Monday, August 13, 2012
EP Review: The National – Cherry Tree
This was a stopgap EP released by the National in 2004, just
before their breakthrough album Alligator.
It’s generally more quiet and introspective than their full-length
albums. Wasp Nest opens with
sleigh-bells, and the sparse, slow music provides a perfect bed for singer Matt
Berninger’s croon of lyrics like “get over here I wanna kiss your skinny
throat”. What seems at first to be an
insubstantial track is effortlessly and defiantly NOT.
There are austere ballads featuring strings like All Dolled
Up In Straps “where have you been” and the dramatic title track, the latter of
which builds up to a crescendo. The
subtlety of brothers Dessner and Devendorf is particularly evident on these
tracks.
The EP sees the first appearance of All The Wine, probably
the most commercial moment here, and the fine, picked guitars of About Today
are just shaded by the penultimate track.
It’s a live version of Murder Me Rachael, ramping up the violins,
guitars, pounding drums and Berninger screaming “love her to ribbons”. It’s an edgy and powerful performance.
Sunday, August 12, 2012
Album Review: Morrissey – Your Arsenal
Some return to form for Morrissey. Previous album Kill Uncle seemed laboured and
he seemed in danger of becoming irrelevant in the 90s. 1992 saw him re-emerge with a new band and
shiny new Mick Ronson-produced album Your Arsenal. It literally roars out of the traps with the
rollicking You’re Gonna Need Someone On Your Side. Lyrically he’s right back on song with the
sarcastic “here I am... well you don’t have to look so pleased”. GLAMorous Glue is a total glam stomp. Never before had Morrissey strutted his way
so definitely through a song as he crooned “London is DEAD! London is DEAD!” Similarly Certain People I Know echoes T.
Rex’s Ride A White Swan.
A breather then for We’ll Let You Know, moodier territory on
the subject of football hooliganism. It
becomes more defiant towards the end when the band picks up steam, Morrissey
singing “we may seem cold or we may even be the most depressing people you’ll
ever know”. He got a lot of flack for
seeming ambivalence to this and racism in National Front Disco (“England for
the English”).
The classicly-titled We Hate It When Our Friends Become
Successful (“and if they’re northern that makes it even worse”) also contains
wonderful jangly guitar. Downtempo
moments are not forgotten on this album.
Seasick, Yet Still Docked is the latest in a line of moody Morrissey
moments, dating back to Pretty Girls Make Graves, while I Know It’s Gonna
Happen Someday is one of his cleverest moments.
It’s a homage to David Bowie’s Rock n Roll Suicide, with the coda
overtly imitating Bowie’s coda.
Final track Tomorrow sees Boz Boorer and Alain Whyte’s
guitars combine to great effect. It’s a
superb collection of songs, and one of Morrissey’s finest albums.
Saturday, August 11, 2012
Album Review: Lou Reed & John Cale – Songs for Drella
Lou Reed was on a particularly strong creative streak in the
late 80s/early 90s, and in 1990 he teamed up with fellow ex-Velvets’ John Cale
to record a tribute to the late Andy Warhol.
Reed had developed a subtle, deft guitar playing style which really
works on this album the second of three real classics from this period (1989’s
New York and 1992’s Magic and Loss also).
The keyboard-based Open House is wonderfully warm piece of
music, as is the Cale-sung Style It Takes.
The second of these is a particularly beautiful piece of music, mainly
keyboards but with great guitar touches from Lou Reed. Supposedly John Cale had to be talked into
singing the line “this is a rock group called the Velvet Underground... they
have a style that grates”.
Many of the songs are intelligent and original, without
being up their own behinds. Trouble with
Classicists is an interesting musing on classicists, impressionists and
personalities, while Faces and Names considers how easy it would be “if we all
looked the same, and we all had the same name” how much easier things would be.
The album takes you through Warhol’s life, from his early
days in America (Smalltown, Open House) to his shooting (Slip Away, I Believe)
to his final, lonely days (A Dream, Forever Changed). Nobody But You, an almost Leonard
Cohen-style track muses about surviving his shooting by Valerie Solanas (“I’m
still not sure I didn’t die”) and concludes devastatingly that “all my life...
it’s been NOBODIES like you”.
The six-minute spoken word of A Dream is almost light
relief. The track is recited by John
Cale, who can make a mundane passage sound very strange as the protagonist
(Warhol) talks about Cale (“he’s been looking really great... what does it mean
if you give up drinking and you’re still so mean”) and Reed (“I’m so mad at
him, Lou Reed got married and didn’t invite me... I hate Lou, I really do”).
The album ends splendidly, penultimate track Forever Changed
has almost frantic piano under Reed’s streetwise guitar riffs while Cale
laments how (Warhol) is “forever changed”.
The tender final track Hello It’s Me sees Lou Reed take the lead role as
he directly addresses the deceased Warhol, lamenting his treatment of him (“I
wished I’d talked to you more when you were alive) praising his vision (“I
haven’t heard ideas like that in such a long long time”) but allowing himself a
final sidewipe (“your diaries are not a worthy epitaph”).
Even without the words and knowledge of the subject there is
fine music here. Often overshadowed by
its predecessor, this is a fine album in its own right.
Monday, July 30, 2012
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