Archive for the ‘Alternative’ Category
Anthrax – Fistful Of Metal (1984)
NOTE: If this or any other review I do of an Anthrax album seems poorly done or lacking proper knowledge, please note my comment on the band page regarding "The Anthrax Project". Thank you.
One of metal’s most enduring acts, Anthrax hit the scene all the way back in the early 80′s and dropped their first LP, Fistful of Metal, in ’84. While I can see some moments of this record turning some heads and earning the band credit where it’s due, ultimately the most memorable thing I’ve taken from my time with it is the album cover, which I have seen many times over the years but never gave the associated album a chance until recently.
While I cannot (yet) speak for what Joey Belladonna would bring to the band, original vocalist Neil Turbin sounds custom-fit for a speed/power metal outfit. With a high register fit for (rough) Halford worship and a decent mid-range snarl, Turbin’s contribution to the band on their first go-round is vital. It helps push forward what is sometimes stale, stagnated metal which is, in turn, extremely reliant on punk aesthetics. That is no slander, mind you, as thrash metal itself was born from the womb in which punk laid it’s seed. The NWOBHM influences are equally ripe, with many of the tracks coming off as pure Priest/Maiden/Diamond worship. "Metal Thrashing Mad" is one of the better examples, but the album has too many poorly conceptualized tracks to maintain any head of steam. An unneccesary cover of Alice Cooper’s "I’m Eighteen" does the band no favors, and it isn’t until the powerful "Subjugator" that the record retains some focus. "Death From Above" focuses on a concept that I personally love, the rush and intensity of skyborne combat, but it’s far too cheesy and ridiculous to take seriously. "Anthrax" isn’t a bad signature track, but doesn’t really attempt to live up to the idea of a "signature" track as it’s name might imply. "Across The River" is an instrumental that wouldn’t have hurt with vocals in the mix, mostly a bit of guitar wankery. "Howling Furies", while unfortunately named, closes the album on a bit of a high note.
For the most part, Fistful of Metal doesn’t much excite me for what’s coming next from Anthrax. This being my first trip through their discography, I can’t say it does much for me unless I attempt to transport myself back to the point in time it was released. If that were the case, I might consider this record to be a solid dose of what was at the time a rising monster of a sound, something that would carry bands like Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth, Testament and others into major spotlights. Not bad, not great, has not aged well, hopefully not a sign of what’s to come but everyone starts somewhere, don’t they?
(Megaforce 1984)
Reviewed on 2012-02-08 18:13:58 by Kevin Sellers
Music Emissions Alternative Music Reviews
Leonard Cohen – OLD IDEAS
LEONARD COHEN the legend returns with OLD IDEAS , and while they last, and get a litho featuring art and text from the man himself… quantities limited.
Wire – Chairs Missing (1978)
Wire as a band were perhaps gifted with a greater degree of foresight than some of their punk contemporaries in the same way that seemed to have been gifted with a greater degree of talent than many. It looks now as if they could see that, ultimately, punk would lead to a musical dead end and that its true importance lay in shaking up the rather sterile and flaccid music industry of the mid seventies.
As a consequence, Chairs Missing was completely misunderstood at its time and derided as too avant-garde by a music press which felt that Wire should continue to be a snot-nosed punk outfit. The imagery of their songs, sometimes eerie, almost always thought-provoking, was completely overlooked by a music press which was more concerned with songs about dole queues and hatred for the establishment.
Right from the start, what set Wire apart was their use of keyboards. You might be able to get away as a guitarist with knowing only three chords, but to play keyboards you had to have some reasonable level of musical competency. Among the punks, only the Boomtown Rats, the Stranglers and XTC managed to utilise keyboards to the same extent that Wire did. On Chairs Missing, Mike Thorne’s clever keyboard arrangements were what set the band apart, and what provided this album with its distinctive persona. Listening to "Another the Letter", whatever guitar thrash you expected from a track which clocks in at little more than a minute long is quickly dispelled by a constant keyboard hook where guitars appear only rarely, and then unobtrusively quiet.
The album has a trichotomy of distinctive styles to the tracks. There are the punk-inspired fast-paced tracks such as "Too Late" and "Sand in My Joints". Then there are the melodic tracks which display the band at their best in terms of their musical competence, such as "Heartbeat" and the excellent "Outdoor Miner", of which there are two versions on this extended CD. Finally, there are the discordant and jarring tracks such as "Practice Makes Perfect" and "I Am the Fly". It would be the combination of the two latter styles which would prove to be the hallmark of the earliest incarnations of post-punks.
If anything, it is this which proves the album’s undoing. There is a lack of coherence about it. This may have been Wire‘s own favourite album as well as being their boldest release, but many of the tracks were ahead of their time. It would be left to others to pick up the torch they had lit. There are bands still carrying that torch today.
(Harvest/Pinkflag 1978)
Reviewed on 2012-02-09 03:51:01 by Charles Martel
Music Emissions Alternative Music Reviews
New & Upcoming Releases 2/28/12
Lakeshore’s Alternativemusic.com New & Upcoming Release list 2/28/12 If you see anything you’re interested in or have any questions about anything you see listed please email us at Marta@Alternativemusic.com For up to the minute new music information follow us on Facebook . Looking to hear something new? Take a listen to the Alternativemusic.com podcast with shop owner Andrew Chinnici and noted music critic Rob Roberts.
Brand New – Street Date 3/6/2012
BONNIE PRINCE BILLY & MARIEE SIOUX “Bonnie & Mariee” (Spiritual Pajamas – SPIRITUAL 002) DBL.7″ (07BONNIBonn) ***As great things often do, these sessions started with a simple conceptual challenge. In this case, it was the brainchild of BONNIE ‘PRINCE’ BILLY, after being asked by Spiritual Pajamas co-founder BRITT GOVEA if he had interest in singing a song with MARIEE SIOUX at some point in the future. The idea has given birth to this wonderful collection of tunes. Bonnie offers a stunning original and Mariee returns the favor with her own equally beautiful song. After these two were recorded, the fun and productivity simply could not be contained and additional cover songs were put to tape by analog recording master JONATHAN WILSON to round out this legendary session. These wonderful recordings feature a dream band of musicians: PAZ (A PERFECT CIRCLE, ZWAN and THE ENTRANCE BAND) on bass, NATE WALCOTT (BRIGHT EYES) on keys, JONATHAN WILSON on guitar and percussion, FARMER DAVE SCHER (BEACHWOOD SPARKS and JENNY LEWIS) on slide and additional keys, DEREK JAMES (The Entrance Band) on drums and DAVE BRENNEN (HOPE SANDOVAL and THE WARM INVENTIONS) and EMMETT KELLY (THE CAIRO GANG) on additional guitars. Flowering tongues, love skulls, whales trapped in ice, be thou not deceived and touch yourself a hundred times. These songs carve a place in your heart and tattoo your brain for ages to come. Limited edition of 2,000 copies. ITAL “Hive Mind” (Planet Mu – ZIQ 312) CD (UPC: 5055300329509 – CDITALHive) ITAL “Hive Mind” (Planet Mu – ZIQ 312) DBL.12″ (UPC: 5055300329493 – LPITALHive) ***If you’ve heard DANIEL MARTIN-MCCORMICK’s name recently, it would have been either in association with his disco / punk / echo band MI AMI, or as SEX WORKER on the Not Not Fun label, or as ITAL on NNF’s sister label 100% Silk. Raised in Washington, DC, Martin-McCormick has a history in the city’s hardcore scene-he was in Dischord Records band BLACK EYES in the early 2000s-but was also making dance-inspired tracks during the same period, coming from a very different angle than the average guy with a copy of Logic Pro and a working knowledge of dance music’s history. Martin-McCormick’s music is a stranger thing. Hive Mind, his debut full-length under the Ital moniker, uses house’s easygoing 4/4 structure as a kind of camouflage for more out-there sonic explorations, subverting expectations, seeking the links between dub’s space- and sound-bending, industrial’s unsettling sonics and the effects and black holes of minimal at its weirdest. The album has a sculptured feel: sounds twist in space while melodies pitch-shift in an unsettling way, voices fade in and out, nothing is ever allowed to settle comfortably, everything vibrates. Opener “Doesn’t Matter (If You Love Him)” sounds a bit like Tackhead if they had made house music, using a flickering and confidently repeated phrase over a lumbering drum and bass line, introducing swirling and bombing synths into the mix once the secret comes out. The strange marriage of treated voices and swelling, pitch-bent chords and effects on “Floridian Void” draws the listener into its strange atmosphere; it’s an ambient house track of sorts, but the ambience here is a swirling, confusing, watery vortex rather than fuzzy, new age pap. “Privacy Settings” builds creepy wolf howls over a slow bass line and cold, far-away drums, estranged from their usual disco setting, while “Israel” picks things up again, with weird, pitch-shifting bells over dubby toms and cold chords. “Final Wave” restores the album to something resembling normality, with a disco-like swing that recalls Moodymann’s beat-down productions slid through brutal dub-like effects that bring out a shade of strangeness in an otherwise happy groove. RECEIVED AN 8.0 RATING FROM PITCHFORK. No exports outside North America and Japan. MOUNT CARMEL “Real Women” (Siltbreeze – SB 154) CD (UPC: 655030105425 – CDMOUNTReal) ***For those swayed by the magisterial authenticity of MOUNT CARMEL on their eponymous 2010 debut album: its follow-up Real Women finds the band honed and sharper, thus delivering what might be the best sophomore album released by an American blues-based power-trio since ZZ Top’s Rio Grande Mud. Nods to Free, Humble Pie, even Trapeze can be sussed out in the mix, but at the end of the day, Real Women is straight-up Mount Carmel all the way. Searing leads, smokey vocals, thundering rhythms, cascading drums, hyperbolic hyperbole… it’s all here. Mount Carmel brings back the spirit of 1973 like no one else. The only difference now is better weed and shittier barbiturates. It’s hands-down pure rock, no frills. Nary a retro contrivance is to be heard. These guys live it for real. Honest. So climb on board with Real Women and see what you’ve been missing. The results are astounding. Vinyl to be released 3/20/2012 *MOUNT CARMEL “s/t” (Siltbreeze – SB 129) LP (UPC: 655030112911) NURSE WITH WOUND “Creakiness and Other Misdemeanours” (United Jnana – UJ 2007) CD (UPC: 061297280629 CDNURSECrea) ***Creakiness and Other Misdemeanours collects NURSE WITH WOUND’s side of their long out-of-print split LP with Spasm, plus various other very limited releases. 1991′s Creakiness features STEPHEN STAPLETON, JOOLIE WOOD, JAMES MANNOX and TONY WAKEFORD crafting a five-part dada-esque mix of samples from Warner Brothers cartoons, car horns, game show buzzers and other sounds. “Mona Twisted” and “Twisted Mona” are from the Sand Tangled Women (Echo Poeme Sequence 3) 7-inch, the 19-minute “Little Dipper Minus Two (Echo Poeme Sequence 1)” was a single-track CDR-both originally released in limited editions by Klanggalerie in 2005. “A Perfectly Natural Explanation” was released on the Having Fun with the Prince of Darkness 7-inch in 2004. Gatefold digipack features new artwork by BABS SANTINI.
The Time And Space Machine – Pill Party In India (2012)
Devoted to fat trippy funk, The Time and Space Machine abducts both electronic and acoustic instruments to build a massive sound that is as fun and kickass as it is dense and unpredictable. Consisting of title song and two remixes, "Pill Party in India" offers often dizzying variations on a theme, draining the song and the listener dry of emotion and groove and sweaty insanity.
The Time and Space Machine’s own mix kicks things off, with the bass heavy, the percussion (courtesy of Wildcat Will) tribal, and the twang of the guitar riffs enhanced by the fact that the instruments are homemade cigar box guitars. Prime mover behind the band, singer, instrumentalist, producer Richard Norris layers his sounds thin but raw, creating a live band feel; even the dizzy psych grooves seem organic.
Mojo Filter’s remix is gooier, a slowed down original melody overlaid with insistent disco and Arabic chanting. Here the guitar lines are provided by instruments that sound like sitars or bouzoukis, though they may be generated. This is funk made for dance and for meditation, and it sticks close enough to the original to be a tribute as well as its own piece.
The final remix by Psychemagik is more insistent then either the original or Mojo Filter’s remix. The percussion is more brisk, the electronica more vibrant and dominant; some of the Middle Eastern motifs of the Mojo filter remix occur at the end, along with a hardcore 70s disco groove that winds things up in a sweaty satisfying fashion.
"Pill Party in India" is all about trance funk that is fun, inspired and flexible. The Time and Space Machine and their guest remixers wring a lot of soul out of just one track, and this quick EP is one to explore and savor through endless repeated listening.
(Tirk 2012)
Reviewed on 2012-02-07 11:51:46 by Mike Wood
Music Emissions Alternative Music Reviews
A Place To Bury Strangers – A Place To Bury Strangers (2007)
The band’s name comes from a reference in the Gospel of Matthew but there is little in here to suggest that religion plays any part of the music. An initial listen will suggest strong links with proto-shoegazers the Jesus and Mary Chain and some of their musical decendants, particularly My Bloody Valentine. This is largely due to the fact that the band use a variety of guitar distorting pedals, most of them made, apparently, by frontman Oliver Achermann, to create a sound which has led many people to classify the band as shoegaze revivalists.
Yet, on closer listen, it becomes apparent that such a crude labelling does not work. My second impressions were of a band which resembled the sound of the early Black Rebel Motorcycle Club – another three piece – and the affinity to the cruder garage sound seemed more clear. Yet A Place to Bury Strangers‘ self-titled debut album is eclectic in its antecedents and defies any strict pigeonholing.
The downside of this is that it is sometimes less than consistent. The opener, "Missing You", combines a noise-laden guitar with a sonorous yet high pitched guitar hook which forms the foundation of the track. Yet towards the middle of the album (at least my version of the album, the extended version), some of the tracks seem to be little more than feedback draped over quasi-funeral vocals. The vocals are another point where consistency forms a bit of a problem. There is nothing wrong in principle with the sort of deadpan delivery which Ackermann adopts. It is one of facets of the album where the similarity to Black Rebel Motorcylce Club is at its closest. But deadpan delivery can only work if the vocalist is prepared, when the situation warrants, to break out into a less constrained style of singing. This Ackermann never rarely does. It is as if in an attempt to sound like Ian Curtis, he ends up sounding like a zombie-movie version of Ian Curtis as he may sing today.
But although the sound is not something which one would expect to have much commercial staying power, it should not be overlooked that, like the Jesus and Mary Chain before them, strip away the noise and the effects and what you have are a series of short (usually) sharp indie-pop melodies. You have to listen, but on tracks like "ocean" and the imaginatively-titled "To Fix the Gash in Your Head" they are quite discernable. In a music world where creativity and pushing the boundaries was rewarded, A Place to Bury Strangers would receive considerable airplay. But in the real world, where the churning out of clones of whatever is selling well at the moment is the order of business, this approach will go unrewarded.
Where this leaves you, then, is an album, in this case extended by the addition of several further tracks, which attempts to tie together a number of strands of music over the past twenty years and present them in a coherent and innovative package. For a debut, it is a noble aim, but it doesn’t quite come off. As I write this I have on my wishlist the band’s second album, Exploding Head. It may be that there I will find coming to fruition what the band have attempted to achieve with this album.
(Killer Pimp 2007)
Reviewed on 2012-02-07 03:45:43 by Charles Martel
Music Emissions Alternative Music Reviews
SEPTEMBER PREMIERE! BRAND NEW MUSIC FROM THE SHINS
The Shins chose www.recordstoreday.com to premiere their brand new song, “SEPTEMBER”, the B-side of the “ Simple Song ” 7” single that will be in stores next week, and a little appetizer for their March 20 full length Port of Morrow. Check out the Video at http://www.recordstoreday.com !
New & Upcoming Releases 2/14/12
Lakeshore’s Alternativemusic.com New & Upcoming Release list 2/7/12 If you see anything you’re interested in or have any questions about anything you see listed please email us at Marta@Alternativemusic.com For up to the minute new music information follow us on Facebook . Looking to hear something new? Take a listen to the Alternativemusic.com podcast with shop owner Andrew Chinnici and noted music critic Rob Roberts.
Brand New – Street Date 2/21/2012
FIELD MUSIC “Plumb” (Memphis Industries – MI 0208) CD (UPC: 655035017426 – CDFIELDPlum) ***FIELD MUSIC’s fourth full-length, Plumb, was recorded throughout 2011 at the band’s new studio on the banks of the river Wear in Sunderland. Largely abandoning the “classic” songwriting conventions embraced on 2010′s Measure, PETER and DAVID BREWIS remodel the modular, fragmented style of their first two albums, only now it’s shot through with the surreal abstractions of 20th-century film music from Bernstein to Willy Wonka and the off-beam funk and pristine synth-rock developed on the brothers’ School of Language and The Week That Was albums. Plumb digs into the age-old dichotomy between what is reflective or nostalgic and the disorienting immediacy of the outside world. Whether the angle is personal or political, throughout the record there are allusions to the expectations and obligations we all amass. No exports outside North America. LP version to follow. *FIELD MUSIC “Field Music (Measure)” (Memphis Industries – MI 149) CD (UPC: 655035014920) *FIELD MUSIC “Field Music (Measure)” (Memphis Industries – MI 149) DBL.LP (UPC: 655035014913) *FIELD MUSIC “If Only The Moon Were Up” (Memphis Industries – MI 052) CD *FIELD MUSIC “If Only The Moon Were Up” (Memphis Industries – MI 052 S) 7″ (UPC: 5050954117472) *FIELD MUSIC “In Context” (Memphis Industries – MI 076 S) 7″ (UPC: 5050954147677) *FIELD MUSIC “Let’s Write A Book” (Memphis Industries – MI 0155 S) 7″ (UPC: 5060146091794) *FIELD MUSIC “s/t” (Memphis Industries – MI 043) CD (UPC: 655035004327) *FIELD MUSIC “She Can Do What She Wants” (Memphis Industries – MI 089 S) 7″ (UPC: 5050954156976) *FIELD MUSIC “Tones of Town” (Memphis Industries – MI 074) CD (UPC: 655035007427) *FIELD MUSIC “Write Your Own History” (Memphis Industries – MI 064) CD (UPC: 5050954126023) *FIELD MUSIC “You’re Not Supposed To” (Memphis Industries – MI 033) CD FRANKIE ROSE “Interstellar” (Slumberland – SLR 150) CD (UPC: 749846015020 – CDROSE Inte) FRANKIE ROSE “Interstellar” (Slumberland – SLR 150) LP (UPC: 749846015013 – LPROSE Inte) ***We were all knocked out by the FRANKIE ROSE AND THE OUTS album in 2010; the effortlessness of its gorgeous girl-pop mantras, the intimate immensity of its Spector-esque walls of reverb, the beauty of a song sung sweetly over the most graceful two-chord vamps. But are we ready for the new Frankie Rose? Interstellar is a revelation, an album that floats free of its maker’s history-time spent with VIVIAN GIRLS, DUM DUM GIRLS and CRYSTAL STILTS-and offers the listener something strangely other, as alien as it is familiar, as compelling as it is enchanting. Talking with Rose about the record, it’s clear she was itching for a new start. The first big indication: production by LE CHEV, remixer supreme (for Lemonade, Narcisse, Passion Pit and Rose’s own “Candy”) and ensemble member of Fischerspooner, etc. So, gone is reverb as the holy route to pop-grandeur, scaling a wall of teenage tears, and in its place is the confident swagger of a singer and auteur building the simplest of pop moves into aching, full-blown melodramas, grabbing hold of an emotion and riding its darker waves.. LP includes digital download coupon. No exports to the UK/Europe. *FRANKIE ROSE “Know Me” (Slumberland – SLR 149) 7″ (UPC: 749846014979) *FRANKIE ROSE “Thee Only One” (Slumberland – SLR 110) 7″ (UPC: 749846011077) *FRANKIE ROSE AND THE OUTS “s/t” (Slumberland – SLR 124) CD (UPC: 749846012425) *FRANKIE ROSE AND THE OUTS “s/t” (Slumberland – SLR 124) LP (UPC: 749846012418) TERRY MALTS “Killing Time” (Slumberland – SLR 163) CD (UPC: 749846016324 – CDTERRYKill) TERRY MALTS “Killing Time” (Slumberland – SLR 163) LP (UPC: 749846016317 – LPTERRYKill) ***After careful, weeklong consideration, San Francisco trio TERRY MALTS went forth to record a debut LP as per the request of Slumberland Records. Displaying a slick, intelligent take on modern chainsaw pop, Killing Time certainly lives up to its name! The Terrys’ gospel is succinct, direct, sincere and timed expertly with next year’s looming apocalypse: life is hopeless, enjoy! With a live reputation that bleeds funky “punk” attitude, the trio crammed this urgency into the Terry Malts studio edition. Recorded by a machine, then expertly mixed by human being MONTE VALLIER (Swell, Half Church), Killing Time may compel you to type the following buzzwords into your blog (which, I love, by the way!): catchy, husky, hunky, sharp, blue-collar, rocking, hockey-rock, working-class, perfect, near-perfect, not-half-bad, and / or not-bad. It’s an album, it’s a lifestyle, it’s a 34-minute hour of pure, unadulterated Malts… all right? Vinyl includes digital download coupon. *TERRY MALTS “I’m Neurotic” (Slumberland – SLR 142) 7″ (UPC: 749846014276) *TERRY MALTS “Something About You” (Slumberland – SLR 159) 7″ (UPC: 749846015976) CONSUMERS “All My Friends Are Dead” (In The Red – ITR 29) LP (UPC: 759718502916 – LPCONSUAll) ***”THE CONSUMERS were originally just three guitar players with no rhythm section-PAUL CUTLER, MIKEY BORENS and lyricist / lead singer DAVID WILEY, all bonded by love of psychedelic Euro-prog jazz like Henry Cow, Gong and Robert Wyatt-who’d stopped listening to rock ‘n’ roll after Bowie’s Spiders from Mars came out around 1972. By ’77 our guys had re-discovered rock through Britpunk pub raunch like The Sex Pistols and The Damned. Cutler and high school bud Wiley had even driven all the way to L.A. determined to hunt down a copy of The Pistols’ “Anarchy in the UK” single. In the pre-Internet days there wasn’t a record store anywhere in Arizona that had even heard of it, let alone stocked it. All My Friends Are Dead was The Consumers’ “fuck you” to Phoenix since nearly all their gigs there ended in brawls with long-haired rockers and other redneck gnarlers pounding on the band for daring to play punk rock in public in 1977! It didn’t take long to suss. Head on out. Just before they packed for L.A. in early ’78 the band managed to get themselves on tape during a single session blow-out frenzy. All My Friends Are Dead successfully captures The Consumers as a pissed-off-yet-still-fun, no-frills, punk-rockin’ band… exactly who and what they were during their extremely short and sweet existence. After a few months of violent and intense live shows at The Masque and other local punk dives, the band finally imploded. Some headed back to Phoenix and some stayed on in L.A. to form new bands. Cutler went on to form the goth / punk 45 GRAVE and still later joined the DREAM SYNDICATE. Wiley formed the Pasadena art rock HUMAN HANDS. Sadly, today there are only two surviving members of The Consumers. Sadder still, what passes for punk rock today is easy listening when compared to All My Friends Are Dead.”-Brendan Mullen . Originally planned to be released on Dangerhouse Records, first issued by In The Red in 1994 in a limited edition of 500 copies and long-out-of-print on vinyl. BAD WEATHER CALIFORNIA “Sunkissed” (Family Tree – FTR 003) CD (UPC: 655035020327 – CDBAD Wsunk) BAD WEATHER CALIFORNIA “Sunkissed” (Family Tree – FTR 003) LP (UPC: 655035020310 – LPBAD Wsunk) ***BAD WEATHER CALIFORNIA is four West Coast weirdos making feel-good true-energy rock music out in the desert mountains-a punk band for the new millennium. Raised on the alt. music they discovered in Thrasher magazine and gas-powered generator shows in the small town where they grew up, the quartet spent the past seven years playing, touring and searching for those same feelings and sounds; looking for them on their dusty old four-tracks or threatening to just plain fall apart right there at one of their legendary Denver house shows. Sunkissed is the group’s second full-length album and the first for AKRON / FAMILY’s new Family Tree Records imprint. It was recorded in Detroit at the home studio of engineer CHRIS KOLTAY and produced by Akron / Family singer and guitarist SETH OLINSKY. Like a ’65 Impala convertible cruising down a back road while the spirit of Juju master King Sunny Ade shines in the rearview mirror, like the Minutemen, Meat Puppets and Flaming Lips shaking hands with your parents classic rock record collection, Sunkissed is the soundtrack to a summer party that s always happening around the corner. JOHN WESLEY COLEMAN “Last Donkey Show (Goner – 72 GONE) CD (UPC: 600385220521 – CDCOLEMLast) JOHN WESLEY COLEMAN “Last Donkey Show” (Goner – 72 GONE) LP (UPC: 600385220514 – LPCOLEMLast) ***The Last Donkey Show is the latest album from everyone’s favorite freaky Texas troubadour JOHN WESLEY COLEMAN. While Coleman’s particular madman swerve still recalls Doug Sahm and Roky Erickson, this collection covers more territory than his earlier work. Does this mean the half-mad misfit has grown up? Not quite-but the songwriting chops are all there, from carney kookiness to fuzz rockers to barstool tearjerkers to dustbowl pop. In his own words: “That’s right. My new album is called The Last Donkey Show. It is a fucking roller-coaster recorded in Oakland, California, at GREG ASHLEY’s studio The Creamery and also in the country near Lockhardt, Texas, at my good buddy’s childhood home. AARON BLOUNT is his name. He is a bad-ass songwriter friend of mine. We ate BBQ all day and shot BB guns and had a bonfire. There is a cast of characters on this record… It’s a floodgate of memories. Every song has a crazy story. I will tell them to you some time. The donkey is a symbol of hard work, humor and death. I love it! See you at town near you. Eat Gus’s Fried Chicken!” Vinyl includes digital download. *JOHN WESLEY COLEMAN III “Bad Lady Goes to Jail” (Goner – 62 GONE) CD (UPC: 600385204729) *JOHN WESLEY COLEMAN III “Bad Lady Goes to Jail” (Goner – 62 GONE) LP (UPC: 600385204712) *JOHN WESLEY COLEMAN III / FOLLOWED BY STATIC “Split” (Way Out There – LPCOLEMFOLL) 12″ *JOHN WESLEY COLEMAN III / TIMMY’S ORGANISM “Split” (Goner – 70 GONE) 7″ PALLBEARER “Sorrow and Extinction” (Profound Lore – PFL 089) CD (UPC: 616892015048 – CDPALLBSorr) ***Never before has a band generated such a huge buzz on the strength of a single demo release. With only a three-song self-released cassette to their name, Little Rock, Arkansas’s PALLBEARER have risen through the ranks of the doom metal scene with unprecedented speed. The group’s sound recalls classic traditional heavy metal, taking cues not only from legendary doom bands like Candlemass, Trouble and Warning, but also from ’70s prog and hard rock. Sorrow and Extinction is Pallbearer’s much-anticipated proper debut album and it surpasses all expectations. Powerful melodies counterbalance epic, somber passages of gloom, and the soaring vocals from frontman BRETT CAMPBELL sound eerily like a young Ozzy Osbourne in his prime. Undoubtedly, Sorrow and Extinction will throw the young four-piece right into the spotlight as one of America’s mightiest doom metal acts. No exports to Canada or the UK/Europe.
New & Upcoming Releases 2/21/12
Lakeshore’s Alternativemusic.com New & Upcoming Release list 2/21/12 If you see anything you’re interested in or have any questions about anything you see listed please email us at Marta@Alternativemusic.com For up to the minute new music information follow us on Facebook . Looking to hear something new? Take a listen to the Alternativemusic.com podcast with shop owner Andrew Chinnici and noted music critic Rob Roberts.
Brand New – Street Date 2/21/2012
TALK TALK “Laughing Stock” (Ba Da Bing – BING 074) LP (UPC: 600197007419) ***BACK IN PRINT – LIMITED QUANTITIES AVAILABLE!!! FIELD MUSIC “Plumb” (Memphis Industries – MI 0208) LP (UPC: 655035017419 – LPFIELDPlum) FIELD MUSIC “Plumb” (Memphis Industries – MI 0208) CD (UPC: 655035017426 – CDFIELDPlum) ***NOW AVAILABLE ON VINYL!!! FIELD MUSIC’s fourth full-length, Plumb, was recorded throughout 2011 at the band’s new studio on the banks of the river Wear in Sunderland. Largely abandoning the “classic” songwriting conventions embraced on 2010′s Measure, PETER and DAVID BREWIS remodel the modular, fragmented style of their first two albums, only now it’s shot through with the surreal abstractions of 20th-century film music from Bernstein to Willy Wonka and the off-beam funk and pristine synth-rock developed on the brothers’ School of Language and The Week That Was albums. Plumb digs into the age-old dichotomy between what is reflective or nostalgic and the disorienting immediacy of the outside world. Whether the angle is personal or political, throughout the record there are allusions to the expectations and obligations we all amass. No exports outside North America. HOWLIN RAIN “Russian Wilds” (Birdman – BMR 126) DBL.LP (UPC: 607287012612 – LPHOWLIRuss) ***HOWLIN RAIN emerged in 2004 from the incendiary embers of San Francisco’s underground noise-psych legends COMETS ON FIRE. A rag-tag trio of soulful chooglin’ and fuzz-box triumph, the band forged their own trails into the Cosmic California sound with their 2006 self-titled debut on Birdman Records. Within a year, just before the release of their second album, Magnificent Fiend, producer RICK RUBIN signed them to his American Recordings label. Between 2006 and 2009, the group toured the US and Europe extensively with The Black Crowes, Queens of The Stone Age, Black Mountain and Mudhoney-not to mention legends and Howlin Rain faves Terry Reid and Roky Erickson. Under Rubin’s guidance, The Russian Wilds took nearly three years to complete, and the long, strange trip is engrained in every moment of its 61-minute rock ‘n’ roll journey. Frontman ETHAN MILLER delivers literary-lyrical meditations on loss, sorrow and redemption above a dynamic din of deep grooves, soaring harmonies and blazing fuzz guitars, and the album’s breadth and scope recalls great, sprawling albums of the late ’60s and ’70s. At once bombastic and ethereal, The Russian Wilds stands on its own dark mountain in today’s musical landscape. Double-LP with an etching on side four; includes digital download card. *HOWLIN RAIN “Good Life” (Birdman – BMR 124) 12″ (UPC: 607287012414) *HOWLIN RAIN “s/t” (Birdman – BMR 090) CD (UPC: 607287009025) HIGH DEPENDENCY UNIT “Metamathics” (Flying Nun – FNCD 519) CD (UPC: 5052498917624 – CDHIGH Meta) ***It has been nearly two decades since HIGH DEPENDENCY UNIT’s music first reverberated from a drafty warehouse practice space in Dunedin. Their sound is an abrasive wall of rock punctuated with serene, expansive moments reminiscent of krautrock, electronica and film soundtracks. Originally released on Freak the Sheep Records in 2003, Metamathics showcases stunning aural landscapes built from a solid foundation of damaged guitar riffs and breathtaking dynamics. From the expansive “Tunguska” to the stark beauty of album closer “Wish We Were Here,” the secret of Metamathics lies in affording each element the proper level of care and distinction to create a mesmerizing whole. The band recently reformed for a series of New Zealand shows as part of Flying Nun’s 30th anniversary celebrations. Includes a free digital download of six remixes by a selection of New Zealand artists. Limited vinyl edition forthcoming. No exports to Australia/NZ or Japan.
The Smashing Pumpkins – Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness (1995)
In the days of vinyl only you knew you’d only be subjected to 85 minutes or so of music on a double album and usually a lot less. But with each CD now capable of holding around 75 minutes of music, the term "double album" has taken on a whole new meaning. Most double albums in the CD age I have are extended editions where the second CD is a bonus of off-cuts, remixes, b-sides, demos and the like. But at over two hours long Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness is your full-blown throw-everything-in-there-including-the-kitchen-sink album. Even contemplating it is a struggle.
For every adjective you can throw at this album in a positive light, you can find another – its complete opposite – waiting to ambush you. At the same time this album is ambitious and overblown; subtle and bombastic; restrained and pompous; soaring and turgid; self-contained and florid; thoughtful and pretentious; artful and arty. At the root of it all lies Billy Corgan’s inability to recognise that he did not have the capacity to rise above average and mediocre.
The breadth of conception is vast, but the result is ultimately a disappointment. The conception is simply too huge for someone of Corgan’s limitations to take on with any success. It is alright having vision, but if you can’t get out of your prison cell, what’s the point in planning your holiday on the beach. This is what happens when you try to get a bunch of pub rockers to play opera. As a musical vision, it simply doesn’t work.
The Smashing Pumpkins seem to have adopted the principle that if they try everything in the course of the album, then there will something, no matter how small, in it for everyone. That is a pretty poor philosophy on which to base two hours of music. Therefore you get a mixture of pleasant pianos which go nowhere ("Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness"); simple hooklines which nonetheless fail to catch you ("Zero"); stupid pub chants ("We Only Come out at Night"); and tuggers of emotional heartstrings ("Tonight, Tonight"). But in the end, it doesn’t deliver. And by the time you reach "Farwell and Goodnight" the overwhelming sensation is one of relief.
It is not all bad, but to find the pearl amongst the swine you have to look long and hard, and ensure that you take it out of context in able to appreciate it. Songs such as "Tonight Tonight" and (surprisingly) "Porcelina of the Vast Ocean" actually stand on their own merit. But, like a rose in a sewer, whose fragrance is only special when you remove it from the environment in which you found it, the individual songs can only be truly appreciated when they are listened to as separate entities apart from the rest of the album.
(Virgin 1995)
Reviewed on 2012-02-03 04:17:08 by Charles Martel
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