A (Slightly) Dynamic Duo of Reviews

Scarlett Johansson - Anywhere I Lay My Head (2008, Atco)
3 out of 5

Why is everybody hating on poor Scarlett? This album isn't nearly as bad as everyone says it is. How much of that has to do with fact that it's 9/10ths Tom Waits songs? Probably a bunch (though the lone original here, "Song for Jo," is actually a really enjoyable paean to youth). Is it that after her entirely un-charming singing in Lost in Translation and on-stage with the Jesus & Mary Chain, she has too much to prove? Probably; Zooey Deschanel, the other hip young actress with an Indie-influenced record out this year, had already kind of won us over in Elf (as everyone and their mother has mentioned at this point).

But, needless to say, it's not as bad as you've likely read elsewhere. Producer Dave Sitek made one of the wisest production choices of the year in burying Johansson's vocals in the mix (we'll see if Metallica can top that later this year with a better drum sound than St. Anger), and getting David Bowie to sing back-ups on a couple of the songs (including first single, "Falling Down") is another check in the "Win" column. The "Green Grass" here, with its spooky carnival vibe and echo-laden production makes it sound a bit like an episode of Scooby-Doo meets Lost in Translation, and "Fawn," the only track without vocals (insert sigh of relief) is a brilliantly noisy combination of the E-Street Band and a Gospel song, but "Anywhere I Lay My Head" isn't close to being as good as Bomb The Music Industry's version (off of 2006's Goodbye Cool World) and "I Don't Want to Grow Up" doesn't even rifle through the Ramones' trash, though the song is so ridiculously appropriate for them, I don't know if anyone else could ever do it justice. The aforementioned reverb-y production does kind of make the already languid songs blur together a bit, and most of the criticisms of Scarlett's voice (that she can't carry a note, that she's slightly tone-deaf, etc.) would hold up in a court of law, and as engaging listening, you could do a lot better. BUT, as vaguely familiar background music? You could to a LOT worse.


Mudcrutch - Mudcrutch (2008, Warner Bros.)

3 out of 5

Why does everybody love this record so much? Is it because it's Tom Petty? Well...yeah. The first single, "Scare Easy," is almost as good as any of Petty's solo (or with the Heartbreakers) work, and "Oh Maria" is a country-boy rock ballad in the vein of the Allman Brothers. It's just, the rest of it isn't really as good. You can hear the age in everyone's voice (particularly those that aren't Petty, who's always kind of sounded like he's looked: skeletal and sharp), and "Crystal River," is phaser-fried 70s slowdance rock (think Nazareth in the rec hall scene in Dazed and Confused), but moreso, kind of boring, especially at 9 1/2 minutes long.

The whole record is much more country-influenced that Petty's other work (a plus), and, unlike one would guess from Petty's pale countenance, it's easy to tell this band is from Florida (by way of California). Maybe Petty's tenure as the voice of "Lucky" on King of the Hill put him back in touch with his Southern roots. But, "Six Days on the Road" is right up there with the utter ridiculousness of "East Bound and Down" as one of the all-time cheesiest songs about trucking and/or running from the law (are there any that aren't?), and "Queen of the Go-Go Girls" is a painfully awkward-sounding ode to a stripper.

This record definitely doesn't make one wonder what could have been (Mudcrutch is the band that Petty was in in high school and before he went on to form The Hearbreakers), but it's a worthy detour into a sound that's clearly influenced Petty, but that doesn't necessarily always show up in his other work.

=james

Thrice - The Alchemy Index Vol. 3 & 4: Air & Earth (2008, Vagrant Records)

EDIT (way after the fact....)
I'm ashamed that I didn't realize this before, seeing as how I knew and loved the song several years ago, but "The Earth Isn't Humming" is actually an old Frodus song. Thrice's version is still pretty awesome, and the rest of my statements about the sound below still hold true.

4 out of 5

This is the second part of Thrice’s two-(or technically 4-)part series, The Alchemy Index, originally conceived as a series of four EPs, each representing the feel and sound of one of the elements. Last year’s Vol. 1 & 2: Fire & Water was an uneven affair, with the heavy and aggressive Fire seeming entirely at odds with the electronic and much quieter Water. Perhaps if they had mixed the sounds a bit instead of stacking them on either side of the record (which, to be fair, was released as two separate discs), but instead, especially in this constant-stream-of-music iPod culture, it felt like one album and one that wasn’t very well sequenced.

By contrast, this year’s Vol. 3 & 4: Air & Earth is much more consistent and a better listen from beginning to end. The crunch and electronics of Vol. 1 & 2 are mostly replaced here (though they do make appearances) with much more experimental (at least for Thrice) acoustic instruments, hand-claps (and other digit-al percussion), piano, wind-instruments, and wind chimes.

The first half, Air, is, of course, hypnotic and airy, and makes the personal political, exploring the fear, paranoia, loss of innocence and growing up that people do in a post-9/11 world from the perspective of the head of a family. “A Song for Milly Michaelson” sounds like a Thursday track pre-bombast, and “Daedalus,” a warning/lament from father to son Icarus, is reminiscent of the guitar orchestratics of Japanese instrumental band Mono, hinting that it would be just as interesting without the vocals. The echo on the guitars in “As The Crow Flies” even makes it sound somewhat like a harp.

The second half then is just personal, sounding much earthier (it’s called Earth, duh…) and much more - in a word - “Appalachian.” In fact, the folk-y influence of singer/guitarist Dustin Kensrue’s solo album is written all over this half, and it’s nice to see him bring that part of his musicality to the Thrice fold. “Moving Mountains,” is full of banjos and tambourines, and “Digging My Own Grave” is Tom Waits-ian piano-bar noir.

Those worried about the loss of the urgency of early-Thrice need not worry too much, as “The Earth Isn’t Humming” is like a super-heavy Page & Plant No Quarter acoustic caravan (and makes me wonder what an episode of Unplugged starring Thrice would sound like), but it’s great to see the band explore and expand on their sound, and do it well. The last song on the album, “Child of Dust,” ends with the music going muffled beneath a sound like dirt hitting a coffin lid, which, while terribly appropriate for the vibe of Earth, hopefully doesn’t mean that Thrice will be burying this part of their sound any time soon.

=james

M83 - Saturdays=Youth (2008, Mute Records)

4 out of 5

“Paging John Hughes. John Hughes to the Maternity Ward.” See, that’s a joke. Because John Hughes, writer/director of such 80s-movie classics as Weird Science, Sixteen Candles, Pretty in Pink, and The Breakfast Club, just had a baby with some hipsters and they named it M83’s Saturdays=Youth. This record is everything anyone could want out of the soundtrack to their very own teen romantic dramedy if everything you could want happens to have taken place in the decade of neon, Republican presidents, post-punk, and synthesizers…wait…is it the 80s?

But I digress, this really is a good album. Reminiscent of the all-encompassing fuzz & drone of My Bloody Valentine, the icy Northern Lights atmospherics of Sigur Rós, as well as the slightly Goth synthesizer-pop of The Cure, Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark, The Cocteau Twins, Saturdays=Youth is hypnotizing and every bit as late-afternoon-sun-shining-through-the-trees as the album cover art suggests.

“Skin of the Night,” which pretty much sounds exactly like its title would suggest, would be an ideal over-dub for Jason Patric & Jami Gertz’s love scene in The Lost Boys, and the follow-up track, “Graveyard Girl,” is perfect Psychedelic Furs rock meets Morrissey lyrics. It’s what the soundtrack to Lost In Translation would have sounded like if it were made in 1986, even if the spoken word interlude is incredibly cheesy and calls to mind the overly dramatic teenage poetry of Lost… director Sofia Coppola’s breakthrough feature, The Virgin Suicides (but also the sunny earth-toned nostalgia of the same).

“Couleurs” is the most beat-centric track on the album, and sounds like New Order’s “True Faith” and “Blue Monday” mashed-up/remixed/appropriated by Brooklyn-and-critic darling LCD Soundsystem. And, after the Madonna by way of vampirized Tori Amos “Up!” and the Bono fronting The Cure “We Own the Sky,” the album does start to drag for the last few tracks.

“Highway of Endless Dreams” actually feels endless (which, at 4 ½ minutes isn’t a good sign compared to the 8 ½ minute long “Couleurs”), and the final track, “Midnight Souls Still Remain,” might as well be 11 minutes of fade-out with just two alternating chords to its name.

With lyrics like “Like a wall of stars, we are ripe to fall,” “Death is her boyfriend, she spits on summers and smiles to the night,” and “Everything is wrapped in grey, can you hear me in the void,” this is a deceptively dark album, sounding as it does perfect for a sun-bleached Volkswagen commercial (complete with Indie-looking girl sprawled on the back seat with her feet out one window and her wind-blown hair out the other). But, after all, what perfect teenage life isn’t?

=james

Flight of the Conchords - Flight of the Conchords (2008, Sub Pop)

5 out of 5

This record is phenomenal. It combines humor with great songwriting in a similar way to last year's Dethalbum from Adult Swim's favorite Death Metal sons Dethklok, but instead of amazingly heavy Metal, Flight of the Conchords is White-boy folk-funk for dorks with the deadest of deadpan sense of humor. And, unlike HBO's other acoustic-comedy duo, Tenacious D, one of Flight of the Conchords doesn't take a backseat to the other. In fact, there isn't even a hint of Jack Black's overpowering personality on this record, and that's not a bad thing, though one of the songs sounds like an overly caffeinated Jack Johnson (though nothing about him is overpowering...).

Filled with loving tributes to arists from Serge Gainsbourg and Air ("Foux de Fafa") to the Pet Shop Boys ("Inner City Pressure"), Marvin Gaye ("Think About It"), Barry White ("Business Time"), and David Bowie (um...."Bowie"), these two Kiwis deserve every bit of hype that they're getting right now.

"Inner City Pressure," the aforementioned faux-Pet Shop Boys song, is very reminiscent of the note-perfect series of "Fake" songs off of Liam Lynch's album Fake Songs ("Fake Bjork Song," "Fake David Bowie Song," "Fake Pixies Song," "Fake Talking Heads Song," and the best, "Fake Depeche Mode Song") and features the amazing couplet "You know you're not in high finance, considering second-hand underpants."

"A Kiss Is Not A Contract" is the duo at their folkiest, while "Robots" is them at their most, well, robotic, with a chorus that sounds like it's sung by Ben Gibbard from the Conchords' label-mates the Postal Service, and a "Binary Solo!"

"The Most Beautiful Girl (in the Room)" is the funniest and folkiest song that Prince never wrote (and the best fake Prince song since "Debra" off of Beck's Midnite Vultures), and "Business Time" takes Barry White's "Love Supreme Orchestra" style down to a slightly more realistic tone. It's a first-person account from the male half of a couple who has settled into an hilarious (if not a little depressing) routine, and makes lines like "I remove my clothes very, very clumsily, tripping sensuously over my pants/Now I'm naked except for my socks and you know when I'm down to just my socks what time it is...It's business time," sound oddly sexy. It also gave rise to one of the best t-shirts I've ever seen.

The biggest downside to this album, if you HAVE to find fault is that it doesn't have all of the songs from the first season of the Conchords' show, but if you HAVE to find an upside, that also saves what is an amazing 42 minutes from seeming forcedly long, with songs and greatness getting lost in the shuffle.

It also gives me an excuse to post this clip from the show:

=james

The Rolling Stones - Get off of My (Back) Cloud (1965, Decca)

Audiences are never satisfied. Even when a new band comes along and cranks out a legendary yet simple rock riff, adds a searing, sexual innuendo-laced vocal, piles it high with attitude and glues it all together with a hypnotizing drum pattern, audiences get their fix and say, "I need more to fill my appetite. Give me more."

The Stones were in a common, yet potentially detrimental position. How do you follow up a massive hit like "I Can't Get No (Satisfaction)?" They proved their genius by writing one of the best sophomore singles ever: "Get off of My Cloud." The icing on this cake was the mere fact that the song is partially in response to all the people who wondered if they'd be one-hit wonders. The song reached #1 on the charts.

The real point of this blog entry, however, is not to state something that has been known for over 40 years. As you'll come to expect - or shall I say, as you'll come not to expect - this entry has more to do about something trivial, that I will undoubtedly mushroom into something bigger, that will most likely lack a useful purpose in the end.

I want to point out something that's been bothering me for as long as I've known this song. Even before I became a drummer, I sensed that this catchy little ditty felt awkward in parts. I could never really explain it but then again, I never really bothered to analyze it.

But first, let me explain something else. After I started taking lessons for the drums, I noticed something about myself through the hours and hours I spent transcribing drum patterns onto the homemade printed music paper in my teenage bedroom: I have some level of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.

I grew frustrated at drummers who interrupted patterns that were normally static for most of the song. Some songs have a fairly simple beat. The drummer is basically keeping time by playing a repeated one to four measure pattern that is occasionally altered with a purposeful fill or drum break. However, I kept running into songs where this pattern would be changed out of nowhere and then continues as if it didn't happen. I couldn't figure out if it was done on purpose for some artistic reason I wasn't aware of at the time. Maybe they were mistakes. Maybe it was just my inexperience. Maybe the drums were more about "feeling" the song and improvising than actually performing an intentional part. I didn't know. Sometimes, when I covered these particular songs on stage, I would "correct" the "mistake" (as if anyone but me would even notice). And if I made a mistake like this while recording, I would immediately stop, probably curse, and have another take at it.

Back to the song of interest. "Cloud" has a very simple, yet memorable two-bar drum pattern. So catchy, The Stones decided to start the song off with it. The structure of the song is also simple. It's basically Verse-Chorus-Verse-Chorus-Verse-Chorus with a short instrumental intro to each verse and a double last chorus.

Just to state the obvious: Charlie Watts is inarguably an excellent drummer. He's so deep in the pocket he's covered with lint. His restraint as well as his moments of flair are just a few things many young percussionist could learn a lot from.

On this track, he plays a repetitive drum fill that pretty much defines the song. It's just as hypnotic and danceable as "Satisfaction." Well done. It appears that this pattern occurs during all intros (initial intro and verse intros) as well as the verses. The choruses are a straight-forward, no frills (er, or no fills?), pound the beat type of pattern. Notice I say the verse pattern appears to sustain all intros and verses. Remember the points in the song where years earlier I felt awkward? I could now fully explain why I felt so...so...well, unsatisfied. Charlie drops the drum fill in two spots. Let's explore.

Point 1: Last measure of the second verse. No fill. Well, that's not too bad, even though it kind of irks me that the fill was present going into the first chorus but now absent. If anything, I would have left it out the first time and then put it in the second time to create a surprise variation. I'll let this one pass, but....

Point 2: Third verse, second measure (listen from 1:46 at the start of the intro to the third verse). WTF?! No fill here?? There's absolutely no way this could possibly have a point. Okay, so he made a mistake. Richards even admits that the record was "rushed" in order to get the follow up single out as quickly as possible. Or maybe it was intentional? I'd be the only moron on this Earth that would ask him that question if I ever had only ten seconds of his time.

Of course, I've come to realize that songs aren't about perfection. Songs are about a mood. Songs give feelings a voice. Songs reflect life and life isn't perfect. They convey a message - a message that will still come across if you use incorrect grammar. Sometimes, it's just about the groove. Why go back and fix a few loose ends if the take is indescribably magic? There are times in life that are memorable despite the fact that you may have had zits on your face or had uncombed hair or said something stupid. Our flaws should be celebrated because of their reality. Save the special effects for Hollywood. Keep the airbrushed models in the glamor mags. Leave the heavy makeup for the clowns. If you are seriously hung up on a few missed snare drum hits, then you're missing the point.

I could leave this entry at that, and it would have a nice ending. But that's not me. Charlie once bumped shoulders with me or shall I say someone exactly like me. In fact, 10 seconds of the conversation were dedicated to the frustration laid out above. After a brief smile, as if he'd been waiting four decades for a single soul to notice, Charlie chuckled and simply responded with, "Listen to the lyrics...you'll get it."

What did that mean? I knew what the song is about. Was he just making a quip to get off of his back about something so stupid? Damn English people! Then, I looked a little closer and felt a little humbled. The lyrics during and after Point 2 where he omits the drum fill say, "It was so very quiet and peaceful." Charlie had apparently word painted me without me even knowing it! Bastard.

~ robert

Madonna - Hard Candy (2008, Warner Bros.)

3 out of 5

Striving for relevance or artistic reinvention? Well, with Madonna it's never really been that easy. Some might argue that Madonna has always been relevant, and some might argue that this is absolutely not a reinvention. After all, what have most of her albums been if not dance records?

So, despite the fact that half of the songs here mention "Madonna" by name (and she sings "My name" in one of the others), and despite the incredibly obvious and prominent production by celebrity hit-makers Pharell Williams and Timbaland, it's not that hard to tell who this is. We've been listening to Madonna's voice for the last 25 years (how crazy is that?) so one would hope we'd be able to pick it out by now. The problem is that from the sound of them, a lot of these tracks could have just as easily been sung by that other bottle-blonde pop-princess produced by Pharell, Gwen Stefani (for the sake of this review, let's pretend that Britney Spears doesn't exist...she seems to stay out of trouble better that way).

That said, the aforementioned production really steals the show, as it has with most of the other artists that Pharell and Timbaland have worked with. And a lot of it is great. But, this whole record is full of the typical bass-and-brushes beats that are uniquely poised to piss of the neighbors at even a reasonable volume, and not necessarily in a good way, either. It's actually one of the biggest detriments to the record, even in songs where the melody is in the forefront.

Speaking more specifically of the songs themselves, most of them are pretty good if you can get past the beat beating. Almost every song is about dancing or sex (or dancing as a substitute for sex), and each song has a decidedly engaging rhythm. "Dance 2Night" combines 70s Funk and Disco with very Madonna-friendly 80s synthesizers, and "She's Not Me" is really just straight up Studio 54 with slightly updated beats. The first single, "4 Minutes," even with its oddly flatulent (Madonna is in her 50s....), electronic marching band sound, is incredibly catchy, if annoying at times (especially Justin Timberlake's post chorus rap-scat ending with "mud-on-AH?" and the ever-repeated "tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock"). And speaking of annoying, "Give it 2 Me" (who named these songs? Prince?) sounds like a bunch of ravers took a circus hostage with their glow-sticks. Not to mention Madonna's plea to "Get stupid, get stupid, get stupid, don't stop" isn't nearly as entertaining as the pre-NBA-appropriated cry of the Black Eyed Peas' "Get Retarded."

But, by far, the worst songs on the record are the first track, and almost title track, the vaguely-Japanese-sounding "Candy Shop," which has some of the worst lyrics and rhymes I've heard in a long time ("Come on into my store, I've got candy galore"), and the late-album "Spanish Lesson," wherein Madonna gives a "sexy" lesson in Spanish words and phrases. At least she's not singing in a faux-British accent, though her faux-Spanish isn't much better.

Thankfully it's followed-up by the best song on the album, "Devil Wouldn't Recognize You," one of the best songs Timbaland has ever had a hand in, which combines water-drop beats with plaintive piano, folky finger-plucked acoustic-guitar and a surprisingly non-cheesey (or at least, not too cheesey) thunderstorm breakdown. Okay, I can't really say that. It's incredibly cheesey, but the rest of the song makes up for it.

The next, and final song on the record, "Voices," (with the line, "Who is the master and who is the slave?") kind of raises another point in the "theme" of the record and that's that it all has a vaguely BDSM tone, something that Madonna's "sexy-boxer-in-dominatrix-boots" outfit on the cover doesn't help with, and neither does this picture that made the internet rounds, recently:

I guess we know who wears the pants in that relationship (or at least the pants that have a bedroom prosthetic attached), even if on this record, it seems like Pharell Williams and Timbaland are wearing the pants. But maybe that's just because Madonna's taken them off to be provocative.

=james

No Age - "Eraser" from Nouns (2008, Sub Pop)

To be honest, I discovered No Age by accident. Usually accidents are a bad thing. Sometimes, they are happy. Either way, it describes an event where something has unintentionally happened. For example, "I accidentally threw up on my shoe while listening to this song by No Age." You see, I obviously would never want to do that, but it happened (not really, but I think it delivers a nice intro to this song review).

This is No Age's first release on Sub Pop, which was released today. I've always enjoyed Sub Pop. Currently, they have some of my favorite artists, including The Shins, The Postal Service, & Mudhoney (they have a new album being released in 2 weeks).

Pitchfork Media gave Nouns the highest rating ever - a 9.2! I was mildly excited at that point. I raced over to No Age's MySpace to see if they've posted any songs from the new album. Yes, they did! The track is called "Eraser." This song would be the basis if I should buy the CD and review the entire disc.

The song opens with a person speaking unintelligibly. My best guess: "Yes, yes, yes, but I owe ya. Be ready to..uh, kind of like, kind just..." But I like this, too: "Guess, guess, guess. Buy Iowa. Me and rabies favor. I kinda like Canada, too."

The distorted guitars kick in and immediately I'm feeling drained with every downstroke. It was as if all the crap (yes, that's a technical music term) that producers usually wipe clean with ProTools was left in and all the good stuff (another technical term) was taken out! At least there was some sort of tonal center to keep me grounded to reality.

I waited. Waited some more. I pondered if this was an instrumental. I feared it. Then the noise grew louder and I finally heard a voice. It suited the experimental nature of the band, I guess. Whatever they are experimenting, I'm pretty sure they have no hypothesis, but a lot of placebos. I think I need to be "experimenting" to really get into this type of music. My problem is that I've heard bands sound like this before at almost every local showcase I've been to, except No Age manages to somewhat pull it off...and I stress somewhat. Seriously though, I can understand why hipsters might enjoy this. Maybe Sonic Youth fans who've become tired of Sonic Youth would like this. But really, if you're tired of Sonic Youth, maybe it's time to stop listening to music.

I'm still confused with Pitchfork's high praise. Maybe I should get the entire disc. Maybe I'm missing something. The only thing I'm more curious about is Eraser's opening dialog! I must have listened to it 25 times now! The rest of the song just wasn't quite as intriguing.

I was hoping for some good Indie candy, and I wound up with garage asparagus. Yuck.

~robert

Children of Bodom - Blooddrunk (2008, Spinefarm/Fontana/Universal)

4 out of 5

Children of Bodom occupy an interesting place in metal: namely, Finland. See, Sweden's got its Death Metal and Norway has its Black Metal, but what does Finland have? HIM? Apocalyptica? Hanoi Rocks?

Sure, Finland has its own Metal scene, but nothing quite so overarching as an entire genre to its name like its Scandinavian brothers do.

So what do these Bodomian (Bodomish? Bodomite?) Children do? They create their own genre. Call it "sauna metal." Or don't. There really isn't anything about this that classifies as "sauna-ish," I just wanted to say that. I've been waiting all day.

Clearly influenced by Death, Black, Power, and Thrash, Children of Bodom prefer to just be called "Metal," and that's okay. Sounding like the heavy groove-based Thrash of Pantera and Lamb of God ("Blooddrunk," "LoBodomy") mixed with the choral-bell synthesizer sound of 70s horror movies (like Suspiria, The Exorcist, and Halloween), Blooddrunk is a great album, full of understated melody (most - if not all - is carried by the guitars and keyboards and not by the growly-scream vocals) and shredding guitar solos (are people these days writing with Guitar Hero in mind?).

At their most epic, COB can sound like Dimmu Borgir ("LoBodomy") and on the other end, as mentioned before, like Pantera and Lamb of God. "Tie My Rope," starts off like the boss music for a Mega Man game mixed with the Industrial throb of Nine Inch Nails before the Hardcore gang-vocals start at the end of each verse. In fact, a lot of the guitar solos on the record sound like the MIDI-fied Metal of the early 90s Super Nintendo game Rock And Roll Racing, but as that was a favorite game of mine, I'm not really complaining.

"Roadkill Morning" (a song about waking up and feeling like you've been run over by a truck) Thrashes like crazy before a Hardcore floor-punching breakdown played by Dimmu Borgir with the guttural roars of Killing Joke in the chorus before nearly a minute of soloing (in a 3 1/2 minute song). And the last track, a cover of "Ghost Riders in the Sky," comes across as a Viking call-to-arms. When the chorus hits, it's not hard to imagine a Great Hall filled with large, bearded men drinking beer or mead, singing along, and getting almost as much in their mouths as they are on themselves and each other.

One more thing must be mentioned, though, and that's this:

Apparently, some astute blogger noticed that COB frontman Alexi Laiho looks an awful lot like Avril Lavigne, and I'm not one to disagree. And with COB's history of covering songs by teen pop-tarts ("Hit Me Baby One More Time"), I wonder how long it will be before we see Children of Bodom's metalified cover of "Girlfriend"?

=james

I figure we demand some weird stuff so that later we can plead insanity.

hey hey hey....cool down steve

this is just a test post. more to come this weekend.