Third Time's The Charm

Artist: The Dead Weather

Album: Horehound

Year: 2009

Grade: 3.5 pretzels

Being in a rock band is usually enough for most people, but it’s not enough for Jack White. He has to be in two or three. A few years ago, White announced that he was taking a brief rest from the White Stripes to form the Raconteurs and now, he’s gone and created a third band, the Dead Weather. This time, he’s partnered with Queens Of The Stone Age sideman Dean Fertita on guitar, mercenary bassist Jack Lawrence of the Raconteurs and singer Alison Mosshart of the Kills, leaving White himself handling the drums. Between these four members, the Dead Weather have a lot of hype to live up to.

Unfortunately, Horehound doesn’t fulfill a lot of that potential, at least on the opening tracks. The album begins with the limp blues of “60 Feet Tall”, which doesn’t seem to ever shift out of first gear, meaning that Horehound is losing momentum before it even starts. The following song (and lead single), “Hang You From The Heavens”, is more lively and exciting, but a bit on the repetitive side. The rest of the album’s first half is dedicated to dirty, bluesy hard rock, most of which is sadly aimless and wandering. Fertita’s time in Queens Of The Stone Age has clearly influenced the direction the Dead Weather are going in, with the fuzzy, gritty bass end and repetitive riffing, but they haven’t quite reached the Queens’ mastery of songwriting yet.

However, Horehound gets new life when it reaches the second half, making it the rare mainstream rock album that isn’t horribly frontloaded with the band’s best material. A savage Dylan cover (“New Pony”) leads into another vicious, paint-peeling rocker in the form of “Bone House”. Both of these songs showcase the power of Mosshart’s stellar rock-chick voice and persona, which any fan of the Kills would attest to. Meanwhile, the band cranks out some solid hard rock grooves, with squealing little guitar flourishes added to the mix. Even more interesting is the semi-instrumental “3 Birds”, which is a rolling, bass-driven experimental piece that sounds more complete and compelling than virtually everything else on the record. One last fiery rock song (“No Hassle Night”) and a lengthy, dark, bluesy duet between Mosshart and White (“Will There Be Enough Water?) conclude the album, ending Horehound on a very high note.

The most interesting thing about the Dead Weather for me is the backseat role Jack White takes. He is, by far, the most famous member of this supergroup and it’s his name that will attract most people to the Dead Weather’s music. However, by restraining himself to the roles of drummer, producer and sometimes-songwriter, he’s managed to keep his hands on the reins of power in the band without creating yet another group whose music sounds like rehashed White Stripes songs. Having Mosshart sing the lion’s share of the material on the album gives the Dead Weather a unique voice and there are many songs on the album that don’t credit White as a songwriter at all. Unlike the Raconteurs, Jack White’s presence in the Dead Weather hasn’t turned them into White Stripes 2.0 and, as soon as they can capitalize on the possibilities suggested by Horehound’s second half, they could be quite the awesome rock band.

Keeping Things Interesting

Artist: St. Vincent

Album: Actor

Year: 2009

Grade: 4 pretzels

Annie Clark seems to be adding her name to the running competition to be the “indie Kate Bush.” The one-woman creative force, who performs under the name St. Vincent, has joined fellow eccentric female artists like Natasha Khan of Bat For Lashes in creating music deeply reminiscent of Bush’s beautiful-yet-very-warped style. However, where Bush’s music distorts its overt femininity and “prettiness” with Bush’s operatic voice and chronic abuse of Fairlight synthesizers, Clark has created a sound that’s much closer to the modern indie scene.

On one hand, Actor is a very pretty album. Clark’s voice is very gentle and lilting and there are lots of violins, oboes and other touches that help craft an air of “calm” music. But then shit gets weird. Otherwise pleasant melodies will suddenly get jolted apart by slashes of electric guitar. Sometimes, the melody lines jig and jag at weird, unexpected angles. And, best of all, some of the songs end up disintegrating all together, best heard on the end of the otherwise forgettable “Black Rainbow”, where a cooing clarinet line is devoured by screeching, atonal violins during its closing third. Just like Kate Bush, Annie Clark has found ways to take lovely sounding music and transform it into something much more attention-grabbing and edgy.

Listening to Actor is an odd experience, since the songs basically defy all attempts to predict where they might go next. The stomping “Actor Out Of Work” balances Clark’s pure voice and poetic lyrics with clanging guitars and a melody line that downshifts dramatically in the middle of each verse. Other songs, like “Marrow”, start like the soundtrack to Cinderella, with lots of sunny keyboard squiggles and bird sounds, before industrial crunching and ominous key changes start taking over. Virtually none of the songs end in the same place they start, meaning that each one features moments of pristine beauty as well as chunks of chaotic noise. It’s a pretty jarring change from the usual female singer-songwriter mold.

As with many experimental indie pop albums, listening to Actor can become a bit of an exhausting listen. With all the zigzags in mood and tone, the album can be a bit difficult to pin down and really enjoy. It never quite gets into one of those grooves that just leaves you rapt with attention. However, the high points are many, from the aforementioned tracks to the rolling rhythms of “Save Me From What I Want”. Annie Clark has come a long way from her beginnings as a member of the Polyphonic Spree and Sufjan Stevens’ backing band. She’s clearly a talented, individualistic songwriter who’s making music very unlike anything anyone else is doing right now.

Iceland Gets Even Calmer

Artist: Riceboy Sleeps

Album: Riceboy Sleeps

Year: 2009

Grade: 3 pretzels

It’s been nice to take a bit of a break over this past 4th Of July weekend (USA! USA!), but it’s time to get back to the grind. There’s music to be listened to, opinions to be formed and snarky comments to be oh-so-wittily posted. Shall we?

I’m only just beginning to understand how polarizing the music of Sigur Rós can be to people. Personally, I had always enjoyed the ambient, Icelandic group, but not to any extreme level. Most of my love for Sigur Rós can be boiled down to listening to the third track from their ( ) album while it’s snowing (which, for those of you who have never tried it, is nothing short of a religious experience). However, it has recently come to my attention just how far many people let their feelings about Sigur Rós go, at both extremes. For every person who gets positively teary eyed at a whisper of their name, there’s another person who detests the band’s ethereal, drifting melodies and more-or-less nonsense lyrics. While I myself am somewhat contentedly in the middle, I’ve learned that people have some very strong opinions of this one, unassuming band (from Iceland, of all places!).

In the middle of all this, we get the debut album from Riceboy Sleeps, an artistic collaboration between Sigur Rós’ Jón Þór Birgisson and his partner Alex Somers. The pair introduced their music with a track on this year’s Dark Was The Night charity compilation, which immediately showed that Riceboy Sleeps’ music was exactly like Sigur Rós…only more so. All the languid tempos are stretched out even further, the dream-like sounds are even more prevalent and whispy and the barely-there-at-all lyrics have receded even further into the background, leaving only a few ghostly, choral coos drifting through the clouds. It’s really amazing to hear music that makes Sigur Rós sound concrete and virtually traditional in comparison.

Needless to say, I’m sure people who love Sigur Rós will adore this album, while those who hate the band will detest it. Riceboy Sleeps bares so many overt similarities to Sigur Rós’ music that separating the two bands is probably not even worth the effort. Clearly, since Birgisson is the common element between the two bands, we can assume that this sound is his creation and he’s dedicated himself to it, no matter who he’s recording with. We can also begin to see concrete examples of what the other members of Sigur Rós bring to the group and what the music sounds like in their absence. Gone are the tribal rhythm patterns and even the crystalline piano figures that characterize much of Sigur Rós’ work. Sigur Rós are one of the smoothest, most gorgeously mellow bands in recent years and Riceboy Sleeps have somehow taken that sound and covered it in a protective layer of pillows.

Personally, as a mid-range Sigur Rós fan, I find Riceboy Sleeps quite pleasant, certainly achingly beautiful, but also a bit boring. The songs seem to lack a lot of internal character to me, which lets each song bleed seamlessly into the next, but also makes it very difficult to differentiate one piece from another. This is great if you want purely ambient music, which can drift gorgeously in the background without drawing attention to itself, but makes direct listening a bit frustrating. Without some of the more traditional elements of Sigur Rós anchoring my attention, I find myself wanting to wander away from Riceboy Sleeps’ music and listen to something else. At their best, Riceboy Sleeps create huge, evolving pieces of noise and melody (“All The Big Trees”), but too often they just let big washes of sound slosh all over the place for ten minutes. I’m sure there are legions of Sigur Rós fans out there who are already tearing up at the very idea of such a thing, but personally, the whole thing makes me more than a little sleepy.

Who's Simon Defending Now?: Michael Jackson

In these weeks that have followed Michael Jackson’s death, I’ve made the mistake of reading a few too many comment boards and blogs with people’s reactions to this whole tragic ordeal. After reading these horrendously insensitive and sometimes downright offensive commentaries, I can hold back my anger no longer. This is definitely the first (and possibly the last) Who’s Simon Defending Now? piece dedicated to an artist who isn’t one of my personal favorites, but if there was ever a musician who needs defending right now, it’s the King of Pop.

I’m absolutely astounded by the number of people who seem indifferent, or even mildly glad that Jackson is dead. One of the most irritating comments I saw was something that popped up on my Facebook newsfeed, as someone had changed their status to “Farah Fawcett (R.I.P)…Michael Jackson (R.I.P…? Maybe not…).” Even if Michael Jackson wasn’t the single most successful and all-encompassing figure in all of music history, these kinds of sentiments show an excruciating lack of empathy and consideration. A man died, tragically, at the very young age of 50. Show some damn respect for human life, people.

Now, I understand why many people aren’t exactly shedding tears for Michael. His exhaustively documented personal problems are something the world has obsessively focused on. For his part, Michael never really helped his case during the past twenty years, since he A) wasn’t releasing very much new material for the world to fawn over and B) kept doing crazy shit. I wouldn’t even dream about trying to argue that Michael Jackson wasn’t a deeply troubled person. There’s no doubt about that. However, I urge people to separate the art from the artist. Jackson’s musical legacy is nothing short of god-like and a good dose of basic human empathy should help people overcome their image of Jackson as nothing more than a freak with a weird nose.

Jackson’s career, of course, started with his family and the Jackson 5. We all know how alternatively adorable and awesome they were. However, when you look at the facts about Michael’s family life, it’s amazing he wasn’t even stranger in his adult years. He endured a horrendous amount of abuse at the hands of his father, who basically did not allow his children to have any degree of a normal life. Plus, Michael’s childhood was spent traveling the country and playing shows with his brothers, who were, of course, much older than him. What kind of lifestyle do you think a band full of young men in a popular band are going to have? For young Michael, he grew up pretty damn fast (too fast, if you ask me).

Where most people would simply go insane at this point, Michael Jackson somehow kept his shit together long enough to launch the most successful solo career in the history of music. Off The Wall, Thriller, Bad, Dangerous…the list of Jackson’s earth-shattering albums goes on and on. These are titles that evoke pop music at its most powerful and, in the case of Thriller, the most popular album in the entire history of music. Over 100 million copies of Thriller have been sold world-wide. One-hundred million. Nothing else even comes close.

Besides recording some of the most successful albums of all time, Jackson’s solo career also features some incredible, peerless music that has gone on to influence an endless list of genres. Songs like “Billie Jean” are famous for a reason: they’re ridiculously good songs. I don’t care who you are or how much you deny it; you get shivers when you hear that bassline. With all of his songs packaged within revolutionary music videos, Jackson pioneered how music could be presented to the public. Of course, without Jackson, there would be no modern hip-hop or R&B as we know them today. The entire face of pop music would be different, virtually unrecognizable and infinitely less soulful. His magical voice redrew what pop music could be.

But that music isn’t what many people remember. What people remember is the endless debate about whether he sexually abused children. People remember the sloppy Photoshop pictures online that exaggerated Michael’s physical surgery. People remember a pop culture caricature, so far removed from anything they could relate to that they forgot he was an actual person. Yes, Michael Jackson was a very weird person and yes, there is a chance that he abused children. To say otherwise is just denial. We may never know the actual truth about most of Jackson’s very mysterious life. But, no matter who he was or what he did, the music Michael Jackson left behind is something that should be embraced above all else. I’m so glad to see people all over the world doing that already, as Jackson’s albums have flooded the charts for the first time in decades. To me, this is the most appropriate way to honor the legacy of one of the all-time greats in music. Don’t focus on his personal problems. Don’t ignore them, but take them in stride and, if you can, try to feel some empathy for this man who survived a brutal childhood of his own. Then, put on Off The Wall, start dancing and don’t stop ‘til you get enough.

Averting Disaster

The soundtrack to my formative, early high school years was grunge music, that murky, emotionally intense strain of hard rock from my very own Seattle, WA. However, the odd thing about listening to grunge around 2005 and 2006 was the realization that all this great music was already a decade old. Grunge clawed its way into the mainstream with terrifying speed, but it also vanished off the map just as quickly. Cobain’s death in 1994 was the beginning of the end, Soundgarden’s Down On The Upside in 1996 is what I count as the last true grunge album (sorry Pearl Jam) and the whole era was finally over in 2002 when Alice In Chains’ iconic singer, Layne Staley, was found dead in his home. For such a powerful genre of music, grunge’s death was pretty damn ugly.

So, imagine my flurry of conflicted emotions when I discovered that Alice In Chains were releasing a new album this year and premiered the album’s first single yesterday. The idea of any incarnation of AIC without Staley seems beyond ridiculous, since he was the band’s heart, soul and figurehead. The band’s choice for a new frontman, William DuVall, has proven himself to be a capable stand-in during AIC’s recent string of live appearances, but all he was ever asked to do for those shows was imitate Layne. Now, with this upcoming album, DuVall is being asked to creatively replace one of the most beloved frontmen in rock history. I’m more than a little cynical about his chances.

However, some of that cynicism has begun to sink away after hearing AIC’s new single, “A Looking In View”. While the song certainly has some problems, it’s infinitely better than anything I was expecting. Big, loud and heavy as hell, it certainly slides comfortably into the AIC oeuvre. DuVall’s voice merges very nicely with guitarist Jerry Cantrell’s, creating a sound very reminiscent of Layne’s work with the band. The crunching rhythm section of bassist Mike Inez and drummer Sean Kinney is as reliable as ever. In many ways, the song…dare I say it…sounds exactly like an Alice In Chains song should sound.

Of course, the song has absolutely no reason for being seven minutes long. It repeats itself to the point of insanity and doesn’t have much of a build to it at all. AIC released several long songs (six-plus minutes) on their albums and all of them have more ebb and flow than “A Looking In View”. However, I feel like these are small details to quibble over. The fact is that Alice In Chains have returned, somehow, in a form that isn’t a complete disgrace to their legacy and the memory of Layne Staley. Jerry Cantrell has proven that he can still write excellent hard rock and William DuVall’s presence on this new material hasn’t seemed blasphemous yet. I eagerly await their upcoming album, titled Black Gives Way To Blue, set for a September 29 release.