Concert Review: Evan Dando & Juliana Hatfield at The Sugar Club - 30th November 2012

Review for www.meg.ie http://www.meg.ie/evan-dando-juliana-hatfield-at-the-sugar-club/

Album Review: The Lemonheads - Creator

The Lemonheads' second album came out in 1988. It zips along, 13 tracks in just over half an hour. Ben Deily is very much to the fore, taking more of the lead vocals than Evan Dando. The band has slowed down a bit, despite the presence of Dando's speed rocker Clang Bang Clang. Out is a decent mid tempo rocker, while Deily's Come To The Window has a dippy charm.

They each take an acoustic track, Dando covers Charles Manson's Your Home Is Where Your Happy, while Deily plays sensitive original Postcard. A cover of Kiss track Plaster Caster adds little to the proceedings. So here the band are still some way off discovering their sound.

Album Review: The Lemonheads – Hate Your Friends

The Lemonheads’ debut album, released in 1987 is far away from the early 90s tracks where they made their name.  There’s not the slightest tinge of country about these tracks, there are 13 tracks over 24 minutes of mostly rather generic speed-punk.  Mainman Evan Dando alternates lead vocals with collaborator Ben Deily. 

 

Dando opens the album with the brief Eat It which sets the tone for a bunch of sub two-minute, three chord thrashes.  Nothing wrong with that, but it doesn’t set them apart.  Deily’s 3-9-4 feels like a cross between the S€x Pistols and very early Screaming Trees, and later he shouts his way through the punk version of Amazing Grace you always knew you needed.

 

The band are slightly more successful when the drop the pace a little, Deily’s Second Chance works in a kind of Jam-like way, but the one true great is the longest track here at three minutes.  Don’t Tell Yourself, with a swaggering riff and a dislocated, sullen vocal from Dando which works really well on a track made to play loudly.

 

It’s an interesting curio for Lemonhead completists (yes there are Lemonheads fans who can find some motivation to collect their releases), but inessential.

EP Review: How To Destroy Angels

2010’s self-titled EP was the first offering from Trent Reznor and Mariqueen Maandig’s new venture, How To Destroy Angels.  It starts with the superb industrial electronica of The Space In Between, which packs an insane amount of brooding tension into three and a half minutes.  It’s one of the finest things Reznor has done in years.

The EP is a bit of a mixed bag of styles.  Normal service resumes with the scratchy Parasite, probably the track most like Nine Inch Nails.  Much more representative are the pulsing, dance-tinged Fur Lined and BBB.  The EP finishes with A Drowning, a fine example of icy electronica with a hint of Shirley Manson about it.

It’s an interesting diversion for Reznor (this is as diverse as he gets!) if a little hit and miss.

Album Review: Nine Inch Nails – The Slip

After the instrumental diversion of Ghosts I-IV it was back to business as usual on 2008’s The Slip.  After a brief instrumental (999,999), a stomping beat lifted from Pearl Jam’s Last Exit ushers in a standard issue Trent Reznor angsty belter in the shape of 1,000,000. 

After a pair of tracks in a similar vein (Letting You and Discipline), the album gets a lot more interesting on fifth track Echoplex.  A mechanized beat opens the track, on which the music is urgent and insistent, like a darker version of Depeche Mode.

It’s the less typically NIN tracks which succeed here, sparse piano ballad Light In The Sky is possibly the quietest ever NIN track, Reznor’s vocals seldom raising above a whisper.  Corona Radiata is a leisurely seven minute instrumental in the vein of the aforementioned Ghosts, before the pace picks up again with the pacy The Four Of Us Are Dying.

Although it’s a relatively short album (for Nine Inch Nails) at just under 45 minutes, it’s possibly a more enjoyable one than some of their longer efforts.

Album Review: Sparklehorse – It’s A Wonderful Life

Sparklehorse’s third album, released in 2001 has a more homogenous feel than previous albums, with fewer of the sudden, jarring noisier tracks.  In fact there is only one track that jars, and it arrives late into the album.  Dog Door features of all people Tom Waits on guest vocals.  The combination of Mark Linkous and Waits should work, on paper anyhow.  In reality it just doesn’t work, coming across as mere pastiche, Waits using an affected falsetto (yes, really) on the track.

But the rest of the album works very well indeed.  The title track sets the tone with Linkous’ creepy, whispered vocals, distant bells and scratchy, muffled instrumentation.  Again this track is a little atypical as the rest of the album is more lush.  Tracks such as Gold Day (which has a ring of Eels about it), the Van Morrison-esque Sea of Teeth, and More Yellow Birds are wonderfully drowsy drift to them.  Darker fare such as Apple Bed (featuring a highly effective backing vocal from Nina Persson of the Cardigans) and piano ballad Eyepennies (featuring PJ Harvey) works equally well.

It’s not all sleepiness, Piano Fire is more uptempo while King of Nails stomps and struts, full of confidence.  Penultimate track Comfort Me returns the album to a ‘normal’, countrified keel.  A wonderful life, indeed.

Album Review: Whiskeytown – Strangers' Almanac

Whiskeytown’s second album, released in 1997, aimed to capitalize on the ragged country of Faithless Street.  With Jim Scott as producer, the album comes across as a lot smoother than its predecessor.  It opens with the comparatively muted Inn Town, a slow country waltz, before the VERY country Excuse Me While I Break My Own Heart Tonight, featuring a guest vocal from Alejandro Escovedo.

The rocking is not completely excised, Yesterday’s News barrels in like a tidied-up Replacements, but the band shine on slower material such as 16 Days, Dancing With The Women At The Bar and Somebody Remembers The Rose.  In those days, singer Ryan Adams wasn’t afraid to poke fun at himself, and it’s safe to assume that including a slow, soulful ballad entitled Everything I Do was designed to do that.

Turn Around is an interesting departure, a moody guitar strum sharing a melody with The Cure’s Lovesong, and speaking of moody moments the album ends with the gently grieving Not Home Anymore.

The album is a favourite of Whiskeytown/Ryan Adams fans but without the rough edges of its predecessor, doesn’t hit home to the same effect.