The Smithereens' excellent sophomore effort picks up where their debut, Especially for You, left off, with Pat DiNizio delivering another impressive batch of superbly constructed pop gems; tracks like "Only a Memory," "House We Used to Live In," and "Drown in My Own Tears" are immediately ingratiating -- instantly familiar, yet performed with more than enough energy and flair to sound new and exciting. Equally compelling are Green Thoughts' curveballs, like the countryish "Something New," the lovely ballad "Especially for You," and the dark, atmospheric "Deep Black," all of which deliver intriguing variations on the Smithereens' basic power pop formula. Another winner.
For the first time since Dawnrazor, the Nephilim worked with someone other than Bill Buchanan as producer; whatever Andy Jackson's particular qualifications, happily he knew not to ruin a good thing. The end result was the band's best all-around album, consisting of four lengthy pieces that showcase their now near-peerless abilities to create involved, textured, driving, and loud pieces of rock. It was still goth as all heck, but like the best bands in any genre, the Nephilim transcended such artificial limitations to create their own sound. McCoy still comes up with an occasionally curious lyric, to put it mildly, but such is the power of his performance as well as the band's that, at least for the time it's playing, Elizium really does sound like it's about to call up darkling spirits from the nether planes. The opening song is divided into four parts but mainly known by its second, "For Her Light," which was edited into a single. It moves from initial crashes of noise, feedback, and keyboards to catchier brooding and riff action, a calmer midsection with appropriate samples of Alistair Crowley, and a last slamming run to the song's conclusion. "Submission" stands on its own, switching between minimal bass with guitar stabs and massive crescendos. "Sumerland (What Dreams May Come)" takes the apocalyptic element of the Nephilim to its furthest extent; its relentless pulse supports some of the most powerful guitar out there while McCoy achieves a similar high point with his commanding voice. "Wail of Sumer" concludes Elizium on a striking two-part note, gently floating rather than exploding over its length, while McCoy's lost, regretful voice drifts along with it as a soft, yet still unnerving conclusion. Combine that with another fantastic job on art design, and Elizium, once you accept the Nephilim's basic conceits, simply stuns.
More debut albums should be so amusingly perverse with its titles -- and there's the original vinyl sleeve, which consisted of sandpaper precisely so it would damage everything next to it in one's collection. Released in the glow of post-punk fervor in late-'70s Manchester, one would think Return would consist of loud, aggressive sheet-metal feedback, but that's not the way Vini Reilly works. With heavy involvement from producer Martin Hannett, who created all the synth pieces on the record as well as producing it, Reilly on Return made a quietly stunning debut, as influential down the road as his labelmates in Joy Division's effort with Unknown Pleasures. Eschewing formal "rock" composition and delivery -- the album was entirely instrumental, favoring delicacy and understated invention instead of singalong brashness -- Reilly made his mark as the most unique, distinct guitarist from Britain since Bert Jansch. Embracing electric guitar's possibilities rather than acoustic's, Reilly fused a variety of traditions effortlessly -- that one song was called "Jazz" could be called a giveaway, but the free-flowing shimmers and moods always revolve around central melodies. "Conduct," with its just apparent enough key hook surrounded by interwoven, competing lines, is a standout, turning halfway through into a downright anthemic full-band rise while never being overbearing. Hannett's production gave his compositions a just-mysterious-enough sheen, with Reilly's touches on everything from surfy reverb to soft chiming turned at once alien and still warm. Consider the relentless rhythm box pulse on "Requiem for a Father," upfront but not overbearing as Reilly's filigrees and softly spiraling arpeggios unfold in the mix -- but equally appealing is "Sketch for Winter," Reilly's guitar and nothing more, a softly haunting piece living up to its name. [The 2014 reissue on Factory Benelux differs slightly from the 1996 version. It also contains two songs from a 1980 12" single ("Lips That Would Kiss" and "Madeleine") and two songs from the Martin Hannett-written Test Card flexi, but also adds a bonus that may only appeal to the true fanatics. Tracks 14 through 19 represent the runnnig order of the second side of the album as released in the record's rare second pressing. It does add the song "Untitled" however, so it isn't a complete academic exercise.]
It's a safe bet to expect the unexpected in regards to any Lambchop effort, but the cryptically titled (and beautifully packaged) What Another Man Spills is the band's most consistently surprising and deliriously eclectic outing to date, with new twists around every corner. While it's their loveliest record since How I Quit Smoking, that album's countrypolitan gauze is largely a thing of the past, replaced here by a dreamy, jazz-like patina which proves a remarkably versatile backdrop not only for Kurt Wagner's originals but for a vast range of covers, from Dump's "It's Not Alright" to Curtis Mayfield's "Give Me Your Love (Love Song)." The latter is easily the most jaw-dropping track on What Another Man Spills, with the group easily slipping into the song's soulful groove without a hint of irony, not even in Wagner's amazingly Prince-like falsetto; a later cover of the Frederick Knight smash "I've Been Lonely for So Long," while less surprising, is no less engaging, further solidifying Lambchop's growing debt to the Stax/Volt sound. Where the album's jumble of styles and offbeat covers might seem self-indulgent coming from any other band, Lambchop somehow makes it all work with their wit, style, and intelligence intact
As wonderful as Alpha's sophomore effort, The Impossible Thrill, is, Stargazing surpasses it in almost every respect; the album's perfectly dreamy, organic, and lush songs feel like more logical successors to the spellbinding Come from Heaven. Corin Dingley and Andy Jenks themselves admitted that they lost the plot when it came to melody and rhythm prior to recording the songs that make up Stargazing, but with these 14 songs, they've made a bold, gorgeous return to the heart of atmospheric trip-hop. But reaching for accessibility hasn't dampened the band's ethereal dynamics. If they previously sounded like they were channeling Massive Attack and Portishead, here they expand on influences ranging from Nick Drake, Lee Hazlewood, the Association, and John Barry. Strings and horns explode into fantastic musical flourishes, lounge-y ballads mix with sci-fi sound effects making for beautiful tension, and any kind of genre map is thrown in the trash as the duo and its quartet of vocalists paint evocative aural pictures with tender, freaky textures. Longtime vocal collaborators Wendy Stubbs, Helen White, and Martin Barnard see an addition to their fold with the soulful Prince-on-a-bender tones of newcomer Kelvin Swaby. Swaby's soulful voice is a perfect fit with Alpha, making for a brilliant change of pace on the soaring "Elvis." "Lipstick from the Asylum" and "Portable Living Room" are fine examples of the songwriting maturity of Dingley and Jenks; they allow Barnard's voice to be the focal point over sweet, bubbling electronic tones, where perhaps they might have overloaded the songs with atmospheric flourishes in the past. Anyone who appreciated the moody music of Come from Heaven will revel in Stargazing, and the album deserves to win the group new fans. While some of the group's contemporaries were releasing somewhat blundering, meandering albums, Alpha hit the ball out of the park with Stargazing and redefined intelligent and passionate electronic soul music. Stargazing sits easily among the best albums of 2003
Front Line Assembly, one of the premiere electro-industrial acts, has done much to help define what the genre is about. Tactical Neural Implant is one of the releases which has contributed most to this claim, setting a standard with its cool, calm, and collected electronic harmonies and driving bass. Tracks from Tactical Neural Implant have consistently terrorized the dancefloors, including the classic tracks "The Blade" and "Mindphaser." Track by track, Tactical Neural Implant becomes a landscape of a dark future, at times fragile ("Remorse," "Lifeline"), at other times a bold bordering on aggressive ("Bio-Mechanic"), but always compelling and somehow detached. It was perhaps this contradiction that forms the winning combination in Front Line Assembly's music of this period, and which guarantees that Tactical Neural Implant will stay compelling many years from its release.
Voyager is the first, and best, in Momus' trilogy of albums (the other two being Shyness and Timelord) addressing the near-future sci-fi androgyny of Japan. The mood is best characterized by "Summer Holiday 1999," based on the Japanese film of the same name that follows private school students (boys played by girls) alone in an empty school during their vacation. Both the song and the film are full of strange textures, impending suicide, melancholy, and hopeless love. The warm electro-pop that fills Voyager began in 1991 at the Edinburgh Festival, when Momus saw a play, based on a short story by Yukio Mishima, in which an old lady travels back in time to her youth. With this as a starting point, Momus recorded one of his most sentimental albums, exploring themes of adolescence, nostalgia, and wistful distance from one's environment and experiences. With the lush ambience of "Virtual Reality," "all you got to do is dream." "Conquistador" conjures up more of a slick utopia filled with emotions and longing. "Afterglow" ponders a mellow world, where Music for Airports plays and people are "too late to enjoy it, too soon to destroy it, too dumb to invent it, too smart to end it." Voyager may not contain the acerbic wit that Momus is best known for, but the bittersweet dreaminess of the album and its sincere vibe find the artist being endlessly smart, but not too smart for his own good. It's one Momus' best Records
With their 1983 debut, the Violent Femmes got the ball rolling for what would become alternative rock, using acoustic instruments to deliver an unexpectedly raw blend of punk angst and catchy-if-neurotic songwriting. The band's subsequent '80s albums were a mixed bag, yielding occasional highlights but not quite gelling into anything as consistently powerful as the first album. Released in 1991, fifth album Why Do Birds Sing? was something of a return to form, if only in terms of having song after song of the kind of weirdly fractured folk pop that represented the band at their most accessible. Upbeat and straightforward album-opener "American Music" is somewhere between campfire song and pop masterpiece, with subtle production details like sleighbells and sparingly used organ runs growing along with the song's steady build. More blatant stabs at pop come with a snarling cover of Culture Club's hit "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me," the inverted girl group appropriation of "Look Like That," and the driving college rock of "Used to Be." The band's penchant for sardonic and juvenile humor remains intact on the faux-blues stomp of "Girl Trouble" (vocalist Gordon Gano returning to the refrain "Have mercy on me, I've got girl trouble up the ass!") and the shadowy clunk of "Make More Money," a bitter revenge story of the tormented high school nerd becoming a rich rock star. When Why Do Birds Sing? was first released, the Violent Femmes were already a decade into their career, enjoying cult success but still living mostly in the shadow of their debut. The album would be one of their most commercially successful up until that point, despite some critics finding it disjointed and a little too all-over-the-place stylistically. Removed from the time it originally arrived in, Why Do Birds Sing? feels more solid, with its lesser moments strung together by some of the best songs the band ever penned, and production that makes space for both the Femmes' anxious demeanor and their not-so-secret love of big, dumb pop
songs.
