Record Reviews
📝 2096 reviews| Artist | Title | Review |
|---|---|---|
| Al Stewart | 24 Carrots | <p>The pun of the title of 24 Carrots -- the first overt signal of humor Al Stewart has displayed in years, possibly ever -- illustrates that a lot has changed since 1978's Time Passages. The loosening of his wit is perhaps the most evident, but the most significant is the departure of producer Alan Parsons, who collaborated with Stewart on his mid-'70s triptych of masterpieces. In truth, 24 Carrots isn't far removed from those high points, because he is indeed still writing at a remarkably consistent pace. No, this record isn't quite at the high standard of the previous three albums, but it does have a number of brilliant moments, from the opening "Running Man" through the silly but effective "Mondo Sinistro" and the gorgeous "Midnight Rocks." Though there are some songs that don't quite click (something that did not happen on the aforementioned trio), overall the record coheres nicely, thanks not just to the uniform classiness of Stewart's songs, but to his production with Chris Desmond. Although the production does hint at the antiseptic cleanliness that sank many of his latter-day recordings, here, it is just a perfect balance of audio precision and elegant studiocraft. Despite its occasional missteps, it still is a fine record, a fitting, wistful coda to Stewart's classic period. [The 2007 Collectors' Choice Music reissue included three different bonus tracks than those found on the 1980 Razor & Tie edition.]</p><p>— <strong>Stephen Thomas Erlewine</strong></p> |
| Al Stewart | Indian Summer | <p>There is excellent variety on this album and the fact it all very well executed shows the competence of the musicians: they are top notch players. For example, a number of slower tracks feature really outstanding acoustic guitar work from Peter White. Elsewhere, the up tempo tracks are perfectly executed: the rhythm section chuggs along nicely right through this concert.</p><p>Al Stewart wrote a lot of excellent, diverse, material in this era. Some were huge hits, others just good album material. Indian Summer brings it all together and it will make a great addition to your collection.</p><p>— <strong>Tom Byrnes</strong></p> |
| Al Stewart | Chronicles | |
| Al Stewart | Russians And Americans | <p>Out of all of Al Stewart's grandly ambitious albums, Russians & Americans is among the most problematic, since he takes an actual political position, which tends to hurt the flow of the music.</p><p>— <strong>Daevid Jehnzen</strong></p> |
| Rod Stewart | Sing It Again, Rod | |
| Rod Stewart | Foolish Behaviour | |
| Stephen Stills | Stills 2 | <p>Flushed with the success of his first solo effort and the continuing adulation from his role in the supergroup CSNY, Stephen Stills must have felt like he could do no wrong, and in many instances, his second solo disc proves him right. The superb "Marianne" and "Change Partners" more than satisfy the listener, while the dark and brooding "Know You Got to Run" and the prophetic "Fishes and Scorpions" are prime examples of his power as a singer and a songwriter. But when he misses the mark, as on "Ecology Song," he misses it by a mile and then some. Besides that cut, "Bluebird Revisited" is pure self-indulgence that someone of his craft and technique should have known better than to include here -- or anywhere. But with CD players, one can omit anything offending and concentrate on what's good about Stephen Stills 2. Cut the disc in half, and you have a very enjoyable listening experience. As for the rest, well, let's just say you've been warned.</p><p>—<strong>James Chrispell</strong></p> |
| Stephen Stills | Stills | <p>Talk about understatement -- there's Stephen Stills on the cover, acoustic guitar in hand, promising a personal singer/songwriter-type statement. And there is some of that -- even a lot of that personal music-making -- on Stephen Stills, but it's all couched in astonishingly bold musical terms. Stephen Stills is top-heavy with 1970 sensibilities, to be sure, from the dedication to the memory of Jimi Hendrix to the now piggish-seeming message of "Love the One You're With." Yet, listening to this album three decades on, it's still a jaw-dropping experience, the musical equal to Crosby, Stills & Nash or Déjà Vu, and only a shade less important than either of them. The mix of folk, blues (acoustic and electric), hard rock, and gospel is seamless, and the musicianship and the singing are all so there, in your face, that it just burns your brain (in the nicest, most benevolent possible way) even decades later. Recorded amid the breakup of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Stills' first solo album was his effort to put together his own sound and, not surprisingly, it's similar to a lot of stuff on the group's two albums. But it's also infinitely more personal, as well as harder and bluesier in many key spots; yet, it's every bit as soft and as lyrical as the group in other spots, and all laced with a degree of yearning and urgency that far outstrips virtually anything he did with the group. "Love the One You're With," which started life as a phrase that Stills borrowed from Billy Preston at a party, is the song from this album that everybody knows, but it's actually one of the lesser cuts here -- not much more than a riff and an upbeat lyric and mood, albeit all of it infectious. "Do for the Others," by contrast, is one of the prettiest and most moving pieces of music that Stills has ever been associated with, and "Church (Part of Someone)" showed him moving toward gospel and R&B (and good at it, too); and then there's "Old Times Good Times," musically as good a rock song as Stills has ever recorded (even if it borrows a bit from "Pre-Road Downs"), and featuring Jimi Hendrix on lead guitar. "Go Back Home" (which has Eric Clapton on guitar) is fine a piece of bluesy hard rock, while "Sit Yourself Down" features superb singing by Stills and a six-person backing chorus (that includes Cass Elliot, Graham Nash, and David Crosby) around a great tune. "To a Flame" is downright ethereal, while the live "Black Queen" is a superb piece of acoustic blues. All of this is presented by Stills in the best singing voice of his career up to that point, bolder, more outgoing, and more powerful (a result of his contact with Doris Troy) than anything in his previous output. He also plays lots of instruments (à la Crosby, Stills & Nash, which is another reason it sounds so similar to the group in certain ways), though a bit more organ than guitar, thanks to the presence of Hendrix and Clapton on two cuts. If the album has a flaw, it's the finale, "We Are Not Helpless," which slightly overstays its welcome. But hey, this was still the late '60s, and excess was the rule, not the exception, and it's such modest excess.</p><p>—<strong>Bruce Eder</strong></p> |
| Stephen Stills | Live | <p>This live record features Stephen Stills with a great voice that may be a bit weary but is, perhaps, even more emotional and personal. Separated into an acoustic side and an electric side, Stills triumphs during both sets. The electric side is highlighted by the tight "Wooden Ships," while the acoustic side shines with "Change Partners" and a frenetic version of "Crossroads."</p><p>—<strong>Zach Curd </strong></p> |
| Stills-Young Band | Long May You Run | <p>Long May You Run is not a Neil Young solo album. It is credited to "The Stills-Young Band," which is to say, Stephen Stills and his band with Young added, and the two divide up the songwriting and lead vocals, five for Young, four for Stills. The pairing, though it proved short-lived and had, in fact, ended before this album was released, must have seemed commercially logical. Like Young, Stills had seen his record sales decline after a successful period following the 1970 breakup of CSNY. So had erstwhile partners David Crosby and Graham Nash, but they had returned to Top Ten, gold-selling status in the fall of 1975 with their Wind on the Water duo album. Why couldn't Stills and Young do the same thing? Maybe they could have (and, actually, this was the first gold album for either in two years) if they had made a better record together. Young's songs were pleasant newly written throwaways with the exception of the title track, a trunk song he had written as a tribute to an old car. Stills' compositions seemed more seriously intended, but still were not substantial. The playing, largely handled by the professional sessionman types in Stills' band, was far smoother than what one was accustomed to in a Young album. The result was a listenable record, but not a compelling one, and thus well below Young's usual standard and Stills' best.</p><p>—<strong>William Ruhlmann</strong></p> |
| Sting | Bring On The Night | |
| Sting | Bring On The Night [Remastered] | <p>Sting really got carried away with the idea that his supporting crew for Dream of the Blue Turtles was a real jazz band, and technically, he was kind of right. He did pluck them straight out of Wynton Marsalis' backing band (thereby angering Wynton and emboldening his anti-rock stance, while flaring up a sibling rivalry between the trumpeter and his saxophonist brother Branford -- a veritable hat trick, that), and since he was initially a jazz bassist, it seemed like a good fit. At the very least, it seemed like a monumental occasion because he documented the entire development of the band and the making of Dream with a documentary called Bring on the Night, releasing a double-live album as its soundtrack just a year after the debut hit the stores. This could be called hubris (and so it appears to be), especially because the appearance of the live album feels like a way of showcasing Sting's jazz band and jazz chops. Most of the songs run around five minutes and there are no less than three melodies, two of which marry an old Police number with a tune from Dream. Arriving as a second solo album, it can't help but feel a little unnecessary, even if the loose, rather infectious performances show what Sting was trying to achieve with his debut. Even so, this is a record for the cult, and while it will satisfy them, to others it will seem like, well, hubris.</p>— <b>Stephen Thomas Erlewine</b> |
| Sting | Bring On The Night | |
| Sting | Nothing Like The Sun | |
| Sting | Stng & Gil Evans - Live at Perugia Jazz Festival | Delmar Brown - synthesizer<br>Gil Goldstein - dx 7 synthesizer<br>John Surman - baritone saxophone<br>George Adams - tenor sax, vocals<br>Branford Marsalis - tenor sax<br>Chris Hunter - alto sax<br>john clark - electric french horn<br>david bargeron - tuba, trambone<br>Lew Soloff - lead trumpet<br>Shunzo Ono - trumpet, flugelhorn<br>Marc Egan - bass<br>Danny Gotlieb - drums<br>Urszula Dudziak - back-up vocals<br>Emily Mitchell - harp<br>Anita E. - percussion<br>Tom Malone - tenor&bass trambone<br>George Lewis - tenor trombone<br>Miles Evans - trumpet<br>Sting - guitar & vocals<br>Gil Evans - keyboards<br> |
| Sting | The Soul Cages | <p>Emboldened by the enthusiastic response to the muted Nothing Like the Sun and reeling from the loss of his parents, Sting constructed The Soul Cages as a hushed mediation on mortality, loss, grief, and father/son relationships (the album is dedicated, in part, to his father; its predecessor was dedicated to his mother). Using the same basic band as Nothing Like the Sun, the album has the same supple, luxurious tone, stretching out leisurely over nine tracks, almost all of them layered mid-tempo tunes (the exception being grinding guitars of the title track). Within this setting, Sting hits a few remarkable peaks, such as the elegant waltz "Mad About You" and "All This Time," a deceptively skipping pop tune that hides a moving tribute to his father. If the entirety of The Soul Cages was as nimbly melodic and urgently emotional as these two cuts, it would have been a quiet masterpiece. Instead, it turns inward -- not just lyrically, but musically -- and plays as a diary entry, perhaps interesting to those willing to spend hours immersing themselves within Sting's loss, finding parallels within their own life. This may be too much effort for anyone outside of the devoted, since apart from those two singles (and perhaps "Why Should I Cry for You"), there are few entry points into The Soul Cages -- and, once you get in there, it only rewards if your emotional state mirrors Sting's.</p>— <b>Stephen Thomas Erlewine</b> |
| Sting | The Complete Chicago Sessions | |
| Sting | Ten Summoner's Tales | |
| Sting | Mercury Falling | |
| Sting | Brand New Day |
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