Randy Jackson's Music Club ~ Volume 1 (comp) (album review) ... Music need not apply!

Style: dance, pop, soul, rock, electronica
Label: Concord Records
Year: 2008
Home: California

Members: Randy Jackson ~ vocals/bass/rhythm guitar/hand claps
Sam Moore, Keb Mo', Jason Mraz, Angie Stone, Paula Abdul, Travis Tritt, Richie Sambora, Joss Stone, Bebe Winans, Ghostface Killah, Jon McLaughlin, Kim Burrell, Rance Allen, Lucy Woodward, John Rich, Barbi Esco, Katharine McPhee, Elliott Yamin, Anthony Hamilton, Kelli Love, Van Hunt, Trisha Covington, KeKe Wyatt, Kiley Dean ~ lead vocals Rashawn Capers, Cordell Capers, Jr., Melvin Harris III ~ lead vocals/n/a instruments
Mariah Carey, Hezekiah Walker's Love Fellowship Tabernacle Church Choir ~ b. vocals

Additional: Destiny, Mekia Cox, Chino, Kristin Chenoweth, Christina Undhoem, Erica Stubner, Sharlotte Gibson, Taylor Jackson, Mark Paulk, Shanna Crookes, Zoe Jackson, Tamara Jordan, Sherree Brown ~ b. vocals
J.R. Totem, Sauce, Josh Joergensen ~ keyboards/programming
Mike Ripoli, Michael Thompson, Basilio Fernando Ferreira ~ guitar
Lionel Cole, Tim Akers, Jamie Muhoberac, Pat Leonard, Michael Finnigan, Jim Cox, Kenneth Crouch, Martin M. Larsson, Lamont Neuble ~ keyboards
Mitch Hansen, Vinnie Colaiuta, Jeff Rothschild, Herman Jackson, Glendon Campbell, Abe Laboriel, Jr., Jamie Gamble, Lars H. Jensen, Tim McEwan ~ drums
Joanas Jeberg ~ keyboards/drums
Obi Klein ~ keyboards/programming/b. vocals
John Shanks ~ guitar/bass/keyboards
David Ryan Harris ~ guitar/vocals
Greg Leisz ~ dobro/pedal steel
Mike Johnson ~ pedal steel
Sara Watkins, Gabe Wicher ~ fiddle
Frederic Yonnet ~ harmonica
Paul Bushnell, Cornelius Mims ~ bass
Big Jim Wright ~ keyboards/vocal
Patrick Warren ~ chamberlin
Will E. Miller, Wendell Kelly ~ horns
Jay E. ~ programming
Holly Boynton, Kenny Edwards, Antonio Resendiz ~ hand claps

RJ has become famous for his nice but honest guy role on TV's American Idol, but his career is quite lengthy & prolific ... but as a bassist & producer much of it has been lost in anonymous sessions, unread linear notes & from the shadows of the stage. He's worked with Blue Oyster Cult, Jon Bon Jovi, Whitney Houston, Celine Dion, Clarence Gatemouth Brown, Dylan, a pre-Black Eyed Peas Fergie, Stryper, Herbie Hancock, Billy Joel, Richard Marx, Madonna, George Michael, Jean-Luc Ponty, 'N Sync, Tracy Chapman, Kenny G., Stevie Nicks, Imogean Heap, Roger Waters & even at the Grand Ole Opry with the Charlie Daniels Band & more. Additionally he's been a session musician for Journey, toured with Whitesnake & in bands with Garcia & Santana & in an all-star band assembled by Keith Richards that included Aretha Franklin. He was also on the bassist on the Divinyls hit "I touch Myself" & Springsteen's "Human Touch". He's also worked extensively as a musical director & touring bassist for Mariah Carey. RJ is a man who needs no introduction ... though before American Idol it was only within music circles that his name was known. He's one of the hundreds of top notch sessions guys making a living but languishing in relative obscurity ... & who you've probably heard more times than your favorite artist but didn't know it. He's also a guy, as American Idol has shown, that has an ear for diverse music & what's hip. RJ's Music Club Volume 1, so far the only volume, is RJ's first solo album. Though, it's not so much a solo album as a showcase of artists & songs he likes. Albums have been made of past artists that inspired a particular musician, supposedly chosen by the musician in question. They're weak collections of well-known songs cashing in a publishing catalog. Here RJ does something a little different. He takes a mix of obscure songs by both well-known & not writers & mixes them with a similar array of artists on vocal duties, taking production duties on the album & bass on four songs. The session musicians, though countless, also reappear regularly throughout the album giving it a general cohesiveness. The recognizable writers include Willie Dixon, Burt Bacharach, Michael Buble & Bon Jovi's Richie Sambora while the more established musicians manning the microphone include Paula Abdul, Joss Stone, Sam Moore of Sam & Dave, Keb Mo', Angie Stone, Jason Mraz, Travis Tritt, Bebe Winans & Mariah Carey amongst a top heavy collection of lesser known singers. The format consists of duets more than anything with a well-known artist paired with someone of lesser known. There's no guest instrumentalists, just vocal moments. The result is mixed. The album leans heavier in the romantic modern soul direction, though there's rock, rap & acoustic blues moments thrown in for good measure. RJ shows an ear for current styles & good control over producing & creating songs tailor made for the charts. The problem is the songs are too perfectly made. They scream commerciality over personality. There's lots of talent but little distinctiveness & absolutely no bite. Or, as is often said, it looks good on paper. The result feels like an extension of American Idol & RJ's desire to be an A&R man as he displays his wares to us. One of the more interesting things of the album is the return of Paula Abdul after two decades out of music. The result is a autotuned dance romp that isn't bad but has the distinctiveness of her later "Rush Rush" over the chart-topper "Opposites Attract". What's worse is that at three minutes it feels too short & undeveloped. Many of the songs suffer from this problem. One highlight is Joss Stone who takes to a horn section enhanced salsa dance version of Burt Bacharach's "Just Walk By" with a bit of acoustic guitar. It's soulful & if music goes this way in the future the future isn't going to sound so bad. The legendary Sam Moore is joined by Keb Mo' & Angie Stone in an interesting swing beat acoustic blues. Though, strangely Keb Mo' doesn't play guitar which is odd considering his great skills at the slide that hearken the blues kings of yore. A nameless guitarist is brought in to play slide instead. Considering the song is the Willie Dixon classic "Wang Dang Doodle" made famous by Howlin' Wolf it's surprising Keb Mo' doesn't get a solo spot as this is his forte. Though as a full on harmonica slide guitar wailing blues its almost out of place on the album & one can only hope that it'll lead listeners who aren't familiar to the blues to want to investigate & discover more. One can hope. In another missed moment is a rock ballad by Richie Sambora. As the lead guitarist of Bon Jovi having him sing alongside Travis Tritt & Lucy Woodward is an odd thing. He's not a distinctive singer, let alone not known as a singer at all. Though, he's not as bad as one would expect. Woodward puts the song over the top with some vocal variety as Tritt is okay but not at his best in a rock format. Mariah Carey also makes a guest spot in the album in a backing vocal spot with a church choir in a further odd moment. RJ may have a good ear & know good songs & what's popular on the chart, but he seems to miss how to best use his artists & give them something interesting to work with. He's missed out on the secret of what makes a song so great. It's too bad because I believe he can do better. Also includes a thirty minute DVD of the filming Paul Abdul's song for the album with RJ on bass & hosted by him. For those of us that grew up with her it's great seeing her perform again, even if the song is not a hit in the making & the heavily synthesized voice is sad. In a pure PR moment one will notice in the linear notes that the music is all keyboards & programming so watching Paula lip-synch to a full band including RJ even when there's no bass or guitar on the song leaves much to be desired. She also isn't interviewed though the director, dance director & guest Simon Cowell are. Though, you'll have to go on youtube for the finished product which is a bit disappointing after thirty minutes. But, it's worth it for no other reason than to watch the dancers. It's one of the best things about this album & its not even on the album.

Witchery ~ Don't Fear The Reaper (album review) ... But, fear the Reaper's sythe!

Style: black metal, death metal, thrash, heavy metal
Label: Century Media
Year: 2006
Home: Sweden

Members: Toxine ~ vocals
Patrik Jensen ~ rhythm guitar
Rille Rimfalt ~ guitars
Sharlee D'Angelo ~ bass
Martin Axenrot ~ drums

Additional: Hank Sherman, Marcus Sunesson ~ lead guitars

Usually, with a listen to a black metal album one can expect a thrash-inspired onslaught of blasting riffs at top volume with heavy distortion & what an older generation likes to call noise. Witchery has been no exception to the rule, but Don't Fear The Reaper breaks all expectations & alongside Symphony For The Devil remains a highlight of their small but respected 6 CD output. This is everything one wants on a black metal album but never gets, or at least not outside Black Sabbath & some Metallica. All the heavy riffs & blaring guitars are there but from start to finish the album is incredibly slow. It plods like Frankenstein's monster. It's actually astonishingly slow, particularly compared to the three albums that came before it. Some fans will surely decry the change in sound but everyone else, including folks not familiar with Witchery, will surely love this. It brings together the best of Witchery, which is evil melodies with unusually clean riffs & straight forward arrangements, but yet gives them a new twist. This might be their most user friendly album for the non-death metal fan. It's the album for those of us that tend to shy away from death metal due to its ear obliterating onslaught but still look for dark overtones & manic moments in our music. There are a few songs & moments when the double kick drum & the guitars hit high gear but on the whole, & it's immediately noticeable, the album is a march & the opposite of what every thrash-inspired band seems to want to achieve. But, one should remember that forefathers Black Sabbath created the mold with riffs exactly like this & some of Megadeth's greatest songs are slow. The darkest moments of heavy metal have not necessarily been the fastest, though everyone seems to forget that sometimes in this Yngwie dance for speed. For those that want the feel & the power without necessarily the craziness this is a must listen that will not disappoint on repeated listens. Bassist Sharlee D'Angelo can also be found in Arch Enemy & Mercyful Fate while drummer Martin Axenrot is from Opeth. This is the final album to feature vocalist Toxine, replaced by ex-Marduk Legion briefly & more recently known LaVeyan Satanist Emperor Magus Caligula of the extreme metal band Dark Funeral. Considering the guitarists are from defunct underground cult band Satanic Slaughter Witchery is nothing less than a mini-supergroup of black metal ... monsters.

Megadeth ~ Rust In Peace Live (DVD review) ... Rust in peace in hell!

Style: thrash, heavy metal
Label: Shout Factory!
Year: 2010
Home: Arizona

Concert location: Palladium, Hollywood, California
Year Recorded: 2010
Length: 90 minutes
Bonus Features: pre-show behind the scenes footage, non-album bonus tracks

Members: Dave Mustaine ~ vocals/guitar
Chris Broderick ~ guitar
David Ellefson ~ bass/b. vocals
Shawn Drover ~ drums

There's really no surprise in what type of show Megadeth put on ... only the thrashiest best. Frontman Dave Mustaine opens the show by coming on stage walking slowly, a nice clean cut shirt & looking no different than a kid brother, nothing particularly metal about him, & saying "You all know why we're here right?" The band then appears just as unassumingly as the music rips into the air with heavy abandon & an array of now certifiable classic thrash riffs. Some people say that modern bands feel they need flash & a floor show to get attention. Some bands have made a career out of it. But, unpretentious & unflashy is the name of the game with Megadeth, titans of heavy metal. The flashing lights are minimal & so is the stage theatrics, though there is one of the best stage sets Megadeth has ever had with a giant of Vic Rattlehead the skeleton looming over them. The music speaks for itself & doesn't need any help, pounding fists, leather pants or any of the typical metal clichés, which is almost ironic considering how influential & iconic Megadeth is to the metal community. & it doesn't need to be made commercially palatable as Capital Records once believed. In honor of the 25th anniversary of their classic album Rust In Peace the band, with two members remaining from the release, decided to perform the entire album live. The result is a sold out concert, as might be guessed, with the energy high & the music powerful & as great as when it was created. The follow-up Countdown To Extinction might be the album that brought many new fans to the band & gave them an arsenal of new classics with its stream-lined yet cutting edge sound that would change thrash forever, but is predecessor Rust In Peace got the gears rolling & put everything in place with its rush of technically & rhythmically challenging arrangements that successfully brought together everything that Megadeth had struggled to accomplish before. Countdown To Extinction is almost like the calm after the storm. The music is so powerful that Mustaine is already taking a solo before even singing a line. Who opens a song with a solo? Whose got such trust in what they are performing that you don't even need to warm-up the audience other than with a weak hello? Rust In Peace also served as the debut for guitar virtuoso Marty Friedman & drummer Nick Menza, who along with founding members bassist Dave Ellefson & Mustaine, are considered the classic & largely the best line-up. But, three guitarists later is Friedman's absent noticeable? Mustaine has mellowed & matured a lot since he left in 2000 & the band has gone through many changes. The angry young men that composed the songs are gone. Successors Al Pitrelli, Glen Drover & Chris Broderick don't have the glam rock quirkiness of Friedman & certainly all have different styles, but for the more mature band Broderick might be the best fit at this stage in their career & creativity. He's mature & strong as a musician, let alone physically as a person, providing a nice counterpoint to kid brother Mustaine, plus has a more growling tone versus Mustaine's speedy flights of finger stretching fancy high on the neck. It also helps that he's part of a band with a legacy not a band trying to create one. It's a gig he can have fun with. & so many guitarists have now gone through the ranks that some pressure is off. Megadeth have nothing to prove at this point in time. Only those super critical will pick apart Broderick's choice of notes in the solos or be disappointed by how he isn't Friedman. There's even a chance that new fans might even prefer this line-up of Megadeth over the original, while finding the angry young band of 25 years earlier a strange sight. The other criticism regularly hurled against Megadeth has always been Mustaine's singing, or lack of it. Here he's raw & not so well-oiled as the studio, but his voice is distinctive & with anyone else Megadeth would not be Megadeth. The concert includes some additional tracks outside of Rust In Peace of which no Megadeth concert can ignore. As always the band goes through them with abandon as they've been seen to do on many other videos. Bonus material include pre-show video footage & conversations with fans standing outside waiting in line plus footage of the band inside at the same time. It's the standard array of bonus footage, seen on countless DVDs, & a single viewing situation. Enjoyable parts include a ponytailed Mustaine, looking more his age than the kid brother he is like on stage with his floppy bangs, ordering food & grinning it up during a photo shoot. A classy moment is when he asks for the techies to take a moment so he can meet & thank all of them personally. How many musicians do this? There's also a warm-up by the band in the dressing room with amps blaring showing how tightly they are in sync. 

Fasha ~ Fasha (aka debut) (album review) ... In chains with Alice!

Style: hard rock, alt rock
Label: self-released
Year: 2011
Home: Orlando, Florida

Members: Pipes ~ vocals
Potts ~ guitar
Marc ~ drums
Moon Milliken ~ bass

The first thing one notices about Fasha, if one has chosen the traditional route of physical CD over abstract mp3, is the blurred red & white decorated folded packaging wrapping up a CD held together by a traditional wax seal. Big bands spend lots of money & hire countless art design agencies to create elaborate box sets & expensive photo sessions, but yet a little unknown band just starting out finds a seal in an arts supply store & it's truly one of the neatest things I've ever received from a band & immediately moved them to the top of the stack to review. But, one shouldn't just judge a band only on their packaging ... though the hip hop world may want everyone to think differently. This is a good solid band with an enjoyable sound that inhabits that elusive space between alt rock & hard rock, think Alice In Chains or the more obscure Tiamat, doing a balancing act between distorted rock rhythms & more ballad moments recalling the composing of Layne Stanley. If you like Alice In Chains Fasha is their protégé via chorused vocals of moodily sung notes & bass & vocal breaks. But ... the sad thing is that their heavily distorted guitars & thumpy bass moments aren't particularly unique. As I said, if you like one band you'll like the other band, but one doesn't always want a band that sounds so much like someone else. Imitative wave riders are nice but one wants more from a band that shows a bit of creativity. A cursory listen belays that they've spent time crafting their songs because the arrangements are tight & there's noticeable variety & the packaging belays creativity. But, I stumble with them as there's nothing for the ears to grab a hold of that lifts them up beyond their heavy Alice In Chains influence. While they do have a feeling all their own ... every band has a feeling all their own. As I said, this isn't inherently bad ... some of my favorite albums I don't review cause however enjoyable they are they don't stand out enough & are just wave riders. But, Fasha has shown some creativity with their packaging & though it might be a minor item it shows they care on some level about standing out in the crowd & for that I want to support them. For their defense, I should be mentioned that Fasha is a new band & this is their debut. It's just going to take a bit longer before they inhabit a space truly their own.

Ox Cohen ~ Sky Nine (album review) ... Mania taking you to the skies!

Style: instrumental, experimental
Label: Bangus Kahn Music
Year: 2005
Home: n/a

Members: Ben "Ox Cohen" DeGraff ~ all instruments

OC writes in his press release that he's looking to create instrumental music for healing or a future soundtrack ... which translates to wanting to create something out of the ordinary, perhaps mind soothing or expanding & pulling together different moods & styles of playing. It's not going to be your typical rock release the small print implies. OC is working towards his abstract goal with dueling Satriani-esque long guitar lines (for example, "Rock") crashing into each other like a Lou Reed solo (for example, "Sector 9", "Sade"), held somewhat in place with a steady bassline while prominent swooshing keyboards mold the crashing musical waves. Sky Nine, his debut though his website features many additional songs to explore, often feels wandering & unpredictable ... which is actually a key element in healing music where the mind is free to relax & itself freely wander. The only problem with the music, on the whole, is the looped electronic drums that give the tracks with a strong & upfront looped bass or keyboard foundation a bubbling new age influenced dance feeling (i.e. "A Elevator", "Flight (Of The Bugs)", "Wait A"), while others it drags down into a territory that's reminiscent of the "Miami Vice Theme" but with Satriani reinterpreting the melody line (i.e. "Sector 9", "Rock", "Sade", "Triapod Manic"), yet others have a less guitar-rock soft soundtrack quality (i.e. "Trees", "Two") but still struggled against the looped beats. Generally, the guitar lines feel like they want to soar like a jam band or be free to wander like an Indian drone to seemingly go on forever but the looped beat is not equipped with any variety, counterpoint nor is ever particularly interesting. Ethnic drums, or a synthetic equivalent, would be an interesting component to investigate in future recordings ... or, my recommendation as a music critic & fellow musician, just drop the drums on some of the songs completely (i.e. "Rock", "Sector 9", "Sade", "Trees") & just find out what the sound is like when there's no beat tying it down, or when the beat is just felt not heard. I think the result would truly be that healing music so desire. OC is a guitarist & novice cello player trained in classical & jazz styles. He says he's inspired by paintings. I once knew a dancer who tried to dance the positions he'd see in paintings ... playing the music of the canvas is possible but also esoteric, abstract & challenging for the artist & the audience alike to create & digest. But, then, Kadinsky always said the colors in his paintings corresponded to notes so it's not impossible. OC gets points for painting a lot of different types of paintings, from Dali to Vermeer. "A Elevator" & "Coffee Time" are both highlights to check out for their interesting, varied & less chaotic arrangements. "A Elevator" is a dance flavored mix while "Coffee Time" pulls together the chords of an acoustic sounding piano against the gliding notes of an electric keyboard. The drum beat doesn't hurt it any, though the choice in a fast rock beat does add an interesting counter element that might not be a first choice for this slow ballad. "Triapod Manic" might be the best traditional rock feel song where even the drums work due to the strong bassline as guitars & piano cascades in high pitched screams & waves. But, the real standout is the duel acoustic guitar piece "Two" with minor keyboard touches & a simple drum beat, like might be tried on other songs, that's the surprise stand out track that really shows OC's creativity, let alone his guitar skills unencumbered by effects & long notes. 

Lana Lane ~ El Dorado Hotel (album review) ... With candy on the pillow!

Stye: progressive
Label: Think Tank Media
Year: 2012
Home: California

Members: Lana Lane ~ vocals
Erik Norlander ~ keyboards/guitars/bass/programming

Guests: John Payne ~ b. vocals/mandolin
Guthrie Govan, Bruce Bouillet, Freddy DeMarco, Neil Citron ~ guitars
Mark McCrite ~ guitars/bass/mandola/programming/hand claps/b. vocals
Don Schiff ~ stick bass/hand claps
Mark Matthews ~ bass
Jay Schellen ~ drums

In high school my musical tastes made me a total retro geek. Besides the Top 40 bands on the grunge dominated scene I tended to find comfort within a couple genres: classic jazz, blues & 70's prog, all of them feeding into each other as the prog rockers wanted to be jazzbos & the blues-rooted jazzbos inspired the prog rockers. I went nuts over the multiple layers of Yes, decrying Pink Floyd who weren't doing enough. I eventually moved away from the prog-rock genre as I felt the movement to be dead with the dawn of the 80's & in the 90's whatever scene did exist was too far underground for my reach & what was above ground I'd felt I'd exhausted or was just not interested in. Unbeknownst to me the scene was still alive & much larger than expected, but so many of the older bands were out of print &/or somewhat obscure, while contemporaries such as Radiohead, Dream Theater, Asia & Marillion were too far from what I defined as prog proper. I've since come to have an appreciation for these groups & how they were keeping a movement alive by molding it to new musical trends & influences. But, at heart I've remained a child of the 70's template: the wandering staircase guitar solos, elaborate keyboard hurricane interludes, multi-part songs, odd dynamic rhythms, symphonic wind tunnels & esoteric mysterious lyrics. Though, as all prog fans know, sometimes this could all get disastrously carried away into the land of uninspired directionless rambling. In the last decade not just have there been discoveries & reissues of long lost forgotten bands but current musicians have worked on bringing back what made the 70's scene so exciting & stripping away that which came later making it stale & pretentious & over-commercialized. Vocalist LL is one of the keepers of the traditional flame bringing prog-rock into a new century pulling together all that has come before while still tapping into all that modern musical trends & technology can offer to heighten the experience. There's quite a handful of folks out there keeping prog alive, particularly in the metal world that has largely adopted the form as its own, but most are instrumentalists with few nameable solo vocalists outside of Yes's Jon Anderson. LL is thus largely playing her own game, particularly as a woman vocalist, & she's playing with bursts of fire tamed & controlled with mesmerizing creativity. Her name may not be familiar to many readers but LL is no new face on the block. She's been on the scene for at least 15 years, 10 studio albums & toured extensively with the Rocket Scientists & The Galactic Collective. After a five year gap since her last solo album LL returns with the unassumingly titled El Dorado Hotel. As always, she's accompanied by keyboardist/songwriter & husband Erik Norlander, the king of prog-rock piano if Jordan Rudess ever decides to vacate his popularly chosen title. Filling in the holes is an array of friends including the entire line-up of Norlander's other gig Asia Featuring John Payne including former guitarist Guthrie Goven, plus Mark Matthews & Freddy DeMarco from Norlander's Galactive Collective which also includes LL, while Mark McCrite, Neil Citron & Don Schiff go back to LL's 1995 debut. In this tapestry called El Dorado Hotel don't look for allusions to Hotel California ... except that both are welcoming the listener to another world, though in the Eagles case it was a single hotel while for LL it's a world in ten epics. In LL's world are thick crunchy chords of guitars & keyboards that might today be called prog-metal but once upon a time could be heard with abandon in Yes ... lacing together a musical tour-de-force that doesn't fall into the trap of overly technical solos that drag down the energy & focus ... while Norlander makes the keyboard sound like everything but a keyboard & sometimes his illusion makes one question if he's actually keeping a full orchestra in his studio that he's forgotten to give linear note credit to ... highlighted by comforting vocals that go from a whisper to the cries of Athena giving courage as a battle of feelings, emotions & passing moments is waged ... with gothic shadows haunting the turns of the soldiers. LL doesn't necessarily have the most immediately recognizable voice. It's not crooked like Greg Lake nor does it dominate or try to cut through the music like Jon Anderson, but instead glides over & through the music riding it like waves ... accentuating it. Part of the hidden magic of El Dorado Hotel is how it's a journey of interlaced ideas & images ... the droplets of one song spawning the ocean of the next. The El Dorado Hotel is not a particular place but mystical metaphor for the past, present & future. The addictive rock opener "A Dream Full Of Fire", that will have one hitting repeat to hear it again & again forgetting that it's not the only song to be heard, sets the journey in motion with: "A hot summer rain washes away/all the tears of yesterday/& when it is done/the afterglow/you'll finally know/which way to go". Knowing which way to go after moving away from yesterday's pain - this is a journey of beginnings. As the traveler takes to the road maybe we'll meet again after years gone by (i.e "Maybe We'll Meet Again") in our current travels (i.e. "El Dorado"). But, don't assume it's a movement from place to place as it could just as likely be from hopes & dreams to differing hopes & dreams, for cannot the traveler "hear El Dorado calling you/like a dream out of the blue" (from "El Dorado"), as it's hopes & dreams that makes things possible in the end (i.e. "Darkness Falls"). Yet, within this there's also to be found fear, sorrow & loneliness (i.e. "Darkness Falls", "Hotels"). But, only at the lowest point can the traveler finally truly move forward as "we've got a new life/& we're leavin' today" (from "Believe") bringing celebration at the closing of the day(i.e "Life Of The Party"). Yet, don't be surprised as what happens after a party is a new day laced with fading memories of the night before (i.e. "Gone Are The Days") & uninvited ghosts that call out the traveler's name (i.e "Moon God"). Suddenly the traveler has gone from moving forward to being stuck in the past ... its this return to the beginning, to the "tears of yesterday" & "afterglow", with which comes the revelation that there is "a place in the sun at the end of the world/you think about he days & nights that brought you to this place". Everything comes back to the start because "you can be anyone cause you are free" ("Exile"). So, however far one travels the secret in the end is not where we've gone or where we're going but where we want to go. The ebb & flow of the songs on El Dorado Hotel is nearly magical. It's the long lost art of programming & not the modern artless world of singles. Some, maybe even LL & Norlander, might say that this is no concept album & there's no story. But, if laying songs together in a particular order can make something appear that isn't intended to be there ... that's called musical magic, & maybe then there really isn't a story after all, it's just a dream ... just another lonely hotel. There's repetition in the ideas of the songs but not in the music itself & one will be dragged away into a cornucopia of musical ideas that somehow remain uncluttered, but yet they also require more than a casual listen to get the full power of the instrumentation & arrangements. Heavy metal breaks with flights of Yanni-esque ambiance sit aside each other comfortably & there should be no surprise if a gypsy melody comes floating along (i.e. "A Dream Full Of Fire") or a Spanish guitar (i.e. "El Dorado"), while even synthesized vocals don't sound out of place (i.e. "Believe") though they are a bit discerning. The art of lengthy songs, or those over 8 minutes, even by such stalwarts as Yes, has always been a tricky game as many languish just as they attempt to get off the ground. LL & company soar instantly at take-off. Some prog albums are solo after solo or jerkily cut from one section to another but these songs are finely crafted with graceful transitions where the transition vanish into the mix versus interrupting it. There's nothing worse than a prog-rock epic that sounds like it was numerous songs stuck together. These songs flow so much together that under a distracted listen one might think it's all one grand symphonic piece. Which, honestly, might be the biggest problem with the release. Prog rock has never been meant for casual listening. This is a crafted album. But, do people have the attention span any more to give it anything but a one ear listen? Will anyone be able to hear the music as it moves from the eye of the storm to the winds themselves to safety far away? Will anyone care that LL & Norlander are a rare breed of craftsman in a modern age when electronics make even the craftsman lazy? Will anyone hear this as more than just a collection of genre-expanding songs? Check them out & come to your own decision ... it's such a lovely place, a lovely face ...

Asia Featuring John Payne ~ Military Man (EP) (album review) ... An amazing tribute to the soldiers!

Style: prog-rock
Label: self-released
Year: 2009
Home: California

Members: John Payne ~ vocals/bass
Eirk Norlander ~ keyboards
Guthrie Govan ~ guitars
Jay Schellen ~ drums

Most would probably consider this three track & two radio edits release a single with the obligatory B-sides, which I don't review on this blog, but given the history of AFJP & the lack of ensuing recordings Military Man has come to be an EP in disguise ... being both the introduction & only studio recording of more than just new music but also a new era to the band, if not on some level a new band. In the early 80's supergroup Asia hit the scene with prog-rock stalwarts Geoff Downes, John Wetton, Steve Howe & Carl Palmer. They hit MTV hard with a somewhat prog-ish but heavy commercialized sound, but by their third album had lost the media buzz & even some members. Keyboardist Downes kept the music alive into the next decade with a new line-up, including ex-A-Ha drummer Michael Sturgis & ex-Alice Cooper guitarist Al Pitrelli, who'd go on to Megadeth & Trans-Siberian Orchestra, & brief guest appearances by Howe & Palmer. But, the most important change to this mix was bassist/singer & new frontman John Payne, who also picked up the writing partnership gap left by the departure of Wetton. In an ironic repeat of history the band would find some modest success & some criticism, while everyone would end up leaving, with Payne being the last man standing this time around. The original Asia line-up would regroup, having now produced three albums, but for his efforts Payne would be granted the right to continue now billed as AFJP. Sadly, both group would call themselves the true Asia with fans equally divided. Though, really, they're two completely different bands ... actually three as the reunion is far different now thirty years later. After Downes departure Payne would come to find perhaps the strongest musical foil/partner in his career in keyboardist Erik Norlander. In modern prog-piano circles Dream Theater's Jordan Rudess is often seen as the king of the keys, but due to constant experimentalism & creativity, large output & understanding of when to throw out flourishes & when to hold back Norlander is surely next in line for the thrown if not the real heir, for me anyways, ... but Rudess has the commercial break-through that has eluded Norlander. To inaugurate the permission to continue as Asia, Payne with Norlander, guitarist Guthrie Govan & drummer Jay Schellen, released Military Man with two re-recorded Asia songs while Norlander contributed a re-recorded track from his solo output. Two radio edits were included of the Asia songs, but are completely unnecessary except to fill in space. Two lives tracks would have been a better inclusion, though honestly new music from the quartet would be most welcome. Being that "Military Man" is one of the later era, or the Payne era as it is often referred, Asia songs that was one of their few later day hits this little release comes off as feeling like a single for it. But, the fact that AFJP has yet to release any further studio recordings, live albums are many, though they've been steadily writing, touring & recording, retrospect turns this into an EP. Plus, given the changes to the band its also hard to want to dismiss this as just an EP, but see it as an important point in their timeline. "Military Man" was first heard on the second Payne era Asia album Aria with Pitrelli, Sturgis & Downes, an album that might really live up to its reputation as the best of the Payne era. The changes in the re-recording are subtle yet influential. Pitrelli, taking over from Howe, brought to the band a more hard rock sound that has been retained, while the light touch of Downes has been replaced by the heavier & more varied playing of Norlander. Downes had a sound that sometimes wants to slip into the background, while Norlander carves up an array of layers & nuances missing from the original & steps right into his new spotlight without hesitance. Payne's voice has also slightly changed over the years & has actually become more nuanced, or at least he now sings in a far less restrained manner using his voice to mold the words not just sing them. The ballad "Long Way From Home" appeared on the album Silent Nation that was Downes' swan song & also included Guthrie on guitar & AC/DC drummer Chris Slade. The re-recording of this piece finds a similar outcome with more nuances & inflection than the original, more highs & lows, both in vocals & instrumentation. It's almost as if playing the songs for so long Payne has finally taken them as his own, even if they were both co-written by Downes. The instrumental "Neurosaur" gives all the focus to Norlander & might be the best way of introducing the new guy to the audiences. A re-recording of a track from his debut solo album the new "Neurosaur" is much lighter in feeling. Though technically not an Asia song it fits well into the mix. Asia's comeback Aqua featured some Howe instrumental songs so this is no strange inclusion on that level. "Military Man" might be one of the best songs Payne ever wrote & remains a fan favorite with its patriotic theme & thus its no surprise to be chosen for a new release. Payne & Norlander even reworked acoustically it in 2010 for an online video. So often when a band re-records old songs the result is questionable, if not weaker, & land unceremoniously & immediately on the critic's chopping block. Payne has been no stranger to this after being forced to re-record the early Asia MTV hits for the Anthology release. But, here the result might just be far stronger & less maudlin sounding & without the commercial sheen that the 90's gave to the original release. Further, prog has made a firm comeback so one doesn't have to hide the legacy that Asia stems from & Payne can let his inspiration wander. Many folks will be happy to have the original of these tracks via Aria & Silent Nation, but if for no other reason its worth it to check out this EP just to discover Norlander's genius & hear how much stronger a singer Payne has become. & it's the best that's going to come until AFJP releases its next studio album.

Dethcentrik ~ Why The Innocent Die Young (EP) (album review) ... The demise of mankind in song!

Style: black metal, instrumental, experimental, industrial
Label: Dod Incarnate Records
Year: 2011
Home: Colorado

Members: Gunner Harkey, Stefan Klein ~ all instruments

Additional: Lauren McDonald ~ vocals

Not every band I hear gets reviewed. Some I just don't like, some aren't that good, some are good but the music sounds like too many other bands & not individualistic enough. Some of my favorite bands have yet to be reviewed cause they're just not that out of the ordinary, even if they do rock hard. My goal with this blog has always been bands with a personality or something interesting about them. I openly confess to giving special status to submissions from independent bands, but I have declined to write about a few for the said reasons. I don't have any qualms writing a bad review, though I tend to want to endorse bands over hurting them & with that in mind will always try to put in a bad review something good to create some sort of balance. I don't want people listening to a band just to hear bad music. I want them to listen to hear something interesting & perhaps be inspired. But, sometimes its hard to say something good about an album cause it's disaster on four legs. It's easier to write about the ideas of what the music is trying to do or about, than the music itself. Public Image, Ltd. made a legacy with their release Second Edition that attempted to not be punk or rock, but was a wandering Can-esque sound effects romp. It was about pushing the boundaries to the limit, perhaps even including the boundary of listenability, so everyone that follows doesn't have to do it & can get back to playing good old music. The album has since been held up as a legacy maker & cock-eyed inspiration. In the metal world it's hard to pinpoint an album that has done the same thing & at this point in time it's too late for something to be created. The early Norwegian black metal scene might be close but the artistic element is missing. Perhaps its because headbangers like to bang their heads not tap their chins in contemplation, or maybe because they're beer drinking looking for a party not drug addicts gazing out from a fix grooving on the eternal immobility of the wallpaper. In terms of braving new directions industrial death metal band Dethcentik is interesting. In terms of listenability or musicality it's ghastly. It's aiming to be ghastly in terms of mood but its just ghastly across the board. Since discovering Sunn 0))) I've found myself interested in the world of black drone metal, that form of metal that focuses on directionless long droning notes over melody/harmony/rhythm & takes more interest in the organically created sounds within the sounds. Perhaps its my long time interest in Lou Reed & his experiments with droning that has led me here. As it is, my own music as Blank Faced Prophet is drone metal & has its own ghastly moments, I'll confess. Dethcentrik isn't exactly drone metal, but pretty close, verging somewhere between it & weak no-depth industrial. They employ largely instrumental songs with a focus on long drawn out notes, no melody/harmony or rhythm, some drumming, few layers between a keyboard or guitar & an often torturous degree of distorted guitars with lots of directionless repetitious riffing. The undiscernible growled vocals are just another musical element rather than a focus. "The Demise Of Mankind" features a keyboard playing long notes abruptly cut off by overly distorted guitars repeating & repeating giving Dethcentrik a hearkening to early Mayhem, including the low-fi production. The distortion is so heavy & melody so weak & repetitious that one's ears gets into the space around the riffs instead of the riffs themselves. The rest of the five tracks feature more keyboards than anything, droning away with no direction or focus or any sense of anything but pure sound for the sake of it. The result will be a strain to listen to for most ears. There is a world out there that likes this type of music, as there's a world out there that makes it. Though, this type of music is often made simply for the enjoyment of the musicians themselves rather than any reachable audience & it's truly art for art's sake. The elusive audience that is out there will surely gravitate to the dark moodiness of the keyboards. They'll also enjoy the creativity of "Columbine Justice Spree" that includes a vocal narrative of the event against keyboards & strummed guitars, which includes only a slight touch of distortion at first but quickly goes into straight double bass death metal. I always welcome those musicians trying to do new things & push the levels of sound, whether I like the result or not. As a writer & musician myself I've often been more inspired to go in odd directions than traditional approaches. Even though the outcome has been less listeners & no market I've been proud of the experiment & it's often led to something more welcomed by the masses. In that sense Dethcentrik has achieved something to be proud of. Dethcentrik makes all their releases available for free online. Also of note, the band has come under criticism for their heavy use of distortion & poor production. They've found themselves with a video banned by youtube & been placed on a religious community threat list in Colorado. For a little obscure band they must be doing something right. This has also been called by one reviewer as the worst release of 2011.

Allman Brothers Band ~ Mycology: An Anthology (hits comp) (album review) ... Where it all begins!

Style: country rock, blues rock
Label: Epic
Year: 1998
Home: Georgia

Members: Gregg Allman ~ keyboards/acoustic guitar/lead vocals
Dickey Betts ~ guitars/lead vocals
Jaimoe, Butch Trucks ~ drums
Warren haynes ~ guitars/b. vocals
Allen Woody ~ bass/b. vocals
Marc Quinones ~ percussion
Johnny Neel ~ keyboards/b. vocals
Duane Allman ~ lead guitar
Berry Oakley ~ bass

This is so unexpectantly good I ended up giving it away as a gift ... if that doesn't say something what more do I need to say? I picked this up purely out of curiosity & I'm glad I did. Most people probably won't turn to the 90's when it comes to checking out or revisiting the ABB catalog, if folks even realize they were still recording in the 90's. This littles ten track collection aims to change that by gathering highlights of their 90's output on Epic. & according to reviews of the albums it does indeed gather the highlights, though the selected songs are but the tip of the iceberg & there are many that could easily be included here. As the band didn't have a lot of major commercial hits in the 90's, as compared to their peak 70's days, this collection just lifts a couple tracks from each album to give a short & sweet taste that is meant to inspire further exploration of the individual albums. It doesn't pretend to be comprehensive, nor does it focus on one album to the detriment of another, a common problem with hits collections. Two tracks apiece are culled from their strong bluesy comeback "Seven Turns", the improvisational heavy yet reflective "Shades Of Two Worlds", & the reflective "Where It All Begins", plus single tracks from "An Evening With The ABB" & "An Evening With The ABB: Second Set". For those not familiar with later era ABB this collection will immediately get you yearning for an additional ten tracks, if not to go to the albums themselves. It also includes two bonus tracks in a live acoustic rendition of "Midnight Rider" from 1992 & "Every Hungry Woman" live from 1970 featuring the late Duane Allman, previously unreleased. They're welcomed but sound a bit out of place as both disrupt the flow & lack the clean studio sheen, but a greatest hits collection always needs something for the old fans to buy it. The songs here might not be familiar to the casual listener but if you like the ABB of yore there's no way you can go wrong with this as the feeling is still there along with their identifiable mix of blues, country & rock. In many ways this doesn't sound like a collection of 90's tunes but a remastered collection of 70's band. Slide guitar king Duane Allman might have died but the band kept on making great music that shouldn't be ignored because of his death. He might have been a strong part of the sound but he was actually just a part of the bigger picture at the end of the day. The blues number "Good Clean Fun" opens the album with the chorus "looking for some good clean fun". This could be a summation of the ABB experience via the later days. It's fun & the songwriter remains as strong as ever & these songs can easily be held up against their more famous hits. ABB churn out the blues as strong as any white boy band & will have you playing air guitar along with their endless cascading & intertwining solos. For those who only know the ABB from their 70's heyday & see them as forgotten has-beens it's doctors orders to check out this album & get up to date. They never stopped creating & there's no reason to stop listening. After hearing this it'll only be sad to discover that they would only do one more studio album in 2003, Hittin The Note, sans Dickey Betts, & it ended up being considered one of their best in two decades ... but time had already moved away from them & relegated them to the nostalgia backyard swamp heap.

The Kings Of Christmas ~ 365 Days A Year (album review) ... When Trans-Siberian Orchestra got a facelift!

Style: pop, soul, holiday, hard rock
Label: self-released
Year: 2011
Home: n/a

Members: Maxx Mann ~ vocals/keyboards/percussion
Tommy Farese, Tony Gaynor, Guy LeMonnier ~ vocals
Dave Silva ~ guitars/bass/b. vocals

Additional: Tommy Byrnes ~ guitars/keyboards
Paul Morris, Frank Gruden ~ keyboards
Wes Stout ~ guitar
Tommy Wynder ~ drums
Mark Woodyatt ~ violin

This is not the album I ever expected to be released by TKOC ... it's better! Being that five of the members are alumni of Trans-Siberian Orchestra (i.e. Maxx Mann, Tommy Farese, Guy LeMonnier, Tony Gaynor, and Paul Morris also of the reunited Rainbow), the band that essentially has broken & remade the template of hard rock Christmas music, I expected something that would be a shadow if not direct imitation. It would be blazing guitars & keyboard flourishes, lots of over-the-top vocals, in your face powerful music, probably a somber story & very much big stage rock but with a socially relevant heart warming attitude ... but this is actually quite the opposite. It might just be everything that TSO doesn't tend to be, given their current arena rock format - upbeat songs verging on slow dance music, unpretentious, fun, deep emotions side by side with light weight songs, a range of musical styles & most of all intimate & very personal. & there's not an instrumental nor modernized classical piece in sight. To even compare the two groups is a wasted effort because the differences are too polar. TKOC feels & sounds about as much TSO as the other legendary Christmas group Mannheim Steamroller. Except for the shared theme, the two are very distinct musical entities. I probably believed that this would be like TSO because I've fallen under the illusion, having heard too many uninteresting & imitatively boring Christmas albums, that there was nothing else that could be done with the Christmas theme that was interesting. TSO basically has the tightest hold on the theme, pushing it farther than anyone else, though even they felt some limits & repetition after three albums. TKOC has somehow found a new space to hibernate in for the winter. There's some electric guitars on a few songs but nothing to the hard rock scale of TSO & at times there's a bit of a heavy keyboard AM jazzy radio feel that's similar to Mannheim Steamroller, but there's no light jazz instrumentals here. TKOC creates a Christmas experience that mixes together addictively groovy 70's R&B/funk complete with backing vocals (i.e. "Sleighride", "How Do You Feel"), hard rock (i.e. "Christmas Wreath", "Soldier's Wall (The Wall)", "Time Of Year") & even AM radio 70's-esque soft rock (i.e. "The Empty Chair", "Pages Of My Life"), acoustic ballads (i.e. "How's Your Life"), danceable worldbeat (i.e. "Letter To Santa", "New York Christmas"), traditional crooning (i.e. "Christmas On Long Island"), a touch of operatic metal (i.e. "Christmas Passed") & even a children's song (i.e. "Henry The Horse"). It's such a surprisingly refreshing mix that on repeated listens it really does seem to live up to the band's PR that they're taking back Christmas. For those looking for a TSO hard rock experience this is not it. Even with the rock numbers it generally feels like a smooth & upbeat easy listening experience great for an intimate dinner party. TSO has often been criticized by fans for its forced emotions & lack of irony. It's former members must have been listening. TKOC also isn't over-reaching for grand social commentary but keeps it all very personal, as Long Island crooner Tommy Farese, a member of TSO from their debut & bandmate of guitarist Al Pitrelli since their earliest days, sings in the opener "Christmas On Long Island": "In my mind I go back to Long Island/Holding tight to those sweeter memories/When we were all we had". At the same time, one will find in the highlight "Sleighride", with theater singer Guy LeMonnier on lead vocals, that its chorus of "Take a little trip/On a sleighride/Give a little kiss/To the one you love" is anything but personal with its 70's soul pop inspired sound that provides a nice contrast lyrically. Probably the weakest spot of the album is the big concept lacing the songs together. There is a story that runs through the linear notes, in the fashion of TSO, but like TSO is completely unnecessary to enjoy the album as a whole. Each song is about a different emotion, represented as a different ornament: yearning, desperation, commitment, uncertainty, abandonment, fulfillment, confirmation, sorrow, courage, elation, loneliness & anticipation. They're rather abstract emotions that feel like they were added after the fact to make this more than just a collection of Christmas songs. But, in the downloading age when linear notes are optional or when folks might be playing this for friends over dinner where linear notes aren't going to be passed along with the potatoes, it does end up being a collection of Christmas songs, but it's a strong collection that doesn't need help or a sub-text. As it is, the retro feeling of many of the songs give them a sub-text of music history. Also, on first listen, there's some feeling that each singer has been assigned a particular style that they're to exclusively sing in, such as Maxx Mann as the rocker while Guy LeMonnier takes the operatic moments, & that the singers don't get an equal number of solo songs, as most of the album is just solo songs with the others in backing roles versus duet or group arrangements. "Christmas Wreath" & "Soldier's Song (The Wall)" are the only two songs featuring more than one singer in the lead. But, though each singer might be stuck in a style it's the style that they do best, & it keeps the album strong, even when some of the songs might be a bit slow lyrically. Nobody is trying to sing in a way they can't or sound forced. While the four singers are so diverse, from rough Italian crooning to wild man hollering to soft crooning to a bit of Broadway, it helps towards keeping the surprise level high as there's no predicting what might come next either lyrically, musically or vocally. But, surprises & not being able to predict was the theme of this project over 2011 as the band was formed & music created. Expectations, let alone curiosity, were high for this project. The surprise highlights might just be those songs that follow a classic sound such as the 60's R&B "Sleighride" & "How To You Feel" & the Neil Diamond-esque "The Empty Chair" & "How's Your Life". It'll be interesting to see where TKOC goes considering some of the members have left to pursue other projects ... such as Maxx Mann & members of the band are now in the hard rock group Seven with Seven (aka Alan Plotkin), former engineer on Public Enemy's Sounds Of A Black Planet ... leaving TKOC squarely the hands of Tommy Farese, Guy LeMonnier & Tony Gaynor for 2012. TKOC has its roots in the TSO tribute group 12/24, which at one point featured Maxx Mann fresh from TSO. Narrator Cornelius Goodwin of 12/24 even contributed some sax playing to TKOC but those tracks didn't make the final product. Maxx Mann left after a single season with the desire to create something that was Christmas themed but not TSO, something more intimate. Through a year of ups & downs & controversy he definitely did it & it's something Maxx & company can be proud of as they go their separate ways into new seasons with new emotions to write about. Sadly, their future ended too soon, as the band broke up & Maxx has since left this earth.

Vince Neil ~ Exposed (album review) ... As having a great guitarist by his side!

Style: hard rock
Label: Beyond Records
Year: 1993
Home: Los Angeles, California

Members: Vince Neil ~ vocals
Steve Stevens ~ guitars/bass
Vik Foxx ~ drums

Guitarist Steve Stevens of Billy Idol & Atomic Playground should be an immediately recognizable name in the legions of guitar slingers ... should is the key word. If Exposed was his debut solo album ... he would be, undoubtedly. Sadly, it's former Motley Crue frontman VN's first solo album & all the focus lands in the wrong place & the album ends up sinking when it should ride the waves & shine in the sun. It may have VN's name on it, but with Stevens on all but drums & layering powerful guitars over guitars, amazingly intricate riffs & rhythms that he composed & not VN, this is essentially a Steve Stevens solo album with VN as guest vocalist, as any simple listen will show. Anyone could have been the vocalist of the moment for this outing, as the vocals are almost lost in the mix & there's no non-clichéd 80's lyrical message worth hearing more than casually. It's no dig into VN's voice, as if one likes his sound & style there's no not liking this, but it's like vocals on a Satriani or Malmsteen album - that's not what you're there to hear. But, here, being a VN solo album you're supposed to be listening to the vocals & there's nothing there & the boat sinks. It also doesn't help matters that the songs themselves are basically all cliché 80's L.A. hair metal trying to imitate Motley Crue with hopeless abandon. The glimmers of something different are too few as Stevens doesn't strong enough material to work off of, though when he flies he challenges any guitarist out there. At the time people might have said check out the guitarist on VN's new album, but as time progressed it's the name on the cover that attracts new listeners ... or doesn't, while whispers of who else is on the album are lost to time. It doesn't help the fact that Billy Idol isn't a name that brings attention & Atomic Playground is another lost band. Upon its release it got some modest attention because of VN's reputation, obviously. In the long run few are are going to want to dig into his solo career so the gold in the mine, aka Steve Stevens, isn't getting found like it should be. The essential problem is one that plagues many solo albums - we all expected something better from VN other than an imitation of the band he'd just been dismissed from. We turn to an artist's solo career for a new offering, a different offering, to see a new side of their personality, a contrasting side of their personality. It's always interesting to hear how much musicians change when they go solo & in turn one gets a feeling of how much they contributed to their band. Exposed only exposes the fact that VN seems to have no other side to show. It takes the ears a few tracks into the album to get beyond VN & pick up on Stevens amazing guitar prowess & that's when the album flies home, though at the same time the disappointment sets in that the best VN has done is rely on someone else, which he did in Motley Crue via Nikki Sixx's songwriting. If VN's name wasn't on the project it could have risen so much farther & we'd have another great guitarist to add to the popular arsenal ... even given the fact that it hit the shelves during the 90's alt rock revolution. For a show of the greatness the tracks "The Edge", "Can't Change Me" & "Set Me Free" show off Stevens guitar playing to the max with intricate Spanish guitar openings that lead into some heavy shredding & rhythmic prowess out of the Satriani/Vai school. "Living Is A Luxury" goes a step further with a complete jazz solo. They are the true hits of the record & show just how weak a character VN is in his own project ... which is probably why they come in the middle of the album when many folks have already determined whether they like an album or not. There's a lot of hair metal bands that would love to produce a guitar album like this. But, then there's VN's foolish idea to end the album with an anti-climactic & unnecessary take of the Ramones' three chord "I Wanna Be Sedated" which knocks the air out of the album & is far below Stevens, almost like VN has to end the album on the note that we're supposed to be listening to him if we'd forgotten. This solo album, the first of three studio albums & a live album, followed VN's dismissal from Motley Crue following the tour for their masterpiece Dr. Feelgood. When the band's follow-up without VN failed to bring continued success VN rejoined & his solo career was essentially over. When he went to record a second solo album Stevens was absent & in his place electronica beats. It's not a bad follow-up, though incredibly different & his dreams of a magical solo career essentially dead. As for Stevens ... go look up his work with Billy Idol & his own project Atomic Playground cause this is a guitarist who needs to be rediscovered & not be another Motley Crue casualty.

King Kohn ~ Peace, Love, Death (album review) ... Who know what can happen today?

style: folk rock, black metal
Label: self-released
Year: 2011
Home: Austin, Texas

Members: King Kohn ~ vocals/acoustic guitar/violincello

Additional: Austin Girl's Choir ~ b. vocals
Doug Frazier ~ electric lead guitar
Michael Krieger ~ drums

Voice & acoustic guitar ... it's an old story ... but still has potential to sound refreshed. KK is an acoustic troubadour with a darker rockin' edge, a comical musical grin & a hippie attitude like Country Joe McDonald, whose bringing Woody Guthrie or Bob Dylan to the new century with a new attitude & a new set of problems to scribble & shout about. He's is a folk singer for the new age with heavily strummed rhythms on lone acoustic guitar ... his father's Yamaha guitar from 1966, no less ... & Lead Belly-esque booming vocals, storytelling lyrics & the occasional electric guitar leads plus some basic drums & backing vocals creeping out of the mix without fanfare. But, primarily its just voice & acoustic guitar. It's a simple well-tried formula. What KK explicitly brings to it new & different is his distinctive Screamin' Jay Hawkins-esque vocals & aggressive but not out of control rock energy. This is acoustic hippie music but yet stands in the gab between folk rock & traditional folk. Maybe a well-known comparison in feeling might be some of Ani DiFranco who brought the energy of one style to the sound of the other. It's got an aggression & drive & KK is certainly honed in the art of metal-esqie bold singing, an art unto itself & it would be interesting to hear him sing with a full band. Though, at times the heavy vibrato vocalizations verge on comical, leading one to think about the Cramps as a comparison. The loose vocals don't quite fit with some of the underlying darker lyrical moods ... though one might also throw up the comparison of some old horror movie monster like Dracula for a different definition of what dark means. On the other hand, KK is probably just letting his voice croon where ever it feels like going, as this is coffeehouse music that's off the cuff as coffee house music should be. KK is certainly aiming for uniqueness as his press release describes him as "acoustic death metal hippie folk rock ... imagine Elvis meets The Dead Kennedys with a twist of Death". It's a bit of a rambling description that might raise eyebrows in doubt as such descriptions usually do. Certainly, KK has a dark "death metal" edge to his lyrics, as belayed by the song titles "Who Knows What Could Happen Today", "Where Can I Go To Be Me", "Black Looking Glass", "Happy Death", "Lonely Dolls", "Save Me" & "Death", while the growl in his vocals make it all the more evident. Like Eddie Vedder's Ukulele Songs this is one of those albums you may not turn to immediately ... I mean, how many of us are that interested in solo ukulele, let alone acoustic hippie black metal, whatever that might mean? But, like Vedder's debut KK has also crafted out a debut that goes beyond expectations for an interesting ride. A particular highlight of the album is the little extra touches, such as the occasional electric guitar lines that are generally kept low in the mix & used sparsely & the haunting girls choir on "Save Me" that intone deeply the title periodically. KK recorded the album on two inch tape, a technique no longer used except in rare occasions, to bring back a classic clarity lost via computerized plug & play. Audiophiles will enjoy looking for the subtle nuances in that. This might be KK's debut but it's surely far from being a one-off recording as KK is also a prolific author & poet with numerous books available. He's even created a board game. KK is a work in progress. Peace, Love, Death is a solid stepping off point for his latest ... game of peace, love & death.

Garbage ~ Absolute Garbage (hits comp) (album review) ... The most ironically named album & band ever!

Style: pop rock, electronica
Label: A&E
Year: 2007
Home: Britain

Members: Shirley Manson ~ vocals
Steve Marker ~ guitars/samples
Duke Erikson ~ guitars/keyboards
Daniel Shulman, Mike Kashou ~ bass
Butch Vig ~ drums/loops/sound fx

Additional: Les Thimmig ~ clarinet
Todd Malcolm Michiles ~ record scratching

I remember the first time I saw Garbage on MTV ... after getting over the fact that their name didn't reflect their music but was an interesting PR ploy on some level ... I immediately loved their sonically charged pop with the sexy Shirley Manson on vocals crying out the catchy & seductive "Stupid Girl". Sadly, they ended up fading from MTV & I wondered what happened to them, outside of doing one of the best themes for a James Bond movie. I still get shivers listening to them many years later ... while with the greatest hits compilation Absolute Garbage I also get to not just relive the past but also update the story on where they went or didn't. Garbage hit the landscape with a very edgy pop sound that brought together sexy teasing vocals, occasionally given a bit of studio nudging, strong memorable rhythms & short bursts of electronica texture & were as moody & vibrant as anything around. Garbage is techno yet alt rock, goth yet commercial, heavy yet soft, noisy & awkward but with fluid arrangements & definitely unpredictable. Absolute Garbage shows the unpredictability that made their individual songs memorable but also ended up hurting their career. While their 1995 self-titled debut might be their commercial highlight, though third release Beautiful Garbage tends to get greater critical praise, Absolute Garbage shows a band going through changes that creates more than just a one-hit wonder that a short life on MTV might lead one to believe. Albeit, it also shows how far they moved musically from their roots & distanced themselves, deliberately or not, from the catchy music the public initially loved, eventually leading to their disbanding. Garbage fashioned a modern sounding 90's rock sound that drew heavily on Euro influences verses the then predominant grunge sound & pulled together numerous styles from trip hop to Sonic Youth to funk & even goth. They were essentially drawing on everything grunge wasn't. For those wanting an alternative to the angst ridden grunge it's hard not to enjoy Garbage, particularly Shirley Manson's silky voice, even if scratching under the surfaces shows little lyrical or emotional depth beyond its use on the dancefloor ... but it's a lot more exciting than a lot of other dancefloor focused bands, even those with emotional depth. It helps that they were led by alt-rock super-producer Butch Vig who was responsible for Nirana's Nevermind along with working with Sonic Youth, the Smashing Pumpkins & L7. Absolute Garbage wasn't released until the band had broken up, though they'd done a one-off reunion in 2010 & it features one new track (i.e. "Tell Me Where It Hurts") spawned from that moment. The album features alternative versions of some of the early tracks as it was discovered that the masters were lost so there is some incentive to get the album for those that already have the original studio albums, though only hardcore fans will probably be interested in a track-by-track comparisons. Hardcore fans will also enjoy a 2 CD deluxe edition that includes remixed versions of many of the songs, unnecessary for the casual fan or those not interested in techno'd techno, while a DVD/CD version is also available with music videos & a documentary. Unlike many greatest hits collections all the songs were chosen directly by the band, which means all the hits are here but there's also more tracks from the lesser successful later albums than many fans might not choose to put on a proper greatest hits album. The album is in chronological order allowing the flow & development of the band to become obvious but it also shows how they created their downfall by changing their music. It's almost sad to hear on some level. The studio created fabricated sound had its limits & after awhile can only be pushed so far until the dancefloor influence takes over to the detriment of the overall arrangements. Dance beats aren't sexy no matter how one dances to them. But, giving them a second chance the later songs are still sonically interesting, its just harder to get beyond the thick & alienating commercial sheen. This later era isn't garbage ... but Garbage definitely shows the limits of the musical form, unintentionally giving hope to those who wish to see a future that rises above the unemotional flatness of electronica. The band has since reunited again & plan to release an album in 2012. It'll be interesting to see where their sound now falls.

The Style Council ~ The Style Council Collection (hits comp) (album review) ... Music with style!

Style: pop rock, jazz, experimental
Label: Spectrum Music
Year: 1996
Home: England

Members: Paul Weller ~ vocals/guitar/bass/synthesizer/drum programming
Mick Talbot ~ keyboards/organ

Additional: Steve White, Nick Brown ~ drums
Tracie Young, Dee C. Lee, Lenny Henry ~ b. vocals
Hilary Seabrook, Billy Chapman, Barbara Snow, Stewart Prosser, David Defries, Mike Mower, Chris Lawrence, Patrick Grundy-White, Steve Dawson, Clark Kent ~ horns
Anne Stephenson, Charlie Buchanan, Jocelyn Pook, Audrey Riley ~ strings
Chris Bostock, Camelle Hinds, Kevin Miller ~ bass
Gary Wallis, Little Joo Ruocco ~ percussion
Helen Turner ~ piano

Guests: Ben Watt ~ guitar
Tracey Thorn ~ b. vocals

For those who'd rocked out to the songs of Paul Weller when he was with the Jam the 1983 debut of the SC was probably a surprise, maybe even at times hard to swallow as the band moved farther & farther from the Jam if not itself as it grew from a duo to a community. The fact that the new directions Weller took with keyboardist Mick Talbot largely fell him from his iconic heights before their 1990 break-up, to be rescued by a solo career, & that the Jam continues to be respected while the SC has largely faded into 80's new wave history says a lot about this decade of his career & the SC itself. But, in terms of showing different sides to an artist does the SC, intentionally or not, says a lot. The SC saw Weller move from often experimental 70's punk to commercially polished 80's pop more akin to Crowded House or Simply Red with lots of jazz, soul & R&B elements taking over. Though, these directions really shouldn't have been much of a surprise as the Jam had been introducing similar elements periodically, but they'd always kept a non-commercially friendly sound underneath it. The SC is everything but edgy. Today, the SC sounds dated with its heavy keyboard/synthesizer against drum machines sound, while Weller's soft singing & occasional falsetto cries bring up uncomfortable Erasure comparisons. But, the later use of backing vocals & R&B dynamics right out of the Stax catalog puts the SC ahead of their time. Released today the SC might actually find a whole new audience, let alone be an inspiration for the growing groups of wannabe DJ's who will find delight in the layered rhythms & classic textures that might only be found these days in David Byrne & Sting. But, where the SC becomes experimental they also suffer from over-indulgence, as too many musicians clutter the music & surprisingly take the intimacy & life out of it. The SC's best stuff is their first couple albums that are just a simple keyboard focused duo & not a duo plus lots of friends with lots of instruments & lots of ideas. The Style Council Collection is a good an introduction to the big picture from beginning to end. It includes almost equal bits from all the albums, sans their swan song Modernism: A New Decade which was rejected by the label in 1989 for its then ahead of time deep house sound & not issued until a 1998 box set, plus some obscure/B-side tracks making this not quite a greatest hits collection. The tracks are kept in chronological allowing one to gently hear the moving of the SC into new territories. It even gives the album an organically developed climactic nature as the songs move from simple to complicated. One can almost hear Wellers mind move through different styles & ideas. Also a bonus with turning to this collection versus the individual studio albums is that here the wanderings that drag down the music are gone & what remains is a good chunk of the cream of the crop, plus a little bit of everything to pick & choose from. Here one gets the simple keyboard heavy band of the earlier days alongside the full-blown big band productions of the later days. But, it also means that some will prefer whole chunks of the album over other chunks & for many fans that means the first part of the album. Ironically, the later SC, which is the most commercial sounding, is the more politically minded one lyrically, though today few will tune into the anti-Thatcher political leanings as the context has long come & gone. There are still a few odd wanderings that could be done away with as they upset the flow, such as the lost groove of the live B-side "Big Boss Groove", the overly international "The Paris Match" which features French cabaret with a French verse & particularly "A Stones Throw Away" features Weller singing with only a string quartet. All of these do, though, show how far Weller was interested & willing to experiment ... even if the later does sound like a less poetic take on Elvis Costello's recording with the Brodsky Quartet. Barring these few hurdles The Style Council Collection focuses in on what SC did best, which is soft late night ballads. The best songs are the first few on the album from their debut release (for example "Speak Like A Child", "You're The Best Thing") & in general include the simple arrangements that are often just an acoustic guitar with Weller singing softly over it ("Headstart For Happiness", "It Came To Pieces In My Hand", "Ghosts Of Dachau", "The Whole Point Of No Return" & "Down In The Seine"). These ballads make the SC worth the listen. The SC is music Weller could never make with the Jam, but these acoustic moments are the real contrast for fans & historians to ponder over. The Jam was music for clubs & teenagers. This is music for lovers & late nights.

Uncle Bob NYC ~ From 14th ... 10011 (album review) ... The wind, the rain, you & me!

Style: pop rock, folk rock
Label: Rockspeak
Year: 2012
Home: New York City

Members: Bob Strano ~ vocals/guitar
Billy Ficca ~ drums

Guests: Clem Burke ~ drums
Sami Yaffa ~ bass
Gary Lucas ~ guitar

From the singer-songwriter-guitarist who has found some buzz in England with his modest "Pictures Of Kate", a tribute to chanteuse Kate Moss, comes this album of homespun stories recalling the similar rock singer-songwriter mindset of Lou Reed, Paul Simon, Bruce Springsteen, Neil Diamond, Paul Weller, the Kinks' Ray Davies & even the New York Dolls. But, UBNYC is obviously no small town rocker crying just the blues, but a Big Apple boy who might occasionally be seen on stage strumming an acoustic guitar but underneath it has a youthful CBGB's era punk feeling in his soul & a bit of Beatnik bohemianism in the pop culture themed poetry. In his earlier EP with his group the 3tles, featuring guitarist Sam Andrew of Big Brother & The Holding Company & drummer Billy Ficca from Television, UBNYC paved a somewhat sparse sound of acoustic balladeer against a top notch rhythm section. From 14th ... 10011 brings things to a new exciting rock'n'roll level. The acoustic guitar remains but now is a backdrop to classic rock-esqe streaming guitar lines & electric rhythms reminiscent of the guitar team of Steve Hunter & Dick Wagner of Lou Reed & Alice Cooper fame ... though in this case its UBNYC taking both parts. On the whole, the album largely moves in between two feelings that might be best said to be, on one hand, the post-Stooges Iggy Pop, even in his vocal style at times (i.e. the single "She Don't Know Me", "Twenty Four Eight 24/8"), to the poetic ramblings against intricate upbeat backgrounds of Elvis Costello & The Attractions (i.e. "The Wind, The Rain, You & Me"). There's even a bit of Rolling Stones & some heavily distorted guitar lines that will probably please Sonic Youth fans. Then there's "Joe's Tune", written for UBNYC's father, that comes out of nowhere with an unexpectantly gritty early Springsteen bar band sound. Joining UBNYC in this new release is drummer Billy Ficca, whose been playing with UBNYC since the 90's, though Blondie drummer Clem Burke steps in for a song, so does bassist Sami Yaffa of Hanoi Rocks & the reunited New York Dolls & Gary Lucas from Captain Beefheart's Magic Band. From 14th ... 10011 is a classic rock feast in both sound & members. Though, UBNYC's work with the 3tles has already given away his classic influences as the name comes from a bootleg that nicknamed the remaining Beatles 'the Threetles' during the recording of their Anthology series. For those that know UBNYC only in context with the 3tles this long-awaited solo release is a welcome surprise & you'll do a double take seeing how wide UBNYC's range is that he's got tucked up his sleeve deceptively hidden behind the simple "Pictures Of Kate". Vocally UBNYC has a deep voice that recalls the bar bands of John Caffery or rough Springsteen. This was more obvious on his earlier release but now against the wall of electric guitar rhythms with the acoustic tucked away into the mix UBNYC has turned from the path of an East Village singer-songwriter into exciting rocker territory. Let alone, he now shows off his guitar prowess far more than ever & its an addictive listen that won't disappoint.