Let's push forward with another three reviews, etc., etc.
OASIS -- DIG OUT YOUR SOUL -- 7.5/10
This is the last Oasis album. After a decade of releasing notoriously horrible after notoriously horrible album, at least in light of the dizzying heights they had at one time achieved, one might assume that it was an overdue ending, that it was time to take Oasis out back because we just couldn't bear to see them like this. Yet for every "Little James" and "Force of Nature" that is laughably bad - an especially unforgivable sin for a band like Oasis that had every intention of saving music when they could have gotten some more leeway by being a bit less serious - there were still those moments of brilliance, perhaps not quite as potent as "Live Forever" or "Don't Look Back in Anger", but brilliant nonetheless, that remind you that there's a reason why everyone used to like Oasis. Thankfully, Dig Out Your Soul, while certainly no Definitely Maybe or (What's the Story) Morning Glory?, is something of a return to form, a small redemption for a band that for so many years seemed to be just going through the motions. Average songs like "The Turning," for the first time in ages, have a fire to them that even Be Here Now, the undeservingly demonized start of Oasis' decline, didn't have in its less show stopping tunes. And yes, it must be admitted that this is an album that includes the songs "(Get Off Your) High Horse Lady" and "Ain't Got Nothin'", but, at the same time, this album showcases an Oasis that isn't just doing a Beatles impersonation for 45 minutes - at least most of the time. Remarkably, these songs max out at 5:09, avoiding the absurd length that turned the good Britpop tunes on Be Here Now into repetitive marathons. Finally, we see a bit of a reinvention. "Falling Down" doesn't sound like anything else Oasis had ever released, and these songs have a momentum that Oasis had lacked for years. Liam even pitches in with the brilliant "I'm Outta Time," reminding us why he's in this band and why he was the voice of a generation for a few short years in the mid-'90s. This is no Morning Glory, but it's no Heathen Chemistry either. Highlights include "Falling Down", "I'm Outta Time", "The Turning".
TEXAS IS THE REASON -- DO YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE? -- 9/10
Texas is the Reason is probably the total opposite of Oasis in terms of career arc: a universally beloved underground act who released one critically acclaimed album and then dissolved. That album, Do You Know Who You Are?, is certainly worthy of high praise. Texas is the Reason is on the poppier end of the '90's emo canon, with a more listener friendly style than the proggy and experimental Sunny Day Real Estate or the chafingly edgy Jawbreaker. They also eschew the melodramatic lyricism of Knapsack and Mineral for a biting wit more akin to Superchunk or Archers of Loaf. Their style, meanwhile, combines the rawness of these predecessors with the approachable smoothness of a band like REM. The result is a band that has some appeal for pretty much everyone. Added to this is a knack for delivering memorable lines where they'll be the most effective. The album starts right off with the catchy sincere snark of the line, "You're allowed to stay for awhle / I'm gonna need your time to slow down". They also have a knack for building their songs up from simple statements that set the scene into passionate admissions and declarations. "Back and to the Left" evolves from the sarcastic jibe, "This town was built on miles of hope, and I dare you to give me one reason to stay" to the heartfelt admission "I always worry about you, and I'll always stick up for you." The range of emotions, from the sardonic to the sincere, flows through the album, giving songs like "There's No Way That I Can Talk My Way Out of This One Tonight (The Drinking Song)" an ambiguity of meaning that unfolds over multiple listens and adds an extra punch to the melancholy honesty of "The Day's Refrain" and the grand finale in "A Jack with One Eye," which ends with the line, "Your place is still in the heart of my everything / You're my everything." There's no single standout track on this album, but the entire thing is a joy to listen to, and rolls on with a variety that feels constantly fresh, both within songs and in such moments as the transition from the laid-back melancholy frets of the title track to the frantic pace of "Back and to the Left". The EP tracks in the complete edition are all fantastic as well, especially "Blue Boy" and "Antique", so I highly recommend getting the Complete Collection. Highlights include "Nickel Wound," "Back and to the Left", "A Jack with One Eye".
GUIDED BY VOICES -- EARTHQUAKE GLUE -- 7.5/10
How do you even start talking about GBV? Everything's already been said - Bob Pollard has forgotten more hooks than the rest of the musicians in the history of popular music have written, that run of albums from Propeller to Under the Bushes, Under the Stars has never been bested, but the post Tobin Sprout line-up was a bit more hit or miss. Earthquake Glue is one of those later albums, and, unsurprisingly, lacks a bit of the inspiration that made that run of four albums, highlighted by the irreproachable Bee Thousand and Alien Lanes, so special. Only one of these songs comes in at under two minutes, and the sound is more polished than GBV in their heyday. Nonetheless, the later GBV still produced some great songs. Isolation Drills contained a few of them, and Earthquake Glue has some great moments as well. "The Best of Jill Hives" is the clear standout on this album, to the extent that it really overshadows the rest of this album in a way even "Game of Pricks" wasn't able to, accompanied as it was by the likes of "Watch Me Jumpstart," "Motor Away," and "My Valuable Hunting Knife." That said, there are some other really very good songs on this album, including the bouncy "Secret Star," the aggressive "Dead Cloud," and the poppy "Useless Inventions." Nonetheless, the rest of this album is fairly nondescript. There's nothing as gaudily (yet always charmingly) bad as some of the songs that were interspersed into Bee Thousand or Alien Lanes, and even the boring songs on this album aren't any more boring than those on Under the Bushes. All the same, however, this album doesn't hold your attention in the way the best GBV albums do, astonishing you with moments of greatness and keeping you attentive through the lesser songs for little gems of brilliance. All in all, this is definitely not a bad album, and has some great moments, but it lacks the spark that fueled GBVs best output. Highlights include "The Best of Jill Hives," "Secret Star," "Dead Cloud."
Tuesday, October 27, 2015
Saturday, October 10, 2015
Niche Reviews, Part II
I'm actually finding I enjoy writing these brief reviews, so let's get right into it.
COSMETIC -- CONQUISTE -- 8.5/10
Sometimes it's hard for me to rate Italian music - sometimes it's a bit derivative, but it really is very good, but maybe the lyrics suck and I just don't know because my vocabulary is too limited. That said, regardless of all of that, I can't deny what I like and what I don't like, so here we go with Conquiste. I'm not sure if this is shoegaze, or just indie rock with a lot of layered guitars, but it sort of feels like Loveless at double speed, or Ride with a bit of an edge. Right from the start it has this great pulse to it, and a sort of bittersweet smoothness sort of weaves in and out. It's quite jangly too, and is overall just a fun listen. I honestly don't understand the words 75% of the time (also true for My Bloody Valentine), but there's something comfortable and sincere about it that's hard to pin down. In fact, now thinking about it, it really sounds a lot like Yuck with a bit more shoegaziness to it. But, much like Yuck, Conquiste is an effortlessly enjoyable listen, that makes you think, "This sounds too familiar and self-assured to not be copying someone," but it does have its own character to it. The guitars here are sludgy, but they also have some nice jangly riffs, as in "Prima o poi", and "Scisma" (named after the band?) has a really cools sliding note change thing that gives it a ton of energy right off the bat. Even some of the smoother songs like "Melly" and "Per un amico" have jangly pulse to them that powers much of this album, even if the second half does feel a bit slower than the first. Some of the songs do blend together a tad, but this album just too fun to listen to, and the catchier, poppier ones, like "Lenta conquista" and "Prima o poi" easily get stuck in your head, while the others, like "La fine del giorno" and "Lo spavento", have a touch of melancholy too them that is quite powerful. All in all, this album provides everything you could expect from the more distorted end of shoegaze, and has an assertiveness that demands your attention again and again. Highlights include "Melly", "Scisma," and "La fine del giorno."
KNAPSACK -- DAY THREE OF MY NEW LIFE -- 8.5/10
I went into this album the first time I listened to it expecting a typical emo album, with strained vocals and everything, but even though the opening riff totally met expectations, I was confused by the soft and straightforward singing at the start of "Thursday Side of the Street". As it turns out, the ability of Blair Shehan to shift from calm narration to instant desperation an incredibly effective trademark, and give their songs a lot of power. These are straightforward, punky tracks with simple chords and a slightly more polished sound than the likes of Mineral or Jawbreaker, but the relatability of the scenarios presented in these songs, almost all of which are stories of some sort, and the sheer effort you can hear pulsing through each song makes them really hit hard in their most effective moments. Now, for me the album opener "Thursday Side of the Street" is clearly the best song on the album, a depiction that for me captures perfectly the loneliness of rural adult life, which usually leaves the rest of the album feeling a bit flat, but the remainder is compelling enough to keep you pumped up, mostly because the changes in emotion throughout each song maintain a level of unexpectedness throughout. There are definite weakpoints on the album, such as "Henry Hammers Harder", mostly stemming from lyrics whose emotion seems a bit forced at times, but the delivery is so strong that when the lyrics hold up, they are truly potent. When the lyrics lurch into sudden urgency, as in "Courage was Confused" and "Simple Favor", this album firmly grabs your full attention. Highlights include "Thursday Side of the Street", "Diamond Mine", and "Heart Carved Tree".
JAWBREAKER -- DEAR YOU -- 7.5/10
Jawbreaker's final album, Dear You is a difficult album to rate, because it really does have some of the band's best songs, with lyrics as clever as they ever were on their earlier albums, but it also has some of their worst, with lyrics that are uncharacteristically cliche and oversentimental. Jawbreaker has always been a band that relied on writing brilliantly, stingingly whitty and honest song lyrics for their songs to have much of an impact, but it feels like this is even more true for Dear You. Many moments on 24-hour Revenge Therapy were made by the sheer vitriol of lead singer Blake Schwarzenbach when delivering the killing blow with some of his lines, but after (in)famously undergoing vocal chord surgery before recording what would be their final album, he seemed to have lost the ability to deliver his jabs with that same fire. He tries a few times, for instance with the line "This must be the place / I can tell by your glare / I wouldn't touch you on a dare" in the song "Chemistry," but it doesn't quite have the same impact. However, Dear You has some points where the lyrics make up for everything, along with some of their catchiest songs. "Fireman" is a masterpiece in this regard, delivering jab after jab before devolving into an awkward apology. "Save Your Generation" is equally uncharacteristic in its positive attitude, although both songs deal with the same troubled topics. Nonetheless, these songs as well as others like "Chemistry" and the brilliant pastiche "Bad Scene, Everyone's Fault" are so fun to sing along to that you can't help but love the high points of this album. Unfortunately, there are also a few down moments, notably the irredeemably un-Jawbreakerlike "Million", about longing for "a nice girl" - a concept so foreign to this band whose songs are mostly making fun of other people, that it's really quite unbelievable. That said, despite how divisive this album is, it's really pretty decent. They still have their dark moments of cynical brilliance, with "Accident Prone" being the highlight in this regard, and the poppy successors to "Boxcar" are too good to ignore. Highlights include "Save Your Generation," "Fireman," and "Bad Scene, Everyone's Fault".
COSMETIC -- CONQUISTE -- 8.5/10
Sometimes it's hard for me to rate Italian music - sometimes it's a bit derivative, but it really is very good, but maybe the lyrics suck and I just don't know because my vocabulary is too limited. That said, regardless of all of that, I can't deny what I like and what I don't like, so here we go with Conquiste. I'm not sure if this is shoegaze, or just indie rock with a lot of layered guitars, but it sort of feels like Loveless at double speed, or Ride with a bit of an edge. Right from the start it has this great pulse to it, and a sort of bittersweet smoothness sort of weaves in and out. It's quite jangly too, and is overall just a fun listen. I honestly don't understand the words 75% of the time (also true for My Bloody Valentine), but there's something comfortable and sincere about it that's hard to pin down. In fact, now thinking about it, it really sounds a lot like Yuck with a bit more shoegaziness to it. But, much like Yuck, Conquiste is an effortlessly enjoyable listen, that makes you think, "This sounds too familiar and self-assured to not be copying someone," but it does have its own character to it. The guitars here are sludgy, but they also have some nice jangly riffs, as in "Prima o poi", and "Scisma" (named after the band?) has a really cools sliding note change thing that gives it a ton of energy right off the bat. Even some of the smoother songs like "Melly" and "Per un amico" have jangly pulse to them that powers much of this album, even if the second half does feel a bit slower than the first. Some of the songs do blend together a tad, but this album just too fun to listen to, and the catchier, poppier ones, like "Lenta conquista" and "Prima o poi" easily get stuck in your head, while the others, like "La fine del giorno" and "Lo spavento", have a touch of melancholy too them that is quite powerful. All in all, this album provides everything you could expect from the more distorted end of shoegaze, and has an assertiveness that demands your attention again and again. Highlights include "Melly", "Scisma," and "La fine del giorno."
KNAPSACK -- DAY THREE OF MY NEW LIFE -- 8.5/10
I went into this album the first time I listened to it expecting a typical emo album, with strained vocals and everything, but even though the opening riff totally met expectations, I was confused by the soft and straightforward singing at the start of "Thursday Side of the Street". As it turns out, the ability of Blair Shehan to shift from calm narration to instant desperation an incredibly effective trademark, and give their songs a lot of power. These are straightforward, punky tracks with simple chords and a slightly more polished sound than the likes of Mineral or Jawbreaker, but the relatability of the scenarios presented in these songs, almost all of which are stories of some sort, and the sheer effort you can hear pulsing through each song makes them really hit hard in their most effective moments. Now, for me the album opener "Thursday Side of the Street" is clearly the best song on the album, a depiction that for me captures perfectly the loneliness of rural adult life, which usually leaves the rest of the album feeling a bit flat, but the remainder is compelling enough to keep you pumped up, mostly because the changes in emotion throughout each song maintain a level of unexpectedness throughout. There are definite weakpoints on the album, such as "Henry Hammers Harder", mostly stemming from lyrics whose emotion seems a bit forced at times, but the delivery is so strong that when the lyrics hold up, they are truly potent. When the lyrics lurch into sudden urgency, as in "Courage was Confused" and "Simple Favor", this album firmly grabs your full attention. Highlights include "Thursday Side of the Street", "Diamond Mine", and "Heart Carved Tree".
JAWBREAKER -- DEAR YOU -- 7.5/10
Jawbreaker's final album, Dear You is a difficult album to rate, because it really does have some of the band's best songs, with lyrics as clever as they ever were on their earlier albums, but it also has some of their worst, with lyrics that are uncharacteristically cliche and oversentimental. Jawbreaker has always been a band that relied on writing brilliantly, stingingly whitty and honest song lyrics for their songs to have much of an impact, but it feels like this is even more true for Dear You. Many moments on 24-hour Revenge Therapy were made by the sheer vitriol of lead singer Blake Schwarzenbach when delivering the killing blow with some of his lines, but after (in)famously undergoing vocal chord surgery before recording what would be their final album, he seemed to have lost the ability to deliver his jabs with that same fire. He tries a few times, for instance with the line "This must be the place / I can tell by your glare / I wouldn't touch you on a dare" in the song "Chemistry," but it doesn't quite have the same impact. However, Dear You has some points where the lyrics make up for everything, along with some of their catchiest songs. "Fireman" is a masterpiece in this regard, delivering jab after jab before devolving into an awkward apology. "Save Your Generation" is equally uncharacteristic in its positive attitude, although both songs deal with the same troubled topics. Nonetheless, these songs as well as others like "Chemistry" and the brilliant pastiche "Bad Scene, Everyone's Fault" are so fun to sing along to that you can't help but love the high points of this album. Unfortunately, there are also a few down moments, notably the irredeemably un-Jawbreakerlike "Million", about longing for "a nice girl" - a concept so foreign to this band whose songs are mostly making fun of other people, that it's really quite unbelievable. That said, despite how divisive this album is, it's really pretty decent. They still have their dark moments of cynical brilliance, with "Accident Prone" being the highlight in this regard, and the poppy successors to "Boxcar" are too good to ignore. Highlights include "Save Your Generation," "Fireman," and "Bad Scene, Everyone's Fault".
Thursday, October 8, 2015
Niche Reviews, Part I
Hi all. I've been reading back through some of my older reviews that came in threes, like celebrity deaths or all of Julian Casablancas' fears, and they were pretty easy to write but also pretty useful it seems. Meanwhile, I've listened to a whole lot of music since then - so much so that I have felt a bit overwhelmed by the prospect of doing reviews in the order in which I bought them. As a result, I'm going back and doing these in alphabetical order. Also, I'm limiting myself to the kind of obscure albums in my collection, because otherwise why else would you be reading this? Anyway, let's get started. Also, my rating system may have shifted a bit from their previously ultra-generous scale. Hopefully these are brief enough to give you an accurate representation.
SEAM -- ARE YOU DRIVING ME CRAZY? -- 7.5/10
To start with, The Problem with Me is a great album and you should listen to it. It's got this soft, intimate quality combined with a strange sense of energy, like a friend telling you a secret. The follow-up, Are You Driving Me Crazy? has that same sound, still a surprise from the lead singer of Bitch Magnet, but Seam mixes things up on their third album by turning around from the very introverted songs from The Problem with Me, and show some actual anger and frustration. Nonetheless, they show it with a softness and sense of futility that can be very relatable in moments of weakness. It starts out, however, with two of Seam's best tracks. "Berlitz" has a pace and passion that is missing from Seam's mostly low-key output, yet it feels very in place. It's followed by the also excellent "Hey Latasha," which is similarly average-paced in a way that's a bit more in line with other American Lo-Fi bands, compared to whom Seam is usually much more fluid and gradual. After these more energetic songs, Seam glides back toward their usual meandering pace, which is a comforting one, yet the content is clearly much more fraught with frustration and even anger. Even the album title suggests as much - Are You Driving Me Crazy? is directed outward while The Problem with Me was fittingly more involved with self-discovery. This shift is clear from the lyrics. "Port of Charleston" seems to glare angrily with the line "She's just a skinny little thing, doesn't mean any harm, doesn't mean what she says." And while the pace slows down, and is almost glacial in songs like "Rainy Season" and "Tuff Luck", there are still moments like in "Two is Enough" and album closer "Petty Thievery" that instill a sense of awakeness and energy that make this album itself a bit frustrating in its inability to free itself from the sense of resigned anger expressed in lyrics like "It's something that takes my breath away, and I blame it on you" or "There was a time that I would've cried, but that part of me has up and died". In this end, this is a relatable album with definite moments of brilliance, but at the end of the day, I guess I want something with a bit more hope. Highlights include "Berlitz," "Hey Latasha," and "Petty Thievery."
SCISMA -- ARMSTRONG -- 8.5/10
Want a review of an Italian album, written in English? I've got you covered. Scisma is a band that flies between indie and pop, and has something for everyone, with a consistency of quality that is admirable. Armstrong is in my opinion, just a bit better than its predecessor, Rosemary Plexiglas, in my opinion, and here I will explain why. Scisma is a band with frequently clever lyrics, poppy fluorishes, and a sophisticated interplay between singers Sara Mazo and Paolo Benvegnu', who is, as far as I can tell, actually now a fairly successful solo artist (unrelated, but I found out last week that Morgan from Bluvertigo is a judge on the Italian version of X Factor, which blew my mind because Bluvertigo is a very weird band). Armstrong is the slightly lighter and more exploratory of the two albums, with more multilingual tracks and less of a rock/grunge influence. As it turns out, it also seems to have many of the Scisma songs with the most sticking power on it. Opener "Tungsteno" feels a bit derivative and has a much faster pace than the rest of the album, but is undeniably catchy. The songs that follow are sensitive and insightful character sketches in a sense. "Troppo Poco Intelligente" has such a biting sense of humor that matches its catchiness, and songs like "L'Innocenza," "L'Amour," and "Simmetrie" are frankly adorable da morire. Meanwhile, songs like "I am the Ocean" and "Giuseppe Pierri" inject a sort of smooth jazz, sort of Portishead-esque atmosphere into the album that makes it really stand out. Even though songs like "Tungsteno" and "Jetson High Speed" seem a bit shallow, Scisma have a knack for bringing out the big choruses, as on "Troppo Poco Intelligente" and "L'Universo", and the multiplicity of impressions that the rest of the album imparts makes it an engaging listen. The nuanced simplicity of closer "Good Morning" really caps this off, and leaves us wondering, in a way very similar to Idlewild at their cheekiest moments, when these songs are being serious and when they're reflecting the superficial acting we do every day throughout our lives. Highlights include "Troppo Poco Intelligente," "Giuseppe Pierri," and "L'Universo".
SUEDE -- BLOODSPORTS -- 8.5/10
Oh man, I remember when this album came out. Ten years after A New Morning, I was not expecting an opening single like "Barriers," and the rest of this album really just blew me away. In my experience, comeback albums can be either spectacular, like Majesty Shredding, painfully disappointing, like the new Blur or Idlewild albums or like Pixies comeback Indie Cindy that I'm assuming we're all going to pretend never happened, because as fans of a band, we want something from the same people who brought us so many special moments, but we also want them to bring something new and exciting to the table. It's a hard task, but when it works it's truly inspiring. With Suede's new single "Outsiders" just having come out, I can't help but think back to the excitement I had for Bloodsports to come out, and while it's no Dog Man Star, it really was great, as much as I try to temper my love for Suede in order to properly evaluate this album. Sure, this album has its slow moments, much like, if you'll think back for enough, Suede's self-titled debut, but much like that album, there are such dizzying highs on this album that it really doesn't matter. "Barriers" sees Brett emerge with a whole new vocabulary and Richard Oakes finally has an identity that's dazzlingly precise, and while he doesn't have the subtle restraint of Bernard Butler, his guitar riffs seem to quiver much like the intonations of Brett Anderson's finely aged but still vital voice. Before, his voice was like a scimitar, dazzlingly sharp and capable of an immense range of moment, from the low lows of "The 2 of Us" to the slicing highs of "Stay Together." Now it's like a bell, ringing with a sagely purity that forces us to admire its steadfastness. These songs still sound fresh years later, which is incredible. A song this poppy shouldn't have the sticking power it does - surely catchy singles like "Electricity" and "Lazy" didn't - but I can still go back to even the weaker catchy songs, like "It Starts and Ends With You", and it still makes my heart beat. Meanwhile the true standouts of this album - "Barriers", the incomprehensible but potent "Snowblind", "Hit Me" which makes me wonder why and be thankful that Suede aren't all over the radio so that they're all mine, and "For the Strangers", which is literally every bit as good as "The Wild Ones", I promise - are truly spectacular. Yes, I love Suede, so I may be being generous, and the album does lag a bit in the second half during songs like "What are You Not Telling Me?" and "Always" which have the angst but not necessarily the gutting punch of "Heroine" or "The 2 of Us", but Bloodsports remains a fantastic album not just as a comeback album, or as a Suede album, but as an album, truly underrated when it came out as an entity unto itself. Highlights include "Barriers," "Hit Me," and "For the Strangers".
SEAM -- ARE YOU DRIVING ME CRAZY? -- 7.5/10
To start with, The Problem with Me is a great album and you should listen to it. It's got this soft, intimate quality combined with a strange sense of energy, like a friend telling you a secret. The follow-up, Are You Driving Me Crazy? has that same sound, still a surprise from the lead singer of Bitch Magnet, but Seam mixes things up on their third album by turning around from the very introverted songs from The Problem with Me, and show some actual anger and frustration. Nonetheless, they show it with a softness and sense of futility that can be very relatable in moments of weakness. It starts out, however, with two of Seam's best tracks. "Berlitz" has a pace and passion that is missing from Seam's mostly low-key output, yet it feels very in place. It's followed by the also excellent "Hey Latasha," which is similarly average-paced in a way that's a bit more in line with other American Lo-Fi bands, compared to whom Seam is usually much more fluid and gradual. After these more energetic songs, Seam glides back toward their usual meandering pace, which is a comforting one, yet the content is clearly much more fraught with frustration and even anger. Even the album title suggests as much - Are You Driving Me Crazy? is directed outward while The Problem with Me was fittingly more involved with self-discovery. This shift is clear from the lyrics. "Port of Charleston" seems to glare angrily with the line "She's just a skinny little thing, doesn't mean any harm, doesn't mean what she says." And while the pace slows down, and is almost glacial in songs like "Rainy Season" and "Tuff Luck", there are still moments like in "Two is Enough" and album closer "Petty Thievery" that instill a sense of awakeness and energy that make this album itself a bit frustrating in its inability to free itself from the sense of resigned anger expressed in lyrics like "It's something that takes my breath away, and I blame it on you" or "There was a time that I would've cried, but that part of me has up and died". In this end, this is a relatable album with definite moments of brilliance, but at the end of the day, I guess I want something with a bit more hope. Highlights include "Berlitz," "Hey Latasha," and "Petty Thievery."
SCISMA -- ARMSTRONG -- 8.5/10
Want a review of an Italian album, written in English? I've got you covered. Scisma is a band that flies between indie and pop, and has something for everyone, with a consistency of quality that is admirable. Armstrong is in my opinion, just a bit better than its predecessor, Rosemary Plexiglas, in my opinion, and here I will explain why. Scisma is a band with frequently clever lyrics, poppy fluorishes, and a sophisticated interplay between singers Sara Mazo and Paolo Benvegnu', who is, as far as I can tell, actually now a fairly successful solo artist (unrelated, but I found out last week that Morgan from Bluvertigo is a judge on the Italian version of X Factor, which blew my mind because Bluvertigo is a very weird band). Armstrong is the slightly lighter and more exploratory of the two albums, with more multilingual tracks and less of a rock/grunge influence. As it turns out, it also seems to have many of the Scisma songs with the most sticking power on it. Opener "Tungsteno" feels a bit derivative and has a much faster pace than the rest of the album, but is undeniably catchy. The songs that follow are sensitive and insightful character sketches in a sense. "Troppo Poco Intelligente" has such a biting sense of humor that matches its catchiness, and songs like "L'Innocenza," "L'Amour," and "Simmetrie" are frankly adorable da morire. Meanwhile, songs like "I am the Ocean" and "Giuseppe Pierri" inject a sort of smooth jazz, sort of Portishead-esque atmosphere into the album that makes it really stand out. Even though songs like "Tungsteno" and "Jetson High Speed" seem a bit shallow, Scisma have a knack for bringing out the big choruses, as on "Troppo Poco Intelligente" and "L'Universo", and the multiplicity of impressions that the rest of the album imparts makes it an engaging listen. The nuanced simplicity of closer "Good Morning" really caps this off, and leaves us wondering, in a way very similar to Idlewild at their cheekiest moments, when these songs are being serious and when they're reflecting the superficial acting we do every day throughout our lives. Highlights include "Troppo Poco Intelligente," "Giuseppe Pierri," and "L'Universo".
SUEDE -- BLOODSPORTS -- 8.5/10
Oh man, I remember when this album came out. Ten years after A New Morning, I was not expecting an opening single like "Barriers," and the rest of this album really just blew me away. In my experience, comeback albums can be either spectacular, like Majesty Shredding, painfully disappointing, like the new Blur or Idlewild albums or like Pixies comeback Indie Cindy that I'm assuming we're all going to pretend never happened, because as fans of a band, we want something from the same people who brought us so many special moments, but we also want them to bring something new and exciting to the table. It's a hard task, but when it works it's truly inspiring. With Suede's new single "Outsiders" just having come out, I can't help but think back to the excitement I had for Bloodsports to come out, and while it's no Dog Man Star, it really was great, as much as I try to temper my love for Suede in order to properly evaluate this album. Sure, this album has its slow moments, much like, if you'll think back for enough, Suede's self-titled debut, but much like that album, there are such dizzying highs on this album that it really doesn't matter. "Barriers" sees Brett emerge with a whole new vocabulary and Richard Oakes finally has an identity that's dazzlingly precise, and while he doesn't have the subtle restraint of Bernard Butler, his guitar riffs seem to quiver much like the intonations of Brett Anderson's finely aged but still vital voice. Before, his voice was like a scimitar, dazzlingly sharp and capable of an immense range of moment, from the low lows of "The 2 of Us" to the slicing highs of "Stay Together." Now it's like a bell, ringing with a sagely purity that forces us to admire its steadfastness. These songs still sound fresh years later, which is incredible. A song this poppy shouldn't have the sticking power it does - surely catchy singles like "Electricity" and "Lazy" didn't - but I can still go back to even the weaker catchy songs, like "It Starts and Ends With You", and it still makes my heart beat. Meanwhile the true standouts of this album - "Barriers", the incomprehensible but potent "Snowblind", "Hit Me" which makes me wonder why and be thankful that Suede aren't all over the radio so that they're all mine, and "For the Strangers", which is literally every bit as good as "The Wild Ones", I promise - are truly spectacular. Yes, I love Suede, so I may be being generous, and the album does lag a bit in the second half during songs like "What are You Not Telling Me?" and "Always" which have the angst but not necessarily the gutting punch of "Heroine" or "The 2 of Us", but Bloodsports remains a fantastic album not just as a comeback album, or as a Suede album, but as an album, truly underrated when it came out as an entity unto itself. Highlights include "Barriers," "Hit Me," and "For the Strangers".
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