Coldplay featuring Rihanna is not a nightmare or worst case scenario, but it’s actually quite occurred in “Princess of China”, one of the 14 new songs of the fifth studio album by Coldplay, “Mylo Xyloto”. And don’t matter what, after all these years and efforts, Coldplay are still not U2. “Charlie Brown” for instance, taste like U2, but it isn’t. Chris Martin might never reach the charm of Bono, but his struggling and trying.
The previous album, “Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends”, in 2008, established a recording HQ at a disused bakery in Primrose Hill, North London, where they recorded, but Coldplay relocated to a vacant church, also in north London, to work on their new album in collaboration with Brian Eno. “Mylo Xyloto” seems to be a concept album. According to Chris Martin, the album is “based on a love story with a happy ending.”, in which the two protagonists: Mylo and Xyloto, are living in an oppressive, dystopian urban environment, meet one another through a gang called “The Lost Boys”, and fall in love. Lyrically, the album is inspired by “old school American graffiti” and “the White Rose Movement”, and Martin also said that the album was influenced by HBO TV series “The Wire.” Musically, Coldplay have stated that they want this album to be “more acoustic” and “more intimate” than its predecessor. And here we go, we’ve got “Mylo Xyloto”, set for official release on 24 October 2011. Read more Coldplay – Mylo Xyloto (2011)
post rock
Tom Waits – Bad As Me (2011)
It’s been seven years since “Real Gone” (2004) and ladies and gentlemen, Tom Waits are back and he’s brutally fresh. “Chicago” is a noisy opening track with garage rock pulse and horn-fueled cabaret rock after-taste and the whole album flows glowing and pumping, it’s like a radiography of Wait’s whole career and his best moments projected into the future. If “alternative” and “avant-garde” rock actually means something, then Tom Waits makes sense. Nowadays nothing means anything and nothing make sense, except commercials and music is nothing, but ultimately additional accessory to our iPods. And this is the world we use to say we’re against, but we’re accept it. Tom Waits said sometimes ago: “Apparently, the highest compliment our culture grants artists nowadays is to be in an ad ideally, naked and purring on the hood of a new car”, and he added: “I have adamantly and repeatedly refused this dubious honor.”
There’s no room for artificial intellectual bullshit, for faking alternatives. If you don’t actually feel it, better… “Get Lost”. 😀 Read more Tom Waits – Bad As Me (2011)
This Year’s Girl – Personal Ghosts (2011)
As much as I hate labels and boxes, genre classification, I had to admit that in a busy world with mainly superficial relations and all things done in the hurry, music became part of our outfit, mainly nothing but a background buzz coming from our iPod (or something) to cover up all the other noises around us and isolate us definitively from the rest of the world. Yeah, you’re gonna say I’m mean and probably you’re right, but still, I’m telling you facts. Music is only an additional part of your iPod and the iPod is just another fancy gadget incorporated in your daily dress code. Music is nothing more than your key ring, it’s one click away on the internet or you can buy it from the supermarket.
With all the internet (and press-kit I received) I didn’t managed to dig out too much about This Year’s Girl and if I’ll tell you this is some kind of pop-rock you’re probably will think of some sort of freak, half Madonna, half god knows what and that, my friends, it’s not quite true, actually it’s pretty far from reality. Eventually This Year’s Girl reminds me of the Americans OK Go and the British The Enemy or a mixture of this two bands and “Personal Ghosts” is an album with excellent vibe and a few extremely catch songs. Read more This Year’s Girl – Personal Ghosts (2011)
Trunks – On The Roof (2011)
“Hardfiscurry” is one of the most glowing and exciting record opener track I heard lately. It has an excellent and tensioned groove and something quite hypnotic which keeps you nailed for everything what’s coming up next. “Screaming Idiots” kicks out as a punk rock anthem, but the screaming saxophone reminds me of Morphine and shift the mood from Crass to Last Exit. Trunks is one of the best bands I had the pleasure to listen recently, they are alive and do not fit in into the trendy patterns. And each song is a different path into another universe.
As they say, they are not actually a band in the classic sense, but more a creative collective building music and gathering around the poetry of Jack Kerouac. Read more Trunks – On The Roof (2011)
Matt Stevens – Relic (2011)
I admit, I didn’t listen to Matt Stevens previous works and quite honestly, I’m kind of “scared” of instrumental rock music because generally speaking it’s quite predictable and boring. Obviously this is not a “politically (or ethically) correct” supposition, but still, don’t matter how sad it is, it’s still true. Well, Matt seems to be very determined to prove me otherwise and listen to “Relic”, his third and latest solo release, I had the surprise to discover that we think and feel in very similar ways about music even if we came from and we’re chosen to go down on different paths. And there’s another fact too: I hate guitar solos as well, because – again, generally speaking – they are nothing, but tasteless fill-ups and egocentric showing-ups. Last, but not at least, I defies genres. There’s nothing stupider than imprisoning yourself in some particular box. And Matt Stevens defies genres as well, his music is colorful, borderless and ageless, breathing and very alive, spacy and intense, subtle and powerful. The bottom line is that Matt delivering music and not only some “musical product” or some “background noise for a few moments of our life”. Matt plays straight from his heart to our soul. Matt’s play seems effortless and joyful, playful and still profound, very expressive. Much more, you can download even for free – “name your price” – “Relic” from Matt’s Bandcamp page, Read more Matt Stevens – Relic (2011)
Kerrang! Presents – Nirvana Nevermind Forever (2011)
Back in August SPIN Magazine released as free download their own version of Nirvana’s breakthrough album and “Newermind A Tribute Album” collected reinterpretations of those classic songs by artist such as Meat Puppets, Titus Andronicus, Amanda Palmer, The Vaselines, Butch Walker & The Black Widows, Surfer Blood, etc. It was a funny, but quite vivid, “hollywoodish” way to recall Cobain’s genius.
“Nevermind” turns 20 and in September Kerrang! listed 101 reasons why it still rocks and delivered a 14-track Nirvana covers CD, featuring bands such as The Dillinger Escape Plan, Kids In Glass Houses, The Blackout, Arcane Roots, Deaf Havana, Rise To Remain, We Are The Ocean, etc. Read more Kerrang! Presents – Nirvana Nevermind Forever (2011)
Jane’s Addiction – The Great Escape Artist (2011)
Nothing’s shocking: Perry Farrell at age 52 is not that restless, rebellious rock and roll singer anymore as he was almost three decades ago when his band, Psi Com. metamorphosed into Jane’s Addiction. Original bass player and former member Eric Avery rejoined the band in 2008, but departing again in 2010, so he was replaced by Chris Chaney, after initially they worked for nine months on the new album with Velvet Revolver and former Guns’N’Roses bass player Duff McKagan. McKagan joined enthusiast and seems to left disappointed. Dave Sitek of TV on the Radio was brought in to writing and recording the album and the result is kind of TV on the Radio featuring Porno for Pyros – Farrell’s post Jane’s Addiction band between ’92-’98… Unfortunately. But it might work quite alright as a soundtrack for a movie about an aging rock star or lonesome mid-age unemployee.
Farrell said: “It’s a strange mixture of that post-punk Goth darkness that Jane’s had, with what’s going on today with groups like Muse and Radiohead. As much as I want to appease fans and make old Jane’s fans love me, I just can’t help myself from moving forward.” And “The Great Escape Artist” actually sounds like a toothless Jane’s Addiction lost into a cinematic post-rock soundscape with few sparking reminiscences of tasteless, so-called alternative rock cliches collected. Kind of exactly what against Jane’s Addiction was about. Minimalist and gloomy, Farrell seems to delivered a possible self-portrait and the portrait of the confused man caught in the midlife crises and lost in the strange and desperate times we’re living nowadays. Read more Jane’s Addiction – The Great Escape Artist (2011)
Radiohead – TKOL RMX 1234567 (2011)
Radiohead gone to Ibizia? Surprisingly obsessive, minimal and gloomy, “The King of Limbs”, the eighth studio album by Radiohead now got a remix “brother”, the two-CD of “TKOL RMX 1234567″ which compiles a series of seven 12” vinyl singles/EPs, also released as digital downloads from the band’s website in both MP3 and WAV file types.
Dense and tense, “TKOL RMX 1234567” is not a friendlier version of some of the gloomy songs of “The King of Limbs” as some might expected, there are no dubstep, techno, house or euro-trance remixes, but quite gentle and full of consideration reassembles of the original tracks. I actually expected something more creative and less ambiental. Most of these 19 bands involved in this project seems to be quite intimidated by Radiohead and the appetite for experimentation with these songs seems to be reduced to simply apply their usual sonic tricks to the songs, eventually changing some rhythmic schemes and adding some additional sonic layers, but staying in the same weird and minimalist approach as the originals.
While I’m still not quite comfortable with “The King of Limbs”, this remix album only raise few more questions. Read more Radiohead – TKOL RMX 1234567 (2011)
Puscifer – Conditions Of My Parole (2011)
I wonder if Keenan and his bodies will ever again find the resources to put together another Tool album? When back in ’95 Keenan describes Puscifer as a series of musical ideas he did not have an opportunity to explore with Tool or A Perfect Circle, but “Telling Ghosts”, “Toma” and few other moments, for instance, might quite fit onto a Tool album. Although “Conditions Of My Parole”, is a quite colorful trip between Tool, A Perfect Circle, Puscifer and a few other influences from Radiohead to The Smashing Pumpkins, juggling between trip hop and industrial metal, defines genres, merging sounds and delivering – once again – something quite different and unique.
This time Keenan and his long list of contributors including Mat Mitchell, Tim Alexander, Jonny Polonski, Danny Lohner, Josh Eustis, Gil & Rani Sharone, Jeff Freidl, Matt McJunkins, Lustmord, Laura Milligan, Carina Round, Jackie Harris, Paul Greenberg, Micah Player, Juliette Commagere, Mike King, Ainjel Emme, Meats Meier, Evil Joe Baressi, Trey Gunn, Milla Jovovich, Lisa Germano, Tim Cadiente, Ford Englerth, Jeffrey Brooks, Micah, Eddie McClintock, Joe Nagy, Satan’s Muse, and more, delivered a quite dark and tensioned album. Read more Puscifer – Conditions Of My Parole (2011)
Nothing – The New Psychodalia (2011)
Born Jeffrey Lewis Hetrick, infamous for being the vocalist for the alternative/industrial metal band Mushroomhead, but also some other Cleveland-based metal bands such as Purgatory in the mid 80s and later Hatrix, Jeff Hatrix also known as Jeffrey Nothing, is one day away from the official release of his first solo album under the moniker Nothing through Suburban Noize Records. In 2008, Jeffrey announced he will release a solo album titled “The New Psychodahlia” and due to Mushroomheads hectic recording and touring schedule, the album was written over a four year period. The 13 tracks written, shows a quite diverse, colorful collection of songs from alternative to classic metal sounds and from rock to industrial, Nothing throw in his own blender of sounds and styles many different influences and approaches to bring to life his own little monster. “I feel it’s a sort of Sepultura meets Alice in Chains, meets Acid Bath” – said Jeffrey Nothing and with each song listened from the album other and other names are popping up. “Psychodalia” for instance sound like Down, “Burial” is a haunting track where post-grunge and goth rock influences collide while “Deathbed Masquerade” reveals some of their industrial roots. But “Mnemerator” might fits right in onto a Tom Waits or Primus album. And every and each song deliver another taste and surprise. Read more Nothing – The New Psychodalia (2011)
