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Jimmy Page & Robert Plant – No Quarter |
| March 5th, 2003 under Album Reviews. [ Comments: none ]
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Released: 1994
Tracks: Nobody’s Fault But Mine; Thank You; No Quarter; Friends; Yallah; City Don’t Cry; Since I’ve Been Loving You; The Battle of Evermore; Wonderful One; That’s the Way; Gallows Pole; Four Sticks; Kashmir
Best tracks: Battle of Evermore & Kashmir
Track to skip: Nobody’s Fault But Mine is the weakest one on here, but I usually listen to it
This album marked the return of half of one of the greatest rock bands of all time. The return was pretty short lived as it turned out, but it was welcome none the less. I think the only times that Page & Plant had played some Zeppelin tunes together since Bonham’s death in 1980 were at Live Aid and Knebworth. There was first the obligatory MTV special and then this album followed by the tour. I think with a lot of us, the MTV thing really perked our interest in this. I really love how Page & Plant decided to take the world music route, as opposed to the hard rock route like Page did with David Coverdale. All the musicians (Western and Egyptian) are exceptional with the exception being Robert Plant himself. Even with Jimmy Page’s chronic sloppiness, he still managed to sound quite good throughout this whole album. The problem in it being ‘great’, as opposed to just ‘pretty good’, is Plant’s voice. He is absolutely not the same vocalist he used to be, in the 70’s OR 80’s. His voice just sounds really off, especially on Since I’ve Been Loving You. All the musicians sound fantastic on this song, and the addition of the orchestra is excellent, but Plant can not pull off that kind of singing anymore.
I’m glad that Page & Plant wrote some new material for this album, so that it’s not just a rehash of Zep songs. Of the three new ones (Yallah, City Don’t Cry & Wonderful One) Wonderful One is clearly the best. It’s the most complete song and a very nice little ballad thing. Yallah and City Don’t Cry are just decent; they’re probably my least faves of the whole bunch. Well, Nobody’s Fault isn’t too hot either. I prefer the original version to this super-slowed down version. Maybe they were trying to make it sound like the original original version, the old blues song that they ripped it off from. It’s just not that great though. The songs that are great, however, are most of the rest of them. The versions of That’s the Way, Since I’ve Been Loving You (musically), Thank You and Four Sticks are all great. The disc’s highlights are absolutely Battle of Evermore and the kitchen sink version of Kashmir. Battle of Evermore features Najma Akhtar on female vocals and she’s fantastic. I love how they rearranged this tune from Celtic to Middle Eastern. It really brings out so many new aspects to it. Even Plant sounds decent enough on this, and besides, Akhtar’s voice more than compensates for Plant’s. Kashmir is the other highlight with the orchestras sounding especially kick ass and the extension of the tune itself. I have to give a massive amount of kudos to Ed Shearmur, the organist for the group, but primarily the person responsible for all the orchestral (Egyptian & English) arrangements. As I was listening, I wondered if it was Page & Plant that did the arranging, but I was pleasantly surprised that they gave Shearmur the full credit he deserves. His work on here really defines this album. Overall, Plant’s weak vocals do bring this down a lot. The music is nearly all fantastic on here, but Plant’s such a huge presence that he contributes to it being not as good as it could be. Musically this thing is great though.
Rating: 84
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Mike Keneally – Boil That Dust Speck |
| March 5th, 2003 under Album Reviews. [ Comments: none ]
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Released: 1994
Tracks: Sooth; ‘Cause of Breakfast; The Desired Effect; Skunk; I’m Glad There’s Lemon-Freshened Thorax in You; Top of Stove Melting; Aglow; Bryan Beller’s Favorite Song; Deep-Fried Skinks are Go!; Good Morning, Sometime; Them Dolphins is Smart; 1988 Was a Million Years Ago; Yep, Them Dolphins is Smart, Alright; Bullys (sic); My Dilemma; Helen Was Brash; Weekend; Land of Broken Dreams; Blameless (The Floating Face); That Claim-Jumping Swine, O’Bannon; Faithful Axe; Natty Trousers; Scotch; There Have Been Bad Moments; Frang Tang, the Valentine Bear; I Will; In the Bond World; The Old Boat Guy, Part 1; The Old Boat Guy, Part 2; The Old Boat Guy, Part 3
Best track: hard to pick…uh…either Breakfast, Desired Effect, Skunk or My Dilemma
Tracks to skip: Old Boat Guy 1-3, the main song part of Aglow (after the cool fretless stuff), Weekend, Faithful Axe & In the Bone World are most important to skip. The less important skippers are Lemon-Freshened Thorax, Beller’s Fave Song, Deep-Fried Skinks, Helen & O’Bannon. Bullys, Natty Trousers and Frang Tang are kinda boring too
Well! I’m certainly hitting that skip button a lot, aren’t I? Let’s break this down (shall we?): there are 30 tracks on Boil That Dust Speck and in my opinion 14 ½ should not be here. The tracks that SHOULD be on here go as follows: Sooth, ‘Cause of Breakfast, Desired Effect, Skunk, Top of Stove Melting, first 30 seconds of Aglow, Good Morning, Dolphins>1988>Dolphins, My Dilemma, Land of Broken Dreams, Blameless, Scotch, Bad Moments & I Will. That brings this album down from 74 minutes to about 43. So yeah, almost half of this CD is really not so hot. That stuff just shouldn’t be on here. I can understand a couple of tracks not needing to be on here, but 31 minutes is ridiculous.
There are some other problems with this album too. I don’t think Mike was really quite in his head when making this. It’s like Hat in that it’s all over the place, but where on Hat it sounds extremely creative, here it sounds like he has no idea what he’s doing. A lot of these songs are not well written, even some of the ones I’d keep. Actually, I know Mike wasn’t in his right frame of mind when doing this. Both Frank Zappa (his mentor and friend) and his father died around the time of these sessions. There’s a lot of anger in this album and that’s kinda disturbing since Keneally is usually a pretty happy guy. I Will is probably the happiest thing on here. Good Morning, Sometime sounds ‘happy’ but it actually has this extremely sarcastic overtone that takes away from any good the song might do for the world. I still like it though, but it’s unsettling. I know Mike stands by this album, and all the tracks on here, but the Old Boat Guy suite is really useless. I realize it’s a tribute by Mike for Frank Zappa (FZ loved percussion and these 3 songs are all percussion), but it doesn’t sound good. It’s really just…bad. Man, I’ve TRIED to appreciate them, but I can’t. Not one bit. As for Faithful Axe, it’s another tribute, this time to Yes, but it’s even more obnoxious than Old Boat Guy is. Besides all the poorly written songs, all the “links” that he uses (the lesser-skipped tracks) sound really forced on this album and tend to just clutter it up. It sounds like a bad Zappa imitation.
So that’s all my negative stuff (gee, is that all?). The positive: all of the players on here sound great; some of the compositions are excellent; the liner notes are hilarious; wordswordswords. There *is* good on here, it’s just totally buried underneath heavy piles of clutter and junk. I know Keneally needed to make this album, mostly for his own sanity and piece of mind. And like I say all along, with Mike Keneally’s albums we actually get to witness him grow and progress as a songwriter and as a person. Rarely do you get that personal of detail when someone makes albums. I think in a way, it makes me like him even more. It’s just a bit uncomfortable sometimes watching that growth. After getting this, I now have a newfound admiration for Sluggo and especially the opening track Potato. Potato shows that he got through all the funk of Boil That Dust Speck just fine.
Rating: 75
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Iron Maiden – Piece of Mind |
| March 4th, 2003 under Album Reviews. [ Comments: none ]
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Released: 1983
Tracks: Where Eagles Dare; Revelations; Flight of Icarus; Die With Your Boots On; The Trooper; Still Life; Quest For Fire; Sun and Steel; To Tame a Land
Best track: Revelations
Track to skip: Quest For Fire
I think I’ve just altered my opinion a slight bit. In the whole grand scheme of things it doesn’t matter, but it’s something big for me. OK, after this particular listen I no longer think Piece of Mind is better than Number of the Beast. There are no bad songs on Beast, and yet this album has Quest For Fire. I used to tolerate it, but it’s got to the point that I have no desire to hear it anymore. So, I think that’s the thing that separates these two discs. I do think the good songs on here are better than those on NOB, but Quest is on here too.
All that said, I don’t like this album any less. Regardless of one stupid track on side 2, this is still a MONSTER album. The addition of Nicko McBrain on drums ‘monsterizes’ this a good bit, but the thing that really makes this album stand out is how confident the band is. The production is even more excellent than last time and the returning 4 sound so much better. Bruce Dickinson has a huge presence on this album, both vocally and with his songwriting. Bruce contributes a solo writing credit in Revelations and he just hits the nail right on the head. It is impossible for me to convey how amazing Revelations is. Dammit, it’s just a perfect song and actually it’s my all time favorite piece of music. EVER, BY ANYONE. I absolutely love it and it’s very important to me. Ahh. In addition to Bruce’s goodness, the bass playing of my idol, Steve “The Man” Harris, improves over what he did on Beast. Listening to his basslines on these songs it really struck me how creative all his parts are, both on the songs he wrote and on the ones his bandmates contributed. It’s easy to write a bassline to something; it’s something special to be able to write a great and creative bassline. I love listening to him on this album…phenomenal. And of course, the duo of Murray and Smith are excellent as always. The joy of listening to these two master guitarists is immense. Everyone shines on this album.
I mentioned the confidence of the group. Where they were rushed with making Beast, the success of it enabled them to allow more time to creating this album. In a way it’s more relaxed, but it’s not a drunken or lazy relaxation, but a confident one. At this point they knew what they could do and they knew how to better what they had done before. In most cases, the songs are improvements over the ones on NOB. The only downside is QFF, clearly a filler track. Like I said, that song brings this down just slightly lower than the overall quality of Beast, but not that much. They’re getting the same grade, but Beast is just a little bit more excellent. Still, Piece of Mind IS excellent and very worth owning.
Rating: 96
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Frank Zappa – Apostrophe (‘) |
| March 4th, 2003 under Album Reviews. [ Comments: none ]
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Released: 1974
Tracks: Don’t Eat the Yellow Snow; Nanook Rubs It; St. Alfonzo’s Pancake Breakfast; Father O’Blivion; Cosmik Debris; Excentrifugal Forz; Apostrophe’; Uncle Remus; Stink-Foot
Best track: Cosmik Debris
Track to skip: regardless of Jack Bruce’s presence, I often skip Apostrophe’
This one seems to be one of the first albums usually picked up by new Zappa fans and I think it’s mostly due to Don’t Eat the Yellow Snow. I like most of the songs as individual efforts, but as a whole collection this isn’t the greatest FZ album. It’s not horrible or anything, but it’s just not ‘all that’. Some of the tracks, are all that however. These are Cosmik Debris, Uncle Remus and the St. Alfonzo & Father O’Blivion sections of the Yellow Snow Suite. The first four tracks are one continuous suite, with a 5th section added to later live performances. On record, it’s much weaker than it is live. Maybe it’s since I’m 20-something, but the song Yellow Snow doesn’t make me laugh that much. Nanook has some interesting bits, but it really only is there to connect Yellow Snow to St. Alfonzo. Alfonzo/O’Blivion, however, are jaw dropping.
That’s sort of a problem of the whole album: there are pockets of amazing music mixed in with stuff that’s just decent. I think Jack Bruce is a damn good bassist, and I like the head of Apostrophe’, but once he starts soloing, it just gets old very quickly. He just overpowers the other 3 guys playing on the track and it really hurts it. Another thing that sort of makes this a less enjoyable album than others is that it wasn’t all from the same sessions. Yes, yes, yes, I know. Most FZ albums aren’t from the same sessions. He liked to use bits from all over the place and combine them with other bits from totally different places. To my ears, it doesn’t work on Apostrophe (‘). The Yellow Snow Suite is the newest thing on here (as a whole) so that has a certain sound, and then the rest of the tracks each have certain sounds too; certain small nuances that make them sound all not-at-the-same-time. That’s probably the reason why I LOVE Cosmik Debris & Uncle Remus, as they sound like outtakes from Over-Nite Sensation (i.e. Tina Turner’s presence).
OK, I’m being pretty hard here. The truth is, I enjoy this album. Nearly all of these songs I love. My only beef is that it doesn’t flow very well. And you know, that’s not a big deal. There are some Zappa albums that flow beautifully and some that don’t. No big deal. I’m just super anal when it comes to this stuff, OK. Contrary to what it seems like I might be saying here, this IS an essential FZ album and an enjoyable one.
Rating: 85
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Bill Bruford & Tony Levin – Bruford Levin Upper Extremities |
| March 3rd, 2003 under Album Reviews. [ Comments: none ]
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Released: 1998
Tracks: Cerulean Sea; Interlude; Original Sin; Etude Revisited; A Palace of Pearls (on a blade of grass); Interlude; Fin de Siècle; DrumBass; Cracking the Midnight Glass; Torn DrumBass; Thick With Thin Air; Cobalt Canyons; Interlude; Deeper Blue; Presidents Day
Best track: Etude Revisited
Tracks to skip: Cracking the Midnight Glass, Thick With Thin Air, Cobalt Canyons and Presidents Day
This album starts out so incredible. The first 4 tracks (not including the first Interlude) are just awesome. When I heard those, I thought this was going to be one amazing album. Well, uh, then we have Fin de Siècle (End of the Century, in French) which is decent, but it tries way too hard to be clever. I like that Tony Levin can make counter-melodies on his instrument by himself, but it doesn’t make for a good song. Then we come to Cracking the Midnight Glass that not only sucks, but also shouldn’t be credited to Bruford/Levin/Torn. I think the main songwriting credit should be Page/Plant/Bonham. I have no problem with small tributes to bands such as Zeppelin, but to blatantly rip off Kashmir is awful. And to then have it be a crappy song makes it so much worse.
I am still so disappointed in this album. After the Zep rip-off fest, it just keeps going downhill. I think Deeper Blue is a great song, but it’s the only worthwhile thing after the first four tracks. As listed above, 4 tracks are skippers. Not counting the 3 Interludes and the 2 DrumBasses (which are just slight colorations, not real songs) there’s only 10 songs on here, with 4 outright sucking and 1 kinda boring. Does that make this album a 50? Not quite, but it is disappointing. I really love these guys as individual players, esp. Bruford and Levin, and David Torn & Chris Botti are excellent as well. And knowing the talents of these guys I was hoping this album was going to just explode all over my stereo and totally fry my brain. I’m still waiting for that to happen. If I just heard the first 4 tracks, then yeah, I’d be drooling about this album. Actually, I think that’s what did happen… I heard the first few tracks and thought “I HAVE to get this!”, but once I actually got it, I was very disappointed. It’s sad when you have 4 super creative and talented people who come up with 5 great tracks, but then have 5 boring ones too. Tony Levin is one my biggest influences and favorite bassists ever, and it so pains me to have to talk bad about his work, but it’s necessary here. This is not a good album.
Rating: 65
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The Beatles – Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band |
| March 3rd, 2003 under Album Reviews. [ Comments: none ]
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Released: 1967
Tracks: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band; With a Little Help From My Friends; Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds; Getting Better; Fixing a Hole; She’s Leaving Home; Being For the Benefit of Mr. Kite!; Within You Without You; When I’m Sixty-Four; Lovely Rita; Good Morning Good Morning; Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise); A Day in the Life
Best track: Within You Without You
Track to skip: absolutely none
I love love LOVE listening to this album all the way through! Man, talk about something that just makes me smile. I’m sure there are people in the world who don’t care about the Beatles and don’t see why this album is such a big deal. That’s their loss. For me, this album just makes me feel incredible. Every song on here obviously deserves to be here and every song has something to offer. This is my absolute favorite Beatles album, as cliché as it is to say so. And that’s not taking anything away from Revolver or Abbey Road or the White Album, but Pepper just IS the essence of ‘The Beatles’.
This was the first Beatles album I got, and thus the first Beatles album I ever heard in entirety. My parents don’t own any Beatles records so I didn’t grow up listening to them like a lot of people my age did. My friend Bryan made me a couple of compilation tapes and that was what hooked me. I believe I got this as a Christmas present. I was familiar with a few of the songs (Sgt. Peppers, Lucy, With a Little Help), but I wasn’t prepared for the album as a whole. The song in particular that knocked me out (and still does) was Harrison’s Within You Without You. I don’t recall ever hearing any Indian music growing up, so when I first heard this song I was blown away. I thought it was THE weirdest thing I’d ever heard. I played it for all my friends because I couldn’t believe how strange it was. It sounds silly now, but when those special and new things first come into your life, it’s so amazing. The song STILL amazes me. He was, what, 24 when he wrote that? It fries my brain how people, kids younger than I am now, can write such amazing songs like Within You Without You or In My Life or A Day in the Life. Every time I listen to Within You I get something new out of it. It’s a monumental work.
I’m still awed by the production of this. This album is over 30 years old and yet most albums these days can’t compete with this on a production level. To me, the REAL ‘5th Beatle’ was George Martin. He contributed musically to the group in immeasurable ways. His production on all the albums is inspiring, but on Pepper he surpassed everything. He is so talented. That’s not slight the other 4 guys who happen to play on here either; they’re not too bad themselves. Up to this point, this was by far the best these 4 played on record. It’s the little things that they do that are so great. I’m so happy the Beatles stopped touring in 1966 so they could focus their efforts on making the best album they could make. They did, that’s for sure.
Rating: 96
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