// Category Archive for: Reviews

Stan Ridgway, Neon Mirage

By Matt Keeley

I’ve been a fan of Stan Ridgway for a while—I even like The Way I Feel Today, his Standards album, and I’m one of those people who typically feels that if your name’s not “Harry Nilsson,” you shouldn’t be a pop singer who makes a Standards record. Of course, it helped that Ridgway experimented with the arrangements and song choices (he turned me on to “The Coffee Song,” one you’ve undoubtedly heard but probably can’t think of immediately), rather than just plopping down in front of an orchestra and phoning one in.
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Electric Six, Zodiac

By Less Lee Moore

Since it continues the mythology of the band—self-perpetuation through self-aggrandizing self-deprecation—there’s likely no more appropriate title for the new Electric Six album than Zodiac.

Zodiac is more ambitious than any E6 release since I Shall Exterminate. . ., more structured than Flashy yet more ridiculous than Kill.
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Black Sabbath: The Secret History Of Black-Jewish Relations

By Hanna

The goal of Black Sabbath: The Secret History of Black-Jewish Relations, a compilation released by the Idelsohn Society For Musical Preservation, was to “gather the US history of Black-Jewish relations into a selective pop musical guide.” While a lot has been published about black and Jewish musical influences, there hasn’t been an actual musical guide to Jewish music by black artists, and this is what the Society set out to accomplish.

Of course, it’s slightly less universalist in its approach than that; Black Sabbath focuses on the ’30s through the ’60s, a time of enormous racial oppression for both groups, and also a time when the cultural exchange between the two was especially great. This really shines through in this compilation; for all that it’s only one CD. It is an amazing effort and even more amazing in that it succeeds.
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Buke And Gass, Riposte

By Jimmy Ether

In the few short weeks that I’ve been aware of Buke and Gass, I have become their biggest fan. Seriously. I’ll fight you for that bragging right! Let’s go!

Aron Sanchez and Arone Dyer create a sound—simultaneously backwoods and urbane—which fans some deep, primordial fire in my chest. They are positively . . . explosive. And they make me feel explosive.
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Richard Barone, Glow

By Christian Lipski

Sometimes it’s more difficult to write reviews for material that is sent from the publisher than it is to simply review material that you encounter by chance. The difference is that material from the publisher comes with Marketing Literature attached, to help the recipient understand just how amazing the owners feel the product they’re selling truly is. This assistance can be beneficial to reviewers who are looking for pull quotes or just more information about their decision to like the product.

On the other hand, sometimes the PR machine can try too hard and overshoot its product, making it seem like a comparative failure. In the case of Richard Barone’s fourth solo album Glow, it’s the latter, but not solely due to the press release. Barone himself seems to have either fallen for marketing’s high opinion or encouraged it in the first place. Taken on its own, Glow is a pleasant group of pop songs; a little light, but nice. When sampled after absorbing all the surrounding hype, though, it’s a pretentious pile that falls very short of its self-described ability.
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Hello, Allan!

By John Lane

Collectors’ Choice Music has just released eight out-of-print novelty albums (encompassing the years 1962-1967) by the singular Allan Sherman. Given that the novelty album is an art form now seemingly owned by Weird Al Yankovic, one could be forgiven for not understanding the lineage from whence Weird Al sprang.
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Paul McCartney Really Is Dead: The Last Testament of George Harrison

By Christian Lipski

I took a class on Ancient Roman history once, and slogged my way through the textbook and its dry recounting of the emperors’ lives. Later I discovered Robert Graves’ historical fiction I, Claudius and suddenly the facts came to life. The personalization of the information made it more real to me, and I actually learned more through that book than my class. Presentation can mean a lot, even when the material is lifeless. This is what director Joel Gilbert puts into effect with his film Paul McCartney Really Is Dead: The Last Testament of George Harrison, which gives a living voice to the “Paul is dead” phenomenon.
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Richard Thompson, Dream Attic

By Chelsea Spear

In the early 1990s, British folk music hero Richard Thompson found himself the subject of a surprise revival. While his instrumental and songwriting ability had remained at a consistently high level throughout his career, his signing to Capitol and subsequent MTV success (with “I Feel So Good,” which would later appear as Puck’s unofficial theme on The Real World: San Francisco) brought him a younger, more diverse audience.
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Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan, Hawk

By Noreen Sobczyk

Mark Lanegan and Isobel Campbell are well-known artists, each in their own right, coming from The Screaming Trees and Belle and Sebastian respectively. On their three collaborations thus far, the duo often resembles the lazy, hazy ease of bands such as Mazzy Star or The Cowboy Junkies.

While the Campbell/Lanegan collaborations are often gorgeous, Hawk proves that this formula might have worked best in one concentrated dose—perhaps as one release—instead of being portioned out repeatedly over multiple efforts.
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The Prids, Chronosynclastic

By Jemiah Jefferson

Fully recovered from an intensely bad 2009, the black-clad Portland-based quartet emerges as if from a chrysalis, their sound now fully formed. These days, the Prids have a sound all their own, no longer reminiscent of New Wave pastiche and riffs cribbed from old goth favorites. The Prids are their own group now, with a sound as distinctive and unique as any of their inspirations while allowing enough room to shout out as the mood strikes.
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