2K7 in Review: Music, part 3
Another week, another playlist of 2007 music, this one representing eleven different nations. The next one will reflect my top 10, and you can expect to see looks back at movies and concerts in the forseeable future. Finally, there is my 12th and final recipe, and I have a couple of interviews I've been meaning to post for you. For now, sit back and enjoy the tunes, go see "Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story," catch up on X-Entertainment's 2007 Advent Calendar (now with video content!) and try not to kill your relatives. Remember the reason for the season: booze!
1. Every Time I Die, "Imitation Is the Sincerest Form of Battery" The Big Dirty (Ferret) - The only band truly suited to both Ozzfest and Warped Tour, the sardonic New York quintet cranked out a real corker with their fourth album, bettering their previous jammin' platter. Whereas most "post-hardcore" sounds like plain old rock music to me, these dudes should be the standard for the term, since they actually use hardcore as a base camp for exploring bluesy Southern riffs and thrash metal's rhythmic hooks. Every Time I Die kicks like a mule on PCP on this cranky closing tune, vocalist Keith Buckley approaching tunefulness on the chorus but otherwise matching the music's sleazy peril by shrieking his series of catty lyrical jabs with PBR-fueled vitriol.
2. Sigh, "In Devil's Arms" Hangman's Hymn: Musikalische Exequien (The End) - Japan's most batshit insane metal band has released its first album for my favorite American record label, a shockingly "proper" blend of symphonic black/thrash. Yet the memorability with which the band imbues its unusual concoctions elevates the well-mixed Hangman's Hymn over thousands of generic Dimmu Borgir worshippers, its strange shifts and juxtapositions built seamlessly into songs that would stick with you regardless of the bells and whistles and handclaps, confidently maintaining Sigh's spot as Asia's most fascinating metal act. This particular rocker's fastened to a catchy framework of classic metal, punctuated with Mirai Kawashima's increasingly Muppet-like howl, every pompous swell of synth horns propelling Shinichi Ishikawa's rabid riffs further into the Technicolor darkness.
3. The Octopus Project, "Ghost Moves" Hello, Avalanche (Peek-A-Boo) - I can't tell the difference between "indietronica" and "jamtronica" except who goes to each type of show. But as more acts become proficient in blending electronic dance music with live instrumentation, Austin trio The Octopus Project leads the pack with an intriguing blend of rhythm and melody. Their third proper LP contains their least ponderous work to date, sure to get all sorts of crowds moving to their shifty beats, squalling guitars and swooning theremin. The song at hand, like many of their tunes, follows the ebb-and-flow template of most instrumental post-rockers, but gets its point across in much less time.
4. Novembre, "Bluecracy" The Blue (Peaceville) - Here's an Italian outfit I've meant to check out forever, as they're often mentioned in the same breath as some of my favorite current bands - all of which have incidentally been at one point signed to the same British label that represents Novembre. Here's a typical number that combines the stately shoegazer misery of Katatonia, the mellow/harsh meanderings of Opeth and the sprawling spacescapes of Anathema into a complex, moody haze. While not as immediate, their artsy goth/prog metal forges its own identity by eschewing the overtly poppy elements of those giants. The Blue is Novembre's seventh album, so I've got some catching up to do once its forlorn intricacies have soaked into my brain.
5. Helloween, "See the Night" Gambling With the Devil (SPV) - The godfathers of German power metal have endured plenty of ups and downs, but happily the twelfth full-length to bear the Helloween name is the best in some time. Diversity has long been the key to my continued interest in them, and once freed from the burden of average anthems that hampered their last effort and the largely idiotic lyrics of the one before it, they've come up with a wide range of bracing melodies that service smarter tunes. In typical Helloween fashion, even the B-sides are A-material, and the song I've offered is actually a bonus track of uncredited authorship. This cautionary tale is verbally reminiscent of early Helloween "dude out of control" songs like "Victim of Fate" or "Starlight," and once the chorus gets in your head, it will never leave.
6. The Automatic Automatic, "Raoul" Not Accepted Anywhere (B-Unique/Columbia) - A Welsh dance-punk group hyped to bejeezus in the UK, these guys are actually called The Automatic everywhere except in North America, where another band apparently owns the name. I was shocked at how often I popped in their debut album this summer, as this is not typically "my thing," but I have to admit it's super catchy. Robin Hawkins' vocals lack range and get a little grating over the course of the disc, but they're tempered by screamy background vocals (reminiscent of Tokyo Police Club), bouncy keyboards and pleasingly anthemic choruses. Although Accepted actually came out in '06, the stupidly infectious "Raoul" is one of two tracks the band re-recorded in early 2007 and included on the American version - so it's technically from this year.
7. Finntroll, "Korpens Saga" Ur Jordens Djup (Century Media) - Perhaps the world's most famous folk metal act, the boozers of Finntroll delivered their most professional record yet in Ur Jordens Djup ("From the Depths of the Earth"). While their delightful blend of extreme metal and traditional Finnish humppa is still intact, a heavier production, brooding compositions and Henri Sorvali's cinematic keyboards make it sound more serious than ever before. These slight shifts might serve to sell them to the general metal audience who previously wrote them off as pure goofs, but that's not to say Finntroll does not remain incredibly fun. Just try to sit still while listening to this boisterous rager, which of course goes down even better after a few brews.
8. Grayskul, "The Last Lullaby" Bloody Radio (Rhymesayers) - With the coolest '80s-toy-inspired hip-hop handle next to Optimus Rhyme, Seattle duo Grayskul conjures images of skeleton-faced fortresses piercing purple skies with more than their name. Most of the tracks on their second album are steeped in the mysterious, melodic tradition of serious rap, and MCs JFK and Onry Ozzborn drop so much dark imagery into their ultimately positive-minded rhymes that it ends up like an intellectual twist on horrorcore (gothcore?). Bloody Radio's replay value is high due to the variety offered under that aegis, allowing tricks such as the Kanye-style sped-up soul sample on this understated creeper to blend into the shadowy whole.
9. Tegan & Sara, "Like O, Like H" The Con (Sire) - Canadian twin sisters Tegan and Sara Quin used to be a regular folk-pop duo, but at this point they've got a cool mix of detailed tunefulness and nervous energy going on. Their fifth LP walks the mature pop line between exuberance and disillusion, the former felt in the music, the latter in the lyrics as well as the album title. I think I like Sara's voice better, as her stridence is a bit more characteristic and cuts more cleanly through the obsessively arranged tracks. Here's one of hers, edgily catchy in a way that fleshes out her sister's simpler numbers, giving the album a far more sumptuous and satisfying sheen than your average lightweight grrl-pop confection.
10. Mael Mórdha, "Atlas of Sorrow" Gealtacht Mael Mórdha (Grau) - One of several international acts the second Heathen Crusade introduced me to, this melancholy Irish quintet plays what they refer to as "Gaelic doom metal." These guys blend Irish folk influences with metal with more success than many, sticking to laments rather than spoiling the obsidian mood with happy-sounding jigs. Plenty of traditional instruments factor into their sound, which often reminds me of their mighty countrymen Primordial's early material, but slower and with no growly vocals. Mael Mórdha does not remain at a snail's pace, building to furious crescendos as heard in this mammoth opening track.
11. Dublin Death Patrol, "Trail of the Executioner" DDP 4 Life (Godfodder) - Dublin Death Patrol is not another Irish group, but a project by a bunch of old dudes who grew up in the East Bay burb of Dublin, California. Guitarist Phil Demmel (Vio-Lence) and bassist Willy Lange (Lääz Rockit) are the only "name" players except for the vocalists: grizzled Chuck Billy of Testament fame and gremlin-voiced Steve "Zetro" Souza, who was Exodus' screecher during their prime MTV years as well as Testament's original vocalist back when they were still called Legacy. If all this impresses you, then check out the disc, but know that it's not the raging thrash feast you'd want from the dudes who hollered on The Gathering and Tempo of the Damned. Outside of a bunch of cover songs, this totally '80s-style job is their most memorable number; most of it just sounds like old friends having fun, which is cool for them but does not make a bona fide classic.
12. Okkervil River, "You Can't Hold the Hand of a Rock and Roll Man" The Stage Names (Jagjaguwar) - Folky indie rockers Okkervil River fill their songs with dense lyrics and musical ideas. This is hardly a novelty in their milieu, but while obvious intellectualism tints the songs, it doesn't drag them into dullsville. Okkervil River's rootsy affectations also lend a warmth to their fourth album, cozy tones caressing the starry-eyed and sarcastic verbiage of a concept record about losing oneself among the wreckage of popular culture, tossed off by bandleader Will Sheff with a sort of nervous nonchalance. This is a pleasant enough tune, but pay attention to the words, which paint a far darker picture than the carefree pop melody they accompany.
13. They Might Be Giants, "Upside Down Frown" The Else (Idlewild/Zoë) - LP number 12 for Brooklyn's Ambassadors of Love doesn't disappoint the die-hards. Likely due to production assistance from the Dust Brothers, there's a lot more electronic influence to be heard here, not something John and John have ignored in the past but also not something they've utilized to this degree. Elsewhere, there are some surprisingly good Big Rockers (not always their strong suit), and a few off-kilter diversions as expected, all delivered with consummate musicianship and enough production detail to justify the somewhat sterile studio sound TMBG has utilized for their recent recordings. Some of the tunes are real growers, but this zippy little masterpiece voiced by John Linnell grabbed me right away. It's what they've always done best: brief, clever, quirky and infectiously melodic.
14. Darkest Hour, "Tunguska" Deliver Us (Victory) - By 2007, melodic death metal seems as old as Methuselah to me. There's nothing a band can do today that's going to blow away the old Swedish greats, especially a bunch of shorthairs from D.C. That said, Darkest Hour do a bang-up job with the style, bringing in some variety from modern American metal but not totally falling in line with that crowd. For instance, they don't slow their momentum with endless hardcore breakdowns, preferring traditional metal interludes to redundant bludgeoning. Sure, you get some so-so clean vocals and some familiar riffing, but tell me that this, the longest tune on their latest album, doesn't crackle with genuine metal enthusiasm.
15. Epica, "Beyond Belief" The Divine Conspiracy (Nuclear Blast) - I'm glad to report that Dutch prog metallers Epica didn't wimp out now that they've got better international representation. Unlike many metal bands featuring an attractive young female vocalist, they're not letting that be their defining characteristic, and while Simone Simons is as lovely as ever, the band's intricate symphonic stylings rely heavily on her bandmates for twists and turns. Guitarist Mark Jansen, formerly of After Forever, maintains the balance of light and heavy, simple and tricky, pretty and powerful that his previous band embodied until he departed. This track from their third proper album trades fretboard fireworks for memorability, but is more lively than their ethereal ballads.
16. 65daysofstatic, "These Things You Can't Unlearn" The Destruction of Small Ideas (Monotreme) - This British quartet has gotten a lot of hype across the pond. The Cure hand-picked 65daysofstatic to open their North American tour in the spring, so be prepared to hear more about them here. Their third album is my first exposure, and I find their electro/post-rock hybrid a cut above simply due to the tone and volume of their guitars, which as you can hear can often be described as genuinely metal. Tricky guitar wrangling is complemented by busy electronic beats and equally crazy live drums, with no cruddy singing to interrupt the flowing squalls or pastoral ambient interludes. The fuzzy, amorphous mass of sound these cats conjure is truly mesmerizing.
17. Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings, "Keep On Looking" 100 Days, 100 Nights (Daptone) - You say you want fresh soul tunes done the way you hear them on the oldies channel? The third album by Brooklyn's Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings will rock your ass, because they play rhythm and blues with funky live rhythms and actual blues influence. Last year, the Dap-Kings played on most of Amy Winehouse's big hit album, and they backed her on a trainwreck she called a "U.S. tour," although the relative lack of hullabaloo over their contribution says a lot about the American record biz. No matter, because Jones is a far more authentic vintage soul belter than the Rehab Queen, as on songs like this she pours out her heart with jaded but still hopeful resolve.
18. Vintersorg, "Perfektionisten" Solens Rötter (Napalm) - "Nordic Folk Metal Comeback of the Year!" hollers the sticker on the cover. I certainly wouldn't go that far, but Andreas Hedlund has indeed gone back to the earlier days of his Vintersorg project, at least in part. Solens Rötter ("The Roots of the Sun") is the first Vintersorg album sung entirely in Swedish since 1999's brilliant Ödemarkens Son. The folky focus of his early discs appears here and there, very strongly in this track. But it's not entirely a throwback to Vintersorg's cosmic forest pagan days, because he melds the tuneful acoustics with the hermetically sealed prog rhythms of his recent albums. It's a good combination, but it doesn't completely gel over the course of the disc. I get the feeling that if he keeps tinkering with this hybrid, Hedlund's next disc will blow this one away.
19. Megadeth, "Washington is Next!" United Abominations (Roadrunner) - I never would have expected fucking Megadeth to make my also-rans this year, considering I lost interest in Dave Mustaine's musical endeavors more than decade ago. Yet, after much floundering, melodrama and bull-fucking-shit, Dave hired half of Eidolon and the old bassist from White Lion and delivered a pretty decent album. UA is at least as good as the mid-era Megadeth albums (the ones that sold a lot but didn't suck as bad as Metallica's sell-out tunes), having bettered 2004's The System Has Failed, which was in turn a huge improvement on 2001's The World Needs a Hero and the radio crap he was peddling for the half-decade before it. This melodic, paranoid anti-government rocker tastes a little Maiden-y, and it actually picks up into a thrash metal rhythm during the solo section. It could be - and has been - a lot worse.
20. Ween, "Your Party" La Cucaracha (Rounder) - We close with the final track from Ween's ninth proper LP, a fitting send-off for these days of soirées. Despite their reputation as a novelty/jam bandleaders, Dean and Gene have more going for them than a wicked sense of humor and instrumental endurance. They're great tunesmiths in a variety of styles, which remains evident on La Cucaracha's forays into trip-pop, Eurodance, hillbilly folk, dub, psychedelia, asshole rawk, folk, prog and, on this gem, smooth jazz-flavored adult contemporary. Hey, Gener himself told me that they're big Steely Dan fans, so I guess this is sort of a tribute, with David Sanborn on sax and hysterical lyrics to boot.
1. Every Time I Die, "Imitation Is the Sincerest Form of Battery" The Big Dirty (Ferret) - The only band truly suited to both Ozzfest and Warped Tour, the sardonic New York quintet cranked out a real corker with their fourth album, bettering their previous jammin' platter. Whereas most "post-hardcore" sounds like plain old rock music to me, these dudes should be the standard for the term, since they actually use hardcore as a base camp for exploring bluesy Southern riffs and thrash metal's rhythmic hooks. Every Time I Die kicks like a mule on PCP on this cranky closing tune, vocalist Keith Buckley approaching tunefulness on the chorus but otherwise matching the music's sleazy peril by shrieking his series of catty lyrical jabs with PBR-fueled vitriol.2. Sigh, "In Devil's Arms" Hangman's Hymn: Musikalische Exequien (The End) - Japan's most batshit insane metal band has released its first album for my favorite American record label, a shockingly "proper" blend of symphonic black/thrash. Yet the memorability with which the band imbues its unusual concoctions elevates the well-mixed Hangman's Hymn over thousands of generic Dimmu Borgir worshippers, its strange shifts and juxtapositions built seamlessly into songs that would stick with you regardless of the bells and whistles and handclaps, confidently maintaining Sigh's spot as Asia's most fascinating metal act. This particular rocker's fastened to a catchy framework of classic metal, punctuated with Mirai Kawashima's increasingly Muppet-like howl, every pompous swell of synth horns propelling Shinichi Ishikawa's rabid riffs further into the Technicolor darkness.
3. The Octopus Project, "Ghost Moves" Hello, Avalanche (Peek-A-Boo) - I can't tell the difference between "indietronica" and "jamtronica" except who goes to each type of show. But as more acts become proficient in blending electronic dance music with live instrumentation, Austin trio The Octopus Project leads the pack with an intriguing blend of rhythm and melody. Their third proper LP contains their least ponderous work to date, sure to get all sorts of crowds moving to their shifty beats, squalling guitars and swooning theremin. The song at hand, like many of their tunes, follows the ebb-and-flow template of most instrumental post-rockers, but gets its point across in much less time.
4. Novembre, "Bluecracy" The Blue (Peaceville) - Here's an Italian outfit I've meant to check out forever, as they're often mentioned in the same breath as some of my favorite current bands - all of which have incidentally been at one point signed to the same British label that represents Novembre. Here's a typical number that combines the stately shoegazer misery of Katatonia, the mellow/harsh meanderings of Opeth and the sprawling spacescapes of Anathema into a complex, moody haze. While not as immediate, their artsy goth/prog metal forges its own identity by eschewing the overtly poppy elements of those giants. The Blue is Novembre's seventh album, so I've got some catching up to do once its forlorn intricacies have soaked into my brain.
5. Helloween, "See the Night" Gambling With the Devil (SPV) - The godfathers of German power metal have endured plenty of ups and downs, but happily the twelfth full-length to bear the Helloween name is the best in some time. Diversity has long been the key to my continued interest in them, and once freed from the burden of average anthems that hampered their last effort and the largely idiotic lyrics of the one before it, they've come up with a wide range of bracing melodies that service smarter tunes. In typical Helloween fashion, even the B-sides are A-material, and the song I've offered is actually a bonus track of uncredited authorship. This cautionary tale is verbally reminiscent of early Helloween "dude out of control" songs like "Victim of Fate" or "Starlight," and once the chorus gets in your head, it will never leave.
6. The Automatic Automatic, "Raoul" Not Accepted Anywhere (B-Unique/Columbia) - A Welsh dance-punk group hyped to bejeezus in the UK, these guys are actually called The Automatic everywhere except in North America, where another band apparently owns the name. I was shocked at how often I popped in their debut album this summer, as this is not typically "my thing," but I have to admit it's super catchy. Robin Hawkins' vocals lack range and get a little grating over the course of the disc, but they're tempered by screamy background vocals (reminiscent of Tokyo Police Club), bouncy keyboards and pleasingly anthemic choruses. Although Accepted actually came out in '06, the stupidly infectious "Raoul" is one of two tracks the band re-recorded in early 2007 and included on the American version - so it's technically from this year.
7. Finntroll, "Korpens Saga" Ur Jordens Djup (Century Media) - Perhaps the world's most famous folk metal act, the boozers of Finntroll delivered their most professional record yet in Ur Jordens Djup ("From the Depths of the Earth"). While their delightful blend of extreme metal and traditional Finnish humppa is still intact, a heavier production, brooding compositions and Henri Sorvali's cinematic keyboards make it sound more serious than ever before. These slight shifts might serve to sell them to the general metal audience who previously wrote them off as pure goofs, but that's not to say Finntroll does not remain incredibly fun. Just try to sit still while listening to this boisterous rager, which of course goes down even better after a few brews.
8. Grayskul, "The Last Lullaby" Bloody Radio (Rhymesayers) - With the coolest '80s-toy-inspired hip-hop handle next to Optimus Rhyme, Seattle duo Grayskul conjures images of skeleton-faced fortresses piercing purple skies with more than their name. Most of the tracks on their second album are steeped in the mysterious, melodic tradition of serious rap, and MCs JFK and Onry Ozzborn drop so much dark imagery into their ultimately positive-minded rhymes that it ends up like an intellectual twist on horrorcore (gothcore?). Bloody Radio's replay value is high due to the variety offered under that aegis, allowing tricks such as the Kanye-style sped-up soul sample on this understated creeper to blend into the shadowy whole.
9. Tegan & Sara, "Like O, Like H" The Con (Sire) - Canadian twin sisters Tegan and Sara Quin used to be a regular folk-pop duo, but at this point they've got a cool mix of detailed tunefulness and nervous energy going on. Their fifth LP walks the mature pop line between exuberance and disillusion, the former felt in the music, the latter in the lyrics as well as the album title. I think I like Sara's voice better, as her stridence is a bit more characteristic and cuts more cleanly through the obsessively arranged tracks. Here's one of hers, edgily catchy in a way that fleshes out her sister's simpler numbers, giving the album a far more sumptuous and satisfying sheen than your average lightweight grrl-pop confection.
10. Mael Mórdha, "Atlas of Sorrow" Gealtacht Mael Mórdha (Grau) - One of several international acts the second Heathen Crusade introduced me to, this melancholy Irish quintet plays what they refer to as "Gaelic doom metal." These guys blend Irish folk influences with metal with more success than many, sticking to laments rather than spoiling the obsidian mood with happy-sounding jigs. Plenty of traditional instruments factor into their sound, which often reminds me of their mighty countrymen Primordial's early material, but slower and with no growly vocals. Mael Mórdha does not remain at a snail's pace, building to furious crescendos as heard in this mammoth opening track.
11. Dublin Death Patrol, "Trail of the Executioner" DDP 4 Life (Godfodder) - Dublin Death Patrol is not another Irish group, but a project by a bunch of old dudes who grew up in the East Bay burb of Dublin, California. Guitarist Phil Demmel (Vio-Lence) and bassist Willy Lange (Lääz Rockit) are the only "name" players except for the vocalists: grizzled Chuck Billy of Testament fame and gremlin-voiced Steve "Zetro" Souza, who was Exodus' screecher during their prime MTV years as well as Testament's original vocalist back when they were still called Legacy. If all this impresses you, then check out the disc, but know that it's not the raging thrash feast you'd want from the dudes who hollered on The Gathering and Tempo of the Damned. Outside of a bunch of cover songs, this totally '80s-style job is their most memorable number; most of it just sounds like old friends having fun, which is cool for them but does not make a bona fide classic.
12. Okkervil River, "You Can't Hold the Hand of a Rock and Roll Man" The Stage Names (Jagjaguwar) - Folky indie rockers Okkervil River fill their songs with dense lyrics and musical ideas. This is hardly a novelty in their milieu, but while obvious intellectualism tints the songs, it doesn't drag them into dullsville. Okkervil River's rootsy affectations also lend a warmth to their fourth album, cozy tones caressing the starry-eyed and sarcastic verbiage of a concept record about losing oneself among the wreckage of popular culture, tossed off by bandleader Will Sheff with a sort of nervous nonchalance. This is a pleasant enough tune, but pay attention to the words, which paint a far darker picture than the carefree pop melody they accompany.
13. They Might Be Giants, "Upside Down Frown" The Else (Idlewild/Zoë) - LP number 12 for Brooklyn's Ambassadors of Love doesn't disappoint the die-hards. Likely due to production assistance from the Dust Brothers, there's a lot more electronic influence to be heard here, not something John and John have ignored in the past but also not something they've utilized to this degree. Elsewhere, there are some surprisingly good Big Rockers (not always their strong suit), and a few off-kilter diversions as expected, all delivered with consummate musicianship and enough production detail to justify the somewhat sterile studio sound TMBG has utilized for their recent recordings. Some of the tunes are real growers, but this zippy little masterpiece voiced by John Linnell grabbed me right away. It's what they've always done best: brief, clever, quirky and infectiously melodic.
14. Darkest Hour, "Tunguska" Deliver Us (Victory) - By 2007, melodic death metal seems as old as Methuselah to me. There's nothing a band can do today that's going to blow away the old Swedish greats, especially a bunch of shorthairs from D.C. That said, Darkest Hour do a bang-up job with the style, bringing in some variety from modern American metal but not totally falling in line with that crowd. For instance, they don't slow their momentum with endless hardcore breakdowns, preferring traditional metal interludes to redundant bludgeoning. Sure, you get some so-so clean vocals and some familiar riffing, but tell me that this, the longest tune on their latest album, doesn't crackle with genuine metal enthusiasm.
15. Epica, "Beyond Belief" The Divine Conspiracy (Nuclear Blast) - I'm glad to report that Dutch prog metallers Epica didn't wimp out now that they've got better international representation. Unlike many metal bands featuring an attractive young female vocalist, they're not letting that be their defining characteristic, and while Simone Simons is as lovely as ever, the band's intricate symphonic stylings rely heavily on her bandmates for twists and turns. Guitarist Mark Jansen, formerly of After Forever, maintains the balance of light and heavy, simple and tricky, pretty and powerful that his previous band embodied until he departed. This track from their third proper album trades fretboard fireworks for memorability, but is more lively than their ethereal ballads.
16. 65daysofstatic, "These Things You Can't Unlearn" The Destruction of Small Ideas (Monotreme) - This British quartet has gotten a lot of hype across the pond. The Cure hand-picked 65daysofstatic to open their North American tour in the spring, so be prepared to hear more about them here. Their third album is my first exposure, and I find their electro/post-rock hybrid a cut above simply due to the tone and volume of their guitars, which as you can hear can often be described as genuinely metal. Tricky guitar wrangling is complemented by busy electronic beats and equally crazy live drums, with no cruddy singing to interrupt the flowing squalls or pastoral ambient interludes. The fuzzy, amorphous mass of sound these cats conjure is truly mesmerizing.
17. Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings, "Keep On Looking" 100 Days, 100 Nights (Daptone) - You say you want fresh soul tunes done the way you hear them on the oldies channel? The third album by Brooklyn's Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings will rock your ass, because they play rhythm and blues with funky live rhythms and actual blues influence. Last year, the Dap-Kings played on most of Amy Winehouse's big hit album, and they backed her on a trainwreck she called a "U.S. tour," although the relative lack of hullabaloo over their contribution says a lot about the American record biz. No matter, because Jones is a far more authentic vintage soul belter than the Rehab Queen, as on songs like this she pours out her heart with jaded but still hopeful resolve.
18. Vintersorg, "Perfektionisten" Solens Rötter (Napalm) - "Nordic Folk Metal Comeback of the Year!" hollers the sticker on the cover. I certainly wouldn't go that far, but Andreas Hedlund has indeed gone back to the earlier days of his Vintersorg project, at least in part. Solens Rötter ("The Roots of the Sun") is the first Vintersorg album sung entirely in Swedish since 1999's brilliant Ödemarkens Son. The folky focus of his early discs appears here and there, very strongly in this track. But it's not entirely a throwback to Vintersorg's cosmic forest pagan days, because he melds the tuneful acoustics with the hermetically sealed prog rhythms of his recent albums. It's a good combination, but it doesn't completely gel over the course of the disc. I get the feeling that if he keeps tinkering with this hybrid, Hedlund's next disc will blow this one away.
19. Megadeth, "Washington is Next!" United Abominations (Roadrunner) - I never would have expected fucking Megadeth to make my also-rans this year, considering I lost interest in Dave Mustaine's musical endeavors more than decade ago. Yet, after much floundering, melodrama and bull-fucking-shit, Dave hired half of Eidolon and the old bassist from White Lion and delivered a pretty decent album. UA is at least as good as the mid-era Megadeth albums (the ones that sold a lot but didn't suck as bad as Metallica's sell-out tunes), having bettered 2004's The System Has Failed, which was in turn a huge improvement on 2001's The World Needs a Hero and the radio crap he was peddling for the half-decade before it. This melodic, paranoid anti-government rocker tastes a little Maiden-y, and it actually picks up into a thrash metal rhythm during the solo section. It could be - and has been - a lot worse.
20. Ween, "Your Party" La Cucaracha (Rounder) - We close with the final track from Ween's ninth proper LP, a fitting send-off for these days of soirées. Despite their reputation as a novelty/jam bandleaders, Dean and Gene have more going for them than a wicked sense of humor and instrumental endurance. They're great tunesmiths in a variety of styles, which remains evident on La Cucaracha's forays into trip-pop, Eurodance, hillbilly folk, dub, psychedelia, asshole rawk, folk, prog and, on this gem, smooth jazz-flavored adult contemporary. Hey, Gener himself told me that they're big Steely Dan fans, so I guess this is sort of a tribute, with David Sanborn on sax and hysterical lyrics to boot.
posted by SoulReaper at 5:40 PM
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Stars make "Walk Hard" sing
Although it tells the tale of a fictional singing star, "Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story" doesn't just lampoon movie biographies of iconic musicians. The movie punctures pretensions of all cinematic attempts to boil down a famous person's life.
As written by Judd Apatow ("Knocked Up," "The 40 Year-Old Virgin") and director Jake Kasdan (who, like Apatow, worked on the cult TV classic "Freaks & Geeks"), "Walk Hard" never takes itself too seriously. It knows it's a farce, and it thankfully undermines both the gaudy sentiment and predictable "big moments" of such musical biopics as "Walk the Line" and "Ray."
Chicagoan John C. Reilly gives Cox a perfectly dazed fervor as an earnest, if not incredibly bright, young man. His prodigious musical ability magically appears when he's a child, just after he accidentally kills his brother during a machete fight. Dad never forgives him, and whenever Dewey's near, he repeats: "The wrong kid died!"
Eternally seeking his dad's approval, Dewey rises to fame exactly as you'd expect. He leaves home as a teenager with his perpetually pregnant wife, Edith (Kristen Wiig of "Saturday Night Live"). He wins over a tough crowd in an all-black nightclub. He hooks up with a band which includes drummer and pal Sam (Tim Meadows). He convinces an annoyed recording engineer to give him a second chance, and he blows the guy away. His resulting single drives the kids wild.
We follow Cox's ups and downs over the next several decades as he takes cracks at every musical trend along the way. This allows Reilly (doing his own singing) to send up eras including classic country and rock n' roll, proto-punk, hippie folk, art rock, sensitive singer-songwriters and disco.
Things really get crazy for Dewey once Jenna Fischer of TV's "The Office" arrives as his backup singer, Darlene. Although their sexual chemistry is off the charts, she's naturally a traditional Southern girl. The vocalists engage in a tumultuous lifelong relationship which is often threatened by Dewey's wild lifestyle.
Fischer's a masterful partner for Reilly's deadpan delivery, both radiating an "aw shucks" attitude that mixes well with the satirical jabs and crude gags.
Too many "outrageous" comedies remain funny for about an hour, until the filmmakers decide to get serious, or worse, sappy. Here, Kasdan undercuts the inevitable emotional epiphanies by having characters telegraph them, or by otherwise pointing out how uniform the lives of so many great artists tend to appear on film.
Dewey stumbles into a bathroom where Sam is smoking marijuana with some groupies, leading to a great exchange wherein Meadows tries to convince Reilly to stay away but grudgingly shoots down every dope myth the singer brings up. The setup becomes a running joke as Cox undergoes the standard rock star downward spiral, and the film even succeeds at playing the inevitable drug withdrawal scene for laughs.
While Reilly and Fischer prove themselves to be highly watchable leads, the film is packed with cameos by real music folks including Eddie Vedder, Jack White and Ghostface Killah. A quartet of uncredited Apatow pals pops up as the fractious (and self-absorbed) Beatles. Keep an eye out for Fischer's "Office" mates Ed Helms and Craig Robinson in bit parts.
Stunt casting, goofy songs, a psychedelic animated sequence... such gimmickry gives "Walk Hard" a sheen of disposability, which actually works in its favor. If it allowed itself any serious gravity, it wouldn't be as funny as it is.
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