And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead - The Secret of Elena's Tomb EP
7.4
This five track EP is essentially a stop-gap release for Trail of Dead, but is useful in that it offers a glimpse into what may lie ahead for the band. The first two tracks "Mach Schau" and "All Saints Day" are steeped in the formula of last year's excellent Source Tags and Codes album (for those unfamiliar with it, think very heavy, very good emo), but the rest offer at least something in the way of a departure. "Crowning of a Heart" is a delightful tune, gentler than anything on Source Tags and Codes, but "Count Off The Days", also a quiet track, is a failure - an uninspired strummer. The EP's best track is the closer "Intelligence", actually a collaboration between Jason Reece and Tyler Jacobsen (A Roman Scandal). "The kids are hopped up now/they are ready to go". The song is an entirely sucessful foray into dance rock, and it's hard to to sing along to even the more banal lyrical passages ("The kids are hopped up now/they are ready to go"). The Secret of Elena's Tomb is not as a good a listen as Source Tags and Codes, but offers a good deal of hope for the future.
Sarah Blasko - Prelusive EP
7.6
Superlatives get thrown around a lot in music reviews. I say if music is good, it deserves to have something intelligent said about it and the gushing adjectives should be saved for the press kit. If a writer can't do that, they're not worthy. I'm not saying I've never gotten lazy before - after all, I described both Audioslave's "Cochise" and David McCormack's "The Inner West" as possessing "Zeppelin-esque riffery", I fell back on the tried and true "snapshot imagery" to describe Stephen Malkmus' lyrical style and some of my descriptions of songs are suspiciously similar to those already printed in other reviews. The fact that such descriptions are obvious enough that anyone could have come up with them independently is all the more reason to avoid them. I aim to avoid all these pitfalls in this review, but first let me cite examples of where others have failed.
"Her rich tone and broad range tickle the ear" - Ahahahahahahha! Stop it! Stop It! Ahahahahahahahaha!
"God-fearing Bjork sound-a-like" - Sarah probably fears being labelled a "Bjork sound-alike" far more than God.
I can't dismiss the Bjork comparison outright. Sarah Blasko's voice has an odd quality that makes that comparison the most obvious one. However, actually hearing that voice and the confidence with which she wields it renders any such comparisons irrelevant. The music is not subservient to the voice, but seems almost moulded around it. To possess such a great voice so early in one's recording career is not as uncommon as possessing such songwriting smarts, but to have both on a debut EP (though Blasko had recorded with other bands) is remarkable. The EP was recorded in Blasko's bedroom, but you'd never know it from the sound. Electronic bleeps blend in seemlessly with excellently captured acoustic guitars, which brings about the inevitable Portishead comparison, but the two elements are always balanced so that no song hinges on the electronic elements or uses them as a pointless garnish.
It's clear from the EP's first three tracks that Blasko may one day be one of Australia's songwriting elite. The JJJ favourite "Your Way" is a love song that lost its way; the music's nightmarish quality doesn't seem to fit the lyrics until you realise that they're not as sweet as they seem. The next track "Will You Ever Know" is equally moody, but more upbeat, driven by a drum machine. However, the second half of the EP demonstrates how Blasko has some way to go before realising her potential. From "Sweet Surrender" onwards, atmosphere takes over from pop smarts, and whilst that track is the only outright failure, "Follow The Sun" and "New Religion" are not as effective as the first three tracks, despite Blasko upping the ante emotionally. Potential is always a great thing to hear in a debut release, and Prelusive is full of it. However, potential is no good without tangible results, and whilst the results here are mixed, they still add up to a highly listenable EP.
Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks - Bonus EP with Pig Lib
7.5
Included as a bonus with Pig Lib, but inexplicably left off Australian copies thus far, this EP is a more relaxed and playful counterpart to its rather stiff companion. The first two tracks, "Dynamic Calories" and "Fractions and Feelings" are pop songs more joyous than anything on Pig Lib, and would have made great substitutes for "Craw Song" and "Vanessa From Queens". I heard the six minute epic "Ol' Jerry" under another title on a bootleg last year, and it filled me with false hope for Pig Lib, and having it here is a consolation of sorts. It should have opened the album in place of the vacuous "Water and a Seat", actually. The last two tracks are live performances of "The Poet and the Witch", originally by British folkies Mellow Candle and an otherwise unreleased number called "Shake It Around". Malkmus stretches his voice a little bit far on the former, but it's great to hear those histrionics, as they're sorely missing from Pig Lib. "Shake It Around" is another epic with multiple changes in time signature. All of this makes me very glad that I forked out for an import copy of Pig Lib (read: I downloaded the extra tracks).
Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks - Pig Lib
6.7
Stephen Malkmus' albums with Pavement and The Jicks have always divided fans. Is Slanted & Enchanted better than Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain? Is Wowee Zowee better than Brighten the Corners? Are Terror Twilight and the first solo album any good? What's curious about Pig Lib is that it's been met not only with disagreement over its quality, but also over what it actually sounds like. Is it a lesser sequel to Malkmus' self-titled solo debut? Is it a hybrid of Crooked Rain pop and Wowee Zowee experimentalism? Is it Malkmus' "mature" album? Your uncle Tom has something else to bring to the party.
Like Badly Drawn Boy's latest album, Pig Lib is an unsucessful attempt to reconcile the genuine with the quirky. Musically, it's a step forward from its predecessor, but at the cost of intimacy and immediacy. The Jicks, quite rightly sharing the billing (as Malkmus wanted to be the case on the first album), are simply too tight a band, and the vaguely prog-ish song structures never push the envelope. "1% of One" is nine minutes long, but only intermitently interesting; ironically, it's about an engineer who fell asleep while mixing this album. "Water and a Seat" is similarly superfluous - a jam for its own sake. Elsewhere, the music itself is more pedestrian. "Ramp of Death" is virtually a solemn rewrite of "Black Out" from Wowee Zowee and "Us" is an attempt to make a sentimental song out of "Folk Jam". "Vanessa From Queens" and "Craw Song" don't have superior predecessors simply because nothing in the Pavement catalogue is comparable to songs so pointless. The latter, in fact, is possibly the most vacuous song Malkmus has ever written, and that's coming from someone who vigorously defended "Discretion Grove" against the same accusation.
Malkmus' lyrics are not so much to blame, but his delivery is as responsible as the over-focused band for sterilising a set of otherwise accomplished tunes. The casual nature of his voice, so effective in its day, is all but gone. Malkmus is trying to assume the mantle of Serious Singer/Songwriter, but he's striving for recognition that he's already got. Any Pavement efficianado will tell you that "Shady Lane" and "Elevate Me Later" are beautifully affecting songs, and that "Grounded" and "Type Slowly" are peerless epics. They might not know what those songs are about, but the lyrics are no less penetrable than anything Pig Lib has to offer. Malkmus sounded more like he meant it when he was trying to sound like he didn't.
Pig Lib is by no means a complete washout. I've found some of Malkmus' supposed throwaways interesting enough to be keepers, and "Sheets" is one of those. Malkmus displays anger, a welcome change on this album, even if the lyrics are somewhat aimless. "Dark Wave" is even better, boasting genuinely scathing lyrics over a backing that is somehow both playful and haunting. Unfortunately, whilst there is joy to be had elsewhere, those two songs are the only ones truly unscathed by Malkmus' intentions, though "Animal Midnight" comes close, marred only by a need for some editing. Pig Lib is the setting of the war between the diminutive angelic and satanic Stephen Malkmuses that hover on either side of the man's head, and "Animal Midnight" is an example of a victory by the former. Unfortunately, ultimate victory belongs to Evil Malkmus, while Good Malkmus merely battles to end out of honour. In his attempt to strip away the perceived irony and distance of his earlier work, Malkmus has made the most distant album of his career. Ironic, isn't it?
Massive Attack - 100th Window
6.2
It must be tough when your first album is hailed as a classic. The dilemma a band faces when that happens is "should we repeat the formula in the hope of repeating the success, or do we try something new and risk alienating our fans?" With 1995's Protection, Massive Attack released a more-than-worthy follow-up to their 1991 debut Blue Lines. They then got lucky a second time (third if you include the Mad Professor remix of Protection, titled No Protection) in 1998 with Mezzanine and took their customary four plus years to follow it up. The pressure presumably jackpotted each time, but Massive Attack was up to the challenge; whilst Blue Lines is generally considered their masterpiece, each album has outsold the last (with 100th Window looking likely to continue the trend) and many consider Mezzanine superior to Protection. 100th Window finally sees Massive Attack drop the ball. How do you follow up an album like Mezzanine, let alone a single like "Teardrop"? Now the band's lone original member, 3D had his work cut out for him, and although he's talked up the album's so called "departure", it's modelled disappointingly closely on Mezzanine. Not only that, but it copies Mezzanine's style whilst having none of its substance. 3D seems to be having trouble creating a real mood; he manages it on only three tracks and uses strings to contrive one elsewhere. Other tracks are driven by static, dated beats. Of the three songs featuring Sinead O'Connor, only "Special Cases" is any good; "What Your Soul Sings" is a flat pseudo love song and "Prayer for England" is a trite political anthem. Massive Attack's music used to be both ambient and immediate, but for the most part, 100th Window is an overlong moodpiece that fails to evoke any mood other than boredom.
The Clash - The Essential Clash
8.6
You just know I'm torn here. I want to totally deride this collection as a well-timed cash in on Joe Strummer's death and mock its unimaginative cover (although those get-ups are pretty cool). On the other hand, it's The Clash, so I'm tempted to proclaim its virtues from the hills. The Essential Clash isn't aimed at me, so there's no reason for me not to.
Yes, it's The Clash, so the fact that this is a great collection of songs is not in dispute. However, you have to wonder what might have been, and, for better or worse, that's possible to track. Supposedly, The Essential Clash was not as rushed as it seems; work started in early December to coincide with The Clash's March induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, with none other than Strummer selecting and sequencing the tracks. Whether or not that happens to be true, though, tracks have since been added, removed and swapped around while Joe was too busy jamming with Elvis to notice. Yes, there are great tracks here - "White Riot" and "Janie Jones" from the debut, "I Fought The Law" and "(White Man) In Hammersmith Palais" from the US version of the same album, the standout first three tracks from the otherwise disappointing second album Give 'Em Enough Rope, "The Guns of Brixton" and the title track from the classic London Calling album, "The Magnificent Seven" and "The Street Parade" from the Sandinista! triple album, "Straight To Hell" and "Rock the Casbah" from Combat Rock and "This Is England", the lone worthy song from the "Clash Mark II" album Cut The Crap, to name several. However, just considering the album's ommissions, let alone knowing the chopping and changing that went on, will have you bugging your friends who bought this to buy the studio albums in no time. Yes, they really did leave out "The Call Up", possibly the most beautiful song The Clash ever wrote. The blunt-yet-insidious satire "Know Your Rights" is also absent. However, also missing are the disposable Give 'Em Enough Rope tracks "Guns on the Roof" and "Drug Stabbing Time", whilst "Wrong 'Em Boyo", though definitely full of character, was a marginal inclusion to begin with. Replacing these tracks are the fine "Hate and War" and "Cheat" from the debut, the amusing "Jimmy Jazz" from London Calling, the Combat Rock highlight "Ghetto Defendant", featuring the voice of Allan Ginsberg, the excellent "Street Parade" from Sandinista! and the absolutely hideous "Ivan Meets GI Joe", also from Sandinista! As great a collection of songs this remains, it raises further questions. Why was "Spanish Bombs" left out? Why are there only five tracks from Sandinista's thirty-six? The popular "Capital Radio One", and the not so popular "Groovy Times" and "Stop The World", previously most readily available on the Super Black Market Clash rarities and b-sides collection, are welcome inclusions (the latter a particularly suprising one), as is the Sandinista highlight "Broadway", but why were other standouts such as "Gates of the West" and "Armagiddeon Time" left out? Considering the pedigree of many songs that weren't considered, why did "Ivan Meets GI Joe", "Julie's Been Working for the Drug Squad" and "Garageland" make the cut?
For all its flaws and regardless of whether Strummer's death brought about its existence or just changed its tracklisting, The Essential Clash is still the best overview of The Clash's career. I could go on for pages pleading the case for the first five albums and Super Black Market Clash, but that's not for me to do here. If you must buy The Clash in summarised form, this is the way to do it.
In an interview coinciding with the release of The Essential Clash, Mick Jones and Topper Headon confirmed that Joe was responsible for most of the track selection.
The Microphones - Mount Eerie
8.2
When Calvin Johnson started K Records in the early 80s, I'll bet he never thought he'd have a guy like Phil Elvrum on his roster. K is part of the genesis of US indie, but "indie" is just one colour in a pallette for Elvrum. It's also possibly the only way to describe the music of his Microphones outfit in a word. Whilst Calvin may not have ever pictured anything like The Microphones until they came along, they fit perfectly into the K ethos, in which professionalism is almost subservient to fun. Elrum, however, is far too ambitious to simply goof around. Each Microphones album is more portentious than the last, and Mount Eerie will be the final album under the Microphones moniker, after which Elvrum will continue under the name of - wait for it - Mount Eerie. To say that Mount Eerie is the most grandiose Microphones album doesn't mean to say it's the best - its predecessor The Glow Pt. 2 holds that title - and, in fact, Mount Eerie sees, for the first time, Elvrum's ambitions getting ahead of him, if only slightly. As with the last few Microphones albums, Mount Eerie is framed by the kind of imagery you'd expect from the title, but in actuality, it's a concept album about birth and death, told in the first person. Elvrum is joined by a cast of K luminaries, including Calvin Johnson. Some play particular roles in the story; Calvin, for example, is the voice of the Universe. We follow Elvrum's Everyman character on his journey from birth in "The Sun", a 17 minute opus filled with world-influenced percussion, to death in one of two tracks titled "Universe". His death is foretold in the other "Universe" as a choir intones "Soon a big black cloud will come/Soon a big black cloud will come/And press you to the ground/ The air will leave your chest/And you'll fade from where you're found" and again in title track, as Death, played by Kyle Field, booms "Do you see, do you see what happens? I'll press you to the ground/you'll fade from where you're found", accompanied by another's voice's confused cries of "what?"
At only five tracks, it's all a bit much to take in. At the end of the Microphones career, The Glow Pt. 2 is the point where Elvrum's talent and ambition saw eye to eye. Whilst Mount Eerie is far from lacking in either, it stands as the most challenging peak, but not the most rewarding.
Pixies - Pixies
6.5
Pixiephiles all know how the band's first release, the mini-album Come On Pilgrim, came about. If you don't, it goes like this: In 1987, the band cut 17 songs for producer Gary Smith. Smith mixed the lot, picked his eight favourites and put together the mini-album, which he named after a line in the song "Levitate Me". The other nine have since circulated in bootleg form, mostly commonly known as The Purple Tape. Whilst that title has clearly influenced this album's artwork, it wouldn't make sense in this day and age to call it a "tape", and whoever had the uneviable task of naming this compilation has taken the ultimate copout. To name it after the band suggest that these songs are as good a representation of Pixies as anything they officially released, but that's far from the case. That's not to say that these songs aren't any good - far from it - but their worth is severely compromised by the fact that eight of these nine songs were later re-recorded and released, yielding better versions in most cases. On their own merits, "Broken Face" and "Break My Body" are fine, but most people interested in buying Pixies will have heard the far more frenetic versions on Surfa Rosa. Likewise, the already subpar "I'm Amazed" is even less impressive here. "Down To The Well", which would eventually turn up on Bossanova, is presented here in similar form, and it's mainly a few performance issues that separate it from its later incarnation. Pixies is not without its rewards, however; "Build High", would be re-recorded as in inconsequential Trompe Le Monde b-side minus some extra lyrics that make this version slightly more worthwhile. It turns out that the other Trompe Le Monde era track, "Subbacultcha", which made the album itself, originally boasted a chorus that was removed and turned into "Distance Equals Rate Plus Time", and it was better left the way it was. Maybe Francis decided he didn't like the contrast between the verse and chorus, but "Distance" essentially just that chorus, and it's arguably one of the worst songs on Trompe Le Monde. There's also a case to be made for the Doolittle classic "Here Comes Your Man", especially if the well known version's cutesyness makes you cringe. You probably won't be buying Pixies for any of these songs, though. The album's main selling point is the one song here that's never been released in any form, "Rock a My Soul". Yes, it's a great song. In fact, it's actually one of the songs here most worthy of release. However, the same caveat as with the new Nirvana release applies here; it's not worth $20 or however much you'll have to pay for it on its own or with the other eight tracks. If there's ever been a better argument in favour of file sharing, I'm yet to hear it. I don't object to paying for CDs, or else I wouldn't have done so over five hundred times. However, if a record company wants our money, it's only fair that we get what we paid for. I say it's a far lesser crime for longtime Pixies fans to reward their loyalty by downloading the contents of this CD, or least "Rock a My Soul" than it is for a record company to prey on that loyalty. I never thought I'd use my page to say this, but please download these songs. Peer to peer file transfers allow us to steal music without hurting the retailer. Sure, that's one sale they'll miss out on, but they'll never know it, not to mention the fact that you could just as easily cheat them out of that sale by buying it somewhere else, refusing to buy it or picking up a copy thrown in a bin by a disgruntled Pixies fan. At the very least, please wait until you see this 4AD cash-in for $10 before you even think about buying it.
Liars - They Threw Us All in a Trench and Stuck a Monument on Top
7.9
Liars is a Brooklyn-based band that boasts the considerable asset of an Aussie lead singer. They Threw Us All in a Trench and Stuck a Monument on Top is not a new album - it was originally released in 2001 - but indie label Mute recently re-released it to newfound attention. The attention is not undeserved. Liars is a stunning counterpoint to the recent influx of minimalist "The" bands; musically, their compositions are equally sparse and simple, but in place of the definite article, Liars posssess the ability and inclination to push their songs beyond the perceived limits of their simple guitar and bass lines and beyond classification. There isn't a guitar part on the album that I can't play, but I've never written a song as good as "Tumbling Walls Buried Me in the Debris with ESG". That song is a great example of one of the standout characteristics of the album: the fact that it has almost no traditional rock beats. Liars features both a real drummer and a drum machine programmed by their guitarist, and "Tumbling Walls Buried Me in the Debris with ESG" (yes, I'm pasting these titles) is propelled by a fast hip-hop beat provided by the latter, over which bassist Pat Noecker plays a distorted bass line, guitarist Aaron Hemphill repeats a simple guitar line over and over and vocalist Angus Andrews sings in his deadpan Gang of Four-influenced style. The album starts with a couple of upbeat numbers, but the pace then becomes unpredictable, sometimes within one song. The closing track "This Dust Makes That Mud" is a dub-like construction that ends with a looped groove that doesn't stop until the thirty minute mark - that's right, thirty-five minutes of that hour displayed on your CD player belongs that one song. If that makes you hungry for more, you'll be glad to know that the band is working on a follow-up. In the meantime, be content with one of 2002 and 2001's most original and exciting releases.
Jeff Buckley & Gary Lucas - Songs to No One
6.9
Jeff Buckley is probably second only to Tupac Shakur as the world's most prolific dead singer; in death, there have been five CDs worth of material released, not including the recent re-release of his EPs, whereas he only managed one full length album while he was alive. On paper, this new release looks like something that should have been given a higher priority than the two live albums that Columbia released in 2000 and 2001, but the reality upon playing the disc is that you can almost hear the sound of fingernails scraping against the bottom of the vault. That's not to say that this is a bad collection - far from it - but these songs are definitely nothing more than demos, and the claim that they were never intended for commercial release is not hard to believe. The opening track, a cover of Edith Piaf’s “Hymne a L’Amour” is by far the best thing on offer. It bears little resemblance to the original and plays like a bit like a more fully realised version of Buckley’s own “You and I”. There isn’t a dull moment over the track’s eleven and a half minutes as Gary Lucas’s repetitive guitar line and disonant harmonics create a truly hypnotic song, which Buckley’s voice, as powerful here as it ever was, brings to another level. Lucas shines again and again throughout this collection, but Buckley does so only occasionally; Lucas plays the guitars on almost every track, and it’s really more of a testament to his talent than it is to Buckley’s. It’s also interesting to note that of all the primary Lucas-written tracks here, two of them ended up as the first two tracks of Grace. We don’t get much of an insight into the excellent guitarist that Buckley was, but on the disc’s two versions of Grace, we do get to find out that he was a shitty harmonica player. He was as powerful a singer in 1991 and ’92 as he ever was, but he never really learnt to tame his voice until his final sessions in ’96 and ’97, and there are some truly cringe-worthy moments where he holds that high note longer than he really should, but that's what you'd expect from a guy whose primary vocal influences were Robert Plant, Alex Chilton and opera singers. The lo fidelity of the recordings doesn’t help, either, because at its best, Buckley's voice seem almost trapped in CD format. He displays his "rock" voice effectively on the grungy "Cruel", but falls to pieces, along with instrumentation, on the abysmal "Malign Fiesta (No Soul)". The CD is really more of a document than an album, and probably the most interesting revelation as how similar Buckley and Lucas’s styles and influences already were by the time they met. "Harem Man", on which Buckley's voice is utterly unrecognisable, revels in the duo's love of Led Zeppelin, and, by extension, Delta blues - it could literally have been lifted from Led Zeppelin III. That can be a problem in itself, though, and whilst "Mojo Pin" and "Grace" were definite steps towards the distinct, unique Grace album, the rest of the songs here are more derivative than anything Buckley or Lucas would subsequently write. Songs for No One also shares Grace's flaw of an over-reliance on covers, too; three covers out of eleven songs is too many, especially given the album's inconsistency. Yes, I mentioned earlier that "Hymne a l'Amour" is the best song here, but "Satisfied Mind" is presented here in a posthumously overdubbed version that is inferior in every way to the more intimate solo version Buckley would later record, which would close both his funeral and Sketches For My Sweetheart The Drunk. As for "How Long Will It Take", I was relieved to learn that it was a cover, because it means I don't have to blame the generic chord progression on Lucas and the line "You are loved by me/I am hated by you/..." on Buckley.
Taken out of context, Songs to No One might have more impact than it does. It's especially unfortunate that we know how "Mojo Pin" and "Grace" turned out, because the excellent songwriting behind them couldn't possibly escape anyone who is introduced to the songs via this collection. However, I'd tell a prospective Buckley fan to buy Grace straight away in order to be introduced to it properly, then plough through the rest of the posthumous releases in order before buying Songs to No One for the sake of completism, because it isn't a glowing advertisement of Jeff Buckley's talent.