Sacred Cowpats

Album Review: Low + Dirty Three – In The Fishtank 7

2012-01-24T08:24:00.000Z

Low were in aparticularly fertile phase creatively in 2001, and combining with violin basedinstrumentalists Dirty Three seemed like an inspired move.

I Hear…Goodnight sounds like a fairly standard Low track, albeit backed with violin,but their version of Neil Young’s Down By The River is the centerpiece. It builds up very slowly, over half of the 10minute duration elapses before the Mimi Parker sung melody is heard. She takes an already dark song and makes itdarker still, the unconventional treatment making it seem almost sinister.

Dirty Three’sviolins combine well with Parker and Alan Sparhawk duet Invitation Day, whileWhen I Called Upon Your Seed is almost gospel, sounding almost completely likea Low track.

Theinstrumental Cody on the other hand sounds like a Dirty Three track before thesitting-on-the-porch-rollicking-blues of Lordy brings things to a close. It’s a barnstorming track, quite unlikeanything in either band’s catalogues.

There isplenty here for fans of either band to get stuck into.

EP Review: Mogwai - EP+6

2012-01-23T11:06:00.001Z

This release compiles 3 Mogwai EPs: 1997's 4 Satin, 1998's No Education = No Future and 1999's EP. Opening track Superheroes of BMX showcases the more ambient side of the band. It's a drone-based piece with a loping guitar figure. It's followed by Now You're Taken, featuring mutterings from Aidan Moffat. Stereodee builds ominously for two and a half minutes or so before exploding with noise for ages.

Xmas Steps is another lengthy track which builds through several movements over 11 minutes. The guitars gradually get louder before becoming noisy and distorted, eventually giving way to violin. Rollerball is a keyboard-based piece, while Small Children In The Background which accentuates the ambient noise and downplays the melody before giving way to another heavy blast of noise.

The final four tracks are a lot more tranquil and digestible. Stanley Kubrick glides along as guitars sigh over a stately melody, while Christmas Song has a genuinely festive sounding keyboard-based melody. Burn Girl: Prom Queen features the Cowdenbeath Brass Band centre-stage on an almost jazzy funereal piece. Final track Rage: Man sees the return of some noise.

This is a document of late 90s Mogwai, pushing the boundaries of guitar music. A must-own for Mogwai fans.

Album Review: Desertshore | Drawing of Threes

2012-01-22T18:52:00.000Z

Review for www.meg.ie http://www.meg.ie/desertshore-drawing-of-threes/

Album Review: Jape | Ocean of Frequency

2012-01-22T18:47:00.000Z

Review for www.meg.ie http://www.meg.ie/jape-ocean-of-frequency/

Album Review: Public Image Limited – The Flowers of Romance

2012-01-21T21:40:00.002Z

Public ImageLtd released their third album in 1981. It’s notable for featuring virtually no guitar or bass, relying heavilyon cacophonous drumming (played by all the band) and John Lydon’s wailing. Opening track Four Enclosed Walls sets thetone, featuring just drums and Lydon, with occasional effects in thebackground.

Track 8 (thesecond track here!) has a bass, occasionally plucked by Keith Levene, but it’sthe title track that hits home the hardest. A menacing drum pattern kicks off the track, joined by some forebodingkeyboards, demented backing vocals, muffled Middle Eastern horns and Lydon’sbarely in tune singing. As you can tellfrom that description, it sounds utterly brilliant.

The thunderingdrums of the ghoulish Under the House would be ‘borrowed’ by the Cure on TheHanging Garden a year later, while Banging the Door is classic post-punk, allbrooding atmospheric keyboards and dark drumbeats. Go Back is the only track on the album tofeature Levene’s scratchy guitar, before the true dementia of Francis Massacre.

It’s an unusual,uncompromising, almost confrontational sounding album yet it hasn’t dated,still sounding relatively fresh.

Single Review: Our Krypton Son - Catalonian Love Song

2012-01-16T21:34:00.000Z

Review for www.meg.iehttp://www.meg.ie/our-krypton-son-catalonian-love-song-single/

Album Review: Richmond Fontaine – Lost Son

2012-01-08T21:44:00.000Z

RichmondFontaine’s third album Lost Son, released in 1999, is one of their bleakestworks. There is no frivolity here, themusic rages and rages through tracks like Saviour of Time, Ft. Lewis and Mule. The band come on much less like a countryband, and much more like a speed-punk band. Guitars are pummelled, drums are pounded and Willy Vlautin clings on fordear life, telling his bleak stories.

It’s an easierlisten when the music calms down a notch or two on Cascade, and on Contrails andlater Four Hours Out we even get steel guitar from Paul Brainard. Girl In A House In Felony Flats is dirge-like,crawling along on guttural guitars, yet it’s strangely compelling. However few of the tunes are overly engaging.

Finally we getthe devastating Hope & Repair, which manages to take the story into an evendarker place, where a man takes in a prostitute only to see the whole thing endin blood and complete despair.

It’sexhausting to listen to and unremittingly bleak, not an ideal starting pointfor this band.

Album Review: Peter Broderick | Music for Confluence

2012-01-06T15:01:00.000Z

Review for www.meg.ie

http://www.meg.ie/peter-broderick-music-for-confluence/

Album Review: Trailer Trash Tracys | Ester

2012-01-06T14:55:00.000Z

Review for www.meg.ie

http://www.meg.ie/trailer-trash-tracys-ester/

Album Review: The Black Swans – Don’t Blame The Stars

2011-12-29T19:35:00.000Z

The Black Swans are an American band and this album released last May is their fourth. A bit of background required here: the album was recorded just prior to violinist Noel Sayre’s death in 2008, and his final recorded work with the band can be heard here.What will polarize many about this band are singer Jerry DeCicca’s vocals, which are a decent substitute for Stuart Staples. This has the effect of making the band sound like a more country and soulful version of Tindersticks. Also polarizing are DeCicca’s spoken word introductions to many of the songs, which are a little annoying, talking about his soul heroes (Joe Tex), his childhood memories and his dreams. So what of the music? Opener Boo Hoo sounds like the band had been listening heavily to Neil Young’s Comes A Time, but most of the rest of the album is pretty much soul music, down to the call and response backing vocals and Jon Beard’s organ. This applies to the aforementioned Joe Tex, the title track, and the semi-pisstake I Forgot To Change The Windshield Wipers In My Mind, as close to Tindersticks doing country as you can get. Later, Mean Medicine crawls along pleasingly.The most enjoyable tracks are the ones where they deviate from this formula. Sunshine Street, dominated by Sayre’s violin sounds like something off The National’s Sad Songs For Dirty Lovers, and is darker than most of the material here with some downright raunchy guitar. Less successful is the jaunty Worry Stone featuring a ‘gargle solo’. Yes, you read that right. Blue Bayou rescues proceedings with a fantastic clean electric guitar lick running through the song, which survives a spoken word dedication to Roy Orbison, Iris De Menthe et al midsong.Despite singer Jerry DeCicca’s pretensions, this is not a bad effort. It’s all tastefully unhurried, great if you like that sort of thing.

Album Review: Ryan Adams – Suicide Handbook (unreleased)

2011-12-28T14:08:00.000Z

A man whose record company couldn’t keep up with his output, Ryan Adams recorded this double album, The Suicide Handbook in early 2001. It appears to be an almost entirely solo collection (some accompaniment from Bucky Baxter here and there), stretched over 21 songs, all with a quite similar mood. This can make it seem rather daunting to listen to.Some of the tracks here ended up on Gold, such as Wild Flowers, La Cienega Just Smiled, Just Saying Hi (aka Answering Bell), while others were held back for Demolition (She Wants To Play Hearts, Dear Chicago) and Off Broadway wasn’t released till 2007’s Easy Tiger. As far as I’m concerned, the versions here are superior to the ones on Gold. While that album suffered from over-production, here the songs are sparse, mainly just voice and guitar and they thrive.At least 11 of the other songs have not appeared on any official release, and they are well worth seeking out. Ryan Adams sings and plays guitar with real sensitivity, very much in ‘troubadour’ mode. Some of the stronger ones include For No One (aka Long and Sad Goodbye) and Cracks In A Photograph, helped by some piano touches, and You Don’t Know Me which features great slide guitar from Bucky Baxter. Piano ballad Idiots Rule The World has something of the feel he realized more fully on Love Is Hell.The better known tracks are equally strong, La Cienega Just Smiled, one of the stronger tracks on Gold, works well in almost demo form and final track Dear Chicago, sounding indistinguishable from the Demolition version sounds great with its ringing guitars and breathy vocals.Might be worth giving this one a proper release?

Album Review: Sonic Youth – Dirty

2011-12-26T18:01:00.004Z

As grunge took off in the early 90s, Sonic Youth got Butch Vig to produce 1992’s Dirty. Opening track (and first single) 100% is a somewhat sludgy track. It’s followed up by Kim Gordon singing a sort of riot grrrl anthem Swimsuit Issue. Far better is the slow-building Theresa’s Sound-world, perfectly paced guitars over a moody Thurston Moore vocal in the ‘verse’ portion of the song which builds to a climax as Steve Shelley pounds the drums and the guitars go apeshit before returning to the opening motif. It’s a perfectly constructed song, almost like a 90s Velvet Underground.

Shoot is a relatively low key track with a (mostly) understated Kim Gordon vocal, before Lee Ranaldo gets his curtain call on Wish Fulfillment. Sugar Kane pounds its way along with heavenly riffs and a nice freakout in the middle, while Youth Against Fascism growls along nicely.

On The Strip returns to Theresa’s Sound-world territory, Gordon on vocals this time, while later Purr kicks up a real storm, riffing along at breakneck speed.

Although overlong at 15 tracks and 59 minutes, and a little patchy, the actual musicianship on these songs, with some superb midsections (Chapel Hill amongst them) that set them apart from their contemporaries.

EP Review: The Redneck Manifesto – Cut Your Heart Off From Your Head

2011-12-25T09:27:00.001Z

Dublin band The Redneck Manifesto’s 2002 EP, following fast after their debut is a bit of a mixed bag. Opening track Cut Your Heart Off, features mainly acoustic guitars and some plucked banjo, creating a pleasant Sunday afternoon atmosphere. This is shattered by the pounding drums and almost metal riffs of Please Don’t Ask Us What We Think Of Your Band.

You Say Tomato, I Say Tomato (interesting title for an instrumental band!) and Dillon Family Dancers are fine pieces of music with great playing and original melodies. They are less successful on the more repetitive, ambient tracks like Make Yourself Comfortable and …From Your Head which are built mainly on loops and keyboards, serving mainly to lull you into a stupor.

Stick to the guitars guys!

Album Review: Low – Things We Lost In The Fire

2011-12-24T11:08:00.005Z

2001’s Things We Lost In The Fire, Low’s fifth album (or sixth if you count the Christmas EP) feels like a kind of leap forward. Which is not necessarily a good thing!

It opens with Sunflower, which has a simple, descending melody overlaid with pounding drumbeats. What saves it is that the actual playing, singing and instrumentation is so good, it’s hard to ignore. The album takes a sharp left turn with the sinister, almost threatening Whitetail, with the deathly slow lines “stay… up… all… night… waste… time… waste… night…” And that IS as good as it sounds.

They change tack again with Alan Sparhawk’s heavy riffs on Dinosaur Act, which almost sounds like a ‘standard’ alternative rock song. Mimi Parker gets to do her ghostly shimmering thing on Laser Beam and Embrace, where her wobbling vocals are given gloriously sparse settings.

Although the album slows to a crawl with tracks like Whore and Kind of Girl, Like A Forest picks up the pace dramatically, before one of Low’s warmer tracks Closer, which, like July earlier on the album, features a gorgeous string section.

Many consider this one of Low’s more accessible albums. I’m not so sure. There are accessible tracks (Sunflower, Dinosaur Act) but also foreboding tracks like Whitetail and Embrace. But it’s a strong album, and it stacks up well with Low’s other releases.

EP Review: Mark Kozelek – Rock ‘N’ Roll Singer

2011-12-23T21:54:00.003Z

Mark Kozelek released this EP in 2000, his first non-Red House Painters release and his first release for 4 years. It came as something of a bolt from the blue. The emphasis here is very much on his guitar playing, showing the way for future releases.

There are only 7 songs here, less than half an hour’s worth, and only 3 tracks were written by Kozelek. But some artists have just got it. Opener Find Me, Ruben Olivares has a sunny, intricate guitar pattern, and is probably one of the more fleshed out tracks here.

The EP also saw the beginning of his ACDC fixation. Three of the tracks covered here are ACDC songs (Bon Scott period). They are pretty much unrecognizable from the originals, like most of Kozelek’s cover versions. Rock ‘N’ Roll Singer, the title track, is the only track here that qualifies as anything like an anthem, albeit a downbeat and dirty brooding anthem.

The other 2 ACDC tracks (You Ain’t Got A Hold On Me and Bad Boy Boogie) are stripped down acoustic gloom tracks, the first of which features Kozelek’s falsetto. It’s kind of amusing to hear the Young brothers and Bon Scott’s rock lyrics in this setting (“being bad ain’t that bad, I’ve known more pretty women than most men have” from Bad Boy Boogie).

He also covers John Denver’s Around and Around, and finds time for originals Metropol 47 and Ruth Marie, which have deceptively simple melodies, almost sounding underwritten. What rhythm is here is provided completely by Mark Kozelek’s guitar playing.

What seemed like a quite baffling EP at the time actually set the tone for his post-Red House Painters career, as he painted himself out of the corner he appeared to be in, and with Sun Kil Moon or as himself, did whatever the hell he liked.

Top 5 of 2011

2011-12-20T20:22:00.000Z

As chosen for www.meg.ie

Album Review: The Lemonheads | Hotel Sessions

2011-12-17T11:41:00.004Z

Review for www.meg.ie

Preview: Most anticipated albums of 2012

2011-12-14T10:51:00.005Z

I’m very excited about the year ahead, particularly the few weeks between late January and February which are going to make me very poor indeed. In no time at all this is bound to be wrong, but here goes:

Barry Adamson
The new year looks set to kick off with a bang with Barry Adamson’s new album, I Will Set You Free due on January 30th. The ex-Magazine and Bad Seeds bassist has previewed one track, Destination which sounds just like Berlin period Iggy Pop, and that’s good enough for me.

RM Hubbert – Thirteen Lost and Found
Due out on January 30th, RM Hubbert’s second album Thirteen Lost and Found sounds like a real Scottish collective, produced as it is by Alex Kapranos and featuring guest appearances from Aidan Moffat amongst others.

Leonard Cohen – Old Ideas
Leonard Cohen’s first album in 8 years, Old Ideas recorded last year should be worth hearing judging by the previewed Show Me The Place, Cohen’s voice has deepened to Tom Waits proportions. It’s due Jan 30th.

Mark Lanegan Band – Blues Funeral
Mark Lanegan has been a serial collaborator over the last 8 years but 6th February will see his first solo album since 2004’s Bubblegum, Blues Funeral (a satirist’s choice for a Lanegan album title), featuring contributions from regulars Josh Homme and Greg Dulli. Lead single The Gravedigger’s Song appears to be fairly standard issue Lanegan, both in sound and title, with added electronic pulsing. In related, but not strictly speaking Lanegan news Soulsavers are supposed to have a new album out next year with Dave Gahan of Depeche Mode doing vocals. This is not as big a surprise as you might think, given that Soulsavers supported Depeche Mode on their last tour.

The Twilight Sad – No One Can Ever Know
The Twilight Sad eject the baby and the bathwater for No One Can Ever Know which judging by first single Sick is a total change in sound, relying less on heavy guitars and more on programmed beats. This one is due out February 6th.

Tindersticks – The Something Rain
Tindersticks have a new album landing on February 20th, and judging by one of the tracks, the bossa-nova style Medicine, it’s well in keeping with previous material without being reheated leftovers.

Peter Broderick – http://www.itstartshear.com
After 2011’s Music for Confluence, Peter Broderick has a song-based album due on February 20th also, the bafflingly-titled http://www.itstartshear.com. Could this be the first album with a URL as a title? The link will have artwork, lyrics, credits etc for the release.

Queens of the Stone Age expect to have an album ready for release “early next year”, and Morrissey is said to have a new album ready for release once he hooks up with a record company. A song-based album from Dakota Suite, You Can Leave But You’ll Never Make It Home will hopefully emerge and Mark Eitzel has an acoustic album The Bill Is Due in the works.

The National are writing “more immediate and visceral” material according to singer Matt Berninger, Lloyd Cole is collaborating with Roedelius on an instrumental album (Plastic Wood 2?) and is also talking about another Negatives album which would be very welcome. Aidan Moffat says he has “at least two albums planned for next year”, while Portishead will be working on a new album. Pearl Jam should start work on a follow-up to Backspacer and you never know, Neil Young may finally release another instalment of his Archives series. But I'm not holding my breath.

Christmas EPs from Aidan John Moffat and Gruff Rhys

2011-12-12T16:30:00.003Z

Review for http://www.meg.ie/

Album Review: This Is Tunng… Live From the BBC

2011-12-12T16:27:00.003Z

Review for http://www.meg.ie/

Album Review: A.A. Bondy | Believers

2011-12-12T16:24:00.002Z

Review for http://www.meg.ie/

Album Review: Richmond Fontaine - Miles From

2011-12-11T23:22:00.003Z

Richmond Fontaine’s second album, released in 1997 has fewer distinct tracks than their debut, and a more pronounced country feel, with the addition of Paul Brainard’s steel guitar.

Opening track Trembling Leaves is a midtempo electric strum in the vein of the material on Safety, while Give Me Time is an optimistic sounding tune. You can hear early signs of how the band would develop on albums like Post to Wire on this one, with Willy Vlautin’s odd chorus of “give me boiler makers, give me time.”

The title track is a somewhat darker, brooding affair but in truth none of the lyrics indicate that the protagonists are having anything other than a rough time. Instrumental Grandview comes as something of a relief, and a pause for breath, giving Brainard’s wonderfully evocative steel guitar a chance to take centre stage.

Elsewhere, the hesitant Collapse stops and starts uneasily before the mood is lightened with the breezy Lemonheads-style Calm. Later tracks like Blinding Sight, White Out and Concussion are a little indistinguishable from each other, though the latter features some fine six-string abuse.

Not sure how this one stands up with Richmond Fontaine’s later albums.

Top 10 albums of 2011

2011-12-02T17:18:00.002Z

I may regret doing this now, but here goes:

10. Remember Remember – The Quickening

A new name to me and another excellent Scottish album in a good year for Scottish albums.

http://www.meg.ie/remember-remember-the-quickening/

9. Belong – Common Era

Darkly addictive, shoegazing stuff.

http://www.meg.ie/belong-common-era/

8. Anna Calvi

Believe the hype.

http://sacredcowpats.blogspot.com/2011/09/album-review-anna-calvi.html

7. Bill Wells & Aidan Moffat – Everything’s Getting Older

Marvellously miserable musings.

http://www.meg.ie/aidan-moffat-bill-wells-everything%E2%80%99s-getting-older/

6. Ryan Adams – Ashes & Fire

That old cliché – the return to form.

http://www.meg.ie/ryan-adams-ashes-fire/

5. Richmond Fontaine – The High Country

Could have been a real failure but wasn’t.

http://www.meg.ie/richmond-fontaine-%E2%80%93-the-high-country/

4. Gillian Welch – The Harrow & The Harvest

Her albums don’t come around too often but they are worth waiting for.

http://www.meg.ie/gillian-welch-the-harrow-the-harvest/

3. Mogwai – Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will

Great title.

http://www.meg.ie/mogwai-hardcore-will-never-die-but-you-will/

2. Bill Callahan – Apocalypse

Someone has to chronicle the apocalypse.

http://www.meg.ie/bill-callahan-apocalypse/

1. Low – C’mon

Terrible title, but a fine album.

http://www.meg.ie/low-cmon/

Sonic Youth. Sonic death?

2011-11-30T12:55:00.004Z

Article for www.meg.ie

Concert Review: Thurston Moore at the Button Factory, Dublin

2011-11-30T11:29:00.002Z

Review for www.meg.ie

Album Review: Lloyd Cole – Antidepressant

2011-11-26T08:56:00.006Z

Lloyd Cole’s 2006 album Antidepressant follows previous album Music in a Foreign Language’s muted template. The songs here take their time to reveal themselves and standout.

Lyrically, it finds Lloyd in wry form here, right from the start with the acoustic strum of The Young Idealists – “I know I said I favoured peaceful resolution but that was when we were the young idealists… young idealists raging through the coffee shops and bars”. The idea of Lloyd and his ilk raging is amusing and somewhat unlikely, particularly on this bed of soothing keyboards, guitars and programmed beats.

The production is quiet and dampened down which means many tracks (Woman In A Bar, and the appropriately named I Didn’t See It Coming) drift by barely noticed. New York City Sunshine makes a greater impression with a pleasing string arrangement and an acoustic solo midway through. The title track sees him rock out in his Negatives mode, singing “with my medication I will be fine” and later some wonderful lyrics: “first she’s gonna tire of my fixations, then she’s gonna tire of my face".

How Wrong Can You Be? has an unhurried tune, a perfect song to brood to over a cup of coffee. A pair of country shufflers feature here, Everysong and Travelling Light, the latter of which has hints of Johnny Cash’s I Walk The Line.

In a similar way to his previous album, this one finishes with a downbeat, moody track, in this case Rolodex Incident. It’s an album worth paying attention to and persevering with, which is required for the better tracks here to shine.

Concert Review: Anna Calvi at Vicar Street, Dublin

2011-11-25T17:24:00.002Z

Review for http://www.meg.ie/

Album Review: Gillian Welch at Grand Canal Theatre, Dublin

2011-11-25T17:21:00.003Z

Review for http://www.meg.ie/

Album Review: Bonnie Prince Billy – Master and Everyone

2011-11-25T16:21:00.002Z

The many-monikered Will Oldham’s 2003 album is one of his sparsest works, mainly consisting of skeletal folk, mainly Oldham’s voice and guitar.

Opening track The Way has a simple, wintry Nick Drake style melody and chorus imploring “love me the way I love you”, with a cello part which carries the song. Little else deviates from this template of gloriously depressed folk. With close up mics, you can here Oldham’s fingers sliding from fret to fret. There are some fine melodies here, especially Joy and Jubilee (where Oldham sounds anything but joyous) where he self-harmonises to great effect.

The proceedings are broken up with some backing vocals from Marty Slayton on several tracks (Ain’t You Wealthy, Ain’t You Wise?, Lessons From What’s Poor), but it’s very much a single-minded vision, with a consistent sound throughout. No superfluous notes are played here, every note has its place.

The hesitant, foreboding Even If Love evokes a dark night in the woods, while the coda of Hard Life rounds things off with some uplifting clean, electric guitar. For those who like their music austere and barely adorned, this is for you.

Album Review: Neil Young – Chrome Dreams II

2011-11-24T17:01:00.002Z

It would take an artist like Neil Young to release a follow-up to an album that never made official release… yet (was recorded in 1977 at a time when he was arguably at his peak). Thirty years on, Chrome Dreams II is a real mixed bag. Some Neil Young albums stick to one particular style, but some of the best ones mix up his rockers and his acoustic songs, as found here.

Opening track Beautiful Bluebird is Neil in his country-folk mode, and in truth it’s a little mawkish. Boxcar is a sprightly banjo tune, written originally for Times Square, which became 1989’s Freedom and this one missed the cut. It’s an improvement on what went before and it leads into the 18 minute Ordinary People. This one features the kitchen sink, riffs, trombones, saxophone but it’s a somewhat plodding track that really doesn’t need to be so long!

The rest of the album is a mix between cloying sentimental songs (Shining Light, Ever After, The Way), soul ballads (The Believer) and heavier work-outs (Spirit Road, Dirty Old Man, No Hidden Path) which are preferable to the others. Spirit Road has a decent dirty riff and is mercifully only six and a half minutes long, while Dirty Old Man echoes 1994’s Piece of Cr@p. In all ways. No Hidden Path eschews brevity and riffs along a la Crazy Horse for 14 and a half minutes without really going anywhere.

Elsewhere Ever After is a very sentimental country tune, and piano ballad The Way features a children’s choir, never the best idea. Despite my reservations, it’s still a Neil Young album, and at times even an enjoyable one.

Album Review: The Redneck Manifesto - Thirtysixstrings

2011-11-23T16:30:00.002Z

Irish instrumental group The Redneck Manifesto released their debut album in 2001. Opening track You Owe Me Five Potatoes introduces their sound – intertwining, ringing guitars and stuttering drumbeats, with thrilling changes of tempo and several melodies rolled into one song. Sweet Pot is almost metal with heavy guitars stomping all over the place.

Richie Egan and co show themselves to be fine musicians, Slow On The Uptake does what the title suggests ie builds up slowly while Sounds Better Than It Looks has a rather pensive guitar part. There are few straightforward chords here, everything is intricate and delicate, while at the same time propulsive and heavy.

Clue Out Puzzles hits the heavy notes again but more typical are moodier tracks like Speaking Of Clowns and I Don’t Speak The Monkey Language which wait till midway before unleashing a searing riff. Soundscapes Over Landscapes is reminiscent of early Mogwai without the massive pay-off.

You can see how the likes of And So I Watch You From Afar have drawn inspiration from this. It still stands up ten years on.

Album Review: Dakota Suite & Quentin Sirjacq | The Side of Her Inexhaustible Heart

2011-11-22T19:52:00.001Z

Review for www.meg.ie

EP Review: Low – Bombscare

2011-11-22T16:16:00.001Z

This EP is a collaboration between Low and electronic duo Springheel Jack and was released in 2000. Some unsettling, chilly keyboard sounds open the glacially paced title track, a duet between Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker. Hand So Small is a graceful tune sung by Parker over a simple, unadorned piano part. Not to be outdone, Sparhawk sings the foreboding So Easy So Far, while final track Way Behind ends on a somewhat repetitive note. Well worth checking out if you like Low.

Album Review: Richmond Fontaine – Safety

2011-11-21T15:32:00.002Z

Richmond Fontaine’s debut album Safety, released in 1996, shows some early promise, which they realized more fully on later work. Listening to it now, it’s not a million miles away from the likes of Whiskeytown.

Opening track Dayton, Ohio is akin to a ramshackle Lemonheads, as are the midtempo strums of Novocaine and Wagonwheel Motel. There are some 100 mile an hour tracks like Harold’s Club, Riverhouse and 1968, which have plenty of punky energy but don’t suit Willy Vlautin and co so well.

They are better when they slow things down, on the acoustic Settle and Safety. White Line Fever is again reminiscent of Whiskeytown, while the aforementioned Novocaine is a fine strum with the refrain of “17 reasons that I can’t explain.”

Later the 96 second Kid Steps Out Into The Road takes a bleak subject matter where this kid “duct-tapes 3 M-80s to his head and lights them” and combines it with a jaunty melody with a wonderful banjo part, concluding that “it’s the luck of the Irish in Reno, Nevada.”

All in all it’s a decent debut, with signs of what the band would become on future albums.

Album Review: Pearl Jam – Yield

2011-11-20T10:04:00.004Z

By 1998, Pearl Jam had become more or less the last band standing of the so-called grunge bands. Their sound was always a more classic rock sound and this informs Yield.

It comes roaring out of the traps with Brain of J, which has one of those classic chord changes for the chorus at which this band excels. This track is not really reflective of the rest of the album which settles into a more mid-tempo groove with Faithfull (sic) and No Way, the latter of which has a sort of late period Led Zeppelin feel to it.

This is reinforced by first single Given to Fly, which uses the tune and tempo of Zep’s Going to California before rocking it up a little. Wishlist is a very simple mid-tempo melody, with an anthemic chorus and a soaring, clean guitar solo midway through, while Pilate is more akin to REM’s classic Perfect Circle.

There is some experimentation here which doesn’t really work with track 8, an untitled garbled mess of percussion and chanting which thankfully only lasts a minute, and later Push Me, Pull Me is a spoken word track which again, doesn’t really work.

It works better when they play it straight. MFC zips along nicely, and Low Light has a pleasing acoustic feel to it. The anthemic In Hiding plays it a little too straight, and All Those Yesterdays sees them aim for a Beatles-type song, complete with brass etc. Less said about the hidden track, Russian dance (hummus?) the better.

It’s uneven but an enjoyable mixed bag.

Album Review: Wilco – Being There

2011-11-18T10:17:00.003Z

Or rather, Exile on Wilco St. Wilco was formed by Jeff Tweedy from the dying embers of alt-country pioneers Uncle Tupelo. Their first full length, Being There is an ambitious double album, with an ebb and flow feel along the lines of Rolling Stones’ 1972 double album Exile On Main Street.

They throw down a take-nothing-for-granted marker with opening track Misunderstood, a six minute epic which alternates between periods of calm and noise wig-outs with Tweedy roaring at the top of his voice. Not a whit of country to be found here. However they change tack completely with Far, Far Away, a casual Johnny Cash country strum with an easy feel to it.

The album is a real treasure trove of styles, veering from one to another. There are Stones-y rockers (Monday, I Got You), banjo-strums (Forget the Flowers, Someday Soon), downbeat laments (Red Eyed and Blue, Someone Else’s Song), not to forget noisier tracks in the style of the opener (Sunken Treasure), and the whole thing finishes with the Faces-style all over the shop boogie of Dreamer In My Dreams.

The album has a very classic early 70s feel to it. They would never sound quite so straightforward again.

EP Review: The Sisters of Mercy – Reptile House

2011-11-17T10:36:00.003Z

The Sisters of Mercy released the Reptile House EP in 1983. Their previously brisk and uptempo songs were replaced by a slow, dingy grind. Opening track Kiss The Carpet starts off with a slow, long, build up before Gary Marx plays the main riff and Andrew Eldritch’s doomy vocals come in. It’s a decidedly unsettling piece of music.

Lights, which follows, is more conventional with a repetitive drum pattern and riff. The arrangement here is relatively sparse giving Eldritch’s vocals plenty of room to breathe. His voice grows in intensity towards the song’s conclusion where he bellows “until the emeralds glisten in the RAIN, RAIN, RAIN, I’m happy here in the RAIN!” After the sinister murk of Valentine, Fix has an even slower, longer build up than before with a sleazy, grinding guitar riff, and an almost whispered vocal.

Final track Burn has a vaguely oriental riff and some seriously distorted vocals. The punishing guitar work here is very effective. This EP distills the essence of early period Sisters of Mercy.

Concert Review: Fountains of Wayne at The Academy, Dublin

2011-11-16T18:48:00.002Z

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Album Review: Bill Ryder-Jones | If

2011-11-16T18:45:00.002Z

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Album Review: Pearl Jam – No Code

2011-11-16T10:25:00.002Z

After Vitalogy and their battle with Ticketmaster there was a sense of exhaustion about Pearl Jam. Something had to give and it did. There was a palpable sense of pulling back about 1996’s No Code. Aside from the beautiful packaging, it starts out with the very understated Sometimes, a slow, creeping number in which Eddie Vedder croons about being “like a book amongst the many on the shelf”. It’s hard not to see this as a metaphor for where Pearl Jam wanted to go, to fade away from the limelight.

The influence of Neil Young was all over this album, particularly on the loping Crazy Horse like Smile and Red Mosquito. Lead single Who You Are was a real departure for Pearl Jam, a kind of uptempo campfire strum. There are more standard issue rockers like Hail, Hail, which rocks along at 90 miles an hour, and also Habit and the 60 second Lukin. These tracks pack as much wallop as anything in the Pearl Jam catalogue.

But it’s the stripped-down tracks which work really well here. Off He Goes is a really affecting song, sensitively sung by Eddie Vedder which has real impact. Equally successful is Present Tense, a real brooding number which explodes into life briefly midway through before settling back into contemplation mode.

Mankind has Stone Gossard on lead vocals, and he suffers in comparison to Vedder, which renders the song as something of a failure. They embrace their weirder side with I’m Open, a dark spoken word song before finishing with the really stripped-down Around the Bend, displaying a side of Pearl Jam which hadn’t previously been heard.

As Pearl Jam albums go, this one is quite experimental (for them), though in some ways it endures as much as their better known works such as Ten, vs etc.

Concert Review: The Sisters of Mercy at The Olympia, Dublin

2011-11-14T19:06:00.003Z

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Album Review: Scott Weiland | The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

2011-11-08T16:37:00.002Z

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Album Review: Liz Green | O, Devotion!

2011-11-08T16:35:00.001Z

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Concert Review: Richmond Fontaine at the Workmans Club, Dublin

2011-11-06T18:03:00.002Z

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Album Review: David Lynch | Crazy Clown Time

2011-11-04T16:31:00.004Z

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EP Review: Bill Wells & Aidan Moffat | Cruel Summer (EP)

2011-11-02T19:56:00.001Z

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Album Review: Lou Reed & Metallica | Lulu

2011-11-02T19:53:00.002Z

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Album Review: Ryan Adams | Ashes & Fire

2011-10-05T19:29:00.002+01:00

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Album Review: Anna Calvi

2011-09-29T21:38:00.002+01:00

Despite seeing Ms Calvi earlier in the year, it’s taken me till now to give her album a ‘spin’. It’s hard to listen to this album without thinking of PJ Harvey, and it’s certainly in debt to her, but how many albums are not influenced by something.
The album is built Anna Calvi’s strong guitar playing and powerful voice, though opening track Rider to the Sea features just Calvi’s surf guitar. It’s a dramatic way to open the album, building the tension with wordless backing vocals. No More Words follows, one of the more low-key, muted tracks on the album before Desire, which it has to be said, sounds like a perfect facsimile of classic PJ Harvey.
The album is well-sequenced, she avoids the temptation to start with her strongest songs. Suzanne and I is more dramatic than what has gone before with a powerful guitar fusing perfectly with Calvi’s somewhat Siouxsie-esque vocal.
Later, The Devil is more stripped down, relying mainly on the vocals, while Blackout is that rarity, a radio-friendly tune which avoids blandness. Final track, Love Won’t Be Leaving is an absolute powerhouse of a track, hugely dramatic with dark riffs, femme fatale vocals and crashing percussion, conjuring up snake charmers and David Lynch-ian weirdness. The midsection is particularly thrilling, with some excellent guitar work.
Anna Calvi, though certainly in thrall to PJ Harvey, avoids pastiche, with an immensely enjoyable collection. It’s an intensely late night album, made for dark nights with a bottle of red wine.

Album Review: Remember Remember | The Quickening

2011-09-28T17:09:00.003+01:00

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Film / Soundtrack Review: Pearl Jam 20

2011-09-25T19:22:00.001+01:00

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Album Review: Squarehead | Yeah Nothing

2011-09-23T17:22:00.001+01:00

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REM: Out of Time?

2011-09-22T18:52:00.002+01:00

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EP Review: Mogwai | Earth Division

2011-09-19T11:46:00.005+01:00

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Album Review: Other Lives | Tamer Animals

2011-09-08T09:51:00.002+01:00

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Album Review: Richmond Fontaine - The High Country

2011-09-06T13:41:00.004+01:00

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Album Review: Bill Callahan – Woke On A Whaleheart

2011-08-25T08:26:00.003+01:00

Bill Callahan’s first album released under his name in 2007 is a curious affair. Callahan has been honing his songwriting craft gradually as Smog (and also (Smog)), culminating in the dark Americana of A River Ain’t Too Much To Love.

On this album however he experiments with a whole bunch of musicians, instrumentation, backing singers and Neil Hagerty on production. From The Rivers To The Ocean starts with a quiet piano part before morphing into something not too dissimilar from his last album as Smog with Bill’s tar-black vocal coating over a piano-led tune, joined by “blonde violins” (as per the sleeve notes).

A total change of tack for Footprints, a stomping freak-out with barmy backing vocals. It’s quite unlike anything else Callahan has done, as is the funky Diamond Dancer, a more successful attempt at a strutting guitar-dance track.

Sycamore is a more relaxed groove, an easy melody allowing plenty of space for Bill Callahan’s croon, while The Wheel with its slightly off guitar harks back to his Smog days. Honeymoon Child is, well, slinky is the word, a kind of bluesy, funky ballad.

Later, Night takes a pretty piano part in the fashion of early Smog and turns it into a soaring, reflective number. The album finishes with the bafflingly-titled A Man Needs A Woman Or A Man To Be A Man, a toe-tapping, finger-clicking early Johnny Cash style number.

The album has a cluttered, fussy feel, lurching from style to style. An idiosyncratic and intriguing diversion for Bill Callahan.

Album Review: Ryan Adams & The Cardinals – Jacksonville City Nights

2011-08-24T08:25:00.002+01:00

This was the second of 3 albums released by Ryan Adams in 2005, and it sees him team up with the Cardinals to produce his most country effort yet. The opening 2 tracks A Kiss Before I Go are enough to send all but the most committed country-phile running screaming from the barn. The opener with its lyrics of “one shot, one beer and a kiss before I go” are blended with a somewhat cheesy country melody. Mercifully it’s only 2 minutes long. Second track The End(!) is a country waltz about “cotton fields” and “Jacksonville”. The question is: is he being serious here? It’s dangerously close to pastiche.

Later, Peaceful Valley has the strangulated vocal from his Cold Roses album, while My Heart Is Broken has to be a piss-take, it’s almost too much with its honky-tonk steel guitar and strings. So that’s the dodgy tracks out of the way. I’m happy to say the rest of the album is a distinct improvement, starting with Hard Way To Fall, like a cross between Bob Dylan’s Tonight I’ll Be Staying Her With You and Ryan’s own Answering Bell. It’s still very country, but without any cringe factor.

He collaborates with Norah Jones on the ballad Dear John, which would be one of the more tender songs on the album except for their vocals which are a little over-cooked. The less self-conscious songs are what he does best, tracks like The Hardest Part and Withering Heights are sprightly, rootsy finger-picking songs with the merest hint of country. Special mention for a great piano part on Withering Heights.

Silver Bullets is a beautiful piano and strings ballad like something off his superb Love Is Hell. This is Ryan at his most tender, a voice full of regret singing “cause I can’t see the sun, but I know it’s going away, and I can’t make you love me”.

September is a sparse, brooder like something off the 29 album as is Pa, a dark tale about “Pa drove to town yesterday to pick out her grave”. It’s not all maudlin laments. Trains is a quick-stepping, chugging Johnny Cash like number which suits him quite well and my version has a bonus track Jeane, a sprightly banjo strum, followed by a somewhat unnecessary version of the hoary old chestnut Always On My Mind.

Definitely one of Ryan Adams’ weaker albums and definitely over-long, there are still some songs here worth investigating.

Album Review: Lloyd Cole – Music in a Foreign Language

2011-08-23T08:10:00.002+01:00

2003’s Music in a Foreign Language saw Lloyd Cole’s first self-recorded effort. It’s a fairly muted affair without percussion or electric guitars. Lloyd pitches in on guitar, bass, piano and of course vocals, with contributions from Neil Clark on guitar and Dave Derby on lap steel.

The title track introduces proceedings, setting the tone for the album with gently picked guitar and soft keyboards. Behind the soft, almost easy-listening instrumentation lies a dark, brooding heart, which reveals itself in the lyrics of many of the songs, chief amongst them My Other Life (“clearly you can see my clothes are torn, clearly this demands an explanation”).

Proceedings here are, for want of a better word, “mature”. This is never clearer than in a new version of No More Love Songs, Lloyd driving the point home by re-recording the song. It’s a fuller, more-realised version with keening steel guitar which for my money, works a little better than the more stripped-down original recording.

Lloyd takes on the challenge of Nick Cave’s People Ain’t No Good, and falls marginally short, though it’s still a relatively pleasant version. The inclusion of this song is perhaps Lloyd’s way of making a point? He saves the best for last with Shelf Life, a deeply moody lament about how he is “consumed by delusions of grandeur” over a softly picked guitar and a bright keyboard part, making this an almost stately kind of ballad, a perfect accompaniment to shortening evenings as “the night’s drawing in”.

It’s fairly different to any of Lloyd’s previous work. Very tasteful without any blandness, this is the type of thing the likes of Leonard Cohen should be doing now.

Album Review: The Minutes - Marcata

2011-08-22T14:02:00.002+01:00

Dublin rockers The Minutes have one thing that separates them from the rest: the Moustache. Singer Mark Austin unashamedly sports this whopping piece of facial foliage, and on their debut album, Marcata, you can almost hear it.

The Minutes are a good old-fashioned rock and roll band, and this album is full of stomping anthems designed to be performed live. Black Keys is a swaggering, rock tune with added horns, while Gold is a White Stripes style number, with Robert Plant-like vocals. Later, Heartbreaker pounds along at break-neck speed like Led Zeppelin (funny that) filtered through the Stone Temple Pilots.

It’s not all 90 miles an hour stuff. Black and Blue is a fine mid-paced anthem with some great dirty guitars, with attitude oozing out of the speakers. Guilt Quilt has a wonderfully nasty riff, reminiscent of Nirvana’s On A Plain with added cock-rockisms.

They also find time to bash their way through old blues standard popularized by Led Zeppelin, In My Time of Dying , or I.M.T.O.D. as it is here. Austin’s insistent vocals power the song along over great riffs and wonderful drumming.

The album is a short one at 34 minutes, refusing to out-stay its welcome. Yes, you may think you have heard it all before. But it’s refreshing to hear it done with such honesty and energy. Turn this one up loud folks!

Album Review: Various Artists – Fifteen Minutes: A Tribute to the Velvet Underground

2011-08-21T13:29:00.003+01:00

The early 90s saw US underground rock godfathers the Velvet Underground finally receive the full-blown tribute by some of the early 90s European and American indie fraternity.

The album kicks off with a bang with Nirvana’s powerful version of Here She Comes Now where Kurt Cobain and co build up from a low growl to a visceral roar, vocally and musically finishing in a haze of distortion. Forgotten shoegazers Swervedriver take the once muted Jesus and transform it into a blissed-out, distorted anthem, all mumbled vocals and searing guitars.

Lee Ranaldo sounds unrecognizable from his dayjob in Sonic Youth as he slide-guitars his way through Stephanie Says. Things get really demented with Fatima Mansions’ electro-pop version of Lady Godiva’s Operation, Cathal Coughlan barking the lyrics like the inmate of a correctional facility, as chainsaws perform the ‘incisions’ in the lyrics!

Some of it doesn’t quite work, Echo and the Bunnymen turn Foggy Notion into one of their latter-day chug-along rockers. Stronger are the Wedding Present’s faithful homage to She’s My Best Friend and at the other extreme, the Screaming Trees’ desecration of What Goes On .

Like any tribute album, it’s an uncohesive and at times incoherent listen. But like any good tribute album, this makes you dig out the original material so in this regard, it succeeds.

Concert Review: Mark Kozelek at Black Box, Belfast, Aug 13th 2011

2011-08-15T13:40:00.003+01:00

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Album Review: Low – Secret Name

2011-08-07T11:32:00.002+01:00

1999’s Secret Name was where Low started to get a whole lot more accessible. Without compromising the quality of song. Having said that, it’s hard to imagine a less accessible opener than I Remember with an eerie synth pattern topped off by an almost inaudible vocal from Alan Sparhawk and some muted static. It’s a somewhat bewildering way to open the album.

Starfire is a whole lot more melodic despite Sparhawk’s again off-kilter vocals, with added heavenly harmonies and Mo Tucker style drumming from Mimi Parker, before the first real keeper on this album, Two-Step. It starts off quietly with a delicately strummed electric over Sparhawk’s whispered vocals before the melody kicks in after a minute and a half, ushering in celestial vocals from Parker. The subtle melody winds its way round your ears, making it a classic Low track.

The standard is maintained by the Parker-sung Weight of Water, featuring a soaring string section and a glacially paced melody. Don’t Understand is darker, with a sinister, tense opening before the somewhat angry track commences, like a dry run for later, noisier material.

Soon is a real epic, evolving from a muted strum to a brooding, string-led Velvet Underground style midsection. It’s almost unbearably grim, and unbearably great. The tension is punctured by Immune, which comes as something of a relief as it’s a relatively conventional song, very sweetly sung and played by Parker and Sparhawk in all its beautifully played glory.

Penultimate track Will The Night is something of a show-stopper. There’s no percussion this time until halfway through, only a gorgeous, almost hymn-like melody sung over soaring strings. It’s all over in less than two and a half minutes.

The album is almost like the quintessential Low album which reflects their entire discography, it’s opaque and off-putting to begin with, but when persevered with the rewards are immense and addictive.

Album Review: Neil Young – Prairie Wind

2011-08-06T11:17:00.003+01:00

Which Neil is it this time in 2005? Ah, acoustic countrified Neil. Time to sit back, relax and let the sunshine lull you into the ‘harvest’. It opens with the plaintive The Painter, featuring Neil Young’s acoustic and producer Ben Keith’s pedal steel touches over a very pleasant melody.

Many of the tracks echo Neil’s previous work. No Wonder opens a little like The Old Homestead (from Hawks & Doves) before evolving to become a more realized, fuller-sounding song, complete with fine electric guitar and fiddles. Falling Off The Face of the Earth is more muted, but has a strong melody. Unfortunately he revisits the soul territory mined on Are You Passionate? on Far From Home, He Was The King and the title track.

It’s A Dream is a piano-led almost sickly sweet ballad which narrowly avoids becoming total schmaltz, despite the syrupy strings, while the harmonica-led Here For You is almost Harvest pastiche, with acoustic, steel et al, all in the right places.

One of the finest tracks is This Old Guitar, which sounds like Harvest Moon (the song) on a comedown, all bleached out with Neil Young sounding parched, and the unmistakeable backing vocals of Emmylou Harris. The album ends with the hokey gospel of When God Made Me.

Far from essential but enjoyable.

Album Review: Richmond Fontaine – Post To Wire

2011-08-05T08:05:00.003+01:00

Something of a critical, if not commercial breakthrough for Richmond Fontaine, 2004’s Post To Wire certainly made impact in the glossy music monthlies. And with good reason too – it’s probably the most melodic of their albums.

After The Longer You Wait which sets the tone, second track, Barely Losing has a gorgeous guitar and piano combination, topped off by the pleasing groans of Willy Vlautin (“we’re walking on the railroad tracks at 5 in the morning).

Montgomery Park takes a different approach, it’s a ragged, bat out of hell rocker, yet still melodic amid the raging guitars. The songs are punctuated by spoken-word interludes detailing the trials and tribulations of the protagonist Walter, a troublemaker by the sounds of this.

But the real strength of this album is the number of strong tunes contained within. Through and Two Broken Hearts are classic sounding midtempo country-rockers. However, the album is never allowed to get too comfortable before the darkness returns in the towering tale of a siege in Hallway.

Deborah Kelly provides a fine duet on the title track, another bright country-rock tune, and also on the more downbeat Polaroid of the girl looking for her dad who “don’t know where he lives anymore.”

Penultimate track Willamette sees the band unleash their full power as Vlautin rages at a missing brother, referencing their dreams by the aforementioned river. It’s a huge sounding cathartic track, all pounding drums, snarling guitars and an incongruous steel guitar, which miraculously fits into the mix.

The album is a perfect starting point for Richmond Fontaine.

Album Review: Screaming Trees – Last Words: The Final Recordings

2011-08-04T20:54:00.004+01:00

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Album Review: Whipping Boy (self-titled)

2011-08-04T08:25:00.003+01:00

One of Dublin’s great lost bands, Whipping Boy released their masterpiece Heartworm in 1995. When this album failed to make a breakthrough they recorded a follow-up which was finally released as this self-titled album in 2000, at which point this incarnation of the band was as good as over.

Undoubtedly none of these songs have the visceral impact of anything on Heartworm. The mood is different, more reflective right from opener So Much For Love. “All she wants is to be remembered,” croons Feargal McKee over Paul Page’s almost jangling guitar. The brooding Bad Books continues in a similar vein though McKee doesn’t quite manage the misogyny of Heartworm.

Pat the Almighty has a coruscating chorus like the stompers of their heyday, while later Ghost of Elvis recaptures the mood of Tripped (again from Heartworm) with added piano touches. The album is patchier than their previous work, That Was Then, This Is Now has little more character than its title while some of the slower tracks like Fly and Who Am I drift along without making a huge impression. More successful of these is One To Call My Own which recaptures the downbeat longing of The Honeymoon Is Over.

Unfortunately this album appears to be no longer available. This is a crying shame as while it’s by no means perfect the better songs here deserve to be heard. Some of the original members of the band have regrouped and are currently touring.

Album Review: Lloyd Cole – Plastic Wood

2011-08-03T08:18:00.002+01:00

Brian Eno has a lot to answer for. Having created what is now known as ambient music in the 1970s, Lloyd Cole was inspired to try his hand at the genre in 2001 with Plastic Wood.

It’s far away from Rattlesnakes - there’s no place for Lloyd’s voice, wry observations or jangly guitars here, the music is all electronically-based instrumentals. It has a kind of late night, almost soporific feel to it. Tracks like 4 Train and Headlights have soaring melodies but are mainly static in terms of propulsion. The latter of these tracks reminds somewhat of The Blue Nile. All the tracks are very brief (bar final track Machinist), so are over before they really go anywhere.

Some of it (On Ice) sounds like the first few seconds of Mr Malcontent from Lloyd Cole and the Commotions, stretched out over a whole album. Park West has a fuller, almost orchestral sound.

As an exercise, there’s nothing wrong with this but it’s hard not to think Lloyd Cole’s talents are better used in the guitar-oriented material he made his name with. Best listened to alone in the so-called small hours.

Album Review: Low – The Curtain Hits The Cast

2011-08-02T08:15:00.002+01:00

1996’s The Curtain Hits The Cast is one of the more difficult Low albums. Few of the songs are particularly accessible. In addition, vocalist Alan Sparhawk sings in a higher register for many of the tracks, which doesn’t particularly suit him.

Opening track, Anon has the sound of somebody falling in pain but its followed by The Plan and Over the Ocean which are more soothing. Mimi Parker takes lead vocals on The Plan which has Low’s trademark gingerly picked clean electric guitars, while on the latter track Parker and Sparhawk’s voices intertwine.

The following tracks are funereally-paced and downbeat (Mom Says, Coattail). Standby has a stronger melody and features a fine build up in tempo and tone mid-song, while Laugh is one of Sparhawk’s earliest incursions into distorted guitars.

Penultimate track Do You Know How To Waltz? is 14 and a half minutes of guitar effects, drawn out shoegazing washes of guitar and precious little that resembles an actual song. Despite this, it’s one of the best tracks here, on what is one of Low’s more challenging albums.

Concert Review: Morrissey at Vicar Street - 30th July 2011

2011-08-01T17:54:00.004+01:00

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Album Review: Neil Young & Crazy Horse – Greendale

2011-08-01T11:22:00.002+01:00

After the lacklustre Are You Passionate, Neil Young regrouped with Crazy Horse for 2003’s Greendale, an album, DVD and book(!). This was billed as a ‘rock opera’. Good grief.

As it turns out there’s not a whole lot wrong with this album in theory. The guitar sound is as dirty as any Neil Young fan would desire. No, the problem is the cringey lyrics about Grandpa etc are accompanied by not particularly strong melodies, most of which go on FAR too long. There’s very little about opener Falling From Above’s growling riffs that couldn’t have been done in less than seven and a half minutes.

Leave The Driving is a more muted, midtempo, melancholic brand of Neil Young, again stretched to more than seven minutes. Carmichael has a nice growling riff though it is also too long (10 minutes!). The one acoustic track here, Bandit cleverly incorporates a buzzing string into the song with a very hushed vocal. It sounds very refreshing coming midway through this album, but unfortunately the album returns to the lengthy, characterless songs of before.

Special mention to Grandpa’s Interview for stretching a riff to almost 13 minutes. The pump-organ of Bringin’ Down Dinner isn’t bad either. However it’s an album that demands a lot of patience, even for the committed Neil Young fan.

Album Review: Pearl Jam – Riot Act

2011-07-31T13:25:00.002+01:00

The much maligned Pearl Jam released Riot Act in 2002, to the welcome of significantly fewer waiting fans than in their early 90s heyday. What has happened to this band is that, free of the shackles of the weight of being ‘voice of a generation’ is that they have loosened up (a little) and become possibly more enjoyable.

Not that they are ever exactly a barrel of laughs. Can’t Keep builds up but never quite reaches a climax but Save You is a loose and ragged rocker, leaving bits of itself over the place as it rampages along.

Things get darker with the solemn yet awfully titled Love Boat Captain, which starts quietly before building into a classic Pearl Jam anthem, referring to the tragic death of some of their fans at a concert in Roskilde. Cropduster is a mid-paced rocker with a big chorus, and I Am Mine is a kind dark, sea-shanty which sways to and fro nicely.

Pearl Jam always find time for a sensitive Eddie Vedder moment, and here it’s no different. Thumbing My Way is a beautifully sung lament that Bruce Springsteen would kill for. On the other extreme they bring in some machine-processed guitars for You Are. Here Vedder sounds as dismal as only he can as he groans “you are a tower of strength to me.”

Green Disease sounds like they were listening to The Strokes, while Vedder’s Lion King moment Arc is best forgotten. They save the best for last as they so often do with the bleak as f**k All Or None. “It’s a hopeless situation,” Vedder croons and you really believe him. Like the best Pearl Jam album closers, there’s a sense of finality to it.

Not necessarily a starting point for Pearl Jam. There are some strong songs here on this somewhat patchy album. This Riot Act’s not for reading, but not a bad listen.

Album Review: Richmond Fontaine – Winnemucca

2011-07-30T12:57:00.002+01:00

Richmond Fontaine’s fourth album, released in 2002, is an altogether less frantic affair than its predecessor, the damaged Lost Son. From the opening track, Winner’s Casino, the feeling is fairly relaxed and very country-rock, thanks to Paul Brainard’s prominent pedal steel guitar. Out of State emerges from the murk of the previous track with a brightly, picked guitar over Willy Vlautin’s miserable lyrics (“shut the curtains, put a blanket over them…. no one knows where we are, we could stay like this for days”).

Northline (which also became the title of Vlautin’s second, exceptional novel) is an anthemic lament of a girl whose “letters turned to postcards and then never appeared”. The band change tack later with two instrumentals back-to-back, the country-rocking Twyla and the atonal, ambient and atmospheric Patty’s Retreat, which acts as a musical dust settling before the second half of the album.

The optimism of the music contrasts directly with the heavily downbeat lyrics, particularly on final two tracks Five Degrees Below Zero, possibly the cheeriest thing on the album. Western Skyline offers a little hope, like a new dawn “where golden light shines down upon everything”.

Vlautin is a great writer but not a particularly strong singer, however his band provide an empathetic backing.

Album Review: Lloyd Cole – Etc (lost songs, tunes 1996-2000)

2011-07-29T12:30:00.003+01:00

This album, released in 2001, is billed as a collection of odds and ends, but in reality it hangs together like a ‘proper’ Lloyd Cole album. It opens and closes with the instrumental Backwoods, a wistful, acoustic piece of music which sets the tone nicely. What follows is prime Lloyd Cole. Old Enough To Know Better is a classic sounding Lloyd Cole song with Neil Clark’s steel guitar giving it a country feel. Another Lover and 39 Down are jangly, more uptempo country rock songs, albeit loaded with regret.

Cover versions are the last refuge of the scoundrel, and Lloyd Cole has never been terribly comfortable in this territory. After the pretty instrumental Sunburst, Etc serves up not one, but two cover versions. Karen Black’s Memphis features backing vocals from The The’s Matt Johnson with a wonderful performance from the band. Even Lloyd Cole’s countrified attempt at Bob Dylan’s You’re A Big Girl Now fares well with great twangy guitars.

The country influence continues throughout the album, perhaps at its strongest on Alright People, another strong song on an album full of them. After another brief instrumental, Santa Cruz, the quality doesn’t let up with the stomping Love Like This Can’t Last, and the highly likeable Went To Woodstock, Fool You Are and the harmonica-led Weakness.

Special mention to Lloyd’s voice on this album, he’s not affected or strained, but utterly natural, which works really well here. What’s great about all these songs is that they all sound so effortless, almost carefree, when by all accounts at the time, their creator was clearly not. An essential album for Lloyd Cole fans.

Album Review: Dakota Suite – Alone With Everybody

2011-07-28T12:53:00.003+01:00

Not strictly speaking a cohesive album, it’s actually a collection of EPs from 1996-1998 released by Dakota Suite. It works well as an introduction to Chris Hooson and co. On this collection we are treated to the various melancholic styles the band is capable of. Mood Indigo is almost alt-country with a melody that sounds so perfect you’ll swear you heard if before, underpinned by Richard Formby (ex-Spacemen 3) on lap steel and organ.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, Episode is a piano instrumental, foretelling the band’s evolution away from singer-songwriter material towards a more classical palette. Colin Dunkley’s piano works beautifully on the gorgeous Autobiography, Chris Hooson’s whispered vocals and acoustic guitar filling out the song nicely along with some violins.

The band do more conventional (for them) electric guitar based songs also, Divided and Just Like Jesus are fine downbeat tracks. Somewhere has a fine clarinet featuring prominently throughout and a gorgeous violin coda. More austere is News From Nowhere, with dark harmonium and organ dominating amidst the ominous ringing of bells.

There are fine instrumentals on this collection, the piano and metronome (?) combination of To Have Wondered also worthy of note, before the sweeter sounding Colder, which echoes Mood Indigo with intricate guitar and some wonderfully dippy “ba ba”s from vocalist Chris Hooson. Although the band is not fully formed on these recordings, there is some really fine music lurking within.

Album Review: Pulp – This Is Hardcore

2011-07-27T20:37:00.003+01:00

Pulp were faced with a quandary in 1998. They had just achieved huge success, piggybacking on the Britpop movement.

Their follow up to Different Class was This Is Hardcore. Bearing little resemblance to its predecessor, Jarvis Cocker kicks off the foreboding opener The Fear, singing “this is the sound of someone losing the plot.” Which is probably what Island Records said to him when the band presented this album to them. Where are the catchy tunes?

It’s not a tune-free zone by any means. The Fear is a kind of statement of intent, a five and a half minute slab of sinister melodrama, finishing in a haze of feedback. It’s an exhilarating way to start the album. Different class indeed. Next track Dishes sees the band back on more familiar territory, Jarvis opening a rather muted track with the line “I am not Jesus, though I have the same initials” and further on singing about wanting to “make this water wine”. Aside from the lyrics, it’s a pleasant little ditty that could have worked on previous albums.

A total change of tack for Party Hard, which sounds like an excellent Bowie track from the mid 90s. Jarvis an extraordinary Bowie impersonation over a grinding beat and squalling guitars. It goes beyond mere homage, as it’s a fine anthem and a highlight of the album. Help the Aged is, yet again, different, a soaring anthem which leads nicely into the title track, returning to the territory of The Fear, all sinister keyboards and brass.

After the almost folky TV Movie, A Little Soul is a fine, soaring soulful ballad which Pulp seem to turn out effortlessly. I’m A Man starts out like the Wedding Present before becoming a somewhat overblown number along the lines of Arcade Fire.

By now the listener is exhausted by the sheer breadth and scope of this album. Penultimate track Glory Days is not, as the title might suggest, a Springsteen-inspired folly but an attempt at a Different Class style stomper before the album finishes with the sentimental, cathartic sounding The Day After The Revolution, complete with statement “The Fear is over”, and a final note which lasts 10 minutes!

There’s a strange note on the CD booklet, after the lyrics are printed it reads: “NB Please do not read the lyrics whilst listening to the recordings.” Pretentious, glorious failure? Quite probably, but an enjoyable one at that.

EP Review: Low – Transmission

2011-07-26T11:33:00.003+01:00

For this 1996 EP, for the opening and title track Low take Joy Division’s Transmission and slow it down to a snail’s pace. Which is not to say their version plods. Oh no, it builds up from a quiet opening to an anthem of sorts with some strong guitar work from Alan Sparhawk. It’s a risky track to cover but it pays off in spades, this cover version is positively inspired.

What follows is a little mixed. Bright is a meandering Mimi Parker sung track, and Caroline 2 is an even slower minor-key version of the track off Long Division.

Hands is a dark, almost threatening song, with a sinister lyric about taking “two hands to cover your ears”. After the brief Jack Smith there follows 5 minutes of silence before a lengthy, ambient, untitled, instrumental bar an occasional snatched Sparhawk lyric here and there, laying the groundwork for future forays into this area.

The Stunning at Buncrana Music & Arts Festival

2011-07-25T14:34:00.001+01:00

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Lisa Hannigan at Earagail Arts Festival

2011-07-25T14:31:00.002+01:00

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Album Review: REM – Green

2011-07-25T12:26:00.002+01:00

REM continued their graduation from jangly indie band to alternative rock gods with 1988’s Green. The album opens with the upbeat Pop Song 89 which takes a clever riff and some seemingly disparate parts and moulds them into one song. Get Up is similarly upbeat before You Are The Everything, a gorgeous song leaning heavily on Peter Buck’s mandolin and a strong vocal from Michael Stipe. The mandolin comes out again later on the album with The Wrong Child and Hairshirt.

Of course at this stage REM were becoming adept at writing insanely catchy songs. On this album we get 2: the slightly cheesy Stand and fine rock anthem Orange Crush. They also laid the ground for what would come afterwards with the midtempo and less well known World Leader Pretend, aided and abetted by some memorable cello and steel guitar parts and a chorus of intent: “I raised the wall and I will be the one to knock it down”. Turn You Inside Out is another fine rocker and penultimate track I Remember California has a darker tone to it.

It’s hard to imagine now how rare this sort of stuff was in 1988. While it’s probably nobody’s favourite REM album, it’s one of their better ones.

Album Review: The Horrors | Skying

2011-07-12T11:48:00.002+01:00

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Album Review: Lloyd Cole – The Negatives

2011-07-12T08:28:00.003+01:00

What a breath of fresh air this Lloyd Cole album is. After the muted Love Story, this album, released in the year 2000, was his first to see the light of day in 5 years. Here Lloyd re-emerged with a new band, the Negatives.

Opener Past Imperfect is a bright, anthemic driving tune with special mention to self-referential lyrics (“what on my mind in Amsterdam in 1984, what did I want from the pouring rain… why was my head in the unmade bed”) and a wonderful guitar solo. It’s followed up by the acoustic Oasis-style strum of Impossible Girl, and then the moody No More Love Songs, all muted keyboards and guitars and the merest (and welcome) hint of steel guitar.

But the uptempo tracks are the real winners here: What’s Wrong With This Picture is another bright anthem in the vein of Past Imperfect, with jangly guitars and a great big catchy chorus. Negative Attitude is a tough, Lou Reed style rocker, recaptured later on the driving rock of Too Much E.

Vin Ordinaire will delight devotees of The Smiths with its chiming guitar arpeggios and soaring, yearning melody in the vein of No Blue Skies, while Tried To Rock sees Lloyd mine late-period Beatles territory with a putdown aimed squarely at himself.

A great collection of songs and a resounding return to form for Lloyd Cole.

Album Review: Neil Young – Silver and Gold

2011-07-11T15:49:00.001+01:00

For his first studio album in 4 years, released in 2000, Neil Young is firmly back in his country mode for the first time since Harvest Moon. And it fits him like a comfortable pair of slippers. Which is kind of like an analogy for how this album sounds. Right from the opening track, Good To See You, we get the plaintive acoustic guitar, harmonica, Young’s warm croaky voice and Ben Keith’s yearning steel guitar. It’s almost like the title of the song is welcoming him back to the type of territory where he achieved his greatest commercial success.

There’s very little wrong with any of this, particularly when it’s done so well. The title track follows in a similar vein with a nice lyric about how “our kind of love never seems to get old.” This sort of thing gets a little corny, cropping up again and again over the course of the album.

Daddy Went Walkin’ is a little hokey for my tastes, though it’s redeemed by piano, while Buffalo Springfield Again harks back his old band with a fuller sound.

The chord progressions throughout are all very pleasant and some of them are a little familiar, harking back to his work from the early 70s. Horseshoe Man starts with a piano motif that could have been lifted from After the Gold Rush and more lyrics about “love, I don’t know about love”, while later Distant Camera starts off sounding like a dead ringer for Old Man, yet becomes something akin to Green Green Grass of Home, with yet another lyric about wanting “a song of love”.

To round out the nostalgic feel, Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt provide backing vocals on Red Sun and a rustic sounding acoustic guitar solo. Final track Without Rings is a little different, with Neil Young singing in a lower register. It sounds resolved, like the end of something, and not just an album either.

For anyone who enjoys Neil Young’s more acoustic material, this compares favourably with After the Gold Rush, Harvest, Comes A Time or Harvest Moon.

Album Review: Patrick Kelleher & His Cold Dead Hands | Golden Syrup

2011-07-08T16:08:00.002+01:00

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Album Review: Gillian Welch | The Harrow & The Harvest

2011-07-04T17:05:00.002+01:00

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Album Review: Dirty Three – Horse Stories

2011-07-03T17:21:00.002+01:00

Dirty Three are an Australian instrumental trio, featuring Warren Ellis’ at times unhinged violin playing ably supported by the tasteful guitar of Mick Turner and Jim White on drums.

This album, released in 1996 was their third, and is a real mood piece. After the tranquil opener, 1000 Miles, Sue’s Last Ride is an early highlight. Building up from Turner’s gentle guitar part, the music has plenty of space in it for Ellis’ violin to rampage through the song, quickening throughout the piece. Hope is more downbeat with hints of Arab Strap’s instrumentation in the guitars, but I Remember A Time When You Used To Love Me is a rollicking, sway-along romp, and the first indication that the band is capable of rocking out.

At The Bar sees the pace slacken once again before the furious rocker Red, which eschews subtlety from the start in place of pounding drums, bashed guitars and demented violin from Ellis at its core, and doesn’t let up.

Warren’s Lament is surely the centerpiece, it’s like a microcosm of everything Dirty Three do over the course of eight and half minutes, with an especially lonesome violin part. It finishes with the somber, funereal I Knew It Would Come To This, with Ellis’ violin appearing to reference The Smiths at one point.

A whole album of violin playing takes some getting used to but for those who enjoy instrumental music in the Mogwai vein, this should be investigated.

Album Review: Fruit Tree Foundation | First Edition

2011-06-29T19:56:00.003+01:00

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Album Review: Dakota Suite | The Hearts of Empty

2011-06-29T19:53:00.002+01:00

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Album Review: Neil Young & Crazy Horse – Broken Arrow

2011-06-29T08:26:00.003+01:00

The good thing about Neil Young albums is that if you don’t like one, you might like the next one. They tend to vary a fair bit stylistically. However in 1996, his album with Crazy Horse was the latest in a long line of rock albums, stretching back to 1989’s Freedom, and broken only by 1992’s Harvest Moon.

Ok that’s enough of the back story. One noticeable thing about this album is that there are only 8 songs on it, and the first 3 songs are all more than seven minutes long. Big Time is classic sounding Crazy Horse territory with that unique guitar sound, though it and many of the other tracks here are overlong. Case in point is Loose Change, which has a very pleasing, if ridiculously repetitive guitar-laden midsection but does it really need to be nearly 10 minutes long?

The loping strut of Slip Away is the closest in feel to his classic 70s Crazy Horse material, with ghostly vocals harking back to the more recent Change Your Mind. After 3 tracks over 25 minutes you either buy into this or you don’t. Changing Highways is sloppy country-rock, like a weaker version of Looking for a Love (off Zuma), and Scattered again evokes the 70s (Albuquerque off Tonight’s the Night).

Lovers of acoustic Neil are also catered for here with the mellow strum of Music Arcade, but final track Baby What You Want Me To Do, a Jimmy Reed cover, is a messy (in a bad way) blues strum recorded live, complete crowd noises and dragged out over 8 minutes!

Definitely not an album for lovers of short, succinct songs, mainly one for fans of the jamming Crazy Horse variety.

Concert Review: The Cult at The Academy, Dublin, June 15th 2011

2011-06-28T12:24:00.005+01:00

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Album Review: Low – Long Division

2011-06-28T10:14:00.003+01:00

Low’s second album, released in 1995, reinforces the minimalist Low template set out in their debut. The songs here are very sparse, very one-paced and mostly very hushed. If anything it’s less varied than their debut, and generally slower.

Violence kicks things off at glacial pace, showcasing clean, ringing guitars and the clear, crisp harmonies of Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker, setting the tone for the rest of the album. Shame has an alluring melody to it, sung by Parker.

An early highlight is Throw Out The Line, entirely built on these aforementioned harmonies with the sparsest of guitars and drums backing it up. Turn is less melodic, based on Zak Sally’s bass strums, and it builds and builds, never quite reaching a climax. The remainder of the album continues in the vein of what went before, varying little from the ‘template’.

It’s far away from latter period Low, with no noisy bits to break it up. Definitely not an immediate album, more of a grower.

Album Review: Jimmy Scott – The Source

2011-06-27T12:27:00.006+01:00

Jimmy Scott, also known as Little Jimmy Scott was born with a genetic deformity which prevented his vocal chords from maturing fully. It gives him a highly distinctive, startling sounding voice, which sits somewhere between a male and female voice.

Though none of the eight songs on this album, released in 1969, were written by Scott, it shows off his ability to fully inhabit a song right from the start with the powerful Exodus, enhanced by sweeping strings. A performance that will have the hairs on the back of your neck standing up.

He takes well-worn standards like On Broadway and Unchained Melody and turns them inside out. These are songs some feel they need never hear again, yet Jimmy Scott, showing superb grasp of pacing and dynamics, gives them an interesting twist. Later Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless Child, is a great big slab of sadness, with some wonderfully moody piano, flutes and strings.

The accompanying music is mainly orchestral jazz, with a hint of blues here and there, with piano, strings and saxophone. It provides an engaging backdrop, without overpowering the singing. It’s a perfect album for coffee on a sunny morning, with a mood perhaps along the lines of Nina Simone.

Concert Review: Peter Hook and the Light at The Academy, 3rd June 2011

2011-06-17T11:00:00.002+01:00

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Album Review: Ryan Adams & The Cardinals – Cold Roses

2011-06-16T09:10:00.006+01:00

After the fall-out from the botched release of one of Ryan Adams’ finest hours (Love Is Hell), his next move was to form the Cardinals. 2005 saw him release three albums, double album Cold Roses being the first.

It’s a return to country-rock along the lines of Gold. Magnolia Mountain is quite an opener, building from an acoustic strum to a full blown rock anthem with Adams singing lines of regret like “ended up with nothing but scars, the scars became the lessons that we gave to our children after the war”. Sweet Illusion has an effortless guitar part underpinning a strong steel-guitar-tinged song, slightly let down by a very strained vocal. In fact Ryan Adams’ vocals are the Achilles heel of this album, he sounds almost strangled in parts.

He doesn’t get it right on his more hushed vocals, Meadowlake Street’s falsetto doesn’t quite work either. However, it doesn’t ruin the music, which is a kind of muted country-rock ballad which explodes into life three minutes in when the full band make their entrance.

Less successful are rocker Beautiful Sorta which is almost as horrid as its title, and the hokey, cod-country of Cherry Lane and the title track. Dance All Night is harmonica-led country-rock which sounds like Hallelujah or Desire from the unreleased 48 Hours.

Better are the comfortable, effortless ones like the vaguely-MOR (in a good way!) When Will You Come Back Home, Mockingbird and Rosebud. On these songs Adams’ vocals sound huskier and less forced, which suits him a lot better. Fans of the vulnerable piano pieces and shimmering guitars on Love Is Hell will find much to like in How Do You Keep Love Alive and Blossom.

It’s not all mope ‘n’ misery. Let It Ride and If I Am A Stranger are strong uptempo country rockers, while Life Is Beautiful is a gloriously overblown country-rock ballad.

It’s a long double album, stretching to 77 minutes with several missteps along the way, but at its best it stands up with some of Ryan Adams’ better work.

Album Review: Lou Reed – Magic and Loss

2011-06-15T08:24:00.003+01:00

Following the well received New York and Songs for Drella, Lou Reed had returned to form and expectations were high in 1992. When Magic and Loss came out, dealing primarily with death, it felt like a culmination of a life’s work. The album is quite imposing, with each song having a subtitle as well as a title, eg Cremation – Ashes to Ashes, and with (for the most part) very muted downbeat music.

Despite a rather pompous opening instrumental, Dorita, the album quickly settles into a highly melodic groove, albeit a somewhat dark and gloomy one. What’s Good is as perky as it gets, with Lou musing on cancer and loss. Power and Glory gets more specific, talking about “isotopes introduced into his lungs” and “cancer reduce him to dust” leading into a wonderful chorus owned by a guest appearance from Little Jimmy Scott.

Lou and fellow guitarist Mike Rathke’s guitar playing is very restrained throughout this album, nowhere more so than on the dark plea for escape that is Magician (“I’m afraid that if I go to sleep I’ll never wake, I’ll no longer exist”). Some levity cracks through the darkness, in Goodby Mass he muses “you, you would have made a joke, you would have said something like tomorrow I’m smoke.”

Later, Harry’s Circumcision details a botched attempt at altering one’s own features over a floating melody. There are faster rockier tracks here Warrior King, Gassed and Stoked but these don’t work quite as well, and are at odds with Reed’s almost professorial vocal delivery.

The title track is another dark, muted melody about “passing through the fire to the light” with a real sense of finality about it, and fittingly, it’s the last track. The album is a dark, at times overwhelming, even claustrophobic collection of music. Yet it is also warm and soothing and will resonate with fans of Lou Reed’s music.

Album Review: Belong | Common Era

2011-06-14T10:19:00.003+01:00

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Concert Review: Ryan Adams at The Olympia 2011

2011-06-10T12:23:00.002+01:00

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Album Review: Eddie Vedder | Ukulele Songs

2011-06-07T15:22:00.002+01:00

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Album Review: A Plastic Rose | The Promise Notes

2011-06-07T15:19:00.002+01:00

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Album Review: Thurston Moore | Demolished Thoughts

2011-06-07T15:17:00.003+01:00

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