Album Review: Baroness – Blue Record
Concept: Virginia sludge rock group continues their ‘primary’ saga, following their Eps 1, 2, 3, and their Red Album. Sound: Rock music isn’t really in need of any more throwbacks — there’s still a bad taste in its mouth after Wolfmother, Chickenfoot, and countless others. On the other hand Baroness is better at achieving the [...]
Album Review: Monsters Of Folk – Monsters Of Folk
Concept: Conor Oberst uses his new label for an all-”star” shindig. Sound: Not folk, so sorry. There is a wide range of Americana, which is honestly better unless you have a damn good lyricist/songwriter. Every member of the band could use some time to brainstorm and recover; My Morning Jacket hasn’t gained much from their [...]
KJNB Vault Album Review: Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan – Star Rise (1997)
Concept: Canadian composer Michael Brook remixes the work of the Qawwali superstar. Sound: Sometimes it’s too much techno, not enough Khan. They still use him as an excuse to drag their remixing out for several minutes at a time. Occasionally he’ll leak through with a total face-melter, and you forget about the suffering the preceding [...]
KJNB Vault Album Review: The Pooh Sticks – Million Seller (1993)
Concept: Why the hellll would you ever name your band this? Okay, now that that’s out of my system, it’s about being a regular joe with visions of grandeur. Sound: Pop rock. Did I miss something? There are some very catchy riffs and vocal harmonies. I think that’s it. Lyrics: With each track so mercifully [...]
KJNB Vault Album Review: Steve Hahn – Stickburst (1994)
Concept: Steve shows off the potential of the ‘Chapman Stick,’ better known as the freaking Warr guitar. Sound: This really is an awesome instrument that needs more use. What you have is more or less a bass running straight into a guitar, with big ol’ pickups so that everything can be finger-tapped: the closest you [...]
Album Review: Maninkari – Un Souffle De Voix
Concept: French postrockers show everybody how it’s done. Sound: Alright, it’s not really postrock, nor is it ambient, nor shoegaze. You can certainly see all the elements of these in their music, though. Violins can get a bad rap outside of classical music, but here they’ve taken the foreground as harsh, dry, swarming devils. The [...]
Album Review: Raekwon – Only Built 4 Cuban Linx II
Concept: Raekwon speaks up to complete his small saga a decade after the first installment, and as with anybody working with the Wu-Tang Clan he’s got company. Sound: The samples are what you can expect, with Kung-Fu pulp, graphic sound effects, and all kinds of backing tracks from dark, spare jazz to raw soul to [...]
Album Review: Blk Jks – After Robots
Concept: South African band takes their act abroad to flex their rock muscles. Sound: Blk Jks score big on the enthusiasm factor. The vocalist’s earnest melancholy and the wonderfully dynamic drummer keep things wild and loose. The band’s tinkering sprawl on this album is very similar to that of De-Loused In The Comatorium, using South [...]
Album Review: Wild Beasts – Two Dancers
Concept: Wild Beasts shoot to elevate the proletariat. Sound: The sparkling opening bassline sets the bar pretty high for the band, but the whole album keeps the glam and flamboyant dance atmosphere popping along. The hardest part to get over is the frontman’s preposterous range. He holds both a stable baritone and an alarmingly effeminate [...]
Album Review: John Zorn – O'o
Concept: Jazz marathon man John Zorn presents the fifth installment in his ‘Dreamers’ collaboration, with odes to birds surrounding the extinct titular Hawaiian species. Sound: Zorn has literally released hundreds of albums, most of which concentrate on free jazz and range from unlistenable blathering to riveting facsimiles of torture and suffering. Very little of his [...]