3.5

Doggerel

Posted on by Matt

doggerel

Album: Doggerel

Artist: Pixies

Released: September 30th, 2022

Highlights: Nomatterday, Vault of Heaven, Haunted House, There’s a Moon On

With the release of “Doggerel”, the Pixies have officially put out as many albums in their second coming as they had done through their classic original run. Sure, purists may say the band is still one EP away from that threshold, as their debut, the remarkable “Come On Pilgrim”, was a twenty-minute eight-song recording that remains a cornerstone for all indie rock that is produced. Yet, the fact of the matter is that for every full-length work they created as independent heroes who toiled away in relative obscurity, there is now one album they built as veterans who joined forces again under the Pixies flag to bask in the well-deserved notoriety the band had gained since their abrupt breakup in 1993. At first, no fans whatsoever were mad about what seemed, initially, to be a victory lap; after all, everyone could happily agree the group should collect the laurels they did not get back when they were younger. However, when the matter of new material was brought into the equation, the atmosphere soured.

Some, including original bassist Kim Deal, thought the Pixies should not make anything new. Their discography, it was argued, was borderline perfect: a legacy that had to be protected. And given nobody had any hope the band could match their previous output, many thought they should just tour and go home. Others, meanwhile, were eager to listen with an open heart. That discussion, of course, does not matter. The Pixies will do whatever they – or more specifically their creative leader, Black Francis – want; and so, nearly a whopping twenty years after the group reunited, the cogs have continued to turn regardless of what some think. Kim Deal, who is an amazingly talented individual that greatly contributed to the Pixies’ signature sound, jumped ship before the band went into the studio to make “Indie Cindy”, which was their first package of new material in more than two decades. Following her footsteps, a few fans opted to either not pay attention or not put too much effort into trying to embrace the group’s second phase.

It is impossible to know how aware Black Francis is of naysayers or if he cares about that noise, but it is hard not to consider, even if only for a second, that the lines that open “Doggerel” might allude to these people. In “Nomatterday”, as his band opens the way to the album that will make the discography of their revival period as large as the one from the good-old days, the singer states “You know, I know that you don’t really hate me / But I suppose that I probably irritate you”, before asking listeners not to waste their time on him. Yes, he could be addressing a previous lover, a current affair with whom he is having a falling-out, or someone who is bitter towards him. However, besides being too good to be ignored, that possibility adds some swagger and a taste of wicked revenge to what is to come.

Such angry feelings, though, do not materialize all that much in “Doggerel”. Starting from “Indie Cindy”, it was clear that the new incarnation of the Pixies was more interested in melodic softness than their younger selves. Obviously, melody had always been there: Black Francis has proven, in the more than twenty albums he has released as a musical artist, that he knows how to write a catchy vocal line; and one of the many charms of the Pixies was their ability to combine unhinged punk noise, hellish screams, and a dark undercurrent with irresistible pop hooks. But as tunes like “Greens and Blues” and “Ring the Bell” proved, this was a band that now felt comfortable writing more straightforward indie rock. With the follow-ups, “Head Carrier” and “Beneath the Eyrie”, this tendency was accentuated, as melody seemed to be gaining more room in its battle against abrasive noise; and in the context of such struggle, “Doggerel” often feels like the culmination of that process.

It goes without saying that this can be seen as a bad trait. Rightfully, nobody wants to see the Pixies, in all their quirkiness and originality, shift towards the indie rock mean. And some will say “Doggerel” is too close to that line for comfort. Yet, doing so may be missing the subtleties that make the album special, because this is not a record in which the Pixies become boring conventional musicians; this is actually their work that most successfully bridges the gap between their identity and the general independent scene they helped birth. In other words, this feels less like a compromise and more like a middle-ground, one that they had been building towards. Because, yes, “Doggerel” is the mellowest and more melodic work to ever receive the Pixies stamp, producing plenty of moments that stick to one’s ear or reach for an unexpected level of pure beauty. But the musical staples of the group can be heard all over these tracks.

“Nomatterday” and “Dregs of the Wine” dive deep into quiet-and-loud dynamics; “Get Simulated” drinks from “Cactus” as well as “River Euphrates” to squeeze a quirky basic punk tune out of pure friction; and “Vault of Heaven” has a spacious ambiance that seems to have been taken straight from “Bossanova”, with Joey Santiago promptly filling that void with one of his remarkable alien riffs. But it is not just in the framework of the songs that the touch of the Pixies is present; that magic is in the little bricks that build these tunes. David Lovering remains a steady metronome that pulls off some sneaky surprises. Paz Lenchantin delivers a pile of fantastic simple bouncy bass lines that are frequently prominent in the mix, and her sweet backing vocals alternate between being dorky and enhancing the beauty of the softest melodic moments. Joey Santiago creates various marvelous textures and little catchy licks with his unique guitar-playing. And Black Francis often pulls out his acoustic guitar – as he did back in the “Come On Pilgrim” days – to add rhythmic chugging to many of the cuts.

Nevertheless, even if they are indeed still the Pixies, the band employs the fresh terrain on which they landed to build songs that could not really be anywhere else in their discography. “The Lord Has Come Back Today” is a bona fide gorgeous ballad that gains momentum as it goes along. Augmented by keyboards in their marvelous climaxes, “Haunted House”, “There’s a Moon On”, and “Who’s More Sorry Now?” boast arrangements with a fullness that was unknown to the band. And many of the songs, especially those who fall on the angrier and noisier side of the spectrum, run away from the standard verse-chorus structure, with the highlights on that front being “Nomatterday” and “Dregs of the Wine”, which almost feel like multi-phased little operas.

Not everything in “Doggerel” is perfect. As it happened on the previous three albums of the reunion era, the lyrics can feel somewhat awkward, as Black Francis seems to try to channel the weirdness he could summon with so much ease in the past only to fall flat. Additionally, “Get Simulated” lacks the hooks of its peers, “Pagan Man” is the point where the album bumps into conventionality, and “You’re Such a Sadducee” is instrumentally marvelous but melodically dry. Still, as a whole, the record is a thoroughly enjoyable and fun indie rock ride. And instead of getting lost in empty discussions about how it compares to the work of the band’s distant past, its quality should be celebrated for what it is: proof that the Pixies are alive, doing well, touring, collecting the laurels they earned, and respectably maintaining their creative juices flowing to keep on adding to one of the indie rock’s greatest discographies.

five

Toast

Posted on by Matt

toast

Album: Toast

Artist: Neil Young and Crazy Horse

Released: July 8th, 2022

Highlights: Quit, Goin’ Home, Gateway of Love, How Ya Doin’?

When recording their work, musical artists often struggle with deciding the point in which a song is ready to be immortalized in a piece of media. Some prefer to stick to early takes of the material, when the tunes are raw and spontaneous; others choose to labor tirelessly over the tracks in order to polish their rough edges, try different approaches, and bring forth the very best version of the compositions; and there are also, of course, those who shackle themselves to neither method, opting to instead feel what is more appropriate for each individual song. Ultimately, though, this is a matter to which there is no exact answer, as there are plenty of examples of albums that have been ruined because they were overcooked in the studio as well as various records that could have used an extra layer of care to either further highlight the value of what they contained or simply raise the quality of the material to a professional level.

As far as that discussion goes, Neil Young has always been a bit of a radical. A firm believer in the lightning in a bottle that is captured by initial takes, he has been both lauded and criticized due to his haphazard approach to recording. His greatest classic, “Tonight’s the Night”, was powered by a reckless spontaneity that went as far as including bum notes, out of tune vocals, and performances that miraculously reached their end despite the fact everyone present in the room was clearly quite high on alcohol and drugs. This unedited looseness also vitally contributed to the greatness of other peaks in his catalog, such as “Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere”, “On the Beach”, “Zuma”, “Ragged Glory”, and “Psychedelic Pill”. On the other hand, his inability to sit with a song for too long has also led to criticism and duds: some claim Young hires the best musicians around only to have them play utterly basic parts since he does not give them the time to develop their magic; and especially in the late part of his career, many have been the cases in which albums that obviously needed a little more work were shoved out the door.

This duality makes it impossible to determine whether Neil is right to work in such a manner: sometimes he is, and occasionally he is not. There is no absolutely correct answer. Yet, it is safe to say most music fans would not change much about how Young operates; after all, nobody would want to eliminate an undercooked dud like “Peace Trail” at the cost of robbing “Tonight’s the Night” of its defining ramshackle spirit. Therefore, not many would disagree that this philosophy has yielded positive results that far outweigh the negative ones. Neil’s 2022 release, “Toast” further reconfirms that notion, and it does so in a way that is specially illustrative of how putting too much work on songs can sometimes ruin them.

Like “Homegrown”, which came out in 2020, “Toast” is not a contemporary work, but an archival release of sessions that went unpublished at the time. And, once more, this is a package that mixes tunes that would go on to come out in another form with songs that had never seen the light of day. In the case of “Toast”, it contains three tracks that should come off as new to the ears of many fans and four cuts that would be reworked and put out one year later in 2002’s “Are You Passionate?”. To those in the loop, perhaps that is not such an appealing perspective: the compositions of “Homegrown” that were known by Young’s audience were stone-cold classics, which in turn made the unreleased album have a revered status; meanwhile, “Are You Passionate?” is one of the singer-songwriter’s most maligned works, so in theory the idea of listening to an album mostly made up of bad cuts should not be all that exciting. But this is where “Toast” brings its twist.

As it turns out, “Toast” reveals those four tunes are not inherently bad: they were just cooked to a point that caused their qualities to be nearly totally eroded. In “Are You Passionate?”, Neil dabbled into soul music by pairing up with one of the genre’s most iconic bands, Booker T. & the M.G.’s. Yet, although the instrumental performances were by all means excellent, the partnership did not truly gel. Young seemed awfully out of place trying to imitate the mannerisms of soul singers, the compositions did not suit the style too well, the mellow vibe made the good lyrics describing romantic feelings of joy and pain sound corny, and the proceedings emerged as contrived. In “Toast”, contrarily, Neil is right at home. Joined by his favorite partners in crime, Crazy Horse, he executes these songs with passion and ragged glory in relaxed mid-tempo jams, and as the tunes’ melodic moments are reached, the members of his legendary backing band step up to the plate to beautify them with their signature country-tinged harmonies.

The usually long length of the tracks, the plodding pace, the charmingly clumsy licks and solos, the nasty distortions, and the melodic softness could cause one to think “Toast” is a work that can be described as Neil Young and Crazy Horse by the numbers. To a point, that evaluation is not incorrect; and to the delight of fans, this is yet another record that proves that when he is accompanied by his longtime collaborators, Neil is almost guaranteed to produce something of value. But “Toast” stands out from other records attributed to that partnership because there are blatantly strong romantic undertones running through it: decorated by a catchy sweet solo that is frequently used to good effect, “Quit” is sung in a nigh falsetto and is punctuated by a female backup singer who repeats “Don’t say you love me”; “How Ya Doin’?”, released in “Are You Passionate?” as “Mr. Disappointment”, is driven by longing and painful love; and “Boom Boom Boom”, which would become “She’s a Healer”, is a blues-based dirge written in celebration of a lover’s power.

This romanticism may show that Young intended, from the get go, to give these songs another treatment or perhaps it is this nature that led him to think soul music was an adequate direction. Nevertheless, the point remains that all of these tracks sound better under the guidance of Crazy Horse, and even “Goin’ Home”, which appeared in “Are You Passionate?” in pretty much the same state as it is heard here, gains value because it feels more at home when standing beside these rocking tunes. In addition, the previously unreleased songs that “Toast” introduces to the world are all of respectable quality: “Standing in the Light of Love” is a pounding barn burner with a searing lead riff working as its hook; “Timberline” hints at being a mindless rocker that will go off the rails, but then it takes a delightfully emotional turn as it reaches its chorus to flirt with gospel via lyrics and surprising keyboards; and “Gateway of Love” is a ten-minute Crazy Horse masterpiece, oozing melodic beauty from every corner while delivering all guttural guitar nastiness that is expected from the band.

Thanks to that, “Toast” is an album that clicks in multiple ways. At its most basic, it is a very worthy addition to the Neil Young and Crazy Horse discography. However, it is also a welcome release for many other reasons: it rescues three songs from being utterly forgotten by presenting them in much better versions; it allows another trio of tracks to escape from Young’s apparently very musically rich vaults; and it reconfirms that the man’s decision to work haphazardly and bet on early takes is not off the mark. Because more often than not, there is great magic to be captured as a band is still trying to grab a total hold on fresh songs, and if too much consideration is poured into the process, a lot of beauty may end up being lost.

five

Cruel Country

Posted on by Matt

cruel_country

Album: Cruel Country

Artist: Wilco

Released: May 27th, 2022

Highlights: I Am My Mother, Bird Without a Tail / Base of My Skull, Tired of Taking It Out on You, Hearts Hard to Find, A Lifetime to Find

Although they arguably reached their artistic peak while operating within the indie and alternative scenes, the country rock label was always attached to Wilco. It made sense. For starters, the band’s frontman, Jeff Tweedy, initially emerged as one of the leaders of alternative country group Uncle Tupelo; therefore, a lot of Wilco’s early work – particularly their first two albums – exhibited traits of the genre, as if their key songwriter was progressively working his way through shedding the skin he had accumulated in the beginning of his career. Meanwhile, down the line, as Wilco grew slightly freakier and notably more experimental, the country qualification remained even if not much of the style could still be clearly identified in the band’s sound; this persistence might be harder to explain, but it can be attributed to numerous reasons: the popularity of Wilco’s early material, the fact none of their alternative generational peers came as close to the acoustic tonality of the genre, and the generally downcast demeanor Tweedy often showed during the group’s indie incarnation.

Yet, even though country was always there in some form or intensity, the bottom line is that Wilco never truly embraced the genre, at least not through the course of an entire album. Their first two records carried way too many radio-friendly electric anthems to qualify, and the works that followed may have had plenty of contemplative acoustic music, but they usually received a rather weird treatment before being committed to tape. That reality, however, changed with “Cruel Country”, because in their twelfth release, the members of Wilco – as stated by none other than Jeff Tweedy – throw themselves into country music without much reservation.

Based on the length of “Cruel Country”, one has to assume that either the band was very enthusiastic about that perspective or Tweedy happened to have a lot of unreleased country songs stashed away in his closet, because the album clocks in at nearly eighty minutes and contains twenty-one tracks. From the start, it is reasonable to see those numbers as problems; after all, rock history has shown repeatedly that long records are only able not to sink under their own weight if they check one of two boxes: variation or message. “London Calling” and “Exile on Main St.”, for instance, thrive because of the former; “Quadrophenia” succeeds due to the latter; and “The Suburbs” showcases both traits. “Cruel Country”, though, does not have these qualities.

In style, the songs merge into one another, since most of them are short acoustic tracks with delicate electric or piano ornaments; and over this instrumentation, Tweedy steadily sings in the sullen whispery mood he has uniformly adopted during the last decade or so. In message, meanwhile, “Cruel Country” does not really have a powerful overarching theme. Before the album’s release, Tweedy spoke of how the record was an examination of the beauty and ugliness that the United States was capable of producing; and country does indeed come off as the appropriate genre for that confrontation because while there is a lot of beauty in it, the style also has an intimate relation to regions of the country where ugly political ideas have the most traction. This interesting contrast, though, does not materialize lyrically to a very notable degree, because even if it is alluded to in the title track as well in a few others, the truth is the tunes that make up “Cruel Country” are mostly concerned with general sadness and relationship trouble.

The combination of these absences could spell disaster for the album, but surprisingly it does not. Surely, there will be listeners who will come away from “Cruel Country” thinking its songs are too similar and that the monotony of its mood mixed with its length turn the work into a nice substitute for sleeping pills. It might not be the fairest assessment, especially since “Cruel Country” is one of those albums that need to be given plenty of time for the music to sink in and the hooks to start emerging from the thick persistent fog; however, it is a reasoning that can be understood: perhaps a little more variety could have helped, maybe a stronger editing process could have made the record’s qualities be more evident, and there is a chance Tweedy could have elevated a few of these tunes by trying not to sound hopeless through an entire track. Nevertheless, the fact remains that “Cruel Country” might be the most enjoyable Wilco album in a long while.

Just like Big Thief had done it in February with their equally countrified and long “Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You”, Wilco prove that sometimes lengthy albums can throw variation and message out the window to succeed via sheer songwriting power. Although they may take time to emerge, mostly because Tweedy does not wrap his voice around them too strongly, the melodies are notable throughout the record, regardless of whether they come to the forefront in choruses of sweeping sadness or in quiet verses whose nice little variations can pass by unnoticed. When it comes to lyrics, even if Tweedy is moving through places and themes that are very recurring to him and his audience, the words tend to not only land well, but also show that indie gloom goes rather nicely with a country tinge.

Moreover, despite not being stylistically varied, “Cruel Country” does a good job stretching its muscles in the tight realm it operates. Cuts with a full-band setup contrast with songs carried solely by Tweedy’s voice and his acoustic strumming. The slide guitar goes from evoking contemplative sadness in some tunes to ushering a borderline happy country fair flavor in others. And Wilco does not miss the chance to throw some of their alternative flair into these mostly rural proceedings. Although these odd turns are overall not very frequent, there are a couple of songs with extended instrumental codas, there are a few tunes that have unexpected variations in structure in spite of their brief nature, and there are tracks where traditional country instrumentation takes a back seat to Wilco’s more sparse ambiance, with drums, punctual guitars, keyboards, and other effects filling up the space.

“Cruel Country” may fail to reach the target Tweedy set for it, because not much in its constitution materializes as a trip through the beauty and ugliness of the rural United States. However, as a journey into country music by a band that had long been associated with the genre while never fully dabbling in it, the album is a success. Obviously, as an indication the group could have dug a little deeper, the material would have benefited from a thematic approach a bit more distant from the Wilco standard or from a higher degree of variation in mood. But it is safe to say most who spend a good amount of time with “Cruel Country” will be happy the band finally embraced their country roots in a nigh unadulterated state. And there is a good chance those fans will appreciate the fact that instead of a normally sized package of forty minutes, Wilco has delivered a whopping eighty minutes of good music.

five

We

Posted on by Matt

we

Album: We

Artist: Arcade Fire

Released: May 6th, 2022

Highlights: Age of Anxiety I, The Lightning I, The Lightning II, We

A certain level of concern in regards to the dangers of modernity has been present in the work of Arcade Fire from day one. In their classic debut, “Funeral”, one of the key tracks – “Rebellion (Lies)” – talked about the hardships of living in a world drowning in mass-produced manipulation. In the follow-up, “Neon Bible”, television was given a dark hypnotic nature in “Black Mirror” and was employed by cynical televangelist in their power-seeking obsession. In “The Suburbs”, contemporary urbanization – with its malls and gated communities – destroyed organic neighborhoods and eroded the joys of youth by creating a generation of children who had their freedom severely limited. In “Reflektor”, among the many themes approached by the band, there was the irony of how, in a society that is more linked than ever, the finding of true connections and the showing of genuine empathy has become so rare. At last, in “Everything Now”, there was a deep dive into the matter of social media, with the songs mostly looking at the effects these networks have in the human brain, including depression, anxiety, insecurity, and attention deficit.

Given “We”, the band’s sixth record, kicks off the proceedings with a two-part track called “Age of Anxiety”, it is very easy to feel Arcade Fire has run out of new topics to sing about and that the group is merely repeating itself at this point. After all, as the song’s title implies, its verses go on to touch on matters that had already been vastly explored by lyricist Win Butler, especially in “Reflektor” and “Everything Now”, as the band’s creative leader talks about rather contemporary mental troubles: brainlessly consuming content just for the sake of it, feeling inferior due to the perfect personal image most people expose on social media, being suffocated by an onslaught of worrying news, and trying to find solace in pills that only make it all worse.

Instead of dwelling on those issues here, though, Arcade Fire uses them as the starting point for a distinct narrative; one that unfolds through ten tracks and, as it is the norm for the band, turns “We” into a conceptually cohesive whole. After emotionally succumbing to the woes of his era, the main character watches as the world itself crumbles, with the album gaining contours of apocalyptic science-fiction when the only way out of the sinking ship that is plant Earth involves an interstellar trip in the search for a new beginning. The ultimate realization of “We”, however, is a bittersweet one, as Win seems to point out that wherever it is that humans might go, our nature and problems will follow, and as he envisions a future where these situations will play out over and over again (perhaps in continuously different shapes), he concludes the best he can do is prepare future generations, his child in particular, to better deal with the inevitable turbulence and be there for them while he can.

Thematic value, though, is far from being the main concern when it comes to “We”, because in that regard – despite a few recent lyrical missteps – Arcade Fire has repeatedly proven they can deliver the goods. The big question mark hovering over the album in the eyes of those who have followed the band is actually centered on the music; to be more blunt, the focus is on whether the group can still produce a work that matches what they did on their first three albums or if the mixed reaction to “Reflektor” and the flood of negativity surrounding “Everything Now” mean that one of the greatest and most influential indie bands is irrevocably creatively finished. The verdict ends up falling somewhere in-between those poles: “We” might not be enough of a resounding success to sweep doubts away for good, but it is certainly a better album than its two predecessors.

If there is one particular aspect in which “We” loses to “Reflektor” and “Everything Now”, that would be musical reinvention. In those two albums, Arcade Fire expanded their craft to incorporate elements of synthpop, electronica, as well as Haitian music (in the case of “Reflektor”) and disco (in the case of “Everything Now”). Perhaps as a conscious reaction to the backlash, in “We” the band abandons that sort of experimentation to fall back on the safety of their early sound. As such, even though it is possible to glimpse remnants of their past stylistic detours, with electronic instrumentation punctually emerging in a few songs, “We” is by all means a return to Arcade Fire’s iconic brand of indie: folk at heart but grand in how it incorporates emotional outbursts and baroque pop orchestration into the formula. Because of that nature, it can be easy to label the album as a retread; and, to an extent, it certainly is. But at the same time, “We” is far from just being a redux version of “Funeral”, “Neon Bible”, and “The Suburbs”.

It is true that the two parts of “The Lightning”, which are the greatest moments of the record, could be put into any of those three albums without coming off as jarring, as the song builds to a bombastic two-minute rushing and pumping coda that is a burst of adrenaline matching that of “Keep the Car Running” from “Neon Bible”. The same logic applies to “Unconditional I”, whose earthly folk base and grandeur carries echoes of heartland rock. But, everywhere else, “We” appears as a far more intimate and electronic album than the band’s classic trio. The pair of tunes that make up the “Age of Anxiety” suite do reach explosive climaxes, but before that they are piano-and-voice ballads underlined by electronic beats. “End of the Empire” eventually uses keyboards and orchestration to swell into grandeur, but most of its four parts – which amount to nearly nine minutes – are spent floating in space via a soothing bed created by those same instruments. Sung by Régine and featuring backing vocals by Peter Gabriel, “Unconditional II” is a synthpop gem cut from the same cloth as “Sprawl II”, from The Suburbs, with bright keyboards adding sugar to what is essentially a very contemplative and wishful tune. Finally, the title track is a quiet closer sitting on nothing but an acoustic guitar and Win’s voice.

Like it happens with the theme, the music makes up for a pretty stylistically consistent listening experience; moreover, clocking in at forty minutes, “We” is a lean record that avoids the pitfalls of length that doomed “Reflektor” and caused “The Suburbs” to be perceived by some as excessively long. The problem with this brief nature, however, is that paired with the long multi-phased nature of the songs, it gives birth to an album with just a few tracks – eight, to be more precise. And when that is the case, any musical misstep ends up representing a considerable chunk of the work. Sadly, in “We” this issue is particularly evident due to how its two longest tunes are also the weakest ones by a solid margin. The almost seven minutes of “Age of Anxiety II” simply do not click: the call-and-response between Win and Régine, which was clearly intended as a hook, is closer to annoying than to engaging; additionally, its dancing electronic coda, which is basically half the song, is not a very interesting climax. Meanwhile, the four parts of “End of the Empire”, which essentially constitute one nine-minute track, are not dynamic enough to justify their length, lack a good melody, and are ultimately undone by Win’s poor lyrics, which evidently falter here despite being very good through most of the record.

As a musical middle ground between their three stellar early albums and their two usually maligned follow-ups, “We” may smell of compromise and retread, but a closer analysis ought to reveal a work that is relatively strong. Its sci-fi thematic aspirations are nicely realized in a concise fashion and are a very respectable nod to the Yevgeny Zamyatin book of the same name. Simultaneously, its music has a solid mixture of classic bursts from Arcade Fire’s past, which are the album’s best moments, with new good musical findings that are a direct result of the more balanced approach between indie and electronica. Consequently, even if it may not convert the non-believers or fail to rescue fans that moved on after its two predecessors, “We” is likely to be warmly embraced by many as proof that Arcade Fire still has something to say.

five

Fear Of The Dawn

Posted on by Matt

fear_of_the_dawn

Album: Fear of the Dawn

Artist: Jack White

Released: April 8th, 2022

Highlights: Taking Me Back, Hi-De-Ho, Esophobia, That Was Then This Is Now

Be it as the creative leader of The White Stripes or in the first two records of his solo career, Jack White displayed clear reverence for the traditional genres that gave birth to rock, with blues usually coming off as his greatest source of inspiration. It is true that, in a stylistic sense, what Jack did alongside Meg was rather different from the work he put out on his own: with her, he banged out garage tunes that echoed the utmost simplicity of blues; whilst alone, his tone was more subdued, polished, and sometimes intimate. Nevertheless, in both cases, his music, though sprinkled with quirky flights, remained anchored on tradition and it is safe to say most of his fanbase would be thoroughly satisfied if Jack opted to build a lengthy career out of those flavors. But then 2018 came around and his third solo effort, “Boarding House Reach”, was unleashed upon the world, proving that Jack White is a pretty restless individual.

Obviously, one could already have made that deduction by looking at his numerous side-projects or reading between the lines of the last two The White Stripes albums, but “Boarding House Reach” made that reality more blatant than ever because it burst through the boundaries of the genres Jack tended to explore. In essence, it was a rock record, but that label only truly stuck occasionally, because Jack seemed far more concerned with stretching himself towards avant-garde territory via electronic layers, strange production touches, and a songwriting approach that skewed his usual tendency towards pop hooks. In a way, it seemed that sensing rock music was no longer mainstream, Jack concluded that the time was ripe for it to be pushed to odd places; after all, since only the aficionados are still tuning in, one might as well take them for a wilder ride.

Because of the drastic artistic break that “Boarding House Reach” represented, “Fear of the Dawn” arrives alongside some degree of doubt, as one naturally wonders if that album was just a brief strange detour or if White is entirely committed to cementing himself as the king of rock and roll weirdness. As it turns out, the answer lies somewhere in the middle of that spectrum, because even though “Fear of the Dawn” shows no interest in reuniting the singer-songwriter with what used to be his style of composition, it does bring the music back to a firmer garage-rock format. In other words, the songs in “Fear of the Dawn” are still positively weird and initially unwelcoming, but most – if not all – of them could be executed in their entirety by a band armed with nothing but guitars, bass, drums, and a microphone; something that did not apply to “Boarding House Reach”.

This partial reconnection with musical past is made evident by how numerous of the tunes here could conceivably be done by The White Stripes themselves. While all of Jack’s previous solo works had at least one or two tracks with such a characteristic, in “Fear of the Dawn” this feature applies to nearly the entire album, as the majority of the tracks expose a very simple recipe: pounding riffs, guitars that are played at distortion levels that bring them within an inch of utter destruction, performances that are utterly savage in their rawness, and unexpected instrumental left turns where Jack goes atomic as he allows himself to be overcome by primal instincts only channeled by those who are very much into what they are doing.

One could point out that such list of ingredients is not too different from what The White Stripes brought to the table, which could make “Fear of the Dawn” a retread, and that argument is absolutely correct. However, a couple of components contribute to making the album radically distinct from what came before it, and the first is songwriting. With his former beloved band, Jack – whether intentionally or not – wrote for the masses, letting loose plenty of pop hooks that made the duo’s inherent wildness and oddity more universally palatable. In “Fear of the Dawn”, as it was the case in “Boarding House Reach”, Jack is writing for the converted (or perhaps for himself), which makes the record a work that is not concerned with delivering melodic sugar, focusing instead on the freewheeling energy that exists within the utter abandon of garage rock. Here, Jack is not trying to charm anyone into listening; contrarily, he is actually daring his audience to keep watching as he goes completely ballistic.

The second element, and possibly the most important one, that adds character to “Fear of the Dawn” is the sheer breadth of the sounds Jack is able to extract out of his guitar. In fact, it is this particular facet that is responsible for building a stylistic link between “Fear of the Dawn” and its predecessor. It feels like even if he loved all strange noises contained in “Boarding House Reach”, Jack was somewhat miffed he reached for them without using his signature instrument; consequently, this time around he enacts revenge upon the world by causing the guitar to emit a variety of textures that the average musician would extract out keyboards, synthesizers, or other electronic devices. Because of that, it would be no exaggeration to claim “Fear of the Dawn” finds a way to break into new territory for the guitar right in the middle of an era where there are rumors the once world-dominating instrument is done for good.

Given there is a prevalence of garage rock tunes that bring The White Stripes to mind, it goes without saying that the weird sounds of Jack’s guitar are mostly used in that context, creating – therefore – nastier and experimental takes on that music, which wisely employ that artistic freedom to boast rarely witnessed song structures and a good amount of instrumental freak-outs. However, in another detail that ties it to “Boarding House Reach”, “Fear of the Dawn” displays some eclecticism, opening the way for moments when the guitar is deployed to create hip-hop grooves, little flourishes that recall electronic beats, and other touches that sometimes are used in standalone songs but that occasionally also add unique flavor to cuts grounded on garage rock.

Because of its frantic experimental soul and the shunning of traditional hooks, “Fear of the Dawn” can get a bit lost on its carefree spirit, and during moments like those a few tracks can land on the ears like they are heavy, loud, and weird just for the sake of being so, exhibiting therefore a lack of purpose. Nevertheless, the thrill of listening to it will remain intact through most of the way to those who have love for noisy guitar-playing. And besides being the heaviest album Jack has ever put out, be it alone or as part of a band, it is also – up to its release – the most genuinely interesting record of his solo adventure, as it balances his newly found wish to take rock music to new grounds with what he does best as an instrumentalist: extracting a tuneful and refreshing racket out of electric guitars.

five

Challengers

Posted on by Matt

challengers

Album: Challengers

Artist: The New Pornographers

Released: August 21st, 2007

Highlights: My Rights Versus Yours, All the Old Showstoppers, Myriad Harbor, Adventures in Solitude

There have been uncountable albums in the history of music whose making is strongly associated with certain mind-altering substances of varying degrees of legality and strength. “Exile on Main St.” was created by The Rolling Stones while the house in which it was recorded received constant shipments of heroin; “Be Here Now” is the sound of Oasis swimming in a pool of cocaine; “On the Beach” is part of a revered trilogy of records by Neil Young that were put together while he indulged heavily in alcohol; “The Libertines” was miraculously assembled as one of the band’s two leaders, Pete Doherty, struggled with crack addiction; acid was involved in the construction of dozens of psychedelic works, including The Beatles’ “Revolver”; The Velvet Underground’s “White Light / White Heat” walks hand in hand with amphetamine; and although marijuana had certainly been a part of Bob Marley’s diet for quite a while before 1978, perhaps no album of his is as intimately tied to the leaf as “Kaya”.

When they debuted in 2000 with the release of “Mass Romantic”, though, The New Pornographers broke into new territory as far as substance abuse goes by making a record that was fueled by obscene amounts of coffee. Truth be told, there are neither oral nor written reports that this was the case, but it is hard to explain the highly energetic, bombastic, hyperactive, and wordy power pop forged by the band via any other drug. Yes, there are plenty of other narcotics that would be able to produce the wild euphoria responsible for tracks like “Lettter From An Occupant”, which are bursting with a silly type of energy that would be downright embarrassing if it were not being backed by such magnificent hooks and captivating confidence. But a coffee overdose seems like the most plausible explanation for the band’s sound.

The reason for that is simply that it would be very weird to picture Carl Newman and his bandmates walking through the shady streets Lou Reed described in The Velvet Underground classic “I’m Waiting For The Man” only to be harassed by the cops, meet a suspicious drug-dealer, and eventually score some heroin. As their music proves, The New Pornographers sure enjoy some sweet and loud rock and roll, but they do not look like the kind of people who would drown in the dangerous cliches of the genre’s lifestyle. Their power pop carries such a strong undercurrent of indie and geeky mannerisms – as if they were early Elvis Costello with the anger replaced by calculated corniness – that one is more likely to find them inside a library, with members sneaking up to the espresso machine a few dozen times during the day in order to get their blood pumping for the upcoming gig.

In “Challengers”, however, it feels like either the band has abandoned their coffee addiction or someone changed the espresso formula due to budget concerns and ended up diluting the grains in too much water, because the explosiveness so blatant in its predecessors is mostly gone. In a way, it is a move that makes sense, because by 2007 The New Pornographers had already put out three albums – including the rightfully highly praised “Twin Cinema” – that exploded relentlessly from beginning to end. As such, a turn towards calmer waters is a stylistic shift that came just at the right time for the band. Yet, as it is bound to happen when groups alter their music, fans of their early work might find that the record is a bit too tame for their liking.

With that change, what The New Pornographers do is veer towards heavier folk leanings. To a point, the genre had always been a part of their sound, much thanks to how some of the band’s members – especially Neko Case and Dan Bejar – strongly dabble into folk in their careers away from The New Pornographers. But in “Challengers”, rather than sticking quietly to the background, folk comes more prominently to the surface, going as far as leading the way in most of the tracks. Because of that constitution, “Challengers” as a whole makes comparisons between The New Pornographers and their peers in indie geeky bombast, The Decemberists, not seem so absurd, with the notable difference that while the latter focus on relatively serious and meaningful storytelling, the former goes for senseless wordplay and mindless power pop fun.

The result is that, in “Challengers”, songs take a little longer to cook and arrive on the irresistible accessible hooks that are the ultimate weapon of The New Pornographers. If up until “Twin Cinema” tracks would blow out of the gate fully formed and dragging listeners for the ride, those of “Challengers” require some willingness and attention on the part of fans. “My Rights Versus Yours” starts sparse and acoustic, only hitting a defining electric chug and its central melodic line more than one minute into the proceedings; “All the Old Showstoppers” is quicker to explode, but its quieter verse reaffirms the notion that The New Pornographers are operating at a new pace here; and as the most extreme proof of that fresh approach to songwriting, the excellent “Unguided” teases so much at the arrival of a cathartic moment that the tune goes on for six minutes, which is almost a progressive rock threshold for a band that usually operates in the three-to-four-minute standard.

To boot and further drive home its folky inspirations, “Challengers” dares to occasionally turn its back on fun hooks to bet on introspective beauty instead. The title track is an almost fully acoustic number where Neko Case is left alone to sing and shine; “Failsafe” borrows the tremolo effect from The Smiths’ “How Soon Is Now?” to coin a song that flirts with the more dancy vein of dream pop; “Adventures in Solitude” is half call and response harmonization between Case and Newman, and half orchestrated catharsis; and “The Spirit of Giving” concludes by ascending into the heavens with prayer and preaching, as if it were a classic gospel song.

Sometimes it feels the highs of “Challengers” are neither as astounding nor as frequent as those of its three predecessors and, allied with its diminished immediacy, that characteristic may cause some to look at the record as a lesser entry in a marvelous artistic run. However, as the bouncy, energetic, fun, and silly “Myriad Harbor” and “Mutiny, I Promise You” prove, “Challengers” still finds The New Pornographers at the peak of their power pop prowess. Sure, none of the tracks here are likely to make listeners feel like they have been hit by a wild high-speed train of fun; ironically, the only one of the record’s tracks that breaks this rule and rides a wave of bombast from beginning to end, “All the Things That Go to Make Heaven and Earth”, is also the album’s weakest song. Yet, anyone that is patient enough to keep on waiting for the hooks to emerge will probably realize “Challengers” is a solid release by The New Pornographers that slightly shakes up their sound at the right moment.

five

Sweep It Into Space

Posted on by Matt

sweep_it_into_space

Album: Sweep It Into Space

Artist: Dinosaur Jr.

Released: April 23rd, 2021

Highlights: I Ain’t, I Ran Away, Garden, And Me

The canon of rock music has no shortage of groups that made a career out of regurgitating the same format over and over again. AC/DC has spent nearly half a century writing variations on the same blues-infused hard rock framework; the Ramones were so technically limited all they could play were fast down-stroke tunes that were coated with lovely pop hooks; Motorhead put out twenty-two albums of furious and concise heavy metal nuggets whose brevity and speed were almost punk; The Fall became legends by creating thirty-one records in which a drunk curmudgeon from Greater Manchester rambled endlessly and unintelligibly over a clockwork-like industrial post-punk clang; and Dinosaur Jr. has been out in the wild for more than three decades mostly betting on the same recipe of loud guitars played with reckless abandon, beautiful melodies delivered with lazy vocals, and – of course – blistering solos that display mind-boggling skill.

Out of that entire list, which certainly could be longer, Dinosaur Jr. is the band that has been more successful at avoiding criticisms of artistic stagnation, and it is possible to understand why. Unlike AC/DC, the trio from Massachusetts never came close to having enough worldwide appeal to rake in millions of dollars via albums and tours; unlike the Ramones, they were never crowned the kings of a specific genre; unlike Motorhead, their output has neither been constant nor too prolific; and unlike The Fall, they are not lead by mad a man who has left a trail of bad attitudes behind him. As it turns out, there are benefits to being the lovable slacker underdogs of a genre that is, by nature, underground, and Dinosaur Jr. has absolutely taken advantage of all those perks.

Starting their thirty-first year as an active band and going into their twelfth album, nobody really expected J Mascis, Lou Barlow, and Murph to do anything different. After all, theirs has been a winning combination that has yielded no flagrantly bad works and given them an untouchable cult aura in the eyes of the few who have heard about them. Moreover, always followed by a slacker fame that has probably grown annoying, J Mascis is simply not the kind of guy who seems to have enough energy to leave his comfort zone. However, in “Sweep It Into Space”, Dinosaur Jr. sounds quite different.

It is not that J Mascis and the boys pull out synthesizers, go acoustic, or embrace the contemporary quirks of indie rock to perform singalong anthems. There is nothing that radical here. Much to the relief of Dinosaur Jr. fans, “Sweep It Into Space” is an album that respects the band’s signature: its constitution is guitar, bass, and drums; it features all the rough corners, in writing and performing, of garage rock; it sports lo-fi ethos; its guitars are loud; its songs have humble lengths; its melodies are of a captivating relaxed beauty; its instrumentals are almost always on attack mode; its solos are an utter thrill; and it is sung by a man whose weird nasal high-pitched drawl would be enough to keep him away from the microphone in any band where he is not the boss. What makes “Sweep It Into Space” so different are the little details, which within the group’s limited scope of work combine to bring change of a relatively big scale.

It is hard to establish where the shift stems from; maybe the guys just wanted a change of pace. But the album’s credits point to the man controlling the soundboard: Kurt Vile, of The War on Drugs fame. Out of all Dinosaur Jr. albums, “You’re Living All Over Me”, from 1987, had been the only one in which J Mascis did not act as a producer. In “Sweep It Into Space”, he shares the duty with Vile and the result is a bit tamer than usual. Gone is the screaming loudness that made listeners feel Mascis was always on the verge of blowing up an amplifier as they wondered if the album should not have come with some sort of label warning that putting one’s face too close to the stereo whilst playing some tracks could lead to deafness or mutilation. That big and dirty Dinosaur Jr. guitar chug is obviously still present, because that is what Mascis and his peers do, but what was once an impenetrable wall of furious sound is cut down to an angry parapet.

It is arguable that some damage is done in that process: Murph’s drums, which were usually given a very frontal space in the mix, are sent to the back and lose their usual pounding force; fans who prefer a more aggressive tone may look at “Sweep It Into Space” as the first time in which Dinosaur Jr. has sounded old and safe; and the fact Mascis’ voice is not shrouded in a loud instrumentation makes its natural awkwardness, which is usually lovable, the center of attention. But “Sweep It Into Space” also gains quite a bit from that new approach. Perhaps influenced by the knowledge his vocals would be upfront, Mascis pulls off a great performance within his limitations, almost going as far as expressing the feelings his lyrics talk about. More importantly, be it as a consequence of the emphasis on voice or due to inspired writing, the melodies are simply the most consistently excellent ever since those of “Farm”, the 2009 delight that proved the reunited original Dinosaur Jr. trio could still put out records that matched those from its classic era.

In addition, thanks to the production, “Sweep It Into Space” has some extra color in its tunes. Surely, as a Dinosaur Jr. work, there are examples of nearly all kinds of loud guitar playing: in “I Ain’t” they are a constant underbelly of noise; in “I Met the Stones” they flirt with metal crunch; in “To Be Waiting” there is a soloing guitar that draws sweet melodic lines on top of a basic strum; in “Hide Another Round” they play with start-and-stop riffs until letting it all loose in the chorus; and the list goes on. However, mellower details are also thrown into the mix, and they bring a nice variation to the album. “I Ran Away” as well as “And Me” underline their electric racket with crispy acoustic guitars that recall those of poppy The Cure classics “Just Like Heaven” and “In Between Days”, giving a breezy forward motion to these catchy tracks; guided by a piano, “Take It Back” swings in its chorus, making it feel like it was recorded while the band members danced around the room with joy, which is rather unexpected and unlikely; finally, Lou Barlow’s “Garden”, which might be the best cut of the record, has quiet-and-loud dynamics that enhance the inherent beauty of its gorgeously moving chorus.

Allied with the production, these details make “Sweep It Into Space” easily rank as the softest album Dinosaur Jr. has ever put together. As such, one’s enjoyment of the material contained within it will strongly depend on how tolerant that listener is to watching a band known for their volume and noise tone it down a little bit. If that notion is accepted or overcome after multiple listens, “Sweep It Into Space” should earn its place as not only one of the strongest works by the band since their 2005 reunion, but also as the most accessible and universally enjoyable point of their wonderful discography. Because, unquestionably, in their previous eleven records of racket, Dinosaur Jr. has eventually been more intriguing and downright better than they are here; but as beloved underdogs well into their fifties, these alternative legends have just put out their most unique work, and they did so without losing sight of their unmistakable essence.

five

154

Posted on by Matt

154

Album: 154

Artist: Wire

Released: September 23rd, 1979

Highlights: I Should Have Known Better, The 15th, On Returning, Map Ref. 41°N 93°W3

Much like The Stooges, the MC5, the Sex Pistols, and the New York Dolls, Wire was a punk rock band that rather than fading away slowly, burned out quickly. In their case, the interval between 1976 and 1979 was all that it took for the quartet to burst into the scene, put out three influential records, and call it a day. Sure, anyone who knows of the group’s history will point out that they would eventually return into the fray nearly one decade later in 1987 and go on to publish more than a dozen new works. However, by the time of their comeback, not only was the whole punk rock explosion a distant sight in the rear-view mirror, but Wire itself was – naturally – quite a different band.

Unlike their short-lived punk rock peers, which used their brief careers in the genre to pound mercilessly at the same style of music, Wire went the other way and took advantage of their concise classic run to cover a lot of ground. Their legendary debut, “Pink Flag”, was not just purely punk to the core; somehow launching into twenty-one tunes in thirty-five minutes, the album was actually defined as the genre’s operatic suite. Released only a few months later, “Chairs Missing” was still quite direct and focused, but it had firmer song structures and – more notably – a heavy dosage of experimentation in dark sparse songs that signaled post-punk was the new tendency in rock.

Coming out one year later and serving as the third piece of that puzzle, “154” – a number that refers to the amount of shows the band had played up to that point – is another type of animal altogether. A quick glance at the duration of the record’s thirteen tracks is enough to reveal that Wire is, here, dabbling into material that is rather different: none of the tunes are shorter than two minutes and more than half of them go over the three-minute mark, which is – for those who had written “Pink Flag” – the equivalent to progressive rock running time. Of course, such lengths could indicate Wire has actually become a standard rock band that writes normal songs, but listening to “154” reveals that is far from the case. This is an album that is more artistically ambitious than all of those that preceded it, digging even deeper in the experimental direction of its predecessors.

“154”, similarly to “Chairs Missing”, can be safely labeled as a post-punk album. There is a deal of irresistible pop catchiness to it, which does the favor of bringing accessible counterpoints to its otherwise mostly confrontational nature, but through most of the way the record checks all of the boxes expected out of the more somber spectrum of the style. “154” is cold, dark, industrial, disturbing, and distant. It does not display these qualities to the extreme of contemporaries like Joy Division or The Cure, because Wire simply does not have the serious and dramatic artistic inspirations of Ian Curtis or Robert Smith. Nevertheless, those defining elements are certainly in the package, albeit in a very distinct format, which ends up doing the album a whole lot of good.

Ultimately, what makes “154” unique is the same set of ingredients that turned “Chairs Missing” into a notable work, with the difference being that they appear more prominently this time around. This is threatening and mechanical post-punk that goes hard on synthesizers, keyboards, and – especially – guitar effects to create a peculiar atmosphere. But instead of going for such oppressive environment via the meticulously constructed path taken by other post-punk bands of the sort, Wire shuns those approaches and bets on a more basic road. What the band is doing here is essentially taking the do-it-yourself punk ethos and applying them to somber post-punk. Although much of the material is daring, nothing is pulled off in a musically ambitious way. “154” is, therefore, as basic, raw, and stripped down as it gets, using that punk spirit not to play fast-paced rock and roll, but to create experimental music.

In general, the best cuts in the album are those that match wild sonic trips with strong melodies, serving as a perfect middle ground between straightforward punk and boundary-pushing music. “I Should Have Known Better” is a cavernous track that anticipates the early releases of Echo & the Bunnymen; with cold narrated verses that reach subdued despair in the hooky chorus, it moves forward at a mechanical pace, with the song’s central beat being mostly provided by the guitars, as the drums focus on adorning the ominous soundscape with clicks. “The 15th” is melodically gorgeous; built on a layer made up of a pair of guitars, one quite clean that plays arpeggios and another drenched in noise that forms the base, the track uses synthesizers to put together what is the closest Wire has ever gotten to a post-punk ballad. With sparse instrumentation, the lengthy “A Touching Display” plods in a threatening way with dissonant guitars and drones that make it a distant offspring of The Velvet Underground’s “Venus In Furs”. “On Returning” follows with a fast-paced progression filled with alien keyboard sounds that frantically build to a culminating emotional release. And similarly drenched in effects, “Map Ref. 41°N 93°W3” is a lighter poppier tune that flirts with new wave.

On the more purely experimental side, none of the tunes match the greatness of these five songs, but interesting results emerge nonetheless. “Two People In a Room” has a relentless paranoid groove that, in two minutes, features talking, shouting, and an attempt at a more melodic passage. Likewise, “Single K.O.”, which carries an iconic riff as its central hook, shows the members of Wire are still masters at packing unpredictable undefined structures into short running times, given this is a free-flowing composition that keeps attaching itself to different melodies as seconds pass. Finally, “Blessed State”, probably the album’s only relaxing song, has entwining guitars that – in a less technically proficient way – recall Television, since the two play contrasting arpeggio-based lines that clash in beautiful synergy.

As it happened with “Chairs Missing”, however, the downfall of “154” and the factor that keeps it away from being an equal to “Pink Flag” is the fact that Wire’s experimental detours – as commendable and inspiring as they were – fail to be totally productive with a considerable frequency. “The Other Window” and “Indirect Enquiries” are horror movie material of surrealistic musical quality, but are not exactly appealing as songs from a studio record. “Once Is Enough” and “40 Versions” have potential thanks to their interesting guitar lines, the former heavy and the latter nigh electronic, but disintegrate into chaos before they are able to build on their ideas. Lastly, “A Mutual Friend” reaches a satisfying melodic conclusion, but it takes a while wandering through dull experimentation to get there. Because of these weaker moments, “154” is far from being the stone-cold classic it could have been given the stylistic uniqueness of its construction. However, be it due to its influence on future generations or as a consequence of the bridge it builds between punk rock and avant-garde music, listening to it is not just generally enjoyable, but also key in understanding the changes rock went through when the spark of punk started to fade.

three-half

Phrenology

Posted on by Matt

phrenology

Album: Phrenology

Artist: The Roots

Released: November 26th, 2002

Highlights: Rock You, Thought @ Work, The Seed (2.0), Rhymes & Ammo

By the time “Phrenology” came out, The Roots were not strangers to eclecticism. This was, after all, a group that was at the forefront of the alternative hip hop movement. By playing instruments and, therefore, producing their beats and grooves in a more organic manner than most artists of the genre, the Philadelphia band was pushing boundaries from the get go, be it by centering their music on a loose, jazzy, and smoky atmosphere; by lyrically sidestepping some of the common themes of the rhythm; or by occasionally toying with the rap format itself, as their debut work, “Organix”, featured a twelve-minute song that is better described as a hip hop jam and pretty much all of their first records presented spoken-word tracks that dabbled in poetry and emotional storytelling.

Still, for anyone that was tracking their progress up to the release of “Phrenology”, its release must have come with quite a shock. Just three years before it, The Roots had succeeded in breaking through on the strength of their fourth work, the hip hop classic “Things Fall Apart”. And although, in it, the band had been able to retain all elements that made their music unique and noteworthy, one of the achievements of that record was exactly the trimming down of their indulgent tendencies, which often revealed what appeared to be a lack of focus, and the delivery of a musical package that albeit ambitious, conceptual, and experimental, also happened to feel like a concentrated effort that balanced those audacious flights with accessible hip hop. As such, “Phrenology”, one could expect, would be a continuation of that progression.

The Roots, however, are not an ordinary hip hop group. And, because of that, “Phrenology” is not the run-of-the-mill successor of a classic. Rather than building on what was laid down, the band – perhaps knowing that the only path to advance after such a marvelous work was to look elsewhere – destroys what was in place. Consequently, in a way, a parallel could easily be drawn between “Phrenology” and The Roots’ initial effort, “Organix”, because the two records feel like the start of something new: they venture into the unknown, tapping their way through a dark room with the knowledge that there is a valuable discovery there. The search is messy, plenty of objects are broken, a few stumbles occur, there are plenty of growing pains, and at times one wonders if the quest is even worth it; but, in the end, something of value is found, even if it might not exactly be what the band was looking for in the first place.

The difference between “Organix” and “Phrenology”, of course, lies in the nearly ten years that separate them; a time The Roots used to go from a promise in development to recognized artists. Due to that, not only is “Phrenology” far more satisfying, but it is also a more interesting and adventurous journey. And it is precisely in there that rests the shock of “Phrenology”, because rather than showcasing a dozen different ways of putting together a hip hop track with jazz flavors, which was the whole operating procedure of “Organix”, it is an album of variety so wild that it is a bit jarring. As besides carrying that signature The Roots combination, “Phrenology” dives into funk, neo soul, rock, punk, electronic music, and more.

Aside from “The Seed (2.0)”, a rock-rap fusion guided by an addictive riff that culminates in one sweetly melodic chorus courtesy of guest Cody ChesnuTT, there is absolutely nothing in “Phrenology” as catchy and immediate as many of the tracks from “Things Fall Apart”, like “The Next Movement”, “Dynamite!”, “Adrenaline!”, and – of course – “You Got Me”. Moreover, whether it is in the seven-minute sound collage that concludes the otherwise excellent “Water” or in the passable electronic hip hop experiment of “Thirsty!”, there are a few moments here that would have been better left on the cutting room floor; especially considering the whole album clocks in at seventy minutes. Because of that, “Phrenology” is one of those projects that demands that listeners work towards appreciation. With time, its unproductive or indulgent detours emerge as natural parts of the discovery process it documents so well and honestly; in addition, more importantly, true musical gems begin to pop up from where, initially, it seemed like no value could be extracted.

When it comes to the highlights of the package, “Rock You” may appear straightforward at first, but soon enough its threatening, banging, distorted beat turns into a heavy hook; meanwhile, both its lyrics and the way it unexpectedly segues into the twenty-second hardcore punk curveball of “!!!!!!!” are a perfect introduction to the wildness of “Phrenology”. Likewise, “Thought @ Work” might seem too messy on an initial listen, but truthfully it is yet another hard-hitting piece of hip hop; here, over a funky base featuring horns with enough swagger to drag even the shy onto the dace floor, the band unleashes a layer of noises that at times recalls the Beastie Boys in “Paul’s Boutique” while Black Thought raps viciously. Finally, stuck between the messy seven-minute “Something in the Way of Things (In Town)”, which matches spoken-word vocals, electronic interludes, and instrumental breaks, and closer “Thirsty!”, “Rhymes and Ammo” can be overlooked, but besides having the most infectious chorus of the record, it also shows how powerful a rap track can be by using three basic elements: one solid drum beat, one frantic keyboard hook, and a fantastic vocalist.

Even if it lacks the immediacy of “Things Fall Apart”, “Phrenology”, in its all-encompassing and somewhat conflicting glory, does not leave poppier moments out of the equation. Both “Sacrifice” (featuring Nelly Furtado) and “Complexity” (featuring Jill Scott) use the traditional recipe – the one that launched “You Got Me” to success – of joining rapping verses delivered over relaxing grooves with sweeter choruses that are melodically sung by female vocalists. But like the inventive little creature it is, the album does not approach them as straightforwardly. In “Sacrifice”, the chorus is more of a duet, with the relatively flat – nearly spoken – melody trying to recreate an argument; it is an interesting concept, but the tune fails because the rapping lacks punch and Nelly’s falsetto delivery comes off as more annoying than appealing. “Complexity” is more successful in that proposal, as its unusual beat does not stop Jill from delivering a touching chorus and coming off as a better companion to Black Thought. On a similar tone, “Break You Off” is another utter success; its light guitar touches and the soothing R&B vocals of Musiq serve as thick hooks under the rapping, and the track has a wonderful, equally blissful, instrumental coda that extends the song past the seven-minute mark.

“Phrenology” is hard to define. It can be too complex and indulgent, as it is in “Something in the Way of Things (In Town)”, but it can also be basic and alluring, like it manages to be when it builds “Rolling With Heat” by using just drums and processed horns and “Quills” by using drums, bass, and fuzzy synths. It can employ guitars for beautiful picking adornments, as in “Pussy Galore”; for good rock riffing, as in “The Seed (2.0)”; for lightning-fast punk, as in “!!!!!!!”; or throw them out alongside other instruments for some electronic trip, as in “Thirsty!”. It can be downright wonderful (“Thought @ Work”); good but flawed (“Water”); or passable (“Sacrifice”). It can be jazz, hip hop, rock, funk, neo soul, or poetry. It is confusing, it is delightful, it is overwhelming, and it is – most of all – the work of a band that tried to start from scratch after finally having brought their sound to full maturity. It is a bold move, and its successes and failures show that The Roots are ultimately too good, creative, and artistic to make the same album twice.

three

Return Of Saturn

Posted on by Matt

return_saturn

Album: Return of Saturn

Artist: No Doubt

Released: April 11th, 2000

Highlights: Ex-Girlfriend, Simple Kind of Life, Bathwater, New

For a while during the first half the 90s, it seemed like No Doubt was going to be that decade’s version of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. The comparison may seem absurd at first, but the parallels are actually plentiful. For starters, these were two Californian bands of mostly white youngsters who found the identity of their sound in the merging between rock and a rhythm of black origins: funk for the Red Hot Chili Peppers and ska for No Doubt. In addition, rather than approaching that mixture with seriousness, the bands thrived in employing a silly tone in their music. It is not, of course, that they lacked respect for the genres they were drinking from; much to the contrary, there was genuine admiration displayed in what they were doing. But youthful energy got the better of them and their output came off as a bit foolish.

To accentuate the comparison, in both cases the bands were able to make it out of that initial cocoon to showcase a more mature form. While the Red Hot Chili Peppers did so with their “Blood Sugar Sex Magik”, No Doubt broke through on the strength of “Tragic Kingdom”, their 1995 album. A key difference, however, was that if the former group found success with the same creative nucleus that had made four albums, the moment of revelation for No Doubt came when Eric Stefani, the brain of the band until that point, opted to get out of the picture, leaving the task of steering the ship to somebody else. And although, in a way, most of the members rose to the challenge and carried the load, it was his sister, Gwen, who stepped into the spotlight more firmly.

“Tragic Kingdom” had been a bit of an unexpected hit. A band that had, up to that point, published two commercially failed records and almost been dropped by their label as a consequence was trying to give it another go under the guidance of an inexperienced leader. However, not only did No Doubt perform the tracks as if their lives depended on it, because they did, but the band also matured and wrote with the same sense of urgency. The time to grow up, even if ever so slightly, had arrived, and the four members pulled through it, with an occasional hand or two provided by their former leader.

As the follow-up to that pivotal work, “Return of Saturn” does not really sound like it was made with blood, sweat, and tears. “Tragic Kingdom” was incredibly well written, but it was rough around the edges, showing a band on the verge of stardom; comparatively, “Return of Saturn” is much sleeker. This is by all means the creation of a band that had succeeded and, as a consequence, gained access to the recording company’s vault that paved the way to better production and greater aspirations. Sure, there was already plenty of pop to be found in “Tragic Kingdom”, as it exhibited the traditional brand of accessible, catchy, and energetic alternative rock that No Doubt would become known for. But “Return of Saturn” is a bigger pop statement. It is a work put together by people who had already made it and were thereby able to look at the process of creation like well-versed professionals.

It is a description that makes “Return of Saturn” sound like it was easy to birth, but evidence truthfully points in the opposite direction. A whopping five years actually separate the two albums: a dangerously large interval that had already killed the seemingly unstoppable momentum of other bands, like Elastica and The Stone Roses, and one in which No Doubt faced plenty of creative obstacles. As such, even if generally feeling like pop rock bliss composed by experts at the craft, “Return of Saturn” has undertones that indicate it is the product of a crisis, with the one that was being faced by Gwen Stefani being in most evidence; a natural consequence of the fact she was the leader of the group and the person responsible for writing lyrics.

The name of the album refers to the astrological phenomenon that is believed to hit those that near the age of 30, with the specified planet coming back to the point where it was on the person’s date of birth and that human having to face the responsibilities of adult life. For Stefani, who was around that age when much of the record was made, the crisis brought by Saturn seems to be one related to love and marriage. Throughout the work, almost not a tune goes by without her longing for what she sees as true love. Some songs, like “Simple Kind of Life” (an orchestrated power ballad with lo-fi treatment) or “Marry Me” (a passable loose ska jam), dive fully into that topic. Meanwhile, others deal with marginal feelings related to that subject; the stop-and-start punk of “Ex-Girlfriend”, for example, has Gwen wishing for the end of empty relationships. And a number of tunes approach matters that are part of the cauldron of emotions that boil up as one gets older: lusting for those that should be forgotten (“Bathwater”), envying youth (“Staring Problem”), and even mortality itself (“Six Feet Under”).

It is, fortunately and naturally, a far cry from the material of their first two albums. And even though the subjects are neither rebellious nor electrifying, not only are they true and well-handled, but No Doubt also does not forget the value energy has for their music. “Ex-Girlfriend”, “Six Feet Under”, and “New” flirt with the good kind of pop punk; “Artificial Sweetener” bangs in distortion aided by a keyboard that lends the track a new wave feeling; and “Bathwater” as well as “Staring Problem” recall the group’s early days by incorporating brass into the racket, even if the latter exaggerates on the silliness. “Return of Saturn”, however, is a record of ballads, and it is in them that its biggest weaknesses can be found, for although “Simple Kind of Life” more than proves the band can write a slower tune very well, that consistency is not kept throughout the tracks.

The first issue comes in the album’s sequencing itself, as the rockers are more prominently present on the first half while the ballads appear mostly on the second; given “Return of Saturn” has one hour of music, this imbalance causes it to drag towards the end. Secondly, nearly all of the slower songs follow the same pattern: jangled guitars or muffled punk riffs on calmer verses with loud emotional explosions on the choruses. It occasionally works, as it does in “Too Late”, and the melodies are generally good, but the fact the best two ballads here (“Simple Kind of Life” and “Magic’s in the Makeup”) do not use that formula is quite revealing of how a leaner or perhaps more varied approach to them would have done “Return of Saturn” some good. Due to these misses and a set of energetic tracks that show some punctual inconsistencies, “Return of Saturn” is not quite as good as its predecessor. Nevertheless, its strength cannot be denied, and No Doubt’s first record after finally breaking through is an enjoyable portrayal of how success does not make one immune to problems: be them creative or personal.

three