BCG Reviews

Wilderness

Sun, 2010-05-30 11:30 — martin

I caught the tail end of Sophie B. Hawkins' live performance on 26 July 2004 at the House of Blues in Chicago, where she was supporting Chris Isaak. I was very impressed by her passionate performance featuring some rather large vocals - not Joplin-esque screaming but big nevertheless. So I bought Wilderness, which was her current album at that time.

This album turns out to be a very good album. However, much of it is quite poppy and isn't the rocker that I expected when I bought it. Many of the tracks aren't really my thing - there's a little too much loopy drum programming for my liking. Still the performances are all very nice especially considering that Hawkins appears to play most of the instruments on many of the tracks.

For me the highlights of the album are Sweetsexywoman and the closing 3 tracks Angel of Darkness, You Make Me High, Feelin' Good. These are the tracks that are more reminiscent of the live performance I saw. They're a bit jazzier and tend to be a bit heavier than the rest of the album. I really like these songs.

However, the album closes with an "Infinite Space Mix" bonus version of an earlier track Soul Lover. This track doesn't do much for me and I feel it detracts from the nice closure that Feelin' Good gives the album. I think I'll delete this "bonus" track from my various media players. I often do this with classic albums that have no need for a "bonus" - sometimes I put the bonus tracks into a separate "album" in case I do actually want to listen to them.

I think I'd like to hear more of Sophie B. Hawkins... though I'm not sure which albums to look at...

The Long Run

Sat, 2010-05-29 12:40 — martin

The Long Run was the Eagles' last studio album before their 1980 breakup. It is the culmination of the domination of the band by Glenn Frey and Don Henley, and the departure of the other remaining co-founder Randy Meisner. The 4th co-founder, Bernie Leadon had left several years earlier. The move away from country rock to to a heavier pop-rock sound (although still with some country influence) was also complete. That said, the album is also more musically diverse than it's predecessor Hotel California. The Long Run was also the 2nd album I bought "with my own money" (the 1st was Who Are You by The Who).

Although Heartache Tonight, I Can't Tell You Why and the title track gained the most radio play, and continue to do so, they're probably the smoothest and musically least interesting songs on the album. Well, OK, Heartache Tonight at least rocks some amount and is probably the song that caused me to by the album back in 1979. Joe Walsh's In The City shines through "side 1", mostly because the rhythm guitar playing is interesting. Adding spark to "side 2" are Those Shoes, with it's slightly funky tinge, and Teenage Jail, a slow and heavy track that I used to listen to repeatedly. The seemingly throwaway The Greeks Don't Want No Freaks adds a little more novelty before Henley's closer The Sad Café takes the the album out in a similar fashion to Hotel California's The Last Resort. Being a sucker for a great ballad, I've always loved The Sad Café and it is also one of my earliest introductions to nice saxophone solos in nice ballads. :-)

I'll never regret buying the initial vinyl version of The Long Run or replacing it many years later with the CD. It is a very good album with some very good songs performed incredibly well. I don't think it is the great album that The Eagles would have liked to follow up Hotel California with. However, this album continues to demonstrate that The Eagles were outstanding musicians. Although it isn't one of my favourite albums, I do like listening to it every couple of years... and it is still miles ahead of much of the dross churned out by others since...

Across The Universe

Tue, 2009-09-01 13:23 — martin

This is usually about albums and an occasional concert... but I want everyone in the world (OK, everyone who reads this) to check out this performance of The Beatles' Across The Universe by Eddi Reader (Fairground Attraction) and Liam Ó Maonlaí (Hothouse Flowers). This performance starts delicate and understated. The RocKwiz Orkestra are as solid as a rock, allowing Ó Maonlaí and Reader to do the right amount of improvisation. During the 3rd chorus you can feel the performance go ethereal - there's a certain edge in the voices, Ó Maonlaí and Reader exchange some glances, and everyone in the room, including the performers, knows that something special has just happened.

I've seen this sort of thing many times during live performances by talented people - it's magic. I can watch one this again and again... and it still stuns me just as it did the first time. Thanks RocKwiz for letting us witness these sorts of performances...

Howl & Moan

Sun, 2009-07-19 08:55 — martin

Abbe May is a singer, guitarist and songwriter from Perth, Australia. I first saw her here in Canberra when she was featured in Deborah Conway's Broad Festival in 2007. If you haven't seen or heard Abbe May before there are also a couple of RocKwiz TV performances that are definitely worth watching (these are the solo performances - the duets are also well worth a look). Howl & Moan is Abbe May's debut album released in 2008. It features her band The Rockin' Pneumonia playing a range of roots-based rock tracks, predominantly quite heavy, grunge-inspired blues-rock.

This album opens with the title track Howl & Moan, a very solid blues-rocker that starts the album nicely. This is followed by the rockabilly inspired You Gonna Get It. Neither of these songs hang around for very long. In fact the longest track on the album is a little more than 3:30, with several around 2:30 or less.

We'll Take A Trip Up The Country follows and we hear Abbe May doing slightly heavy, but fairly standard Australian country music - it's extremely well done. This is followed by one of the rockiest 2 songs on the album Costanza, a song of love gone wrong that proclaims "I can't stand ya no more". Yes, the title is a play on a Seinfeld episode. The contrast between these 2 tracks is well done... and this effect is used throughout the album. Half the songs are heavy, with fresh, light songs interspersed between them.

Speaking of which, Ma is a lovely little acoustic guitar and voice interlude that lasts just over a minute and Old River is a short, slow blues featuring both whistle and guitar solos. Many songwriters have tendency to try and turn a good, short snippet into a longer, but weaker, though hopefully more radio-friendly song. Abbe May doesn't suffer from this problem - she recognises that some things are better left simple and often just gives you a minute or 2 of something special...

The stand-out track on this album is A Blackout In Your Town. It starts as a slow acoustic-based blues, introduces drums and dirty guitar, and then just simmers for a few minutes. A great combination of alternating restraint and freight train blues-rock.

Storm has Abbe May playing ukelele in a folk-country setting, and whistling an outro that finishes the song nicely. Sidesteppin' is a sub 2 minute acoustic track, with another whistling solo that meanders to its logical conclusion. You don't hear whistling much in modern music... :-)

Howl & Moan closes aptly with another nice, heavy blues-rocker Lay Me Down.

This album is over before you know it, partly because it is very short (27:27), especially by modern standards, and also because it rocks along at a good pace. That said, I much prefer a good, tight album that one that has been extended out using filler. I've mentioned that many of the tracks are short and I think this a feature, especially because the arrangements are quite simple and, therefore, they might labour in extended studio versions. That said, I could imagine some of these songs turning into extended jams in a live setting.

The title of the album does a good job of describing Abbe May's voice. In the ballads it can be just a plaintive moan and at other times it is like a freight train. While listening to Howl & Moan a couple of weeks ago a friend wondered whether we were listening to Janis Joplin or PJ Harvey. There are similarities with both of these performers, though Abbe May's voice is more locomotive than Joplin's jet engine, and she's more rootsy than Harvey's indie.

This is an excellent album that leaves me wanting to hear much more from Abbe May.

Even

Tue, 2009-05-26 07:26 — martin

My introduction to Even came via some performances by singer-songwriter-guitarist Ashley Naylor on SBS's RocKwiz. I found his solo performance very entertaining but when the first couple of lines of Get Off My Cloud came out of his mouth I was stunned. It was just so clear that Naylor "got" the song - he's obviously a big fan of music. So I went searching for some of Even's albums.

This self-titled album released in 2007 opens with I Am The Light, which is reminiscent of a psychedelic-era Beatles pop-rock track. However, like many of the songs on this album, it isn't that simple. There are influences from a lot of music, particularly from the late 1960s and the 1970s, and all of these these influences are infused into the music.

I'll skip through the tracks a bit because if I rave about every song then this is likely to get boring very quickly... :-)

I Walk On features an excellent guitar riff, vocal harmonies, and nice variation between verse and chorus. Superstition Blues features harmonica and slide guitar. It sounds like US southern rock played by a late-1960s British blues-rock band.

It is hard to pick favourites on this album, but one of mine is Which Way To Run, featuring wonderful playing by the whole band and some Wurlitzer piano contributed by one of the album's many guests. It is one of the album's bigger songs. For contrast this is followed by the acoustic and steel guitar based The Fool Who Made You Sad. I can't tell if this is a perfectly executed country song or if it is a perfectly executed spoof of a country song - I don't know enough about the band! Whatever the case, it is brilliantly executed.

I also think Tangled Up and the closer Pinnacle are exceptional songs... but then I think this album has no weak songs on it.

The production on Even is stellar. Some of the songs have a lot of guitars but they all occupy their own space and never become overbearing. The big songs have just the right amount of everything. The other thing that is brilliant about this album is Ashley Naylor's guitar playing - he plays rhythm and lead across all of the songs, managing to be continuously interesting and inventive.

I've already mentioned the 1960s and 1970s influences that pervade this album. There are influences from The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Yardbirds, The Who, Led Zeppelin and many more - I can hear a lot of music I like in there. Other bands like Oasis and Jet have also displayed a combination of similar influences but I think that Even do it in a more straightforward yet interesting way. There's also also a strong indy rock feel to the music, which gives it a slightly more interesting edge.

OK, enough superlatives! Almost. Ashley Naylor and his band are students of rock music who have mastered the art-form. They pay homage yet still manage to play interesting, new music. This is one of the best recent albums that I've heard in a long time. Recently I've listened to this album more than any other... and I heartily recommend it.

Album
Even

Any Better Time

Wed, 2009-05-13 07:43 — martin

Any Better Time is another album sent to me by my friend Dan. He grew up living across the road from singer-songwriter Christine Santelli and he thought I might like this roots-infused album that she has recorded. Santelli has a voice that sounds like it is full of cigarettes and whisky. Various tracks on this album encourage comparisons with people like Bonnie Raitt and Melissa Etheridge but Santelli occupies her own space, playing an interesting mix of folk-country-rock... or something like that. This is her seventh album and it is very good.

Good Day For A Hangin' opens the album nicely. It is rocky and showcases Santelli's vocals. I like this song except for one annoying bit where she sings "I just can't seem to stop smoking" in a space where it doesn't quite fit. This sounds like something that could be a nice feature when done live as a variation but I'm not sure it works on an album. That said, it annoys me less after quite a few listens than it did the first time I heard it. There are a couple of other times on the album where similar, uncomfortable phrasing is used.

The album's standout track is Guilty, a tale of love gone wrong set in an excellent mid-paced ballad and carried by excellent performances from the entire band. The next track Ponytails is a pretty, optimistic folk-country ballad. This is followed by the title track, which is a piano led number that bops along a little more than many other songs on the album, although Santelli's voice keeps things firmly on the ground. Down In The Valley, a gospel-country-ish song, follows.

Butterfly is probably my least favourite song on the album. It is quite poppy and pretty, but perhaps a little trite - to me it actually sounds like a cover that I might have heard played in a restaurant back in the late 1980s. I think the production on the drums contributes to this feeling.

The album has a good amount of variation. Calgary is another folky ballad that features some nice violin playing, Lily's Song is pure country and Brown Haired Girl is beautiful and folky. Ode To Bill is a blues-rock song featuring some searing lead guitar playing that interacts wonderfully with Santelli's vocals. The closer On The Farm is a delightful down-home country stomp.

I won't dissect this album any more. Any Better Time is a very good album - just short of being great - and I'm listening to it a lot. I'd actually like to listen to some of Chistine Santelli's other albums and I really think I'd enjoy seeing her live.

Stephen Stills

Fri, 2009-03-27 23:00 — martin

How did I not know about this album? My friend Dan, who I share a lot of musical interests with, recently sent me a bunch of albums that he has enjoyed listening to over the years, including Stephen Stills' self-titled album.

Although it is very different in its construction, this album sits very comfortably in my collection with albums like Janis Joplin's Pearl. That's no surprise, since this album and Pearl were recorded at about the same time, although Joplin was dead before this album was released. Similarly, Stephen Stills features a dedication to Jimi Hendrix, who jams with Stills on one track on this album. Much of this album features beautiful gospel-style backing vocals, with help from people like Rita Coolidge, John Sebastian, David Crosby, Graham Nash, Cass Elliot and Shirlie Matthews. However, it is Stills' soulful vocals and songwriting, and his inspired guitar and keyboard playing that make this a fantastic album. Stills plays most instruments, apart from drums, on quite a few of the songs.

Stephen Stills opens with the "flower power" classic Love The One You're With. With its rich backing vocals, it sets the stage for the rest of the album. This song was a hit and is well known, so not much to say. It is followed by the much sparser Do For The Others, indicating that this album is going to vary a bit.

Church (Part Of Someone) is an aptly titled, gospel-infused track that is led by Stills' soulful vocals and piano playing. With its huge backing vocals, and filled out with a string section, this is probably my favourite track on the album.

This is followed by Old Times Good Times, which is a fantastic jam with Jimi Hendrix. As with Stevie Winwood on Hendrix's own Voodoo Chile, Hendrix seems to bring out the best in excellent organ players. This song alone is worth the price of admission, with Hendrix's guitar playing taking a back seat to Stills' inspired organ playing for much of the track.

Go Back Home also appears to be a fabulous jam. It features extended guitar work from Stills, with Eric Clapton on 2nd lead guitar. Sit Yourself Down is another ballad, vaguely in the style of Church but lacking most of the gospel undertones. This was one of the singles from the album and charted quite well.

Another ballad To A Flame follows, replacing rich backing vocals with a string section. Black Queen is a live performance, featuring Stills' folk-blues driven acoustic guitar and soulful vocals. This is probably the track that confirms that, despite the all-star cast, it is Stills' talents that carry this album.

Cherokee is quite a funky number, filled with musical interludes featuring brass and flute, and also organ by Booker T. Jones. Nice! The closing track We Are Not Helpless returns to the formula of Stills' playing most instruments, backed by a huge-sounding chorus. Apart from Stills and backing vocalists, the other musician on the track is Ringo Starr playing drums under the pseudonym "Richie". This song closes the album quite aptly with a huge splash of Stills' organ.

This is a very, very good album. It has dated a little since its 1970 release... but that doesn't worry me. The songwriting and performances are first class - there's a lot to like about this album. Thanks to Dan for sending it to me!

Circus Animals

Fri, 2008-07-25 00:00 — martin

I've been listening to lots of music lately but haven't reviewed anything for a long time. I'm hoping to change that and get back into the swing of things. What better way to start than to listen to an old favourite and rave about it?

Circus Animals is Cold Chisel's 4th studio album, released in 1982. This album was very popular while I was in my mid-teens and I remember spending hours screaming along with this album. It's one of those albums that occupies a particular place in my life.

The album opens with the Jimmy Barnes screamer You Got Nothing I Want, featuring the entire band going full-tilt. The interplay between the instruments shows that the band are at the top of their game, and Barnes' vocal performance is searing and angry. This is followed by Ian Moss' Bow River, which has become a classic of Australian rock music - the singing and guitar playing are wonderful. The next track Forever Now is a Steve Prestwich composition and is the poppiest song on the album. It has never been my favourite song from this album, but it did well in the charts and on radio.

This album is notable because none of the singles it spawned were written by Cold Chisel's main songwriter Don Walker. His first contribution to the album appears at track 4 in the form of Taipan, which starts off at a slow simmer with a drum-led groove before building to screaming vocals and guitar playing. Houndog and Wild Colonial Boy pick up where Taipan leaves off. These 3 Walker compositions form a very strong core for Circus Animals and paint the Australian landscape in a way that is uniquely Don Walker. Overall, Walker's contributions cause this album to take a different, more rocky direction to Cold Chisel's previous album East. For that album many of his songs were poppier and more radio-friendly, including some excellent ballads. Apart from the opening to Letter To Alan (see below) none of his contributions to Circus Animals are ballads.

The next track No Good For You is interesting in that it may be Cold Chisel's only track written by Moss but sung by Barnes. This is a nice combination and places a slightly mellow pause in the album's running order. Numbers Fall is another fine Don Walker tune that picks up the pace a little.

The second last track is the classic When The War Is Over, written by drummer Steve Prestwich. This is a piano-led ballad and, apart from some great vocal harmonies interspersed throughout, it begins with smooth Moss vocals and ends with powerhouse vocals from Barnes. Add to that some beautiful guitar playing and you have one of my favourite songs. Cold Chisel used the start-with-Moss, finish-with-Barnes approach on quite a few of their ballads and it never failed to please!

Letter To Alan is the closing track on Circus Animals. It is my favourite Cold Chisel song. This Don Walker song deals with the deaths of two Cold Chisel roadies who died when the truck they were driving crashed and went up in flames. It opens as a ballad with some spacious piano playing with vocals from Barnes. Then it takes off - I don't think I've ever heard a more passionate studio recording than this one. The playing is tight, rich and heavy, and Barnes has never sung better. This song does not have choruses, it has guitar solos instead. Moss' guitar playing is supersonic - he performs 4 absolutely blistering guitar solos during this 6 minute epic. I shudder to think that some people might turn off this album after the elegance of When The War Is Over and miss the raw power of Letter To Alan altogether.

This album features Ian Moss' best guitar playing during his time with Cold Chisel. In fact, it is some of the best guitar playing I've ever heard. It is played against the enormous back-drop of the Prestwich/Small/Walker rhythm section and competes brilliantly for space out the front with some of Jimmy Barnes' best vocal performances.

Circus Animals isn't Cold Chisel's most commercially successful album. However, it is a collection of excellent performances by a great rock band at their peak. That makes this one of my favourite albums.

SunDirtWater

Fri, 2007-12-07 23:00 — martin

SunDirtWater is the recent album by Australian band The Waifs. This album finds the band in stunning songwriting, musical and vocal form, and they are joined by some impressive guest musicians. On this album they manage to fuse their Australian sound with some of the best of American roots music. I would not have thought this would be possible... without listening to this album... again and again. This is one of the finest albums in my collection.

The album opens with Pony. This is a well-paced country-ish groove with shared vocals - Donna Simpson takes the lead by just a bit. The fact that this song features a piano and has Josh Cunningham playing electric, rather than acoustic, guitar seems to signal that this is going to be quite a different album for the The Waifs.

This is followed by the album's amazing title track. Written and sung by Vikki Thorn - her only song-writing contribution for the album - this is a groovy, spirited, almost jazzy track that features some excellent lead guitar by Josh and some funky percussion. Josh has described this song as The Waifs' finest recorded moment. It is certainly very good... but, while I don't want to disagree, picking the finest song on this album is a very difficult task.

Vermillion is a dark and haunting ballad written and sung by Donna Simpson. When I saw The Waifs perform this at Tilleys in April this year the room was stunningly quiet when the song ended until Donna said "Yeah, I made all that up." It certainly is compelling fiction...

How Many Miles is a lively country-rock composition by Josh, with Vikki on lead vocals. This song reminds me of a very good Lucinda Williams track. It's deliciously laden with slide guitar, plus guitar and harmonica solos, and it just drives along. This is followed by Without You, with the same writing/vocal combination. This is a classic Josh album track - it's easy to imagine him singing it - but, as usual, Vikki turns in a fine performance.

Donna's Sad Sailor Song features a dirty guitar groove, Hammond B3 by Reese Wynans and soulful lead vocal performance. This track has a nice dark feel to it and is rockier than much of The Waifs previous material. The combination of strong arrangement and restrained vocals reminds me somehow of Cowboy Junkies.... and then, somehow, also is reminiscent of Sheryl Crow.

The Josh/Vikki (writing/vocals) combination is evident again on Get Me Some. For some reason, this feel-good song somehow reminds me a lot of the classic Everybody's Talkin'. This song features some lovely electric piano and the vocal performance is fantastic. Eternity finally finds Josh on lead vocals. Josh always seems to provide a welcome change. He doesn't pack the vocal punch of Donna and Vicki, but that's a feature. Things get relaxed in a whole different way when Josh takes over lead vocals... and the band would lose an important feature without him singing a song or 2 on each album.

Sweetest Dream finds Donna in awesome vocal form, singing a gospel-style song. This track features beautiful Hammond B3, once again by Reese Wynans, and just enough lead guitar from Josh, plus a slathering of gospel backing vocals. Vikki returns with Goodbye. This is quiet a rocky song, with song great slide guitar playing, and is actually a lot like a very good Sheryl Crow song. Yet more rocky is Stay, featuring some uncharacteristic, but interesting, vocals from Vikki... and seems to provide a subtle hints about the album's closing track. This song reminds me of someone else... but I just can't pick it right now.

The second last song on the album is Donna Simpson's Love Let Me Down. This song is an epic ballad that gets quite heavy, and has a strong Cowboy Junkies feel to it - given the Junkies uniqueness I'm surprised to be making the comparison more than once. However, the similarity comes from the arrangement, featuring an acoustic guitar, some beautiful dirty lead guitar and harmonica. I love this song.

The album closes with Josh playing ukelele and Vikki crooning on the retro Feeling Sentimental. It's a delightful touch, with splashes of clarinet filling out the song. An interesting song to finish on - almost like the closing song from the soundtrack of a 1940s movie.

This album strongly features Josh Cunningham's songwriting. He's written a lot of The Waifs songs in the past, but here he's clearly the main writer, with 9 of the 13 tracks. The quality and variation is amazing. Although the 3 tracks written by Donna Simpson are stunning and Vikki Thorn rightly earns the title track, it is Josh's songwriting that forms the backbone of this album and allows it to be great.

The Waif's previous studio effort Up All Night contained a number of modern day Aussie classics and seemed like it would be hard for the band to follow. However, SunDirtWater seems to be an effortless follow-up, containing great music performed by one of the world's best bands, with perfectly executed overdubs by excellent session musicians. This is the least acoustic and is certainly the darkest of The Waifs albums.

This is my favourite album of 2007 - I can't stop listening to it. Some albums seem to fit perfectly with some point you're at in your life and SunDirtWater does that for me might now. This one feels like it is challenging Janis Joplin's Pearl as my "desert island" album... and that's a pretty big call...

Tunnel Of Love

Tue, 2007-07-24 00:00 — martin

I think I've said before that I'm a huge Bruce Springsteen fan. However, Tunnel Of Love, his studio follow-up to the mega-huge Born In The USA, turned me off and stopped me listening to him for quite a few years.

There are a bunch of excellent songs on this album, such as Ain't Got You, Spare Parts, Two Faces, Brilliant Disguise and One Step Up. Unfortunately, the album isn't all goodness. The production on much of the album leaves it firmly back in the 1980s. For example, I think the title track could be good... but this rendition isn't... and it feels like a failed experiment. Personally, I think Cautious Man doesn't really work on this album. Songs like this work well on Nebraska where most of the album is quite down and the 1980s synthesiser is absent, but with this mixed arrangement the song gets lost amongst a bunch of similar sounding songs. They also work well when Springsteen has the E Street Band to provide some up-beat contrast. However, the E Street Band are noticeably absent on this album. Drummer Max Weinberg appears on most songs but his drum sound in the mid-to-late 1980s isn't my favourite feature of the E Street Band during that time. Springsteen's lead guitar playing also sound thin, whiny and over-produced - there's too much 1980s style delay.

Unfortunately Tunnel Of Love still isn't close to being my favourite Bruce Springsteen album.