Find More Than Simply Reviews: January 2008

Bob Collum And The Welfare Mothers - Set The Stupid Free

Track List :

1. Set The Stupid Free
2. Virginia Mystery
3. Damaged One
4. Disco Jesus
5. Nevermore
6. Jennifer Jones
7. Well Runs Dry
8. Cemetery Blues
9. A Little Wind
10. Brought Up Wrong
11. Mystery Track

With a name like Bob Collum & The Welfare Mothers, with an album title like that, not to mention their project in early 2008 appearances at the Veterans Leytonstone's Club and an event called Prozac Yokel, I really wanted to like this album .

Anyone who moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma in Basildon, certainly deserves some kind of reward in the form of joyous critical acclaim for their music.

Unfortunately, it simply can not be done. The songs on The Stupid Set Free are like ghosts of the other tracks, you listen and you are haunted by the feeling that you have heard somewhere before them.

The lyrics are packed with too many cliches, I am beginning to wonder if it is a travesty and I just do not get it. There is nothing wrong in the album, but it is eminently damnable pale with praise. The musicality is competent, tacking on polished, with a little grain to the electric guitar here and there, and good slimily pedal steel.

There's just something about it all the ersatz. Especially avoidable maudlin Damaged One song, although the previous track, Mystery Virginia with a strong hook even though the musical phrasing is a little corny and predictable.

The runway, however, must be a cover of old blues standard (What You Gonna Do When The) Well Runs Dry? Who sounds much more committed than the other songs, not exactly kicking up his heels. Unfortunately, it is followed by Blues Cemetery, which sounds like it was recorded by a group completely different, with his style U2 pealing guitars and bathetic rhymes, ending with a big rock climax of clattering drums and electric guitar that seems fair exotic in this context.

There are several styles to display further from the echoey Honky Tonk Disco Jesus (overstays its welcome by about 2 minutes), which is bizarrely followed by one of these commendable close harmony with the dearly departed "Nevermore," with its bluegrass - Saying runway, which in turn gave way to a poppy tribute to the former American talk-show host Jennifer Jones. It might be schizophrenic, it is not intriguing.

musicOMH

Adrian Crowley - Long Distance Swimmer

Track List :

1. Bless Our Tiny Hearts
2. These Icy Waters
3. Star Of The Harbour
4. Temporary Residence
5. Walk On Part
6. Victoria
7. Harmony Row
8. Theft By Starlight
9. Electric Eels
10. Leaving The Party
11. Brother At Sea
12. Long Distance Swimmer

Cross alt folk traditional Irish folk with US miserabilists such as smog and the result is this small, pared down, fragile slice of the singer and the song that no one should be without iPod. It may be a style of music that ten a penny these days, but only artists like Adrian Crowley, who stand out from the crowd, all the more impressive.

Opening track Bless Our little hearts is bleak and beautiful, as is the third offer, Star Of The Harbour, both in recalling the archetype forlorn troubadour strumming a guitar solo on a dam as clouds gather. In the meantime, these Icy Waters adds several instruments to the mix to lighten things up.

The list of solo acoustic songs more layered offerings as appropriate with the help of musicians whose Marja Tuhkanen on violin, James Yorkston always interesting additional information on the voice, clarinet, concertina and guitar, Sinead Nic Gearailt on the harp Katie Ellis on cello and Thomas Haugh, on drums.

Crowley aid never intrude, nor take charge completely, it is sufficient to stimulate songs like Walk On Party at a higher level than a simple offer of a cul-de-pan bloke with a battered guitar. Here, in particular the ability of additional instruments to echo the cruel waves of a cold Wednesday make the song rather than break on the underlying rock. The slow, does not augur well for strings Electric Eels, also deserve mention.

Crowley real talent shines through songs like temporary residence (probably the best album) and Victoria, which reach low density and full sound at the same time, while most of the songs rounded, as Harmony Row, the most sinister that optimistic. The music is dark and cold, perfect for the mid-Release Date. Imagine that Nick Cave host a wine and cheese New Year's Eve party in a particularly dark crack on the Irish coast as the ghost of Nick Drake looks, image thanks to the continued instrumental Theft By Starlight sound of the piano.

As the album progresses, Leaving The Party is almost cheerful by comparison, a song you can imagine at least slow waltz, and yet it is also one of those who owe the greatest debt to the darker alt US - folkies, morphing into one of the album sad lament before Crowley did. In the penultimate track Wednesday Brother on the other hand is, truly, more optimistic.

Crowley This is the fourth studio album, following 2004's A North Country, 2005's A Strange Kind, and When You Are Here You Are Family. His music has not changed direction after relatively long layoff, but it is certainly not to return lower. Think Smog, Bonnie Prince Billy think, think The Decemberists if they had no sense of humor or, closer to home, such as Irish troubadours Declan O'Rourke.

And then, to round it all is the finale, beautiful, fragile, delicate title of the album. Perfectly balanced, with ropes crashing in the time to beat of the waves against the shore, it would be greedy to ask for a better start for the musical treasures can wash up 2008 for us.

musicOMH

The Heliocentrics - Out There

Track List :

1. Intro
2. Distant Star
3. Flight 583
4. Once Upon A Time
5. Beyond Repair
6. Sirius B
7. Untitled
8. They Are Among Us
9. Zero Hour
10. Joyride
11. American Empire
12. Before I Die
13. Intermission
14. Age Of The Sun
15. They Are Among Us
16. Nico - Winter Song
17. World Of Masks
18. Sounds Of The East
19. Somewhere Out There
20. Second Chance (K2's Prayer)
21. Return Journey
22. Sirius A
23. Falling To Earth
24. Outro

The dazzling optical illusion offered by the cover of the Heliocentrics' debut gives some clues about its musical content.

Out There, it certainly is, and if the beats of hip-hop major Originally, the music is given free rein. Improvisation is welcome, but not much given free rein, afraid that the dossier collapse on itself. Samples abound, but do not dominate, because there is a lot of interest on the fifteen instruments Heliocentrics use in the course of the recording. And when you think that number does not include strings or percussion, you will have an idea of the offer on the sound spectrum.

Constantly evolving, music uses sound synthesis and sampling sparingly and wisely, stimulating the acoustics of contributions, which have the power of live performance. A wide range of percussion adds to the earthy beats of hip-hop, Indian and Arabic meaning sons are often implicit against the lowest obviously Westerners.

Comparisons with Sa Ra and his band of flexible space-jazz are inevitable, but what's happening here is more earthbound and easier to latch to do. That is, as long as you do not try to put a generic label on it. Much of this music is what you want it to be, but mostly he has rhythm, melody and song interest in abundance.

Leader Malcolm Catto custody octet hinge together, and work with Madlib, DJ Shadow (guested on the band's last album) and Yesterdays New Quintet means it is well informed for the role.

Out There has been designed over a period of four years, and it is up to all of the credit that it sounds fresh, organic and ideally structured, where long enough to just under sixty minutes. A progressive, embracing the experience rather than a sectionalized listen, it is nonetheless usually a riff on the lock.

Distant Star provides a solid lick lowest atmospheric strange that occur, while Sirius B makes use of the pleasant parpings the baritone saxophone. Joyride, it is just that in a rapid pace and that sounds like Jake Ferguson's Thai to play guitar for ailments like textures swirl.

Yet singling out individual tracks is not the point of the album. Listening solely by the propagation time is very challenging and often eye-opening journey, an opportunity to marvel at the sounds made by Catto and his orchestra. It is a very popular trip in the early hours, when the Heliocentrics Out There are maximum effect.

musicOMH

Dean Owens - Whisky Hearts

Track List :

1. Carter's Intro
2. Years Ago
3. Beth on the Trampoline
4. Nothing To Lose
5. Adrift
6. Leaving to Remain
7. Miss You CA
8. May
9. Just Another Story
10. Sand In My Shoes
11. Hallelujah
12. Raining in Glasgow
13. Whisky Hearts
14. Man From Leith
15. Mystery Track

In many respects, Dean Owens, the third solo album is very old. That is not meant as a criticism - it musically references enormous slabs of Springsteen (especially the opener, Years Ago, one of those songs slyly policy with its ripe for rip sax, and rising gloriously Hallelujah) and some of the most relaxed Flying Burrito Brothers' twangy country rock.

Formerly lead singer with the Felsons largely unremarked, like Springsteen, Owens is a gift for simple, direct sentences that summarize common beliefs or feelings, catchy riffs, and to tap into the vibrant, the euphoria of the surface hardworking man.

For some reason, his slightly politicized, optimistic songs like Miss You CA, bounded by West Coast harmonies, work better than the more introspective, quieter numbers. They may not be totally original, either in thought or execution, but they all freeze beautifully.

The title of the album, Whisky Hearts full of Celtic instrumentation, is the perfect swayalong number, ideal for playing in the background during a raucous assembly but bitter at the end of a theatre where American 'aide Pogues would be a little too strong. When you think of the song a big pile of cliches, but by God, it works when you leave you rolling on.

Although many of the catchy and easy to live tracks, especially on the last part of the album, the reference Scotland, Owens's Americanised accent is, as its execution, and the album was recorded outside himself Nashville with a role call of the mature countries playing on talent. Thus, the songs that were meant to be the most personal and the most lyrical Owens are those who do not quite fit in.

Sung in transatlantic tones, Raining in Glasgow ( "I bet it rains in Glasgow / but tonight I would not be getting wet spirit") has an unintentional parody touching about it. And while Man From Leith , the father of the singer, is sincere. It gives us rather bare descriptions of his memories of his father, and not the universal feelings that characterize much of the rest of the album.

This is not a great album (although it is certainly a very listenable one), but it was made by someone taking a slow and cautious path in the right direction, which I am now eager to see live, and I am sure Se develops greatness.

musicOMH

The Magnetic Fields - Distortion

Track List :

1. Three-way
2. California Girls
3. Old Fools
4. Xavier Says
5. Mr Mistletoe
6. Please Stop Dancing
7. Drive On, Driver
8. Too Drunk To Dream
9. Till The Bitter End
10. I'll Dream Alone
11. The Nun's Litany
12. Zombie Boy
13. Courtesans

It is four years since the last album of The Magnetic Fields, i, Stephin Merritt, but has hardly been idle. Yet, when 69 Love Songs shown a remarkable profligacy of the song, and Showtunes sparked his love of Chinese Music, the distortion is a step backwards aware - and not just the research on his shoulders, but swing for a full tour on 'examination of the past.

And the past, in this case, is dominated by a group - The Jesus and Mary Chain. If you liked the band flowering 1980's, this record will be of great interest as a tribute Merritt consciously at the time. If it can be seen as a step forward for the Magnetic Fields, however, is another matter altogether.

Merritt provides that never lyrical vignettes, the most striking on Too Drunk To Dream, where he finds the unaccompanied in the introduction that "life is a sober prison, it is a blessing shitfaced, sobre nobody wants you, they are all shitfaced undress. " The song comes up with a swaggering confidence, well look more closely and it is not difficult to identify the most vulnerable underneath.

Distortion is a name for the album, apart from its obvious representation in the white noise, completely out of Drive On, Driver, with his guitar solo flagrant division of the vocal verve easy two before with orchestral touches to shine, appearance Other end of the room.

Merritt enables the full range of his voice to come through, not always successfully. You no longer hear a song that the world is tired sick Old Fools, sounding like he had to be supplemented with a set of sticks. Similarly, Mr. Gui explore the lower end of baritone, and his macabre waltz slowly swirling distortion and complement each other well.

And still a dream, psychedelica gives an air more than pleasant to Xavier said, while Please Stop Dancing adds more than a touch of Human League impassive. Zombie Boy, however, falls flat, his robopop timber at a rate of lead in an over-reverberated worldwide.

Stephin Merritt has the purpose of this album is not always clear. On numerous occasions, it feels like an album, it was just discovered in the attic, gathering dust over the last twenty years. And yet, if it can be considered a step backward qualities of his music always come forward, both lyrical and melodic. Most of the songs have a lot to do in these areas, so for the fans, it can be considered a success, if never quite the approach of previous summits.

musicOMH

Artur Dyjecinski - A Year And A Half Of Rain

Track List :

1. A Song About Her
2. Those Pretty Things
3. Punch Drunk
4. Bottle In The Wall
5. Untitled #1
6. In Greed
7. Sitting Drinkin' Blues
8. Just A Day
9. Mmmm' Good
10. Soles Of Your Shoes
11. Things Will Work Out

From Poland by Canada, Artur Dyjecinski grew up on a diet of Neil Young, Bob Dylan, punk, and Billy Bragg in Vancouver, before the liquidation of London, where he recorded his first album.

Carried clear his influences on his sleeve, a year and a half of rain is a mixture of sometimes acoustic country rock effective and, at times, flowerchild banal cliché.

The opening piece, A Song About Her, is a happy foot-tapping, jolly serenade. A simple listing of a girl clear on certain points niftily picked guitar is perhaps not the most inventive idea for a song, but in the middle of the list of usual nonsense about his hair and how the girl smokes his cigarette, comments such as "broken hearts you leave in your path and serious conversation while others make you laugh," add an element of darkness that saves the song.

Those Pretty Things recalls Neil Young's best times less, too, the anti-materialism of the song is far from being a land of innovation fought for an acoustic guitar - toting young man with long hair, but it is done with a certain charm.

With vocal inflections reminiscent Devendra Banhart, Punch Drunk along the coast, extending the dynamic opening to the album.

The jollity ends with Untitled Number 1, the non-respect of what could be lifted by Elliot Smith, a former number, and melancholy drawl and strings could too drunk. Dyjecinski proves more effective than capable of melancholy on this issue. And In Greed is a brief extract from the bile which is a slap in the center of the album. This mixture of sadness, vitriol, and the country tinged indie momentarily Sparklehorse brings to mind.

The crowning achievement of A Year and a Half of Rain, Sitting Drinkin 'Blues, is also drenched in tradition of restraint and blues to country - like protagonist of the song is bourbon. Pedal steel, lazy wheezing, and a vocal twang affected combine to wonderful effect.

Unfortunately, though, if we made some tracks on the album, Dyjecinski tends to Jack Johnson, who took the upper hand over the second half of the album. Just A Day Mmm'Good are ineffective and beach stoner-fire numbers. Soles of your shoes is a good number of countries dance, but brief respite as closing the door Things Will Work Out is instantly forgotten pop surfer.

Dyjecinski invites comparisons with a lot of very good artists, but such comparisons just go to show that Dyjecinsk songs are not quite as good. This would not be so serious if it maintains the quality, but also in the albums 11 tracks, the song takes a nosedive feet and enthusiastic forgettable earcandy. Not without merit, and not without promise, a year and a half of rain is a bit of a damp squib.

musicOMH

Kevin House - World Of Beauty

Track List :

1. World Of Beauty
2. All The Planets, All The Stars
3. Song Of A Cloud
4. Waterfall
5. Down River
6. Chamber Music
7. Earthbound
8. Carnival Song
9. Lucia Zarate
10. Where I Want To Be

Kevin House has a very thin little voice that warbles support more carefully modulated music. His gentleness and warmth whispery slowly grows on you throughout this, his second album, though at the back of your mind you have a sneaking suspicion that he can not really sing.

It is hardly low-fi - everything seems carefully calculated, especially small bits of solo instruments, at the break while the meaning of the songs' dark slowly sidle more messages and comfortable to you. Images evoked by the songs -- which are certainly leading lyric, though some of his songs are very sweet, especially the opener of the World Beauty and the delicate song of a Cloud - are apparently naive to a world that does not reveal more closely on its Learn Côté.

The material ranges around a little Americana as Song of the River Cloud and Down (which recalls The Handsome Family meets Silver Jews supported by a palm court orchestra), thanks to songs that are much closer to the tradition of European song.

By mixing in mournful pedal steel guitar, courtesy of Paul Rigby, and some simple but doing trumpet Mike Derrick, the World of Beauty a miasma of sadness that hangs over it like a dark cloud.

Definitely an album for miserablists bedroom often interesting musically, with songs like Waterfall juddering featuring guitar and stuttering rhythms, coupled with lyrics also intriguing.

House is a kind of cult naive painter, his work, flirting with a number of issues such as the cult of carnival show banners, old documents and boxers, and his songs reflect a similar counter-culture point of view, providing previews downbeat in a mysterious world but proudly.

This is particularly evident on the song Carnival, which namechecks characters such as Jo-Jo the Dog-Faced Boy, but clearly indicates that the anticipation of the arrival of the carnival in the city is synonymous with something far more ephemeral pleasure . With its vaguely sinister, lilting tune, it's one of those songs that timidly is once you move your focus of the hurdy-gurdy brilliant model of his music.

If you like your music smart, sweet and distinctly sinister (albeit in a rather nice way), then Kevin House is certainly someone to extract.

musicOMH

Gorillaz - D-Sides

Track List :

Disc 1
1. 68 State
2. People
3. Hongkongaton
4. We Are Happy Landfill
5. Hong Kong
6. Highway (Under Construction)
7. Rockit
8. Bill Murray
9. Swagga
10. Murdoc Is God
11. Spitting Out The Demons
12. Don't Get Lost In Heaven
13. Stop The Dams

Disc 2
1. DARE (DFA remix)
2. Feel Good Inc (Stanton Warriors remix)
3. Kids With Guns (Jamie T's Turns to Monsters mix)
4. DARE (Soulwax remix)
5. Kids With Guns (Hot Chip remix)
6. El Mañana (Metronomy remix)
7. DARE (Junior Sanchez remix)
8. Dirty Harry (Quiet Village remix)
9. Kids With Guns (Live SARM Radio Session)

Two CD up the offer, with the second disc includes remixes, many of which are already in the public domain. From DFA remix Dare DFA appeared on his own compilation earlier this year, for example. That 12 minutes later epic, not everything else remixes are top notch. Jamie T's reimagining of Kids With Guns is close to unlistenable, while Hot Chip's take on the same track snoozy is a matter that calls Aphex Twin to mind. Later, a Mandarin version of Dirty Harry (Chinese New York Mix) Gorillaz took in a surprisingly Eastern direction.

But D-Sides' real interest is in the early demos and rarities that make up the first disc. As is the case with such projects-all that, the quality is always there too variable. People is what Dare sounded like before Shaun Ryder splashed "It's DARE" across a microphone and, when it ends, it is easy to be happy that he did - without him it seems unfinished. But in Hong Kong, has recorded for Warchild zither player with Zeng Zhen, provides proof of Albarn recently acquired a China-centric thought. is the lavishly converted into light, dripping with chains and the Atmospheric sounding like nothing else he has done.

Not all make such an impact. Rockit, "blah blah blah blah blah" replace a large part of the song, is simply unfinished. We Are Happy Landfill is floating floating by unmemorably. Bill Murray, a collaboration with The Bees, the head in a direction similar to The Good, The Bad & The Queen's Ice Cream Van, but no votes - good enough as the B-side was, but Albarn wisely self-published this reduction Demon Days good.

Stop The Dams, a bright, pleasant blend of acoustic guitars and synths which battered built using the voices and trumpets in a laconic, is another collaboration, this time with Sugarcubes, Einar Orn, who were protesting against the construction of dams Iceland in the desert. This is another stand-out - like Hong Kong, there are few traces in comparable Albarn's canon, which makes it an object of curiosity.

As in The Good, The Bad & The Queen and Blur, the indications are here Albarn feeds more than collaboration, but there is already little doubt that each project led another for him. If anything, D-Sides offers a fascinating glimpse into the creative process Albarn, allowing as it does halfway completed numbers to see the light of day and to provide evidence, if any were needed, that sometimes Britpop boy continues to push the boundaries and prolific For the most part, successfully.

musicOMH

Tom Baxter - Skybound

Track List :

1. A Night Like This
2. Skybound
3. Better
4. Tell Her Today
5. Miracle
6. The Last Shot
7. Tragic
8. Half A Man
9. Icarus Wings
10. Light Me Up

It's been three years since we heard something Tom Baxter. His release 2004 Feather and Stone, especially its opening track My Declaration, was a favorite Radio Two, but since then, not a sausage. Here come Skybound an autobiographical album, which shows her angelic, voice dream with an eclectic mix of sounds and styles.

A woody guitar, bass and blues, jazz, with brands Baxter orchestral accompaniment, we introduced Skybound with A Night Like This. His voice is rich, natural and soul, with his high notes stretched oozing passion.

His great song is highlighted in all its glory throughout the album, are no longer the title song. His classical Spanish guitar picking sits down gently with a light piano, brought to life with the beautiful strings.

Better understanding Other highlights a simple love song. Her heart-wrenching lyrics and melody tear-jerking are again set aside other gooey love songs with the magic of strings. It's always the string section that gives Baxter songs a little something extra. The arrangements are nothing unusual, but production is complete and edifying, and there is not a synthesizer in sight.

The theme Flamenco continues to Tell Her Today, a few strange, which seems a step in the wrong direction. They are great, but the end is a bit cliché - if I may say so, too stereotypical Spanish. He digresses from an album of beautiful love songs simple and tries a little too hard to do something different. A better work is done on the darker Icarus Wings, even if it is a bit like the flamenco version of Halloween.

No woman could not fail to go to their knees weak with Baxter passionate take on new and old love and the wonders of that special someone, especially with songs like Miracle, tragic and Half A Man, despite the Beatles I Want You rip-off ending. The voice effortlessly, as a One Year Colin Blunstone or a Grace-era Jeff Buckley, are mesmerising.

So Skybound is beautiful, moving and very lovey-dovey, but it does run the risk of being more of an album of your mom would listen that the last, providing a source of inspiration and an original British Singer / songwriter.

On my own, I could sit in the dark and happily float away, but I would be embarrassed to play it at an evening. It's a bit too much. His melodies are a little too obvious, his words a bit too soppy, and it lacks the freshness of the plume and stone. Baxter is always beautiful voice, but it will not draw many young people connected with it.

musicOMH

Sia - Some People Have Real Problems

Track List :

1. Little Black Sandals
2. Lentil
3. Day Too Soon
4. You Have Been Loved
5. The Girl You Lost To Cocaine
6. Academia
7. I Go To Sleep
8. Playground
9. Death By Chocolate
10. Soon We'll Be Found
11. Electric Bird
12. Beautiful Calm Driving
13. Lullaby
14. Buttons

With some artists, a song can be both a blessing and a curse. Of course, it can make your name and reputation, but it can also act as an albatross around your neck.

With Sia, Me Breathe. Released ago nearly four years, it was taken by many television programs (most memorable in the final moments of Six Feet Under) and its haunting, atmospheric piano strings have become nearly ubiquitous (Adele is also a fan if his sole residence Glory is a drop).

So with Sia's first album in more than two years, it is natural that comb to find a way similar to Breathe Me - which is probably unfair, like that the songs are not very well often.

Instead, Some People Have Real problems is packed with polished, professional mid-paced numbers will not sound out of place on the radio during the day. Yet, the problem is that nothing stands out here, especially in crowded markets that Sia is now occupying.

However, the voice of Australian singer did sound as good as ever. It is one of the few people who could cover a Pretenders song (I Go To Sleep) and coax just the right dose of sensuality in what might Chrissie Hynde. Admittedly, it is not too different from the original, but perfectly suited to the song Sia.

From the original of the document, most of them appeal to those who have heard for the first time through Sia Zero 7, although the songs here are based on the more traditional guitar or piano as the electronic duo .

The names of the song Little Black Sandals or lenses May evoke an air of tweeness, but it is a kind of tweeness beautiful, and Sia's voice never lets the mood slip too far into blandness. Day Too Soon sails close to its territory, with Gabrielle sweet pop / soul feel, but the choir and the general rise 'welfare' atmosphere, it is to listen.

You Have Been Loved is a languid piano ballad that ends beyond its welcome somewhat, but the rhyme style verses of the Academia (with a penalty Beck) is very irritating - not even the singing of the choir can register luxuriant unfortunately.

The Girl Lost For Cocaine You can not have a particularly promising, but it is one of the best pieces here, one beef, loaded brass number that jumps out of the speakers. But the album is a bit spoiled by too many numbers of anonymity that drift through - Death By Chocolate attempts to revive the Breathe Me vibe, but overeggs the pudding a little while Beautiful Calm Driving and Lullaby are sleep-inducing than the title would suggest.

While Sia's absence, the singer / songwriter 'image has changed somewhat. Nobody's suggesting that it should acquire a pharmaceutical appetite to Amy Winehouse or even trying to attract fans MySpace Lily Allen and Kate Nash, but a little more edge would have been useful to distinguish the great diversity of female authors comfortable there right now.

MusicOMH

Mika - Relax (Take It Easy)

Mika, Mika, Mika. I understand how when you released this wonderful slice of pop retroid and nobody makes blind bit of notice, you might be persuaded to try a "new direction" but this was really no excuse for the entire Grace Kelly Love Today---Lollipop Big Girls horror that occurred, subsequently leaving your two beautiful moments (ie: "Happy Ending" and what) to be chucked away at the end of 'album promotional calendar.

I am also sure that will be used to get a better video, since its first version. Today is one of those gritty, camera phone-esque jobs, complete with images of "Gosh Aren'tI great?" Massives live performances interspersed with fanciful scribbles, like 'Get Together "by Madonna Only, err, not Madonna.

No matter, though, because it is in good shape Mika, ie it is a stonking melodic pop with a bit of sadness mournful, allowing just calm all that "EVERYONE IS WITH SO MUCH FUN THEY ARE NOT "camp Business and get to sing a song. It is not even in falsetto.

Admittedly, a large part of the brilliance of this song should be attributed to the fact that nicks its melody '(I Just) Died in Your Arms Tonight "by the famous Cutting Crew, one of the great late eighties, twenty ballad hair funny feeling for someone Sentiments:

But hell, this is twenty years this is the first time and I know that I normally get all banded collective faces for not bothering to write their own song, but I think it's actually as a good sample, he narrowly escapes with his judgement. This keen sense of the song Cutting Crew, to the extent that there is a certain edginess and the desire away and the "us against the world" feeling a lot of the power ballad in the heritage. It sounds like flogging streetlights past a train in the dark, as rain lashes as windows and do something really quite reckless, with just enough determination to make it work.

The lyrics are actually quite wonderful, too - maybe it's just that I spend a lot of time over long distances to live and travel by train at the end of a very long and hopeless, but Travel imagery fits well with the kinesis of the song, thus propelling Xylophones, scratchy screech by the parties guitar and immersing ourselves, right on the night.

It is a moving song, and not in the sense that it makes you well with tears, but in the sense that it happens somewhere, without really going there, in the song itself, the journey , not arrival. At this time of year, this is exactly the kind of song that fits all across the country, people themselves are wrapping up and beef, to the various transportation to begin the long journey up where they have Christmas and there are about winter a little xylophone Who can not help but warm houses collapsing shells as sub-zero temperatures and the madness that takes over your seasonal sees 2 hours, making mince pies.

In other words, if they did not do it the first time, it deserves blimmin to this appointment, it is perfect for the time of year and remains, in my view at least, the whole point Mika.

B B C

Prince - 3121

Track List :

1. 3121
2. Lolita
3. Te Amo Corazon
4. Black Sweat
5. Incense and Candles
6. Love Listen
7. Satisfied
8. Fury Listen
9. The Word
10. Beautiful, Loved & Blessed
11. The Dance
12. Get On The Boat

There was a time when the prince is the gold standard for artistic expansion. Each of his opus "looted" for a new arena, and each shift in its approach increased correspondingly, the size of the venues of his visit. For more than a decade, he was unstoppable, picking up the baton freaky funk of George Clinton and parlaying into a true superstardom. Funny, though, how the short trip from the top of the pops "News of the Weird" marginalization can - 1990, he spent the better part of a decade roaming the desert, kicking poorly distributed albums ironically that could have reached a wider audience if he had not left Warner Brothers to go it alone.

From an image standpoint, the New Power Generation era saw the prince transformed into a bizarre caricature of justice, religious and others. But just as the path of the hollow crests can be covered quickly, artists can swing back so quickly, and in 2004 musicology praise collected by the bushel, partly restore the reputation of Prince criticism, as well as its commercial fortunes. In retrospect, it seems that the music has been marked a return to substance not to be a nuisance. 3121 is a little better than that, arrives with a handful of infectious songs - that is his best record since the symbol, but there is certainly a huge gulf between him and his masterpieces.

Speaking in terms of his classical period, the 3121 is more "Gett Off" than "Nothing Compares 2 U". The opening title of the album works almost entirely on the eccentricity, as a huge crowd of pitch-shifted Princes harmonise the amount of words that, in principle, to go to a party. At the other end of the piece, "Get on the Boat" is benefiting from strong horn arrangement (with Maceo Parker solos, no less) and a chassis vintage funk enough for coming directly from a Savings shop floor - and the loose, De live feel does not hurt either.

One thing "Get on the Boat" sets in its piano and timpani eruptions is a Latin who has more pervasive influence on 3121 than any previous album Prince. "Te Amo Corazon" is a beautifully nuanced ballad built on a slow, a little rock-tinged mambo beat, and there are snatches of Cuban piano and drums Brazilian exist everywhere. Crunchy electro is the dominant strain in most of the best songs of his first album, though, including the killer single "Black Sweat", the fractured keyboard riff of "Lolita" and "Love", inhabited by soft keyboard and a monster chorus that slashes Melody bottom buzzing with synth bass. "The Word" strikes a nice electro-acoustic dichotomy, layering and a spacey synthesizer programmed beat with acoustic guitar and a solid hook sax.

If the entire album has been given to these levels, we will be on something, but "Fury" emphasizes the impact of its incredible lead guitar part with a patch hopelessly dated keyboard and generic rock drumming. "Incense & Candles" is predictable room r & b based on overly manipulated vocals, rap-swerving into a bit like the passage exactly when I started thinking: "I bet there is a bit of rap-like passage in this song. "He could have at least brought to a guest to deliver something more interesting.

So two albums in a career revival, the prince is still little variety "return". He never going to be as surprising as it was at its peak, of course, and it is probably unfair to expect something like that from him. Overall, 3121 was a pretty ordinary sound record, largely stuck in another, more user-friendly sonic decade - namely 80 years. If nothing else, the Prince is slowly regaining the intrigue, and of course there is still a lot of major issues in his old catalogue to revisit everything he finds himself.

pitchforkmedia

The Feeling - Twelve Stops and Home

Track List :

1. I Want You Now
2. Never Be Lonely
3. Fill My Little World
4. Kettles On
5. Sewn
6. Anyone
7. Strange
8. Love It When You Call
9. Rosa
10. Same Old Stuff
11. Helicopter
12. Blue Piccadilly
13. Miss You

The feeling that you will probably be left to after hearing the first album of The Feeling is a joy.

For Twelve Stops and Home certainly quarters of the devices on several occasions, there is plenty of pop gems contained in most listeners to leave a smile.

The group is composed of Dan Gillespie Sells (vocals and guitar), Richard Jones (bass), Kevin Jordan (guitar), Ciaran Jeremiah (keyboards) and Paul Stewart (drums), five guys from Sussex and London who share a love for Without frills handsets, the hook-filled, giant pop-chorused.

They have already scored two hit singles with massive Sewn, a mid-tempo ballad that continues to sound fresh, and Fill My Little World, a hook gloriously loaded a record romp sun radiates positivity.

But many of the album's attractiveness lies in its ability to juggle slow, piano, bursting with reflections on life and love with more optimistic than most celebrations dizzy feelings.

Therefore, a large number of inland wear their mid 70 inspirations proudly, flitting casually of the likes of Lennon and McCartney to the Queen and Steely Dan via Godley and Creme, The Carpenters and The Beach Boys.

The album starts supremely optimistic mode with the beam of energy that is I Want You Now, which contains the vocal melodies ripped right out of the Beach Boys' lyric and a lot of soft-power-rock hooks. It is almost impossible not to be carried away by his infectious energy.

There is the popular sentiment in shimmering Never Be Lonely, a wonderfully scripted ode to love on people in love "getting everything wrong" - think Supertramp Dreamer, only marginally better.

Fill My Little World follows along to make an informed welcome before Kettle It slows things completely, dropping some killer piano strings and low that eventually beat key is giving way to an epic chorus on comfort family.

Indeed, it is safe to say that the music of The Feeling succeeds in paying tribute to simple things, things everyday that we often take for granted. It shines a little light that continues to strengthen the hardest of the album.

Other highlights include the breezy Anyone is built around several hooks and another sun superb chorus, and the large stage poll Love It When You Call, which really does wallow in the mid-70's, soft rock territory.

Given the current retro revival happening in the music - it's taking in both the 70 years and 80 years - it is refreshing to find a group capable of blending nostalgia for something that is just as fresh and exciting.

The Feeling's Twelve Stops And Home contains a dynamism that is hard not to get caught up in. This is a very encouraging beginning.

indielondon

The Kooks - Inside in/Inside Out

Track List :

1. Seaside
2. See The World
3. Sofa Song
4. Eddie's Gun
5. Ooh La
6. You Don't Love Me
7. She Moves In Her Own Way
8. Matchbox
9. Naive
10. I Want You Back
11. If Only
12. Jackie Big Tits
13. Time Awaits
14. Got No Love

The first time the quartet of Brighton The Kooks played together, they knocked on coverage of The Strokes "Reptilia". They have come a long way since then, becomes the darling of the music press, and the preservation of impressive coverage with support slots for The Thrills and The Subways.

"Inside In / Inside Out" is a folder packed with a lot of rock songs tinged with catchy pop melodies - but it opens with a short acoustic number that shows a fragile side of the singer Luke Pritchard. "See The World" then explodes with screaming guitars and brilliant energy, before the sweet melody of "Sofa Song" kicks in. This is a track laced with humour, which is the evocative title "Jackie Big Tits. " Debut single last summer "Eddie's Gun" is a rocker bizarre, and although most recent album "You Do not Love Me" is a song that beef, looks to punk. A breeze acoustic ditty, "She Moves In Her Own Way" is as catchy as the best work of The Coral and The Zutons.

Showing confidence to experiment with their music, a hint of ska can be found in "Match Box" and "Time Awaits," which includes false ending unnecessary. The Kooks also show a dark side in the thunderous "I Want You Back. "Thanks to a soulful piano, he broke into a big emotional and that the track is very impressive, and one of the moments of the record is. Indeed, the only disappointment is" Got No Love ", a Life dirge that concludes the album on a low note - but not ruin what is a good start.

Contact Music

Red Hot Chili Peppers - Stadium Arcadium

Jupiter :

1. Dani California
2. Snow (Hey Oh)
3. Charlie
4. Stadium Arcadium
5. Hump de Bump
6. She's Only 18
7. Slow Cheetah
8. Torture Me
9. Strip My Mind
10. Especially in Michigan
11. Warlocks
12. C'mon Girl
13. Wet Sand
14. Hey.

Mars :

1. Desecration Smile
2. Tell Me Baby
3. Hard to Concentrate
4. 21st Century
5. She Looks to Me
6. Readymade
7. If
8. Make You Feel Better
9. Animal Bar
10. So Much I
11. Storm in a Teacup
12. We Believe
13. Turn It Again
14. Death of a Martian.

At the beginning of the second hour of the Red Hot Chili Peppers' mammoth new double album, the guy who once yelped, "I want to party on your pussy!" Chuchotent-sings a gentle, but not unrelated, proposition: "All I want is for you to be happy / And take this woman and make you my family." The delicate "Hard to Concentrate" is the most vulnerable Peppers tune ever - a full-on marriage proposal from Anthony Kiedis, Flea on bass and John Frusciante muted layers of guitars slow dances Afrobeat hand drums.

The twenty-eight songs, the box-Stadium Arcadium length is not an average age concept album on trade in your tube sock for a tux. But the band's ninth studio album is the most ambitious work of its twenty-three-year career - an attempt to consolidate everything that is Chili Peppers, from their earlier, funny funk-metal stuff to nu-soul "Under the Bridge "- Balladry to Californicating pop-style vocal harmony. And unlike the Foo Fighters' but equally expansive bloated double disc In Your Honor, and almost every other double album of the post-vinyl, the band pulls it off. It is an end-of-career triumph that could pass for another, the largest group of lesser-hits collection.

Much of the credit for the album depth - and the swelling, ever-morphing, helmet-candy arrangements that stimulate all tracks - goes to the band not so secret weapon, John Frusciante. It has been clear since his return to the band in 1999 Californication Frusciante who came away from his near-fatal heroin addiction with new musical superpowers, and they are in full bloom on Stadium Arcadium. Take "Charlie", which sounds like a monochromatic "Give It Away" retread until it erupts in rainbows of Frusciante's duel and falsetto harmonies, guitar solos simultaneously. Also of note are the laser gun funk riffing and nuclear fuzz solo on the pulsing, supercatchy "Tell Me Baby" and Art Garfunkel-like backup vocals on the claim, droning ballad "If".

But, as the Rolling Stones - another rhythm-conscious who have begun to act by ripping the black music only to dig much deeper - the Red Hot Chili Peppers are a real group, where everyone counts and nobody That is replaceable (except, perhaps, Bill Wyman). Flea has spent years reducing its frantic popping and slapping a Zen-like melodic minimalism, while merger ever more deeply with Chad Smith, who remains the swingingest rock drummer this side of Mitch Mitchell. But after 2002's By the Way, the group is the least funky album, bassist finally cuts loose again here, reasserting himself as the best non-hip-hop reason to buy a subwoofer. Flea's quacking, double-time lines on "21st Century" are a reminder that the Chili Peppers were recording Gang of Four-influenced dance rock when Franz Ferdinand was just a dead Austrian. And then there's Kiedis, whose voice still improving at an age when many rockers start slipping their high notes to the choir. It shows throughout the versatility of his death-on impression of Jimi Hendrix (his greatest influence voice) on "Hump de Bump" in a new country-rock growl on the refrain of the riff-o-rama track " Readymade. " Kiedis is also, more or less, the inventor of rap rock, and he embraces his roots, from the most rhymes on any album since BloodSugarSexMagik. He has not updated its flow in a couple of decades, and most of its texts are still unrepentant nonsense ( "Ticky ticky tackita tic tac toe / I know that everybody Eskimo"). Very But good knowledge of the style makes it an appeal counterpoint to the band's last day melodic splendor, instead of a Durst-ian embarrassment.

Stadium Arcadium midtempo has too many pieces, and, in the manner of U2's All That You Can not Leave Behind, is more of a sum of the Peppers' career as a step forward. But the group is still capable of surprises, as on one of the disks, "many potential singles: the bouncy, four-chord" Make You Feel Better, "a sixty-influenced pop tune with Fifth Dimension harmonies and Ringo Starr beat. few songs later, Kiedis seems to confess some fears about the project at hand: "The risk, is it worth it? / The disc, is it perfect? "Perfect? Nah. But close enough.

Rolling Stone

Deftones - Saturday Night Wrist

Track List :

1. Hole in the Earth
2. Rapture
3. Beware
4. Cherry Waves
5. Mein
6. U, U, D, D, L, R, L, R, A, B, Selct, Start
7. Xerces
8. Rats! rats! rats!
9. Pink Cellphone
10. Combat
11. Earth
12. Riviere

Although Sacramento, California's Deftones were attached any, alternatives such as metal, post-grunge, the more inaccurate description of the "nu-metal", the best thing about the band is how it has cleverly evaded categorization over the years. Stephen Carpenter massive down-tuned guitar chords have always appealed to the crowd, metal, but Chino Moreno's vocals often display a vulnerability that many shots chest metal fans find daunting. Drummer Abe Cunningham tempos tend to sludgy on a cruise, the mid-tempo pace, a bit like grunge, but under the turgid, dense wall of noise lurks many fragile melodies that would make these bands like My Bloody Valentine and the Cure.

When they are at their best, keep their Deftones fans guessing, as the unforgettable, ambitious () 2003 eponymous follow-up seemed a bit of a step backwards, putting too much emphasis on Pent - Up Aggression ( "Hexagram") and not enough on the multilayered song ( "Minerva"). With so many heavy bands in the mid to late 90 quickly slipping into self-parody (Korn, Fear Factory, Mudvayne), the pressure was on the quintet is to continue to evolve, otherwise they liquidation without their most Pairs creatively limited.

Three years of preparation, drafting and registration of Saturday Night Wrist is often very long and stressful, the band using two producers (Bob Ezrin record instrumental pieces, Shaun Lopez voice processing), recording five different locations and sustained internal squabbles, and often questioning their own futures. Often these complications usually result in a sloppy, poorly final product, but interestingly enough, this is not the case here. For all the struggles, all the hard work in the studio, for the whole of the breakup rumors, the Deftones have emerged with their more well-rounded, focused record yet, one that comes scarily close to White Pony besting all in a line Direction slightly different at the same time.

A fervent follower of the Cure and Depeche Mode, Moreno has always shown signs of bringing some goth-tinged soul burst through the wall of guitars, but if previous albums only affected those stately melodies, Saturday Night Wrist goes everywhere , and the final result is surprisingly rewarding. In the past, Carpenter's guitars tend to overwhelm Moreno cries of melancholy, but the pair are on an equal footing on the new album, and both prosper. "Hole in the Earth" begins with a stirring overture guitar, bass, and drums to reel guaranteed in the old fans, but the song quickly mood swings as Moreno arrives with his singing plaintive more up to date than Carpenter echoed to the singer with chiming Accents, the final coda punish (brilliantly underscored by bassist Chi Cheng) sufficient proof that the group will not be resolved soon to chipping.

On the album of introspective songs, Moreno has never sounded better. "Warning" bides his time, but our patience is rewarded when the majestic choir director, giving Moreno distinctive phrasing idiosyncratic ballad Deftonian its (lack of a better term) quality. "Cherry Waves" shoegazer plunges deeper into the territory that the group has ever seen before, but for all the Smashing Pumpkins awkward references to the opening minute (languid guitars, mellifluous bass, simpering vocals), Moreno when he sings: " If you need to get off Bottom, I will swim to the bottom ", the emotional resonance of this is very hook us. System of a Down's Serj Tankian duo pops for a little over" Mein ", and backup keyboardist Frank Delgado Moreno "Xerces" who, despite following the band's high-quiet-quiet-loud formula perhaps a little too Stiff, is sold by the force of Moreno sings alone.

There are plenty of times heavier course, and while the band sounds ferocious, on occasion, he never flies off the handle, Ezrin maintenance of the probe instrumental pieces tight and nervous. Nowhere is this more apparent than on the vitriol "Rats! Rats! Rats!" A manic, bipolar rant anchored by Cunningham's disciplined percussion work, which takes a Danny Carey quality during the decidedly-as a tool of last minute. "Rapture" is downright vicious, the four band members with a muscular, yet simple face backdrop of Moreno's screaming rants, while "fighting" alternates from tetchy, bludgeoning, introspection, shifting gears with ease. Is more satisfactory "Kimdracula", which hearkens back to simplicity White Pony and Around the Fur, Moreno's mixed down crying more instrumental than opera, sounding like an E-bowed guitar on the din.

A March this excellent track record, as "Pink Cellphone" is an unnecessary distraction during the second half. Five minutes of a jerk circle that Moreno and guest vocalist Annie Hardy try to wax poetic about electronic beats, it becomes progressively worse, vulgar culminating in a stream of consciousness monologue Hardy which might have seemed funny at the time (you can hear in - Studio chuckling), but falls completely flat on the album, and if it is not to force in the last three tracks, would have completely derailed the album.

For the most part, however, Saturday Night Wrist the Deftones improve on all fronts, whether in Moreno stirring vocal work or enhancing the versatility of the group (listen to the instrumental "u, u, d, d, l, R, l, r, a, b, select, start "for proof). The process could be laborious, but it seems that after all this work, the group is closer to a fully realized sound than ever.

Pop Matters

The Beatles - Love

Track List :

1. Because (Love Version)
2. Get Back (Love Version)
3. Glass Onion (Love Version)
4. Eleanor Rigby/Julia (Love Version)
5. I Am The Walrus (Love Version)
6. I Want To Hold Your Hand (Love Version)
7. Drive My Car/The Word/What You're Doing (Love Version)
8. Gnik Nus (Love Version)
9. Something/Blue Jay Way (Love Version)
10. Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite!/I Want You (She's So Heavy)/Helter Skelter (Love Version)

11. Help! (Love Version)
12. Blackbird/Yesterday (Love Version)
13. Strawberry Fields Forever (Love Version)
14. Within You Without You/Tomorrow Never Knows (Love Version)
15. Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds (Love Version)
16. Octopus's Garden (Love Version)
17. Lady Madonna (Love Version)
18. Here Comes The Sun/The Inner Light (Love Version)
19. Come Together/Dear Prudence/Cry Baby Cry (Love Version)
20. Revolution (Love Version)
21. Back In The USSR (Love Version)
22. While My Guitar Gently Weeps (Love Version)
23. A Day In The Life (Love Version)
24. Hey Jude (Love Version)
25. Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise) (Love Version)
26. All You Need Is Love (Love Version)

There are two ways to approach LOVE, a new Beatles album that flirts with heresy by the remixing and remodeling most sacrosanct pop guns of the 20th century. You might figure as a sop today mash-up interactive culture. Or you could say that it's just the extension of the medley-ish, segue-ethos pleased to Abbey Road to the entire catalogue of the group. Really, it's both, and that is happiness.

Paul and Ringo are not involved beyond approval, but the album has been lovingly assembled by the closest thing a Beatle - original producer Sir George Martin, which many fans consider fifth Fab ' '.''He and his talented son, Giles, have been assigned to mess with the masters for a soundtrack to the Cirque du Soleil of the same name, and they have done tinkering. The voice within de''You Without You''est married to the East-bed Zen pace of Tomorrow Never Knows''.'' It's mash-up time again - or maybe crash-up? -- When the beep-beep-yeahs Drive My Car''''devenu runway pour''What You're Doing,''avec''mot''fragments adding to the gridlock. Beatlemaniacs can anticipate hearing the Martins Beatlegasms lay the haunting guitar coda de''I Want You''sur madmen calliope''Etre music for the benefit of M. Kite.''Some tracks wed different recordings of the same song, Séquentiellement (''Strawberry Fields Forever''progresse demonstration of the finished product) or simultaneously (mixing surround de''I Want to Hold Your version Hand''a studio front speakers and recording live at the Hollywood Bowl, at the rear).

Cacophony which could grow aggressive, but there is stripping down in the middle of the pile-ons. The usher exhilarating,''Because,''is now a cappella, and the most glorious divinity rock choir from the Beach Boys'''Notre prayer .'''' While My Guitar Gently Weeps''affiche as George Harrison solo in the demo, but with a new orchestration composed by the senior Martin, you thank God that one or George Krishna lived for others to honor.

We watched on both sides LOVE now, a sense standard stereo audio CD and DVD 5.1 is the package of luxury. By all means, buy the latest (and loudspeakers to read on), because hearing a simple stereo LOVE after surrounding it, it's like returning to the mono Sgt. Pepper. The subtle change in the information, you can listen to recordings, even extremely overfamiliar - songs many of us have heard thousands of times - as something entirely new. It is ironic that George Martin cited hearing damage when he retired in 90 years, because the return of a gracious offer final, it gives us the gift of new ears.

Entertainment Weekly

Evanescence - The Open Door

Track List :
1. Sweet Sacrifice
2. Call Me When You're Sober
3. Weight Of The World
4. Lithium
5. Cloud Nine
6. Snow White Queen
7. Lacrymosa
8. Like You
9. Lose Control
10. Only One
11. Your Star
12. All That I'm Living For
13. Good Enough

A few years ago, when Evanescence descended from the bus of Arkansas and sold 7 million copies of their debut album, Fallen, they were the only ones around Evanescence. As soon as you saw the video of "My Immortal", you knew you were in the presence of a teen-titan misery, as Amy Lee tiptoed through a marble palace of pain, in a white robe Victorian, it could have borrowed from Stevie Nicks, and a voice that came from you and me. But these days there are scads of Evanescences: looking for younger groups the right combo goth eyeliner, deader after death morbid tone and alterna-teens melodrama.

Without Evanescence, could there be one or My Chemical Romance Panic! At the Disco? Evanescence goth-metal bombast's got its impact Lee of spirituality, as she played piano and sang on his haunted romances with boys and God. In the process, she became America's favorite Christian zombie-vampire girl. Did that make her happy? One listen to The Open Door should let you know: Amy Lee is still extremely sad about boys, God and much more.

In the three years since Fallen, Lee has undergone some major changes in lifestyle. First, it is now a rock star, which is why she now writes songs about the pressures of fame ( "Weight of the World") and psycho fans ( "Snow White Queen"). She also split with guitarist Ben Moody, whom she met at Christian summer camp when she sang a ballad Meat Loaf. But, really, could replace Lee boys in the band mid-song and nobody notice. When the pain takes its corseted soul, as in almost all the songs on The Open Door, she overdubs of her bodice ripping big voice in a chorus. His singing is the highest in the mode of eighty-belters shoulder pad as Pat Benatar and Heart's Ann Wilson, who should burst songs like "Sweet Sacrifice" and "Call Me When You're Sober."

But Lee is the greatness of its banality. It always sounds like a very average Middle American girl who aspires to be "Good Enough," but who suffers from a percentage higher than the average of the magnetic attraction and destructive dudes. One of these dudes seems to be the Lord himself ( "Your Star"), and at least one other appears to be her ex-boyfriend of Seether. "Call Me When You're Sober" seems to be on the latter; "Sweet Sacrifice" is clearly aimed at Moody ( "One day I will forget your name / And one day sweet, you drown in my lost Pain") and "Lithium "is his ode to Kurt Cobain. How can we collect as many boys girl dangerous? Whenever she leaves the house, it seems to work in some messianic skater dude who puts on its "Cloud 9" and his "Lose Control", until it turns into "Lacrymosa," sobbing hysterically on a grand piano. But if Lee can sometimes make the difference between the Holy Spirit and the cute guy at the next locker, how do make it different from all other secondary schools girl? Or, for that matter?

He certainly says something that the best songs on The Open Door is the creepiest. It identifies with a fan who stalks her, in the seriously disturbed "Snow White Queen." She-out "Helena" to "Helena" in the teen-death trip "Like You", where she eulogizes her dead brother: "I long to be like you / Lie cold in the ground, like you. " Obviously, Lee earned a magnetic contact and destruction itself. But that's what makes the breakup songs on The Open Door feel real powerful.

Rolling Stone

Mars Volta - Amputechture

Track List :

1. Vicarious Atonement

2. Tetragrammaton

3. Vermicide

4. Meccamputechture

5. Asilos Magdalena

6. Viscera Eyes

7. Day of the Baphomets

8. El Ciervo Vulnerado

For nearly 1994 tapes criticisms were announcing that the next "Nirvana". Now, I am not even sure what the next consisting of Nirvana. Is it the ability causal rip off a whole underground scene and the feed through a process that will make it easily relatable to the mainstream? Is it "reshape" the sound of music in the mainstream? Or is it simply a group of very influential at a time when music critics feel that music becomes stale and too similar? Maybe it is a combination of all these factors, but every few months, I read a review that said: "This group may be the next Nirvana." So, it should not come as much surprise that in early 2001, a small group of El Paso, Texas under the name At the Drive-In was the "new Nirvana."

It is important to note that ATDI Nirvana and share a similarity in that they have uprooted both the noise of a thriving hardcore scene, Nirvana a mash-up of hooks Pixies, Husker Du aggression, and ATDI basically completely steal their sons The early 90 DC Fugazi sound mark. "Relationship of Command" ATDI catapulted into super stardom, but really far from being effectively "Nevermind", which all but put an end to hair metal in the mainstream. Everybody knows the rest of the story when it comes to ATDI, the group collapsed under the sudden success and split into Sparta, a probe band ATDI, and Mars Volta, a progressive punk band that had a bit too much love their Mexican heritage.

Now, Mars Volta, the first release "Deloused in the Comatorium" is certainly receive a lot of excitement about his release when he came to the music magazines, but nobody said that Mars Volta was going to be the next Nirvana. Curiously, "Deloused in the Comatorium" is probably one of, if not the most recognized album being played tapes very influential. Maybe because announce that the next big thing is something nobody can predict, and I mean really, in 2003, nobody expected a resurgence of progressive rock. A band that clearly bore Yes and King Crimson their influence on the sleeves certainly would not evolve into being shameless voice of a generation. But Mars Volta have made, a gang which is also highly valued by the appreciators of music, and the average audience, a group that has sold nearly 500,000 copies of their second album, which consists of five titles, including was one of more than thirty minutes. Now, for me it seems almost ridiculous, groups such as the Mars Volta are not supposed to have this level of success, especially immediately after their releases. I could see the Mars Volta is one of those bands that have gradually gained respect over time, but obviously the music populous does not agree with me, so when I attend their concerts, I hosted by the faces forty years prog head, and Fourteen years scene of children. As the diversity of fans, I see bands Tool My Chemical Romance at all may talk about how great the Mars Volta is. It is extremely ridiculous if you really take time to think about it, but it was the popularity of Nirvana in the early 90 then what you can do. When the music changing needs, bands rise to the call and that is what the Mars Volta have accomplished over the past five years.

So "Amputechture" is upon us. "After two LPs and a solid faux pas with a live album, The Mars Volta, the third LP is published around the world this week. Have they lost their touch, they will fall into the hole more indulgence, like most bands do it gradually over time? Or the Mars Volta have continued their excellent progress of developments that followed since their ATDI days? Well, I believe c That is a bit of both, but "Amputechture" is certainly not smaller than "Frances the Mute" or "Deloused in the Comatorium" the group brings subtle changes in their son, who keep fresh probe. Even though it is certainly not the level of change in the sound, we saw "DiTC" too "FTM" of the band is "Amputechture" showing eclectic range of sounds they can produce. While "DiTC" and "FTM" where basically 70 minutes short of pure energy, "Amputechture" is ready to live in the land of relaxation and ballads. Another important development in "Amputechture" over their previous versions is that the group appears to actually have fun with this album and that makes sense. While on the subject last two LPs was essentially dedicated to the loss of comrades. "Amputechture" is a collection of stories dealing with matters of faith, and certainly, if it is not a light matter, it gives Mars Volta some margin too crazy around (intro vocal "Meccamputechture" comes to 'minds as to when the band' S less serious approach). With this approach less pretentious to make music, and the addition of a combination varied sound, in my opinion, Mars Volta with 'Amputechture "just released their best release.

Defining "Amputecture" is difficult with songs from genres that include raga, progressive, salsa, and even a little Spanish-style acoustic guitar this album is all over the map. De opener "Vicarious Atonement" it is quite obvious Mars Volta has mellowed their sound a little down, it is essentially one minute eight or so slow pace with guitar solo that takes a swing band at the end of it. Whereas l 'opener with his guitar incredibly cheesy tone, and very 80s feel perhaps fans Mars Volta fear that their group became Rush, the next track "Tetragrammaton" the opinion is completely gone with the wind, with its relentless pursuit of sixteen minutes of progressive rock. Therefore, and so on, Mars Volta balances testing of its new pace slower and more gentle songs with his old progressive rock sound of frantic.

Regarding music, each member of the group is in good shape, whether it be the rhythm section of Juan and Jon ( "Days of Baphomets") or more lines Ikey unique keyboard ( "viscera Eyes") or Adrian's Coltranesque Lamentations ( "Meccamputechture"), this album makes sure all members is to show a little far they can go. Omar's style has not really changed "Frances the Mute" although there are more theoretical based guitar parts, which is most evident mainly in the intro and outro "Tetragrammaton". Production wise Omar has greatly improved the production less than perfect found on "Frances the Mute" tones on this album are sometimes beautiful and others completely fierce. Musically, this is what we are entitled to expect from the Mars Volta, extremely talented and original and sometimes virtuoso.

Now, while the rest of the band certainly put in excellent performances, the singer Cedric Bixler has certainly pointed out himself on "Amputechture." His unique voice combined with his lyrics were infused beat him in my opinion the most important member of the band, even on Omar. While Omar is certainly an interesting composer's obsession with progressive rock of the 70s are sometimes Mars Volta seems a little bit dated, compared with Cedric's dealing with current issues in its post-modern roundabout way. While "DiTC" certainly was not strange vocal effects, Cedric and sound manipulator Pablo Hinojos-Gonzalez had an album that even with the large quantity of high layers and subtle effects on the voice of Cedric. Even considering all this, it suffices to Cedric the range on this album is absolutely ridiculous. The work of her voice must be to sing "Tetragrammaton" life must be painful and exciting. In my opinion, Cedric is the key to the Mars Volta unique sound, and also one of the most original and interesting singers / songwriters currently composing music.

As it is now expected Mars Volta each version has a very epic piece found somewhere on the CD. If in the past it was the final, ( "Take the Veil" on "and DiTC" Cassandra "on" FTM ")" Amputechture "switches that just putting the next big epic to last." Day Baphomets "is perhaps the best song of Mars Volta wrote and essentially a showcase for all that they have done up to this point too. Beginning with a solo bass very entertaining, and then between a jig grinding jagging TMV b-side "A Plague Upon Your Hissing" and a very catchy chorus, the culmination of the song with a solo percussion ridiculous provided by the younger brother of Omar Marcel. "Baphomets Day" is in my opinion the highest point and the culmination of what Mars Volta has basically been trying to do over the last five years, and now, in a sense, will have to pass to because they have mastered, it is much too well.

Obviously, I was painting "Amputechture" in a very good light, but of course, almost every album has its drawbacks. "Amputechture" come mostly in the form of the reality of the Mars Volta have for the most part done all of the music found on the previous album. While it is certainly the best they have done, it is a kind of sad to not be completely shocked by moments like I had been on their previous records. Also, "Meccamputechture" Omar has done more of the horrible "jazz" based jams, which were found on his solo album, meaning it is essential jamming in a straight cord for nine minutes, which incrediblely can be grating. Some of the sudden changes in the songs are sloppy and not as seamless as previous Mars Volta Omar songs and the guitar, always slightly higher in the sections. But the heaviest is consistent with that which has been haunting the band for three albums now, the feeling that Omar constant component is heavily influenced by bands like King Crimson and Yes at points than what they sound like a blanket Band. Even though it's sometimes nice to see bands wearing their influences on their sleeves, Mars Volta is certainly push the boundaries between the influence and plagiarism in some places, and I hope with their next album, they can get out of this rut of constantly searching for Mr. Fripp for inspiration. But disregarding all of this "Amputechture" is a fun, interesting, and imaginative album, which despite its quirks is still a great listen.

As I said before, The Mars Volta can be regarded as this generation of "Nirvana", but they have certainly not fallen trap to any of these bands mistakes again. Rather than trying to recreate what some consider to be a perfect album over and over again, the Mars Volta have stuck to what they have always said, from conception and are simply making music for themselves. While other groups such as the fall of Troy and tools in the areas to dwell ridiculously high seriousness and pretension, The Mars Volta shows once again that they are far ahead of the pack, but their inculcate a sense of humor and playfulness in their music with "Amputechture." Although, if the Mars Volta is not a very different record their next time I can see many fans becoming quite disappointed because they played the same card for five years now. With "Amputechture" hopefully comes a shedding of the skin and the Mars Volta will once more in an area where their music can not be programmed and is once again extremely varied in their previous material. But perhaps it is just my hope, that one of my favorite bands continually surprises me the most, as they did when I discovered for the first time. I do not know what will happen, but I can say that I am excited to see where the group chooses to ignore.

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