Record Reviews
📝 2096 reviews| Artist | Title | Review |
|---|---|---|
| John Prine | Sweet Revenge | <p>Prine's third album is louder and more jaded than his first efforts, a set of rowdy country-rockers that tear along at a reckless speed. Sympathy takes a back seat to cynicism here, and while that strips the record of some depth, Prine's irreverence is consistently thrilling, making this one of his best. It's not as uniformly brilliant as the debut, but it did steer his music in a new direction -- where that record is often hallmarked for its rich sensitivity, Sweet Revenge established cynicism as Prine's dominant voice once and for all. Although he could still crank out a great ballad when he felt like it, from now on his records largely followed a more conventional rock & roll muse, a choice that eventually gained him more mainstream attention. "Please Don't Bury Me," "Christmas in Prison," "Blue Umbrella," and "A Good Time" are a few of the jewels on this one.</p><p>—<strong>Jim Smith</strong></p> |
| John Prine | Storm Windows | <p>Released in 1980 by Asylum, Storm Windows would be John Prine's last attempt to record on a major label. One reviewer referred to the album as Prine's "best-sounding record," but one could argue that the production removes a great deal of the singer/songwriter's rough charm. While earlier albums like Diamonds in the Rough (1972) had seemed almost non-produced, Bruised Orange (1978) found the perfect balance between gruff and professional. Storm Windows isn't a bad album, but the songs and "studio musician" production lack the bite of Bruised Orange. The five-minute title track digs deepest, with Prine offering lovely lines like "And down the beach the sandman sleeps/Time don't fly it bounds and leaps." One has to wonder, however, if lyrics like "The spirits were high, til' the well went dry" are autobiographical. Both "Storm Windows" and "Sleepy Eyed Boy" hint at disillusionment, as though an older Prine is looking back at his younger self. In this way, Storm Windows seems more confessional than early efforts like Sweet Revenge (1973). Other catchy pieces like "Shop Talk" and "Just Wanna Be With You" rock harder, but they're more or less throwaways. While Storm Windows captures Prine on autopilot, fans will enjoy listening to his reflections at this transitional stage.</p><p>—<strong>Ronnie D. Lankford, Jr.</strong></p> |
| Queens Of The Stone Age | Songs For The Deaf | <p>Self-proclaimed prehistoric royalty Queens of the Stone Age are back from the desert wastes of California, and they're putting the 'rock' back in 'blowing shit up' (in a healthy, non-terrorist kind of way). Now, it's no secret that, when it comes to rock's metal edge, these Queens want badly to be kings; you need look no further for proof than 2000's blistering, thuggish Rated R, on which frontman Josh Homme's searing guitars and theatrical vocals brought the band close enough to their goal to sniff the fleurs de lis. That, however, is history, and with Songs for the Deaf, the Queens have hit a new peak in their development: the sound is more massive, the chaos is more calculated, and with hired gun Dave Grohl at the kit, the band has an unprecedented drive that leaves them poised for their strongest bid for power yet. "You Think I Ain't Worth a Dollar, But I Feel Like a Millionaire" embodies the greatest strengths of rock at its hardest-- stunning riffs, breakneck speed, and guitars that churn and spit like a threshing machine. It's riddled with decades-old metal cliches, but the Queens know what their audience expects, and they use this knowledge to continually twist rock stereotypes into a vicious full-nelson until they beg for mercy. It's fantastic, and this is just the first track. "No One Knows" changes Songs for the Deaf's pace by sliding into an easy groove, sleazing its way across a dimly-lit bar, half-drunk and reeking of cheap cologne, to put the moves on your girlfriend (or, you know, you, depending). This is four-to-the-floor slime of the highest quality, folks, and it's the second installment in this album's triad of genius, completed subsequently by the next track, "First It Giveth". "Giveth" brings the drama like a champ, with Homme singing in pained falsetto over punishing riffs during the verses, and opening up into aggro-overdrive for the appropriately apocalyptic chorus. But along the path to greatness, there are pitfalls, and one Homme often falls into here is the old "chamber of lost souls" effect (made popular by Alice in Chains on some of their later albums), which he uses to fill out the backgrounds of some of these songs. The multitracked Hommes aaah'ing melodramatically in undead unison make slogging through "Hanging Tree" and "Go with the Flow" a pretty grim endeavor. It doesn't help that these songs churn along interminably long after their riffs have run dry, either. And worse still, the band has quit winking at their metal excesses entirely, toeing the line between mindless fun and xFC-metal gothery. Fortunately, this is only a temporary decline, but that these two tracks hit back-to-back in the dead center of the record makes for a much steeper dropoff than if they'd been sequenced farther apart. There's also the issue of the between-song skits. As skits go, these are pretty tame, but that doesn't make them any less obtrusive. The album even opens with one: the sign-on of KLON (that's "clone") radio, "the station that sounds more like everybody else than anybody else." It's a broad parody of the Clear Channel wavelength empire, and while admittedly pretty fucking funny, the target is a bit obvious-- especially given that PS2's "Grand Theft Auto III" beat them to the punch two years ago and pulled it off expertly. My biggest problem with these interruptions, though, is that they do little for the aggregate effect of the album-- after a couple playthroughs, they only serve to stifle the momentum QOTSA manage to develop. Yet, this same biting cleverness also pervades many of the songs, lending an air of spontaneity and plain good times-- there's a fake stop in one of the early tracks that's so ludicrous I laughed out loud. And there are even better moments to be had elsewhere: the wavering surf guitar on "Another Love Song", or the good old-fashioned brain-sickness of "Six Shooter" and "Mosquito Song," the latter played lovingly by what sounds like the orchestra of the damned. When these guys are on, it truly is the wrath of the righteous. However, Songs for the Deaf vacillates constantly between soaring heights and mind-numbing lows, making for a true hit-or-miss affair. But even if they can't have it all, the guys do offer as real a showcase of metal-tinged panache and stellar songwriting as anyone might hope for from a band labeled 'stoner-rock.' Besides, if the entire album was as strong as the first three tracks, it'd probably burn you alive. As it stands, Queens of the Stone Age settle for attempted murder. And that ain't bad at all.</p><p>— <strong>Eric Carr, Pitchfork</strong></p> |
| Greg Quill | The Outlaws Reply | |
| R.E.M. | Automatic For The People | |
| R.E.M. | Monster | |
| R.E.M. | Up | <p><i>New Adventures in Hi-Fi</i> functioned as the starting point for <i>Up</i>, R.E.M.'s first album without drummer Bill Berry and their first that truly repudiates the legacy of jangle pop. Up is dominated by keyboards, muted percussion, buried guitars, and moody melodies -- only "Daysleeper" finds the group in familiar sonic territory. What's striking about the album is that it doesn't sound like a dramatic departure; even without the ringing guitars, it sounds like R.E.M., albeit R.E.M. trying to be adventurous and hip. To a certain extent, that's a good thing, since it proves that the band has developed a signature sound more elastic than many would have predicted, and that they are skilled enough to successfully take risks with their sound. Above all else, <i>Up</i> is an accomplished and varied record, the work of smart record-makers. It is also the work of veteran musicians -- for the first time, R.E.M. sound like they're playing catch-up, trying to keep their hip status intact. Occasionally, they pull it all together, as on the ominous opener "Airportman" and the darkly seductive "Suspicion," but they stretch their capacities to the breaking point nearly as often, as on the Pet Sounds pastiche "At My Most Beautiful," which comes off as second-rate High Llamas. Most of <i>Up</i>, however, falls in between those two extremes, winding up as self-consciously moody, down-tempo songs that fail to make an impression because they either don't take enough chances or they fail to speak directly -- they are simply well-crafted tracks that are easy to admire, but hard to love. Ultimately, that is what distinguishes this new incarnation of R.E.M.</p>— <b>Stephen Thomas Erlewine</b> |
| R.E.M. | The Best Of R.E.M. - In Time 1988-2003 | <p>R.E.M. began their Warner contract in 1988 as the biggest band to emerge from the college-radio-fueled American underground. Fifteen years later, they released <i>In Time: The Best of R.E.M. 1988-2003</i>, the first overview of their long stint at Warner Records. During that decade and a half, R.E.M. had a turbulent journey. At the outset, their legend and influence as one of the key — if not the key — bands of the American underground was firmly in place, but their success kept growing, culminating in a breakthrough to international stardom in 1991 thanks to "Losing My Religion" and <i>Out of Time</i>. For a few years there, they were one of the biggest bands in the world, standing as role models and godfathers for the alt-rock explosion of the '90s; even as grunge ruled the U.S. and U.K., R.E.M. were having their biggest hits with the brooding <i>Automatic for the People</i> (1992) and the guitar-heavy return-to-rock <i>Monster</i> (1994). Then, midway through the decade, the road got a little bumpy. The <i>Monster</i> tour was plagued with problems, the most noteworthy being drummer Bill Berry's on-stage aneurysm in 1995. He left the band the next year, not long after the band parted ways with Jefferson Holt, their longtime manager who was immortalized in their 1984 song "Little America." Singer Michael Stipe, guitarist Peter Buck, and Mike Mills struggled to find their footing as a trio as they tackled more ambitious projects that found an ever more selective audience. Truth be told, this transition started on the final Berry album, 1996's <i>New Adventures in Hi-Fi</i>, which found R.E.M. expanding their sonic template to acclaim from critics and hardcore fans, even if they started to see the audience they won over the previous decade start to shrink.</p><p>All this means the Warner era for R.E.M. doesn't represent one particular phase of their career — during their time at Warner, they went through two phases, with the first half being the culmination of their rise and the second being their awkward return to cult status. This divide is clear and fairly easy to pinpoint. In his track-by-track liner notes (neatly mirroring his notes for the 1987 rarities comp <i>Dead Letter Office</i>), Buck claims that dividing line is pre- and post-"Losing My Religion," which is true at least as far as stardom goes, but it could be argued that the classic period ended with Automatic, since that follow-up to Out of Time showed that R.E.M. could not only live with the fame, but flourish within it. Everything that followed Automatic came from a different narrative and derived from a different starting point, one that was removed from the jangle pop that lay at the heart of their first ten years as recording artists. Related, yes, but quite different — more self-conscious, heavily produced, and deliberate, occasionally reaping great results but just as often sounding labored. It was a great contrast to early R.E.M., where the music seemed to flow naturally and easily. Though it has no early IRS material, In Time paints this contrast effectively, not only through the Green and Automatic material, but even through more recent material — the new song "Bad Day" and the 2001 revamp of "All the Right Friends" (contrary to Buck's claim in the liners that the band did cut this for IRS; it even appeared as a bonus track to a European reissue of <i>Dead Letter Office</i>). Both are built on a swirling, jangling folk-rock guitar line, propulsive rhythms, intertwined vocal harmonies, and urgent vocals from Stipe. In other words, they sound like classic R.E.M., and they should — they date from the '80s and bear co-writing credits with Berry. Unfortunately, they sound much fresher than the other new song, the overly fussy "Animal," which is the problem with In Time in a nutshell: the two phases of R.E.M.'s career don't sit well together, but here, they're given close to equal space. R.E.M. the quartet does get more time than R.E.M. the trio, and the latter did produce some really nice tracks, which are chronicled here: "The Great Beyond" is a minor masterpiece, "All the Way to Reno" is the best of their faux-lounge phase, and "Imitation of Life" and "Daysleeper" are good classicist R.E.M. Still, the immaculate production of Pat McCarthy's work with Buck, Mills, and Stipe has a denser, heavier, more laborious feel than Scott Litt's work with Berry, Buck, Mills, and Stipe, and the two not only don't fit together, the oddity of the pairing points out that there are a number of missing singles — a full 17, if international releases and radio-only hits are counted (and, given the nature of '90s rock, they do count). And these aren't minor songs, either; they're modern rock radio staples: "Pop Song 89," "Texarkana," "Drive," "Ignoreland," "Bang and Blame," "Strange Currencies," "Crush With Eyeliner," "Bittersweet Me," and "Shiny Happy People," the latter of which is roundly hated by the band yet nevertheless should be on a hits compilation for the sake of completeness. Of course, not all the songs could fit on a mere 18-track compilation — and if they went for a double-disc set, they'd be better off with a career-spanning set — but the song selection leaves something to be desired, even if it does present a reasonably accurate portrait of R.E.M. the adult alternative pop band, and it certainly does point out the inconsistencies of the band's Warner work. So, in that sense, In Time is an effective collection, but it also remains a little disappointing since it not only could have been done better, but by its very nature, this compilation can't help but point out the creative cul-de-sac R.E.M. found themselves in at the end of their Warner career. It's not the fate that anyone would have predicted in 1988.</p><p>[In Time was also released as a double-disc limited edition, encased in a see-through plastic slipcase and containing a poster of the trio, plus an extended booklet containing Buck's track-by-track notes for the 15-track collection of B-sides, compilation tracks, rarities, and oddities. Longtime fans should not see this as <i>Dead Letter Office</i>, Vol. 2. For one thing, by <i>Monster</i>, R.E.M. had run out of interesting non-LP rarities and started releasing an endless series of live versions as B-sides. Before that, a lot of the B-sides were instrumentals, not full-fledged songs. Those full-fledged songs were saved for various-artists compilation albums, and of those, there are two brilliant songs — "Fretless" and "It's a Free World Baby," two <i>Out of Time</i> outtakes that Buck admits should have been on the album. Apart from that, there's only one more real non-LP song of note here, and that's the New Adventures outtake "Revolution," which is of equal quality to the album. After these three songs, there are some good B-sides that nevertheless aren't much more than B-sides: the acoustic version of "Pop Song 89," the rushed spoken word lark "Chance (Dub)," William S. Burroughs singing "Star Me Kitten," a good alternate version of "Leave," and worthy live versions of "Turn You Inside-out" and "Country Feedback." Of course, it's hard not to notice that there are roughly 25 B-sides and compilation tracks that could have made the cut, and while none of them are consequential, longtime fans may wonder why such enjoyable instrumental throwaways like "Memphis Train Blues" were left behind, or why there's a seeming aversion to any of the good cover versions the band did during the '90s (including Syd Barrett's "Dark Globe," Suzanne Vega's "Tom's Diner," Iggy Pop's "Funtime," and Richard Thompson's "Wall of Death"). Cuts like these may be missed, but this bonus disc is still a worthy way to get most of the non-LP highlights R.E.M. released during the Warner years, particularly because "Fretless" and "It's a Free World Baby" are so good. Finally, initial pressings of In Time carried a misprint on their spines that billed the collection as the best of 1998-2003, which could be seen as a revealing Freudian slip, in a way.]</p><p>— <strong>Stephen Thomas Erlewine</strong></p><p>The main peril of writing about R.E.M. is that otherwise rational people tend to form torturously private relationships with this band. I am one of them. As with any long-term engagement, there's a back catalog of injury: some of us felt slighted by R.E.M.'s eager dash to the big leagues; some can't get over "Shiny Happy People"; still others considered the band officially defunct when Bill Berry quit (consider, for a moment, the integrity of a band that makes a drummer's departure seem catastrophic). But now comes the ultimate challenge: helplessly watching R.E.M. sink into the classic-rock Lethe.</p><p>The symptoms came on fast: "The One I Love" gets a round of Clear Channel airplay on the flashback circuit, and the next thing you know there's a greatest hits package out there whose chronology begins with the band's seventh record. They're old. We're old. The upside is that I'm less likely to receive any mail telling me SUCK IT YOU PIECE OF SHIT REM R0X0RZ.</p><p>Questionable though it may be for these paragons of rock rectitude to milk the vile "two new songs" format for their latter-day hits collection, *In Time, in its own safe way, logically picks up where * Eponymous left off. So discuss the lopsided sequence and the strange curatorial choices ("The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite" but no "Drive"?), but let's not forget that R.E.M.'s best tracks come pretty close to the pinnacle of what one can do with a riff, a verse and a chorus.</p><p>The obligatory Two New Songs included here are actually a song and a half: "Bad Day" spent about 15 years as a half-completed B-side famous for carrying the germ of "It's the End of the World As We Know It". The lyrics are new—angry and direct—but you can still scream "I feel fine" over the chorus, which has retained the original chord progression. "Animal", the other new track, is one of those vaguely Middle Eastern stomps that Buck's Rickenbacker occasionally throws up (see also: "I Could Turn You Inside Out", "You"), and has a great singalong hook, with Stipe gleefully yelping "What's the big deal?" as the harmony slides into a minor key. It would have been right at home on R.E.M.'s most substantive 90s offering, New Adventures in Hi-Fi.</p><p>As something of a commercial non-starter, Adventures is represented here by only two tracks: "E-Bow the Letter" and the cutie-pie "Electrolite" (whose space might have been more deserved by "Bittersweet Me"). Monster is, wisely, all but erased from the band's discography—only "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?" made the cut (although sadly not the live Letterman version with vocals by Dan Rather). Up, the band's first album as a trio, is correctly represented by the majestic waltz "Daysleeper" and "At My Most Beautiful", which marks the start of R.E.M.'s current Brian Wilson fixation. The inclusion of "All the Right Friends", off the Vanilla Sky soundtrack, severely stretches the definition of the word "hit," but the song (written in 1979) is baggage-free fun that deserves another shot. Of course, Automatic for the People is the clear winner here, at least by Warner's standards: this disc includes no less than four of its songs, which should make you feel pretty stupid if you a) own it, or b) don't.</p><p>The bonus disc on the album's pricier edition promises "rarities and B-sides," but don't get your hopes up; it's long on live performances of hits and short on the kind of drunken studio fuckery that made Dead Letter Office such a blast. The highlights here are a fantastic trip-hop version of "Leave" (less a remix than a rescue operation, really), and a spare demo of Reveal's "The Lifting" that shows the precise moment at which the producers should have stopped fiddling with the material. There is one very welcome Dead Letter Office-esque track, though: "Star Me Kitten" narrated by W.S. Burroughs in a series of depraved howls.</p><p>And there you have it: a great album that you probably already own piecemeal, impossible to pan but even harder to endorse. In Time will make a handy proselytizing tool for weaning your niece off Matchbox 20. To you, it's an unintentional reminder that R.E.M. are a classic and still-relevant band not because of, but in spite of, their commercial success.</p><p>— <strong>Michael Idov, Pitchfork</strong></p> |
| Radiohead | The Bends | |
| Radiohead | OK Computer | <p>Using the textured soundscapes of <i>The Bends</i> as a launching pad, Radiohead delivered another startlingly accomplished set of modern guitar rock with <i>OK Computer</i>. The anthemic guitar heroics present on Pablo Honey and even <i>The Bends</i> are nowhere to be heard here. Radiohead have stripped away many of the obvious elements of guitar rock, creating music that is subtle and textured yet still has the feeling of rock & roll. Even at its most adventurous -- such as the complex, multi-segmented "Paranoid Android" -- the band is tight, melodic, and muscular, and Thom Yorke's voice effortlessly shifts from a sweet falsetto to vicious snarls. It's a thoroughly astonishing demonstration of musical virtuosity and becomes even more impressive with repeated listens, which reveal subtleties like electronica rhythms, eerie keyboards, odd time signatures, and complex syncopations. Yet all of this would simply be showmanship if the songs weren't strong in themselves, and OK Computer is filled with moody masterpieces, from the shimmering "Subterranean Homesick Alien" and the sighing "Karma Police" to the gothic crawl of "Exit Music (For a Film)." <i>OK Computer</i> is the album that establishes Radiohead as one of the most inventive and rewarding guitar rock bands of the '90s.</p>— <b>Stephen Thomas Erlewine</b> |
| Rage Against The Machine | Rage Against The Machine | |
| Rage Against The Machine | Evil Empire | |
| Bonnie Raitt | Bonnie Raitt | |
| Bonnie Raitt | Give It Up | <p>Bonnie Raitt may have switched producers for her second album Give It Up, hiring Michael Cuscuna, but she hasn't switched her style, sticking with the thoroughly engaging blend of folk, blues, R&B, and Californian soft rock. If anything, she's strengthened her formula here, making the divisions between the genres nearly indistinguishable. Take the title track, for instance. It opens with a bluesy acoustic guitar before kicking into a New Orleans brass band about halfway through -- and the great thing about it is that Raitt makes the switch sound natural, even inevitable, never forced. And that's just the tip of the iceberg here, since Give It Up is filled with great songs, delivered in familiar, yet always surprising, ways by Raitt and her skilled band. For those that want to pigeonhole her as a white blues singer, she delivers the lovely "Nothing Seems to Matter," a gentle mid-tempo number that's as mellow as Linda Ronstadt and far more seductive. That's the key to Give It Up: Yes, Raitt can be earthy and sexy, but she balances it with an inviting sensuality that makes the record glow. It's all delivered in a fantastic set of originals and covers performed so naturally it's hard to tell them apart and roots music so thoroughly fused that it all sounds original, even when it's possible to spot the individual elements or influences. Raitt would go on to greater chart successes, but she not only had trouble topping this record, generations of singers, from Sheryl Crow to Shelby Lynne, have used this as a touchstone. One of the great Southern California records.</p><p>—<strong>Stephen Thomas Erlewine</strong></p> |
| Bonnie Raitt | Takin' My Time | |
| Bonnie Raitt | Nick Of Time | |
| Bonnie Raitt | Luck Of The Draw | |
| Bonnie Raitt | I Can't Make You Love Me (ep) | |
| Bonnie Raitt | Road Tested | |
| Bonnie Raitt | Road Tested |
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