Music Review - The Black Keys - Turn Blue

I've been a fan of The Black Keys since 2003's Thickfreakness, and it's been fun watching them grow and evolve. While they've gotten further away from that Blues-influenced Garage Rock sound they started with, they've continually found ways to incorporate new and interesting elements into that style and make a fun experience out of it.

With Turn Blue, The Black Keys do just that. Teaming up with Danger Mouse again, (He produced Attack & Release and co-produced Brothers and El Camino) The Black Keys put out an album that, while steeped in a Bluesy, Garage Rock tinged atmosphere, explores the Psychedelic range for the majority of the album, and it's a welcome turn. If Brothers and El Camino are two sides of the same coin, Turn Blue is a slightly misshapen but similar coin. Okay, I'm bad at making analogies, let's just accept that right now.

I listened to the album twice through the free iTunes radio stream and immediately dug it. Today, on the day it came out, I went out and bought the vinyl and it sounds absolutely delightful, with wonderful packaging to fit the mood and theme of this album. From what the band has said, this album is less about radio singles and more about being a "headphone record" meaning it has been mixed specifically to have a unique experience in headphones over a stereo system, but I have yet to try it out. I bet it makes the experience even that more personal.

While Brothers and El Camino felt like a collection of tightly constructed numbers, Turn Blue feels looser, more air-y. Songs like title track Turn Blue have breathing room. They float along, letting the melody just wash over you. It's not always a slow pace however, as the lead single Fever is a floor-stomping disco-y number, with one of the best basslines and most memorable synth lines on the whole album. It's infectious, which is probably no coincidence due to the nature of the song lyrics. The lyrics throughout most of the album are about love and loss, which was to be expected as the divorce singer Dan Auerbach was going through happened during these sessions. It's often forlorn and depressing, but sometimes the lyrics pull up into this wistful-hopefulness and it's just the little glimmers of hope the album needed to keep from being a complete downer.

The biggest things you'll notice about the album is that it has a lot of soul to it, vocals and guitars. It really grooves along too, with some heavy basslines and real fuzzy guitars. Between the amount of reverb used on the lead vocals at times (like Bullet in the Brain) and the female vocal harmonies hanging around in the back (like on Year in Review) the album has this hazy, dream-like quality to it, but it never stays that way for long. It's just there long enough to give you an idea of what that could be like, but they never let it go too long without punctuating the song with a wonderfully catchy bass riff or reverb-upped guitar.

Turn Blue feels like a floating journey through the mind of Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney, with hints from Danger Mouse floating in and out. After having produced the last 3 albums and taking co-writing credits on El Camino, Danger Mouse's influence is undeniable at this point. He's a producer who loves to let the music breath, and that I think is the best asset here on Turn Blue. It never feels like the music is being forced, it just feels like this is how these songs were supposed to sound, even when we've never heard The Black Keys quite like this.

I cannot recommend Turn Blue enough. I understand that some old fans like myself who might not like the more poppy sound The Black Keys have been turning to, but if you understand all that made them what they were is still there in some way or another I think you can appreciate this album. While it's a long ways away from the raw, pure energy of Thickfreakness and Rubber Factory, this is just an outreach into a different sub-set of influences that makes for just as enjoyable album in it's own right.

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Music Review - The Faint - Doom Abuse

If any of you have known me for long enough, you'll known I love The Faint's 2008 album Fasciination. I loved it so much I pushed it during my high school news broadcast's music segment. Well, it's been 6 years and The Faint are back with Doom Abuse, an album I am loving.

While I don't totally love The Faint's back catalog, Fasciination was a perfect album for me, a combination of electro-style synths and basslines with a rock band behind them and an eccentric vocalist behind it all, giving me catchy yet out there lyrics in what would come to define my idea of Dance Rock/Dance Pop music for a very long time. With Doom Abuse The Faint drop a large portion of the bouncy Electro synths for noisey ones and a harder rock edge, but it's still the same band and still giving me exactly what I never knew I wanted.

Doom Abuse is a short blast of danceable, weird pop rock. They come in at 12 songs in just over 39 minutes. The songs are catchy and convey just as much as they need to before jumping to the next one. Allmusic review James Christopher Monger called this iteration of The Faint "Equal parts whimsical and despondent, it's Disintegration-era Cure, wearing an Imagine Dragons hoodie trying to have an LCD Soundsystem "All My Friends" moment." While that is a lot to swallow, I think it's pretty apt. The lyrics are often on the downward slope, about the decline of one's mental health, the degradation of society and a cynical view of how the world is changing, but told through upbeat, rocking numbers you can't help but move along with. Two of the biggest examples of this are the back-to-back combo of Mental Radio and Evil Voices, pairing lyrics like "Evil voices lie when they say you're alone" with arguably the catchiest songs on the album. On tracks like Salt My Doom they go for a noiser edge, tapping into their punk influences for a short, shouty number. Help In The Head is the opening track and pretty much a combination of both previous styles, being catchy and flippant, but also dark and with a noisey overtone. While not the best song on the album, it gives you a damn good idea of what the rest of the music is going to sound like, more or less. If you like Help In the Head, you'll like the rest of the album. The track Animal Needs might be the most The Faint song out of all of them, with a strong synth riff and a pounding drum beat play while the lyrics talk about what they do and don't need, which comes down to pretty much, we don't need anything from structured society, but they have the same needs as an animal." An anthemic track you can dance along too with a message about society.

Doom Abuse is the kind of album that makes me fall in love with a band. Their Dark Wave/Dance Punk outlook has enough twists and turns in between songs while still keeping to a very similar and established sound throughout the piece. The only time it really lets off is the final track, a beautiful but slower piece named Damage Control. While not a revolutionary album in itself, it's a totally different experience from most popular music going on today, with just as many catchy riffs, hooks and choruses. At under 40 minutes, it's really just a fun experience to put on and let it play all the way through, and when it's done I'm ready to start at the beginning all over again.




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Music Review - Burning Brides - Anhedonia

Back in August I saw Black Sabbath. It ruled, and my life will never be the same. While me and my buddies were out camping at the concert site, we had our nearest neighbors hang out with us for most of the time. They were two 40-something dudes from Portland and we spent hours swapping music recommendations and stories. One band they recommended was Burning Brides, so in honor of Kenny and Larry, I'm reviewing Burning Brides' 2008 album Anhedonia.

Burning Brides are a Hard Rock band from Philadelphia, and while I'd never heard of them until this weekend, they've toured with several of my favorite bands, including The White Stripes, Queens of the Stone Age, Mastodon and even Peaches. The band is mainly comprised of lead singer and guitarist Dimitiri Coats and his wife Melanie on bass. Anhedonia is a 13 track affair, with the majority of songs within the 3 minute or under range, which is something I always enjoy. As much as I like songs that go longer, I think it's sometimes more interesting to see what a band can some up with in such a short time frame. An example of this is the second track, Summer Leaves, which has a cool riff and is supported by a QOTSA style vocal, and it comes in at two minutes and one second. It's in and out in two minutes and I still find it incredibly memorable.

The whole album feels kind of like a mix between QOTSA and Foo Fighters, but never as hard rockin' or distinctive as either. This isn't exactly a bad thing, as both of those bands are led by very recognizable people who keep their distinctive style no matter what they do. So on Anhedonia, Burning Brides have seemed to capture what makes both bands good that doesn't encapsulate either of those band's most prominent features.

I think my favorite song might be Fire Escape, it might also be the most Foo Fighters'-y track the album has to offer. The riff is just really nice and light and Dimitri is doing a total Dave Grohl vocal melody. It's just...pleasant. I think that's my overall feeling of this album. It's not going to win any awards for being unique, but it's just nice. It's a band that knows exactly where they want to be and what they want to accomplish and them going for it, and you know what, more power to them. Not everyone is cut out to be the big, unique, stadium-filling band. Some bands are just good enough to be recognized by those other bands as just as good.

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Music Review - Anathema - We're Here Because We're Here

An earlier album from Anathema, Judgement, is one of my favorite of all time, and I've written a review of it, which you can check out here.

The Cavanagh brothers and the rest of the guys behind Anathema have been releasing a steady stream of solid albums. Each time experimenting, tweaking with their proven formula of catchy-hook laden riffs with deep, emotional lyrics. On 2010's We're Here Because We're Here, the main change is the use of piano and choral vocals, which, while present on previous albums, is really prominent here. In fact, the album opens with  Thin Air, with upbeat, beautiful guitars, a driving beat, and a vocal that is just as full of emotion as ever. While the vocals aren't as haunting as they were on Judgement, they still carry just as much emotion, weight and depth. The piano work is a nice addition and the ethereal choral vocals really put the song over the top. More nice piano work on Summernight Horizon, as well as beautiful female vocals that compliment the Cavanagh's. The album is representitive of Anathema as a whole. The songs change album to album, but you always have this feeling of underlying despair wrapped up into this dream-like optimism. It's like if a band like Coldplay actually had heart. Songs like Dreaming Light and Everything have a wonderful uplifting energy to them, with great vocals, guitars and piano work from the Cavanagh brothers.

Anathema started as a Doom Metal band in the early 90's, and even though they sound nothing like that style of music now, you can still sense that sensibility in their music. In Doom Metal, the vocals or the riffs will just have this weight to them that feel heavy, like they have a weight to them. Anathema kept that part of their early days with them, the vocals can come in like the singer is lifting a burden off his shoulders, or a guitar riff can just strike you to the core. These days, Anathema are much more akin to Prog-Rock, but make no mistake that a part of their Doom past doesn't stay with them. We're Here Because We're Here makes a conscious effort to sound light, musically. Much more bare piano and light-as-air vocals, strings, even the lyrical content. We're Here to me seems to be taking the positive approach to something incredibly dark, death. This album sounds like what I might imagine someone thinking to themselves in their last moments one Earth. On Thin Air, lyrics include "And it feels like we're already flying, But the air is too thin and we're dying. The clouds all around take us higher, The world far below is on fire. I hold out my hand just to touch you."

Granted, this theory of mine is just a theory, but I feel like the album supports this, especially with the spoken word piece in Presence. The thoughts of someone about to die. Someone coming to terms with who they love, who might not love them, how everything will be over soon and they'll live forever. It's all over the album, in songs like Everything and especially Angels Walk Among Us. In taking to much more positively-styled lyrics over say, songs from Judgement, Anathema have, in my opinion, made the most powerful album about death that I have ever heard.


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Music Review - Creature With The Atom Brain - The Birds Fly Low

I actually had Spotify recommend this album to me after listening to my last few MDM picks. The most accurate thing I've seen so far in relation to Belgian Alt. Rock band Creature With The Atom Brain is that they're the Belgian equivalent of Queens of the Stone Age. Things never get as heavy as a QOTSA record, but the same stylistic ideas and fuzziness are there.  The Birds Fly Low is the bands third album, continuing in their tradition of "fuzzy stripped-back Rock 'N' Roll noise with a generous helping of weird." It's just good ol' Rock 'n' Roll, bringing some great new riffs, vocal melodies and interesting beats into the fold from a place you wouldn't expect to rock so hard.

It's definitely weird, and dips into Stoner Rock and Psychedelic territory all over this record, like on Slide. Things get real weird on the bonus track R-Frequency, doesn't stop it from being fun. Tracks like the album openers Hit The Sky and Wolf Eye are reminiscent of 70's-era hard rockers, and follow similar themes. Lead singer/guitarist/keys player Aldo Struyf's vocals have a really nice grit to them. He sings pretty clean, but that layer of grit riding underneath is something I've come to really dig in hard rock. Black Rider Run features a guest vocal from Screaming Trees frontman/QOTSA collaborator Mark Lanegan, and the track is just...perfect Stoner Rock, with Lanegan bringing his haunting, barely there vocals to what would otherwise be a fun romp. The track Nightlife is definitely my favorite on the album, with a driving beat that just sticks with me, and that riff I find myself humming all day, and right after that, the raucous Red River.

This album is just a weird, fun, rockin' good time.





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Web Spotlight #5 - The Blue Van

I found today's Web Spotlight digging through Youtube bookmarks.

The beauty of the internet, and sites like Youtube, as that you can discover anything that has ever been posted, and it can hit you as if it's brand new to you. So today I dug about my Youtube bookmarks and found this song I couldn't remember bookmarking years ago. Uploaded in November 2008, today's spotlight is The Blue Van's Silly Boy.

The video description reveals that The Blue Van is a Danish band and they particularly enjoy putting their own spin on Britpop. Silly Boy is a nice, quick, fun song. The riff is catchy and the vocals are definitely in the Britpop spirit. Check it out.

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Web Spotlight #4 - Witch Mountain

Not sure how I found this band, I just had the link to this track on Youtube bookmarked.

I am a man of the Pacific Northwest, which made me instantly happy to find out that today' Web Spotlight, Witch Mountain, is from Portland. I was however really mad with myself when I found out they played in my town two months ago. Nevertheless, he we are.

Witch Mountain are a among a growing breed in the Metal community, female fronted Doom Metal bands. It's something I greatly enjoy. Last year Witch Mountain released a 6 song EP named Cauldron of the Wild and I'm really digging it. The song I had found wading in a sea of Youtube bookmarks was Beekeeper, and it's the song I'm choosing to highlight today. It's good, gritty, slow Doom Metal with one Uta Plotkin bringing the dark, groovy lyrics and occasional shrieks to the fold. If you like modern Doom, this is one to check out.


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Music Review - Dio - The Last In Live

As some of you might know, or might have gathered from my music choices, I'm a big Dio fan. The man's a legend. He started his music career in the end of the 50's, doing Doo-Wop (no seriously, look up Ronnie and the Prophets) and made musical contributions to the next five, count 'em, five decades. He rose up the ranks, going through a good 4-5 band re-brandings until his band Elf became acquainted with famed Deep Purple guitarist Ritchie Blackmore. They essentially adopted him in and became Rainbow, his first big band. After 3 albums with Rainbow he left the band and joined up to be the second lead singer of Black Sabbath, becoming an even bigger force to be reckoned with. After two phenomenal albums, he left Sabbath and created his own band, named Dio, which had a long successful career in it's own right.

Why do I lead this post with such a long intro? Because to fully appreciate the scope of Inferno, you need to know the history of the man behind it. Since tomorrow would have been Dio's 70's birthday, I figured I'd celebrate by recommending the best non-greatest hits greatest hits that has ever been put out, Inferno: Last In Live. I've actually just seen it re-released with the title Dio's Inferno, as listed on Spotify, but it's the same album track for track.

Inferno was recorded in the time of Dio's 97-98 Angry Machines tour, which I always find a little funny. The best live recording comes from the tour of one of the well, lesser albums. Inferno is a two-disc masterpiece, covering everything from Rainbow to two tracks off Angry Machines, 20-ish years of material. Throughout the album, Ronnie sounds as alive as ever, which is great for someone in their late 50's at the time of recording. One thing Dio had a penchant for is engaging and talking to the audience, including them in the concert. Usually this means he would point to the audience and tell them that they were something, aka they were all rainbows in the dark, or they were all the man on the silver mountain or some such thing. Not innovative by any means, but cheesy and endearing. And when I said this was the best non-greatest hits greatest hits, I meant it.

Disc one opens with Jesus, Mary & the Holy Ghost, a track off of Strange Highways. Not a perfect album, but standard fare for later Dio albums. The next three tracks usher us right into his debut solo album, Holy Diver, with Straight Through The Heart, Don't Talk To Strangers, and of course, Holy Diver. Three perfect tracks from the beginning of his solo career. Then we get a drum solo from Sabbath and Dio alum Vinny Appice, which leads right into Sabbath classic Heaven and Hell. From there we get Double Monday, an Angry Machines track, then the classic Stand Up and Shout, and closing out the disc is Hunter of the Heart, another Angry Machines track. By itself, this would be a pretty great later Dio live album. But that's just half way. The second disc is where it really opens up.

Disc two is the the disc I live for. The first disc is great, but the second is essentially a treat for all the long term fans. Dio runs through Rainbow, Sabbath and his own material in a manner that comes with having spent so many years figuring out what fans want. Disc two opens with a medley of the Rainbow tracks Mistreated and Catch The Rainbow, coming out to about 10 minutes. Then there is a guitar solo from guitarist Tracy G, who does a great job on this album. Then we get The Last In Line and then Rainbow in the Dark, two classic Dio tracks. Then it gets interesting. Dio explains to the crowd that instead of going backstage and waiting for them to come back out and do an encore, they were just going to do it right then. And so, he does. He rips right into Sabbath classic The Mob Rules, and from there runs through two classic Rainbow tracks, Man on the Silver Mountain and Long Live Rock and Roll and then for the grand finale slams into Dio classic We Rock.

It hits every base a fan could hope for. Disc One adds in tracks from some later Dio albums and mixes them with some Sabbath and a large chunk of Holy Diver, and then Disc Two plays through essentially the rest of the classic Dio hits with a large dose of Rainbow and another Sabbath track. While Dio wasn't a perfect songwriter and most of his solo albums had some filler to them, this double disc set mostly eliminates that. I'm not too big on Strange Highways or Angry Machines, but what can you do, they only account for 3 out of 18 tracks. Holy Diver and The Last In Line are classic albums for a reason, and it's because the tracks were straightforward, inspired and had little filler on them. On this release, We get the majority of Holy Diver and a couple tracks from The Last In Line so you get the best of Dio's solo career, you get a lot of Rainbow's strongest songs, and you get two of the best Dio-era Sabbath tracks that had some speed to them. It plays like a love letter to his fans, and that's what Ronnie James Dio was all about, loving his fans. It's cheesy and cliched, sure, but without Dio the landscape of modern Metal wouldn't look the same. He sang about the mystical and fantastical, about the empowerment of the youth, about standing up for what you believed in. He is a large part of why the cliche exists, he was the originator.  He invented the devil horns, the sign Metal heads embraced and became a huge part of our culture. He opened up the doors for Power Metal, he gave life back to the band that almost single-handedly invented Heavy Metal. He lived a life well lived, but cut short. With this live album, you get the experience of what the man was all about. Happy birthday Dio, you were a hell of a man.

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Music Review - Captain Beyond - Captain Beyond

   I wouldn't have found the good Captain here if it wasn't for the podcast Tell 'Em Steve Dave, on Kevin Smith's Smodcast Network. Captain Beyond was a 70's Supergroup of sorts. Lead singer Rod Evans was the original lead singer of Deep Purple, and preformed their hit song Hush. After three albums with Deep Purple he was let go and they brought in Ian Gillan and they became the superstars they are today. Rod went on to form Captain Beyond with former members of Iron Butterfly and Johnny Winter's band. Captain Beyond is pure 70's Prog Rock. They dig into these large concepts of places and ideas and spread them out through the songs. It's trippy, and a rockin' good time.

   A lot of the songs on the album flow together, which adds to the experience of listening to this album as a whole. The first three tracks, Dancing Madly Backwards (On a Sea of Air), Armworth and Myopic Void are all one related concept. As well as tracks 6-8, Thousand Days of Yesterdays (Intro), Frozen Over, and Thousand Days of Yesterdays 9Time Since Come and Gone), leaving tracks 9-13 to form their own concept, which you can get the idea of just from the song titles; I Can't Feel Nothin', Pt. 1, As the Moon Speaks (To the Waves of the Sea), Astral Lady, As The Moon Speaks (Return) and I Can't Feel Nothin', Pt. 2. This With these three long form concepts taking hold of the album, the two stand-alone tracks 4-5, Mesmerization Eclipse and Raging River of Fear can get lost, and that's a shame because they're great catchy tracks. The album focuses on space, the concept of loneliness, the moon and the sea. Clocking in at just over 35 minutes for this 13 track album, Captain Beyond just sails on through and plunges forward, and before you know it, you've finished.

   It's a quick album, which is surprising for a 70's Prog Rock album. It explores all sorts of interesting concepts, but before it lingers anywhere too long it's onto the next subject. My favorite tracks have got to be the Thousand Days of Yesterdays section, aka songs 6-8, especially Frozen Over. That riff really just grooves with me. Sadly, original guitarist Larry Reinhardt and original bassist Lee Dorman, both from Iron Butterfly, died last year. Reinhardt had been trying to get Rod Evans to return so they could do an original band reunion. We'll only ever have this self-titled album that contained the original line-up of Captain Beyond that was on this record. Their next release had them replace drummer/songwriter Bobby Caldwell, and their third and final album had another 2 members of Iron Butterfly and Rod Evans was replaced. So here we have it, 35 minutes of a band that could never lock into one lineup and would never return to the magic that was captured in this recording ever again. It's a hidden gem I think fans of 70's Rock and Prog Rock should check out.

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Music Review - Royal Thunder - CVI

Female fronted Metal at it's finest. Royal Thunder are an Atlanta band digging into their record collection of Sabbath and Zeppelin for inspiration and creating something refreshingly new out of those influences. CVI indulges 70's hard rock enthusiasts. You've got your Blues, your Doom, and your Psychedelics all wrapped into modern Hard Rock ideas with female bassist and singer Mlny Parsonz wailing on the mic. While I absolutely adore the instrumentation on this album, it's Mlny that really does it for me. I'm a sucker for girls with grit in their vocals, and she gets down and dirty with the best of them.

The album opens with "Parsonz Cruz" a Blues heavy rocker that descends into madness about 4 minutes in before coming out with renewed vigor for the end, starting the album off with a slow burner that sets the tone for the album. Royal Thunder wear their influences on their sleeves, and I like them about them. You can tell where they found inspiration for certain songs, and you can see where they went with those ideas, never leaving a pure carbon copy. After the 7 minute opener, we lead into Whispering World, taking Parsonz to a screaming stomper. As much as I love this one, I know that it's true place is in concert, a studio recording could never capture the energy and atmosphere of this track. It's about 10 seconds shy of 4 minutes and just rips through with screaming vocals, a catchy as hell chorus and a blistering solo. That's about how the rest of the album goes, a slower track that feels dark and ominous is succeeded by a shorter, faster stomper of a track. My favorite of the shorter tracks is No Good, a song with a definite Zeppelin influence, and even a very active piano line, just for when you thought the songs might start sounding similar. My favorite of the longer dark and brooding tracks is Sleeping Witch, a Doom Metal inspired track that Sabbath would be proud of. It churns and prods and just makes you move your head with them.

I can't give this album enough praise. I'm a huge fan of these modern bands taking these influences from 30-40 years ago and taking their modern sensibilities to them and creating something that's both extremely reverential and it's own thing. It's not a cookie cutter copy of the influences, it's understanding the core elements of each influence and filtering them through their own perspective to create something brand new.





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