek havoc with the electrofunk and Run DMC sampling excellence of 'We Have Explosive'. The collision of old school hip-hop and abrasive new electronica is definitely the sequel to former FSOL classic, Stakker 'Humanoid'. 'Everyone in the World' starts off vaguely prog-rock with layered voices before the surprising recent hit 'My Kingdom' hits in. With flute courtesy of Ennio Morricone and vocals from the Vangellis 'Bladerunner' soundtrack it cannot fail to score an emotion.
Not all from the old world is lost however as the reconstructed piano and straight sax of Max inject some soul into this new environment. Oscillating pre-jungle of superb 'Antique Toy' breaks into the full on 'Quagmire' with bare electric cables, whirring bass and chords of analogue funk metal. Melody trickles into the delicate 'A Permanent State of Abyss', a small pocket untouched and seemingly oblivious of the chaos and destruction around. Powered by a quietly humming generator, the nu-jazz fusion of 'Glass' continues this strain. This is soon to be lost due to the sonic audacity of 'Through Your Gills I Breathe', a sombre postscript of the former industrialised world around. Seagulls cackle above, a small child laughs before the machinery slowly but surely ceases to work. We reach completion with the effigy of 'First Death In The Family'. The magnificent finale is supplied through the regurgitated thrash metal of Electronic Brain Violence's (FSOL's record label) newest, and equally warped, signing.
It's not even good American Indie. For a start its from Belgium, not California, so maybe a more suitable genre title would be 'Europeans Having A Very Poor Try At Making American Indie (c.f. Bush.)' Metal Molly have taken the genre, sorted the good bits from the bad bits and then thrown away the wrong pile. They've kept the wacky, zany songs of Weezer while discarding anyone who ever had a semblance of cool. They quote the Beach Boys, Nirvana, Dinosaur Jr. and Bart Simpson as influences, and manage to fuse the unfunny, unsubtle side of Bart with the...well...Metal Molly use guitars, and Nirvana used guitars, right?
Truth is, songs about Flipper aren't funny. Neither are those stupid Davy Crockett hats that Metal Molly wear on the cover. The Thin Blue Line's not funny. That's not relevant to this review, I just wanted to make sure people realised. Want to know what's really not funny? It's the end of 1996, and someone still makes records that sound like this.
In a sense, the perfect introduction to the Tindersticks ( for those who need introducing ). With albums that weigh in at about 70 minutes, this half-an-hour soundtrack album is more like an E.P., and as such is easily digestible. Also, although I don't want to dwell on this food simile for too long, it's quite tasty.
The music as a whole seems to constantly be reworking the same motifs, as is often the case with soundtracks, a tactic which often proves to be very effective - and this is no exception. The starting point for this, both chronolgically and, one suspects, in terms of ideas, is a shortened instrumental version of 'My Sister', the original of which featured on their last album. The only exception and force in it's own right, the only non-instumental track, and in many ways the culmination and centrepoint of the album is a reworking of 'Tiny Tears'. This track really shines here. It doesn't sound out of place when removed from it's previous context, in fact it sounds more in place than ever - at the heart of an album.
As a Tindersticks album it's a nice slice of downbeat sounds, but I can't escape the feeling that it would sound even better on the film itself.
My girlfriend has just dumped me. I'm fucking upset, and need some seriously depressing music to listen to - perhaps the Leonard Cohen album I never copied off her. But no, I've been given The Lightning Fucking Seeds 'Dizzy Fucking Heights' to review. I apologise if this gets ugly.
This band remind me of all the reasons I've changed my mind about Dodgy. I have, in the past, said "But why can't music just be FUN?". I own a Frank and Walters album. I used to be in a band called 'Grin'. All these are things I have trouble coming to terms with during 'What If...', the fourth song on the album, which goes "ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba". FUCK OFF FUCK OFF FUCK OFF! What if you didn't FUCKING EXIST? Eh? Eh?
My god, I bought 'The Life Of Riley', didn't I? There's a song on this album which takes The Charlatans' 'Two of Us', laughs at it, pisses on its kids, and calls it 'Sugar Coated Iceberg'. It sounds like a shit Baby Bird song... FUCK ME! The press release says it was written with Stephen Jones himself! I guess he wrote the lyrics, then, 'cos they're not too bad.
Look, I should love this album, but then again I should wear slippers 'cos it's cold. I have my sins and I have my Kingmaker albums (God, I'm being honest), but I don't have to put up with this. I'm very disappointed 'Touch And Go' isn't about premature ejaculation. Oh Ian, Ian, what are you doing?
Mind you, on the third listen, I must admit it's a bit of a grower. Quite poppy, really. In fact, let's be honest, music CAN be fun, can't it? Everythings's not really THAT bad, and there's plenty more pebbles on the beach.
If someone commits suicide because of music, can you sue the band?
I'm having the same problem with this album as I had with it's predecessor 'So Tonight That I Might See'. I just can't seem to focus on it. A couple of songs in and it seems to just disapear into a dark shade of blue. Hope Sandaval's beautiful voice just becomes an echo in the background as a particular sound triggers off a long train of thought. I then only return to the record only as the needle bumps at the end of the side.
I think this is a recomendation. I've reached parts of my mind not usually found on your average dreary Monday at ten o'clock. I feel a bit guilty about it though. It's as if I'm not doing my job right. Like I'm not paying them enough due or something. When I remember to concentrate I really love the record. I could listen to these gentle melodies and Hope's voice all my life but I still find I've only really listened to one or two tracks when it's finished.
Should it stick out more? Is a record a bad one if you find yourself thinking about last Saturday when she looked at you like that rather than the music? I don't know really. I know that if all my records were like this I would have trouble getting around to doing anything. I know that this will disapear into my record collection at some point in the next few weeks only to emerge again every couple of months when I will fall in love with it all over again. I guess I know that this is a recomendation and I guess I know that Mazzy Star have done it again.
The more cynical of you out there might sat that this is a hastily thrown out live mix following the 'Brothers' chart raid with that Gallagher bloke. Not so. The Chemical brothers mix everything from jazzy soul funky 70s sounds into indie rock, all on a spiky beat that you just have to listen to. Unlike several dance compilations I know that sound great in the club, but just aren't the same to listen to at home, this one sits comfortably in the machine all hours of the day and night.
They've thrown everything in, and the music kicks off to a funky 70s start, phasing into rap, then jazz, with a weirdsounds middle, which melts into a few punky sounding indie tracks, finally emerging as a funky soul hybrid ( did you get all that? ). There's flute, heaps of fuzzy bass, trumpets, saxophones, and a load of guitar that changes style in 19 tracks more than the Boo Radleys, and that's what's so mad about it.
It's a chemical frenzy in your head, and it's ace, lurching from one vibe to the next so quickly, you feel like your head's spinning. It's a breath of sweet country air compared to other dance albums, because the 'Brothers' aren't afraid to mix and remix anything. The mix of the Charlatans is instantly recognisable, but totally different at the same time, while the 'Brothers' own track is the highlight, with such an infectious beat that it'd convert the biggest cynics. The only flaw ( and I tried my best not to look for any ), is that someone has written in the sleeve what a massive achievement the Heavenly Social was, melting all musical boundaries, and how anthemic the Chemical Brothers remixes were, and how inspirational the whole concept was. It's great, sure, but it doesn't need someone 'preaching the Social-ist manifesto'. But despite that, it's the CD you listen to, and not the sleeve notes, so ignore them, turn the volume up and, as the opening sample says, bend your mind.
Marxman's name is probably the least subtle aspect to their brand of political hip-hop. You see, they advocate communism, they're men and are quite probably 'Marxists'. Hmmm. However, unlike most bands who blend music and politics, Marxman take the less obvious approach and do not let their ideology dictate the musical style. The album's three opening tracks testify to this diversity. The first, 'dazed and confused' makes me think of what Audioweb should have sounded like and the title track which follows is quietly menacing hip-hop of the classiest order. This gives way to the first of two instrumentals, one of which sounds a bit like Garbage's 'Milk' whilst the other, 'Vermillion Shag' seems to have sprung from some supremely cool Miles Davis score.
However, Marxman don't really tread much new ground here and often resort to standard R&B grooves. However, with tracks like the top tune 'whatsinnit? for the cynic', you still have much to look forward to. Ultimately though, I feel that 'Time Capsule' is probably best appreciated with the handy aid of a track programming device. No doubt, Marxman would claim that such an action could seriously "dilute their message" or something. But alas, we live in reactionary times, so who gives a monkey's bollocks.
Ah, wintertime! Those cosy nights in front of an open fire, the mulled wine, chestnuts roasting and the gentle sound of choirboys carolling. A sense of warmth and happiness steals over the house.
Or rather it would do if winter was really like that, and if the wine was not a special offer from Sainsburys that your housemate has drunk, and if the heating made any difference to the snowman in the hallway, but don't worry, we still have those choirboys....
Winter is the time of year for boy bands. What better time to release all of those slushy ballads and beg forgiveness for past sins. I mean if East 17 can erase the memory that one of them dated Daniella Westbrook and one of them is a dog merely by posing in anoraks and a snowdrift then surely anyone can have a Christmas hit? And Boyzone are not just any old boy band, they are BOYBANDINC!
Not content with being plain old Boyzone they look to the skies and pray to pop heaven for their one Christmas wish....to be the boy band of all boy bands.
And in the space of one short album Boyzone are...The Bee Gees!...Boyzone are...The Jackson Five!...and Boyzone are...that dodgy sixties band that sang 'Melting Pot'.
In fact this band love the Jacksons so much that not only do they cover 'Ben' but they have a song with a scarily familiar chant of "We're counting 1-2-3, I'm writing U 4 Me".
Originality is just not their thing, they merely have angelic voices and a nice line of t-shirts ( Boyzone camouflage anyone? ) But, are choirboys taunted for singing the same songs day in, day out? No, they are taunted for being Aled Jones by association and so let Boyzone continue with their warblings, at least they only remind us of pop stars past glories.
1994's Firmament II was, and is for that matter, a brilliant album. There's a bit on it where a characteristic drone is accompanied by what sounds like all the bones in someone's hand cracking consecutively. So I'm expecting big things here.
It turns out that Firmament III is quite a different album. Whereas II took quite distinctive motifs and constantly progressed through them without ever turning back to see how far it had got, this album furthers the experiment by lacking any obvious elements at all. This doesn't make it a bad album - Main couldn't make a dud album even if they tried ( even if they collaborated with Robson and Jerome, it would still be breathtaking ) - but it does make it a tad hard to review. It's the kind of album that is clearly going to take some time to get to know, and one that promises great rewards.
Which still leaves me trying to convey a decent sense of what this album is like. Perhaps the best policy is to try and draw an analogy. It sounds a bit like the feeling you get when you're living in a house next to a wife batterer and you're lying in bed trying to decide whether what you're hearing through the wall is this woman gently sobbing or whether it's just the water pipes.
The fourth record from Railroad Jerk almost sneaked out without my finding out. This is a band who occupy an ever more odd musical territory. In the past they have sounded great but a little too samey in their laid-back country punk rockabilly meanderings. This new effort has cured all that though - we have a real sense of variation imposed on that trademark cooler-than-a-meat-locker sound. The rhythm section has basically progressed so that the old good time rock and roll feel can take the occasional rest and let some mellowing out take place. This vibe is aided and abetted by the fact that Marcellus Hall even takes a rest from the vocals on a couple of the tracks, in addition to having developed the variation in his own vocal style.
Anyway, if you want to know how this record sounds, think of Jon Spencer, the Grifters and the Reverend Horton heat set loose in an opium den with all their noisy pedals taken away from them. Maybe they would come close to this record. Basically Railroad Jerk just sound cool. Don't try to explain it - put it on the turntable and be happy....
Shit. Wank. Bollocks. No, not just the answers to last month's Baggage crossword, but the type of words this sort of music's often associated with. Indie-rock. It's crap, innit? Er, well that's what I thought, but after a couple of plays I'm willing to relent and say "rather good" in that stereotypical oh-so British way.
This eight track outing, three quarters rawk and one quarter indie, often hits the mark where others might easily fail. Possible disasters like the opening 'Dream Awake', where indie guitar noise is overlaid with James Hetfield-like vocals, turn into catchy foot tappers, and only on the one really execrable track here, 'No Excuses' - with its pointless pseudo-metal riffs and child-like use of the f-word - does the crossover attempt fail.
When I first heard the song, I hated it. Then I heard it a few more times, and realised it was almost a classic piece of pop fluff. Then I saw them on TOTP and decided that they may be a truly great group. But let's get one thing straight, OK? Emma (who likes it in her face apparently) is the pick of the bunch. If you want to argue with me, the address is in the front. To be honest, I'd happily Zig-a-zig-ah with any of them, apart from Melanie for obvious reasons. Why is it that every manufactured band has to have an ugly one for balance? Even Take That had a porker for a songwriter and a couple of potato-faced ones hanging around at the back.
Anyway, I digress. The album is what you want to hear about, right. Should you buy it? Well, there's a big picture of them all on the inlay. You can send off for a poster of them all in Baywatch swimwear (only #4.99). There's also a nice picture inside the jewel case, but Emma is obscured by the central knobbly bit. Geri looks pretty good on it though.
Whoops, I've digressed again. Sorry for the incredibly sexist tone of this review, but the truth is that the music ('Wannabe' apart) is unbearable. Second rate swingbeat, with the odd mawkish balladic one thrown in for good measure. Tests have proved that listening to 'Mama' all the way through is beyond the limits of human endurance. I'm just going to wait for the video.
Bands should not name themselves after shoes. Shoes are not a good thing for a band to be named after, because shoes are not rock 'n' roll. Useful, yes, as they stop your feet getting cold and wet when you walk past your fridge, but rock 'n' roll? I think not. Blue suede ones and sneakers of the high-heeled variety are obviously exceptions, but they were songs, not bands. I cannot recall ever REALLY liking a band who were named after shoes.
Anyway, The Slingbacks are a three-piece, girl-fronted indie band. Apparently, they dislike being pigeonholed as a girl-fronted indie band, but tough. If you don't want to be pigeonholed as a girl-fronted indie band, then don't play third-rate daytime-radio indie that sounds variously like Echobelly ('Hey Douglas'), Elastica, Lush ('All Pop, No Star'), Belly ('Wasted'), but never really approaches the highs of any of them. And just to make sure, don't be fronted by a girl.
I'm sorry if this sounds dismissive. It isn't. It isn't a bad album but it's so terribly average that after listening to it, you don't remember the songs, but the songs that they remind you of. And even these songs aren't very good.
So let that be a warning to The Moccasins, The Brogues, The Nike Air Jordans, The Flip-Flops, The Slip-Ons, The Doc Martens, The Bunny Slippers....