(Elektra)
In the fall of 2000, Bj??rk seemed on the cusp of breaking into the mainstream American music industry. She made her acting debut starring in Lars von Trier's 'Dancer in the Dark,' earning her the award for best actress at the Cannes Film Festival. This was followed up with an Oscar-nominated soundtrack. But 'Dancer in the Dark' received mixed reviews in the United States, including a 'Worst Picture of the Year' bid by Time. And Bj??rk's live performance at the Oscars appeared to bewilder, rather than delight, many who were unfamiliar with her music.
Now, in the fall of 2001, Bj??rk has returned again with her fourth full-length solo album since the breakup of the Sugar Cubes in 1992 and her largest North American tour in three years. Seemingly oblivious of any bad press or controversy, Bj??rk's latest creation, Vespertine, is an album that not only proves her skill at creating beautiful, multilayered tracks, but also showcases a growing maturity and ceaseless fluidity.
Vespertine quickly asserts itself with the opening track, 'Hidden Place.' At first resembling the light industrial tracks Bj??rk tinkered with in the past, it quickly evolves with a flying lounge-style chorus that both softens and moves the music. This is followed by 'Cocoon,' a love song that would seem cookie-cutter if it weren't for Bj??rk's delicate vocals transforming the song into a stirring display of emotion.
As Vespertine progresses, it demonstrates a softer Bj??rk not seen since Debut. Several of the tracks including 'Undo,' 'An Echo, A Stain' and 'Harm of Will' are simply mellow explorations in minimalistic sound building. All three of these songs flow into an airy mess of strings and choir. However, Bj??rk wisely keeps these songs short and dispersed to lighten the album.
Vespertine peaks and plateaus with 'Pagan Poetry,' which combines an Oriental tinkling music-box sound with a heavy bass line to create a stunning display of Bj??rk's talent at using opposites to weld together a masterpiece. This is followed by 'Frosti,' a lyricless arrangement that practically shimmers in its sugary sweetness and again uses the sound of the music box. This flows perfectly into 'Aurora,' a rising hymn to Bj??rk's love of nature, and yet another magical track.
In fact, Vespertine could be Bj??rk's most masterful album to date, marking a turning point in her solo career. She not only writes the songs, but also produces and arranges most of the instrumentation, taking herself to a higher level of artistic control. The result is an album that soars, swims, giggles, stalls and thinks. It is simply spellbinding.
(Dreamworks)
The slow jam was perfected somewhere in the middle of the 1970s. The Isley Brothers, in cooperation with a handful of other artists, helped define what made the best sexin' music, mostly warm wah-wah guitar riffs over half-tempo rimshots and bass drum kicks. Back then, this was the only foundation necessary to display the cleverest of entendres and the freakiest of euphemisms. Today, subtlety takes a back seat; It's all 'Feeling On Your Booty' or some such nonsense.
What happened to these granddaddies of sensuous grooves? Well, Marvin Gaye is dead, Al Green turned to God a long time ago and Barry White is doing commercials for Arby's. It seems that the heavy mantle of King of the Nasty Balladeers has been thrust upon the shoulders of Ernie and Ronald Isley. Eternal proves that they're meeting the challenge nicely.
The album opens with 'Move Your Body,' the lone uptempo jam that lays waste to any notions that the Isleys have fallen off musically. Ernie's guitar work sounds just like it did on 'That Lady' in 1973, and Ronald's falsetto is as tight as ever, a luscious honey-dipped tone that has not gotten any less freaky as time has gone on. All illusions of innuendo are dispelled by the end of 'Warm Summer's Night,' which contains such memorable promises as 'I'll hit it from the top, from the bottom, from the side/Open wide, let me slide, you can run but you can't hide' over a repeated breathy chorus of 'Papi, fuck me.' It's all way over the top, but in a very staid way, and the Isleys seem to be enjoying pushing the graphic slow jam to its limits.
A number of the songs are from the viewpoint of Ronald's video persona, 'Mr. Biggs,' a character he and R. Kelly created in 1995 for Kelly's 'Down Low' video. Powerful and wealthy, Mr. Biggs has everything he could ever want except for the nagging problem of constantly losing women to Kelly, a problem re-examined on 'Contagious,' Eternal's first single. As with the rest of the album, the music and vocals on these songs are flawless, and maybe Mr. Biggs' sentiments never seem heartfelt but, hey, this isn't Blood On The Tracks.
'Think' is a loose remake of an instrumental track from Curtis Mayfield's 'Superfly' score, this time around adding well-performed but clueless vocals by Ronald. In 'Superfly' the song poignantly highlights the title character's reflections on his hustler lifestyle, but here it's just an excuse for Ronald to croon inane phrases like, 'I give you head, but don't be misled/You need to remember what I taught you in bed.' If it's supposed to be a tribute, it's sorely off the mark. Overall, though, Eternal succeeds by setting its sights low and getting nearly everything perfectly right.
(Geffen)
One of the major attention getters for The Crystal Method's sophomore album, Tweekend, is the video for their first single 'Name of the Game.' In it, a boy named Nosey, who incidentally has only a huge nose for a head, is seen break dancing to the jam with the words 'Calling all freaks!' repeated throughout the track.
At first listen, 'Name of the Game' may seem like just a run-of-the-mill dance track without the kick-ass video to go along with it, but with further listening it grows on you. The Crystal Method continues to get freaky on the rest of the album as well.
As opposed to their debut album Vegas, where big beats and industrial sound ruled, here they decide to rock out a bit more. This time around they've enlisted the help of Rage Against the Machine's Tom Morello and Stone Temple Pilot's Scott Weiland to solidify their rocking status.
Both albums are made up of the aforementioned industrial sounds, and on Tweekend's cover, as well as in the pictures on the inside jacket, there's some cool post-apocalyptic artwork depicting a fiery world complete with burning oceans, ice cream, bomber jets and roller skates. And it's not hard to imagine cruising through this wasteland with Tweekend bumping from your Badlands cruiser's speakers.
Also on the cover you'll notice a parental advisory warning in the bottom corner. It's not clear whether they decided to drop the F-bomb as often as they did just so they could get that warning, or due to artistic choices. Regardless, they work their beats off to deliver 70 minutes of loud drums and catchy loops that shouldn't have trouble finding their way alongside other accessible sounds such as The Chemical Brothers and their own Vegas in the pantheon of techno music.
With Tweekend, there's a method to their madness. The Crystals may still have a ways to go if they want to stand more apart from the rest of the crowd, but overall their package is something to take a peak at.
With the teaser of 'To Be Continued...' at the end of the 'Name of the Game' video, one can only anticipate what they have in store next. If they maintain their creativity on all fronts as they have been, they'll do just fine come the apocalypse.
(Co-Op Pop Records)
For their debut album, New Parade, Boston's The Sheila Divine found itself on Roadrunner Records, a metal-dominated semi-major label that prides itself on its Slip Knot and Sepultura releases. Not only did the label bring the band very limited exposure, but it also caused many stores and Web sites to classify it incorrectly; in many cases, The Sheila Divine have been filed under 'death metal' or 'grindcore'.
But the alt-rock band's frontman Aaron Perrino would much rather sing like Morrissey or Thom Yorke than James Hetfield or Ronnie James Dio, and The Sheila Divine jumped ship. The band's second full-length album, Where Have My Countrymen Gone, is being released by the much more indie-friendly Co-Op Pop Records, and is full of melodic sensibility. Countrymen's first track, appropriately titled 'Countrymen,' gently creeps in from the silence with subtle electronic noise, melodic minor chords and Perrino's vibrato-laden falsetto voice asking the titular question, 'Where have my countrymen gone'? The band mentioned in a press release that they were listening to Radiohead's The Bends when they were beginning work on this album, and it shows.
Unfortunately, The Sheila Divine are no Radiohead. Although they have managed to create pretty melodies and add interesting electronic elements to them, they can't make up for Aaron Perrino's generic, often boring songwriting. Perrino, who is heavily inspired by the arena rock of bands like U2, seems to be simply going through the motions on Countrymen, with uninspired, clich??d lyrics and a vibrato voice that quickly gets old and annoying. The band has its moments when it rocks out, as demonstrated on tracks like 'Ostrich,' and moments of emo-core beauty like the beginning on 'Antidote.' But for the most part, the album's 11 songs, clocking in at around 42 minutes, lack the emotion and depth of The Divine's contemporaries.
Possessing the electronic elements of a sophomoric Radiohead album and the alt-rock antics of a Joshua Tree-era U2, The Sheila Divine have a great deal of potential that has yet to be fully realized. Interestingly enough, similar Boston-based bands like Galaxie 500 and Magnetic Fields began their careers with somewhat lackluster works, but then went on to create some of indie rock's finest moments. We could see the same thing from The Sheila Divine. Keep an eye out for them in the years to come.
(DeSoto)
The Northwest has produced what are arguably the most distinct and raw sounds of this generation. However, at times the genre seems to get stuck in the rut of producing just another 'Seattle band.' Regardless of this cycle of innovation and inevitable replication and saturation, a few groups prevail with their timeless personality and style.
One of those bands will most certainly be Juno, as they so aggressively prove on their most recent release entitled, A Future Lived in Past Tense. Upon first listen, the disc seems a throwback to Sunny Day Real Estate riffs (bassist Nick Harmer even has a guest appearance), but with further inspection the album sets itself far apart.
The 13-track LP opens with an instrumental jam that includes keyboards, distorted guitar effects and an infectious beat. Track two brings out Juno's in-your-face rock vibe with its straight forward, pulsing three guitar brick wall of sound. As the album plays on, Juno's complexity in song writing composition truly shines and sucks the listener into its diverse sound and personal, endearing lyrics.
A Future Lived in Past Tense is an album that is best when listened to from beginning to end in order to capture the pure genius. The complexity of guitar styles layered with connecting vocals and drums along with samples of field recordings (rain, weather forecasts, caf?? customers) make for a new discovery and appreciation with each subsequent listen. The album's mix of cerebral rock and compassionate instrumentals make A Future an essential for anyone starving for the Northwest sound.
