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CD SPINS
by Staff
THADEUS PROJECT Danger & Bliss (Thadeus Records)
This remarkable disc came out of nowhere to commandeer my office boom box. Danger & Bliss is one of those albums which is perfect for the office or work place. It is sonically soft-edged and soothing, but complex and with enough nuances to keep one’s ears perked while it rolls from one solid track to the next, canvassing a variety of moods. This regional studio project is a production dream, which will be embraced and loved by those who still relish nights alone with their headphones. This relatively unknown ensemble cast of Chicago area musicians have created a marvelous body of original progressive-style rock –– 15 songs in all –– that flows, as one track smoothly cascades into the next. The music featured on Danger & Bliss is brilliantly produced, arranged and performed. The vocals of Glen Folwarski are warm and inviting. The roots and influences of these veteran players seem far reaching and are reflective of many. At times Thadeus Project’s music recalls that of –– The Moody Blues (“There’s A Way” and “I Know”), Cat Stevens (“Windows”), Peter Gabriel (“They Venture”) and others –– while never actually sounding derivative. Favorite cuts include the aforementioned “They Venture,” an upbeat poppish number called “Big Deal” and a psychedelic slice of sonic delight which they call, “Autumn Leaves.” Listen for Thadeus Project music on the Night Rock Radio program that airs Sunday nights at 6 pm on X-ROCK 103.9fm. For further information on this enjoyable music entity, log on at: www.thadeusproject.com – Tom Lounges BIG & RICH Horse Of A Different Color (Warner Bros.)
QUESTION: What do you get when you mix a Rocker, a Cowboy, and a Cowboy Rapper? ANSWER: A Horse of a Different Color. When I first heard of Big & Rich, I thought...“Who?” I had heard their first single, “Wild West Show” on the radio and it seemed like a pretty good song, so I bought the CD just to see what else they had to offer. After the first tune began with the old Hammond organ and their announcement –– “I bring you country music without prejudice!” –– I had to just stop everything and listen for what was coming next. These two guys have given us an album which I have to agree is indeed, country music without prejudice. Each song, while having some country roots, has it’s own mix of rock, blues and hip hop and jazz. The first track “Rollin’” surely had the suits at the record label shouting –– “But...you can’t do that!” Here they mix heavy guitars with banjo’s, fiddles, and rap. This opening cut introduces Cowboy Troy, the world’s only Rapping Cowboy. His bilingual “positive” rap adds to the track. The whole thing just invokes a “Let’s dance!” type of atmosphere. They move on to Western themes, to the “Big Time” and then ask in their upbeat story song – “Why Does Everybody Want to Kick My A$$.” As the CD progresses, the listener is taken through a gamut of emotions. From the ballads like “Holy Water”, to the fun romp of “Save a Horse Ride a Cowboy”, which is presently tearing up the country charts. From going to “Deadwood Mountain”, to giving us a ticket to ride on the “Love Train”, we are invited to “Live This Life.” I found that each and every tune on this CD just draws a person in closer and closer. One wonders what these crazy guys are are going to say and do next. While definitely not the “traditional “country music you will here from George Strait or Alan Jackson, Big & Rich have definitely created their niche in “Muzik” as they call it. These are two seemingly genuine guys who are making music for the “fun” of it. They just do their own thing and are being received very well across America. Horse of a Different Color is just that, something unique and different. A definite “go out and buy” album! – Jimmy Henrich MORRISSEY You Are The Quarry (Sanctuary)
“Don’t let the blue eyes fool you,” Morrissey warns his listeners at the close of You Are The Quarry, his first solo LP in seven years. But just what quarry is Morrissey referring to? Posed stoicly against a burgundy backdrop in a dapper, Dillinger-esque pinstripe, and cradling a Thompson sub-machine gun, this much is clear before the first note even drops: it’s now or never. And yet in a way, Morrissey’s songs have always maintained that focused urgency; his often sarcastic lyrics and athletic live shows have always been greatly at odds with his undeserved reputation as the “Pope of Mope”, or any of the other such lazy tags that have haunted him since the days when he first emerged as an icon of British alternative music. Morrissey has always had much more in common with his childhood idols David Bowie or flamboyant envelope-pushers the New York Dolls than with any of his ‘80s Brit-Pop contemporaries. While Depeche Mode spent the decade steeped in icy, doomed-to -sound -dated synth pop, and Robert Smith led The Cure through one interminable dirge after another, Morrissey has always championed what he calls “the pop moment”, his music borne of a vitality and warmth uncommon to that of his peers. And while his lyrics have indeed been known to flirt with some of life’s less desirable aspects, he crafts them in such a way that even his most dismal subject matter manages to gleam with a poignant honesty. To paraphrase Metallica’s James Hetfield on his own band’s reputation for doom-and-gloom –– “It’s easy for parents of Middle America to blame us for their kids’ problems...but they don’t see the thousands of letters we get from our teenage fans telling us how if it weren’t for our music, they couldn’t make it through another day.” And thus it has been with Mr. Morrissey throughout his twenty-plus year career, and the new LP shows no side of him that, has not seen before. So why does the new album matter? Because the key difference between this album and any other in his back catalog is that for the first time, the music has caught up to the man, the sound behind him finally matches the velvety voice that cascades over it. Not that past melodies were weak, mind you, but here producer Jerry Finn (best known for his work with pop-punk stalwarts Green Day and Blink 182) pushes the sonic envelope in a totally new direction. You Are The Quarry kicks, punches, and weeps with a brash effervescence unmatched anywhere else in the Morrissey canon. Of course, the best producer in the world can’t make up for weak material, so it helps that the twelve songs on this record not only outshine everything Morrissey’s done since Vauxhall and I, but in fact they rank as some of the best work of his entire career. Indeed, there are some moments, like the frantic falsetto coda of “Come Back To Camden”, where it seems the speakers simply can’t contain him and the stereo trembles threatening collapse until the song ends just as subtly as it began. Easily the most beautiful track on the LP, here is proof that Morrissey’s well of inspiration is far from parched. Elsewhere, though, things aren’t so sublime: You Are The Quarry is, perhaps above all else, a very angry record, and on track after track you can practically hear the bullets fly into targets as diverse as the police, British royalty, and even Jesus Christ, whom at one point the singer asks desperately, “Do you hate me? Do you hate me?” Later, in “The World Is Full Of Crashing Bores”, he rails against the current musical climate of “lock-jawed pop-stars (with) nothing to convey”, branding them “thicker than pig shit.” You are the quarry, indeed. But as always, Morrissey’s music is never more effective than when he is singing about himself, and long after accepting his fate as a social square peg, he is still able to create some of the most angst-ridden odes to unrequited desire that one is likely to hear. Referring to himself as “someone you physically despise” on one track, he elsewhere notes that “no one ever turns to me to say take me in your arms” on another. However, the key paradox to Morrissey’s psyche is never exposed more bluntly than in “How Can Anybody Possibly Know How I Feel?”, when he recounts a woman finally professing her love –– yes, love –– for him, to which he humorously concludes “she must be insane.” And so it seems clear that not just a few of that Thompson’s bullets have his own name etched into their casings. And speaking of the machine-gun pose, I was recently shopping in a corporate chain store when I noticed that the copies of You Are The Quarry they were selling contained a compromised version of the intended cover picture: instead of showing the full body, gun-toting pose, only Morrissey’s face was visible, cropped out and magnified so as to span the entire cover. Initially outraged at such blatant and unwarranted censorship, I soon realized with a smirk that I was being faced with concrete evidence that there is and has always been something indefinable about this artist that the mainstream finds offensive, unsettling, and downright dangerous. And this is why I like him. – Aaron Shloss PRAIRIE TOWN Season In Hell (Independent)
Devoid of the ego-driven indulgences and tooling many rock bands use to “prove” their abilities, this Chicago bar band are just happy turning it up and laying it down. They play dirty rock ‘n’ roll, the old school kind that recalls early ‘60s bands like The Standells and the Windy City’s very own, Shadows Of Knight. These 21 energetic tunes are pure “garage rock” with plenty of guitar riffing that runs the gamut of “grunge” to “surf” tones. There is even a smidgen of Southwestern flavor on a couple of cuts, including “Happy With The Future.” Hard hitting drums keep the groove upbeat, but shame on the album’s engineer. The production here should be much crisper, so that the snap of the snare and the slap of the bass strings would hit with the intended impact. Prairie Town’s music is not really punk, but it is loaded with plenty of punkish snarl. This makes it easier to overlook the production flaws that muddy up the sound. Highlights here include: “Just What Matters,” “Out Of Touch,” and “The Only One.” Though it is very much a diamond in the rough, Season in Hell remains a flawed “gem” for it’s sheer rock ‘n’ roll attitude. www.prairetown.net – Tom Lounges
THE STEEPWATER BAND Dharmakaya (Funzalo/Evangeline)
The Midwest gets well represented by The Steepwater Band on Dharmakaya, the first national release from this veteran region combo. Fans of groups like the Black Crowes, Govt. Mule, and Free, will dig the hell out of this remarkable slab of blues-rock songs. This stuff grooves rhythmically and is strewn with plenty tasty guitar licks courtesy of soulful string-bender Jeff Massey and some flavorful harmonica wailing by vocalist Michael Connelly. There is even a hint of Eastern flavoring a la Zeppelin at times, making this one of those albums that can not be easily labeled. Not hippie rock, blues rock or Southern rock, but an amalgamation. Picking a favorite is hard, because change with each listen as one picks up on different nuances hidden in the well-written songs. Like the best of music, this album just seems to get better and better with each spin on the player. More information at: www.steepwater.com – Tom Lounges THE SCORPIONS Unbreakable (Sanctuary)
When you’ve been around as long as the Scorpions have (35-plus years without faltering -- ergo the title, Unbreakable), and have evolved with at least three fairly distinct career phases over that time, it has to be a bit of a high wire balancing act to put a new studio album together that will please the fans of those different styles/periods, while also catering to the truly global audience. With this album, their first of all new songs since 1999’s Eye to Eye, and unquestionably their strongest release in nearly 15 years, the legendary German hard rock pioneers seemed to have made some well-measured compromises which may leave it just a song or two shy of scoring a complete knockout with either their (still) strong and mighty North American fan-base (who covet the band’s scorching rockers) – or their “rest-of-the-world” aficionados (converted later with the evolution of the Scorps’ “softer” a la, “Wind of Change,” and its progeny). Nevertheless, since Unbreakable still primarily features the anathematic hooks and highly dynamic, melodic guitar rock that was the hallmark of their huge commercial success in America during the entire ‘80s, the band has indeed delivered the goods more or less “in the spirit of Blackout”. Which is to say that at least six of the album’s 13 songs would stand up to any of the best songs they have ever produced off of past classic albums such as Blackout, Animal Magnetism, Lovedrive, and the watershed Love at First Sting. Two tracks, in particular, are the absolute creme de la creme of the Scorpions doing what they do best: the stunningly powerful opening number, “New Generation” -- which would certainly be an ideally electrifying opening number on the band’s upcoming North American tour in more ways than one (in essence, it is the Scorpions handing over “the flame” to the next generation musically, philosophically, and politically) -- and the jaw-dropping “Through My Eyes.” Others like “Love ‘Em or Leave ‘Em,” “Borderline,” “Blood Too Hot,” and, especially, the infectious “Deep and Dark” are also packed with intensity and feature songwriting that is tighter than ever. These songs retain the band’s patented sound elixir which is characterized primarily by Klaus Meine’s one-of-a-kind vocals and the classically influenced guitar histrionics of Matthais Jabs and Rudolf Schenker. An honorable mention goes to the somewhat quirky and unusual power ballad “Maybe I Maybe You”, which begins with a hauntingly exotic, Weimar Republic/Cabaret-stylized melody that slow-burns to an explosive climax a la “Still Loving You” –– but, alas, the song also features a prominent piano accompaniment which the listener will be likely to either love or loathe. Similarly, the “softer” side of the album, such as the distinctly mainstream numbers “She Said” and “Remember The Good Times” will ultimately leave you hot or cold, in no small part dependent on which of Scorpions’ two distinct sonic sides you most prefer. Unbreakable is something like Goldilocks, the Three Bears, and the chairs: It’s not too hard, not too soft, but “just right” ... – Shelly Harris THE EFFECT The Effect (Independent)
Local band (sort of...they grew up and played here and then moved to Chicago) The Effect brings us their eponymous CD of all original works that is very hard to classify - and that’s a compliment. Fresh and distinctive, their “calling card” CD should prove to be the proverbial foot that gets them in the door. The opening track is “Sophia” and it grabs the listener by both ears to demand attention. The song boasts crunchy guitars and is syncopated by unyielding drums and bass. Great harmonies and lead vocals by Chad Mark are unique and effective. “Swear by God” changes things up a bit with its wide array of dynamics. Acoustic and electric guitars provide solid backdrop for a rather psychedelic verse. The CD finishes rather strong with “Thousand Times Over” -- the best track on the disc. The guitar work is quite innovated with polyphonic overtones and harmonics. Emotional, visceral and soulful, this song indicates their wide-ranging talents as musicians. I f the CD is any meter of their live show potential, then they can’t be missed. There is something quite mystical about their sound that escapes me. Powerful and direct, The Effect has the chops to be conspicuous enough to get their day in the sun. www.theeffectmusic.net
– Jon Rice THE DAN WHITAKER BAND Your Final Ride (Sunny Smedley Records)
What makes D.W.C.B. most impressive is the seemingly effortlessly way they manage to bridge the sound and essence of old Nashville, with contemporary ‘70s country rock, while still sounding contemporary enough to not come off as retro. Eleven of the dozen tracks contained here are original compositions. Most are hook-heavy and melodic enough to keep a listener’s toes tapping throughout, as clever lyrics that would make legendary Outlaws like Willie, Waylon and Merle proud, freely wash over the instrumentation. Though steeped in traditional country roots, D.W.C. B. is versatile enough to appeal to a broad spectrum of flexible-minded music fans who find favor with such Southern-inflected but disparate Americana artists as Rick Nelson’s Stone Canyon, Commander Cody, Marty Robbins, Marshall Tucker and country folkies like John Prine and the late great Steve Goodman. The sole cover here is an ambitious take on the Leonard Cohen chestnut, “Tonight Will Be Fine.” There are many interesting ditties here, including my faves – “Your Final Ride,” “Pass The Booze,” and “Close Up The Honky Tonks.” More on D.W.C.B. online at: www.danwhitaker.com
– Tom Lounges VARIOUS ARTISTS For The Kids (Network Records)
For the Kids is a benefit CD for VH-1’s Save the Music Foundation for kids. The thought of putting adult alternative artists would appeal to those parents looking for an alternative to The Wiggles and Barney the Dinosaur dreck on permanent rotation in the family van. They thought right. For the Kids mixes the right amount of original work with staple children's classics. Remember “The Red Skelton Show” and the "Mahna Mahna" song? I loved that song as a kid! Bandstand Rockers – Cake take on this classic with relish. My feet started moving as if awakened from a coma! Sarah McLachlan turns in a beautiful rendition of Kermit the Frog’s “Rainbow Connection”. An uncomplicated arrangement that highlights McLachlan’s voice and the song’s powerful message. Acoustic pluckers, Guster bang out an amusing “I’ve Got to Be Clean” -- again, cool song getting kids to start shaping their lives with values and hygiene. Five for Fighting’s John Ondrasik provides us with the surprise hit of the CD – “The Hoppity Song.” You’ll find yourself grabbing the closest kid and hopping and singing along to this one. Although Tom Waits seems a good choice for this project, I fear he’ll scare more children than soothe. His version of “Bend Down the Branches” --- gruff and spooky, this one needs a skip over until the tot is older! For the Kids is a pleasure to listen to and a noble cause as well. – Jon Rice MARIZEN Field (Independent)
This 10-track collection by the female-fronted pop/punk quartet, was produced by DeWayne Barron (Matchbox Twenty, Roger Daltry), who did a rather nice job helping the band capture an energized groove that feels very live. To put their sound in a nutshell, MariZen is kinda New Wave-ish in a Romeo Void meets Blondie sort of way. Their songs are catchy, melodic and radio friendly, beginning with the attention-grabbing title cut which opens the disc. Musically, the four players are on top of their game and work well together to create a lively batch of boppin’ good fun for the ears. Highlights are found midway through the album on the cuts “Real”, “You” and “Little Bit.” My personal favorite here though is “Truth.” For more information on this rising young Chicagoland group, point your browser in the direction of: www.MariZen.com
– Tom Lounges AMERICAN MOTHERLOAD Come To Life (Zant Records)
You say you like your rock modern and heavy, but do not dig the army of Korn wannabes that have been flooding the market? Then buy, borrow or steal Come To Life, because this album –– ROCKS! The band’s sound falls comfortably between vintage Black Sabbath and Soundgarden. It’s a balance of old school/new school, flavored by both crunchy blues and grunge overtones. Ben Loop with his raspy vocal tones and slight snarl, is the perfect singer for this groove-laden bunch. Personal favorites here are original rockers “Mud to Dust” and “Suckerpunch”, along with their stripped down and rocked up cover of the 1976 Cliff Richard pop hit, “Devil Woman.” But their acoustic number, “Holy One,” is also a standout! Overall, this is a winning collection from start to finish that is finding favor, not only with the band’s Midwest fan base, but with radio folks across the nation –– including ones at Chicagoland FM outlets 94.7/The Zone and X-ROCK 103.9. More info at: www.americanmotherload.com – Tom Lounges | ||
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