Album Review: J Mascis + The Fog - Free So Free

J Mascis' second solo album, released in 2002, doesn't see him break any new ground. Though would you really want him to? Sure, opener Freedom has a slightly funkier strut than usual, but elsewhere brawny riff-rockers like the swaggering Set Us Free (a bit of a theme going on perhaps?) and Bobbin are well up to standard.

Soft acoustics have their place here too, at least for the opening 2 minutes of If That's How It's Gotta Be, before the band drag the track out of its slumber into a satisfying conclusion. Further introspection is evident with the lumbering title track and the paychedelic-tinged Someone Said. Less satisfying are poppy rockers Tell The Truth and Everybody Lets Me Down. J Mascis has always ended his albums well, and here is no different with the blissed out solos of Outside.

So in short: you like Dinosaur Jr? Give this a go.

Album Review: David Bowie – Outside

Written off at the time as an over-ambitious folly, David Bowie’s 1995 album Outside (or 1. Outside) may be trying a little too hard to be industrial, and may be overlong at 19 tracks and 74 minutes but there is some great music on it.

Leaving aside the pretentious storyline, odd-sounding character names (Ramona A. Stone, Algeria Touchshriek, Baby Grace), the fact that each track has a subtitle, and some borderline annoying interludes, what’s left is a series of strong, very consistent songs.  Although the feel of the album is somewhat claustrophobic, there’s hardly a bad song on it.  The first song proper, the title track, is really dark and brooding, before The Heart’s Filthy Lesson really goes for the whole Nine Inch Nails vibe.

Hallo Spaceboy (the album version, not the horrid Pet Shop Boys remix) is full of  pounding drums as Bowie croons “this chaos is killing me”.  After this, The Motel is excellent, a slow space ballad giving Bowie’s voice plenty of room to really fill out the song.  The vocals are really excellent here and across the whole album.

The material is mainly really good, but there is a lot of it to take on board, and after a time it becomes somewhat homogenous.  Not all the tracks work, Wishful Beginnings drags a bit with shades of David Sylvian.  Later, I’m Deranged has another fantastic vocal over industrial beats and the upbeat, clattering melody of Thru’ These Architechts Eyes work particularly well.

The album finishes with the much smoother, tension free track Strangers When We Meet, a kind of standard issue Bowie-crooned ballad.  It doesn‘t quite fit in with what went before it.  The album had been billed as part of a trilogy, but we haven't got to hear parts 2 & 3 (yet).  Although there is plenty to criticize on this album, it’s an enjoyable listen, and far superior to most of his 80s and 90s albums.