It’s easy to recognize the commercial intent of Mob Squad, the triple-billed album starring Japanese hip-hop groups Dragon Ash, Source and Mach25.
Named after the label to which all three artists are signed, the album is teaser, a showcase of what to expect from releases to come.
It’s a hard sell, plain and simple. And a pretty good one, too.
In fact, Dragon Ash delayed work on an album that would have been released in 2002 to contribute to Mob Squad. Those sessions changed the direction of the band’s own album and resulted into Harvest.
Oddly enough, Mob Squad is the stronger of the two works. Although Dragon Ash is the marquee name on Mob Squad, Source and Mach25 make a convincing argument that Japan’s rap-rock future is in pretty competent hands.
The opening title track harkens back to the insanely catchy hooks and chants of Dragon Ash’s 2001 album Lily of da Valley, and it sets the tone for the rest of the album.
Source’s “Potential” alternates between metal muscle and punk brattiness. “Turn Up” calls to mind Missile Girl Scoot at its party-hardiest.
For the most part, Mach25 relies on the usual sampling and keyboards. “Get Your Tomorrow” and “Beats of Clapping” don’t indulge in Source’s rock grandeur or Dragon Ash’s eclecticism, but they fit in nicely with the rest of the album’s modus operandi.
Since Mob Squad pre-dated the release of Harvest by five months, it was easy to get excited by the creative turn in Dragon Ash’s style. The tracks the band contributed to Mob Squad (“Massy Evolution”, “Revive”) cast its electronica-meets-metal sound in a favorable light. It’s too bad the band couldn’t sustain that excitement for its own album.
All these bands share an affinity for cobbling together disparate genres into the span of three to four minutes. It may be simple to call Mob Squad “rap-metal”, but that would ignore the influence of reggae, punk, electronica, whatever.
(On a less charitable note, Source and Mach25 could be accused of trying to ride on Dragon Ash’s coattails.)
Still, Mob Squad does its job in selling listeners on the label’s core aesthetic. These bands are empirical proof that what passes as “rap-rock” on our side of the Pacific Ocean is far less than what the genre can really accomodate.
Damn it’s tough keeping up with fickle tastes of kids nowadays. It wasn’t too long ago rap-rock and its nü metal ilk were the whipping boys of disgruntled record store employees nationwide.
Papa Roach, Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park? So 2001.
Not that any such matters affect Dragon Ash. By the time Fred Durst rode the coattails of Rage Against the Machine into the ground, Dragon Ash had already married hip-hop beats and metal guitars in a union of musical co-dependency. Take one away from the other, and the whole thing would unravel.
(It’s probably just me, but it seems the whole rap-rock thing treats hip-hop beats as an afterthought anyway. The DJs are just window-dressing.)
At the same time, Dragon Ash are savvy enough to know beats change as often as most people’s underwear. The big beats of 2001’s Lily of da Valley would have as much relevance today as, say, Fatboy Slim.
So on Harvest, Dragon Ash have found a new driving force in beats even more dated than Norman Cook — drum ‘n’ bass.
On a certain level, it’s actually pretty imaginitive. Drum ‘n’ bass usually marries quick, double-time rhythms with slow, minimalist textures. Dragon Ash don’t bother with the slow, minimalist textures and go for the fast, minimalist riffage instead.
Sure, “Posse in Noise” offers breaks from the frantic guitars here and there, but “Revive” gives off a claustophobic vibe with its busy rhythm and Furuya Kenji’s reggae chanting.
For the first few times, the combination of rap, reggae, electronica and metal creates a sensory overload that makes it difficult to digest what’s going on with Harvest. Eventually, it all becomes a blur.
“Canvas” vs. “Massy Evolution” — is it really that easy to tell the two tracks apart?
Dragon Ash doesn’t let you forget just how damn clever Harvest is. Over the course of 17 tracks — a few of which are short interludes — the band doesn’t let up with its über-raprockreggaemetal montage. And it gets tiring.
Unlike Lily of da Valley, there are barely hooks. “Morrow” comes pretty close with its alt-rock ballad conclusion, but there isn’t anything as immediately catchy as “Amploud” or “Shizuka na Hibi no Kaidan wo”.
Harvest once again shows Dragon Ash can barely be contained by the limited scope of rap-rock, but for an album with so much going on, it’s not one that captures nor holds on to attention.
When a band produces such a bilstering debut as Molotov did in 1997 with ¿Donde jugaran las niñas?, it’s tough to imagine how anything after could surpass it.
Six years later, Dance and Dense Denso arrives to become the sound of a skeptic eating his words.
Sure, there was an album between that debut and Dance and Dense Denso. But Apocalypshit suffered from trying to stay within the lines of what happened before.
Yes, Apocalypshit was every bit as angry and confrontational as its predecessor, but it lacked an intangible charm that reached out and grabbed listeners would normally hate metal-rap.
Dance and Dense Denso reclaims that charm and goes for your fucking throat.
Of course, it’s risky writing a review for a hip-hop album in a language you don’t understand. Rap draws its power as much from rhythm as it does from words.
But when you’re faced with chants as addictive as the title track or “No Me Da Mi Navidad”, who the hell cares?
Never mind the inflammatory chorus of “Frijolero”, or the objectifying language of “Changuich A La Chichona” — Molotov has written some the funkiest shit of the year.
“Here We Kum” starts off with a robotic riff that hinges of a bizarre break as a hook. “Noko” concludes with a series of fake endings which effectively slows down the album’s break-neck momentum.
On some tracks, Molotov is more of a punk band with throat-busting vocals on “Queremos Pastel” and “Nostradamus Mucho”. On everything else, the quartet has just about nailed the essential chorus.
Even though language is a barrier for this review, it’s not tough to channel the satire of “E Charles White”, an Anglo-named song in which the band adopts the voices of a series of Mexican stereotypes.
Language is no barrier on the controversial — and Grammy-nominated — “Frijolero”. “Don’t call me gringo, you fucking beaner/Stay on your side of the goddamn river,” the band sings in one voice. “No me degas beaner, Mr. Puñatero/Te sacare un susto por racista y culero,” they respond in another.
In the past three years, rap-metal has pretty much been diluted by bands pummelling the same damn power chords over and over.
Molotov gives some genuine rage back to the genre. Listen to the maniacal laugh at the end of the title track, and you know these guys aren’t messing around.
Powerful hooks, addictive choruses, a heart behind the music — Molotov could be playing huapango and listeners would dig it.
Instead, Dance and Dense Denso shows rap-metal can be saved from itself and transcend borders.
What were the Delgados thinking working with Dave Fridmann?
Don’t they realize having the Flaming Lips producer helm an album of orchestral pop will inevitably draw comparrisons to his “other” band?
Perhaps. And maybe it’s a shrewd move on part of the Scottish band.
Because Hate, the Delgados’ fourth album, does indeed indulge in the swirling, psychedelic effects of the Lips — without Wayne Coyne’s crypticness.
Sure. What’s the Flaming Lips without Wayne Coyne, let alone a band gunning for guilt by association? Pretty damn good, as it turns out.
Hate is actually something of a fun album. The politically incorrect title track alone (“All You Need Is Hate”) sets an insanely bouncy melody to a rather unique socialogical perspective.
“Hate is everywhere,” singer Alun Woodward sings, “inside your mother’s heart and you will find it there. You ask me what you need, hate is all you need.”
The rest of the album follows suite, delivering one grandiose tune after another. Singers Woodward and Emma Pollack alternate between tracks, forcing the album into a loose structure.
After a while, the Delgados songs become somewhat indistinctive. When Pollack delivers the melody for “Favours”, it almost feels like deja vu, considering “Coming in from the Cold” contains some of the same melodic leaps.
The lilting meter of “Never Look at the Sun” isn’t too different from the lilting meter of “Child Killers”.
Still, the Delgados know how to craft a tune, as evidenced on “The Drowning Years”, “The Light Before We Land”. Hate makes for fine listening regardless.
The two bonus tracks on the American edition, however, don’t contribute much to the overall album. In fact, Hate works best when it ends after “If This is a Plan”.
Hate may not knock The Soft Bulletin of its critics favorite mantle, but the one degree of separation from the Flaming Lips doesn’t diminish the band’s own work.
Man, this is what Interpol should have sounded like.
Yeah, it’s so tired namedropping Joy Division all the freekin’ time, but in the case of Longwave, the influence is less pronounced.
Or to put it more directly, Longwave don’t sound like a sonic photocopy.
“Wake Me When It’s Over” starts off Longwave’s debut album, The Strangest Things, with the reverb-drenched, haunting guitar work of — say it with me now — Joy Division (or perhaps early New Order?). But when singer Steve Shiltz chimes in, the ghost of Ian Curtis rests soundly in peace.
Shiltz’s voice is actually refreshing. He can actually hold his notes, and his alt-rock timbre is tempered by a subtle crooner feel. This guy could probably sing some mean karaoke.
After that initial tip of the hat, the rest of the album comes across as early-80s underground rock album recorded on post-90s digital equipment. That is, it’s as comfortable as your Smiths’ vinyl collection without all that dated 80s analog stuff.
On “Pool Song”, Dave Marchese’s bass line does more to complement Shiltz than guitarist Shannon Ferguson’s rhythmic strumming. “I Know It’s Coming Someday” ought to remind U2 what it used to be.
“The Ghosts Around You”, on the other hand, might have even worked as a Smashing Pumpkins outtake.
As an album, The Strangest Things possesses a surprising strong clarity. The songs may not hide their 80s college rock influences, but neither are they filler.
Of course, that means its tough picking out particularly singular tracks on the album. “Tidal Wave”, “All Sewn Up” and the title track come pretty close.
Flaming Lips producer Dave Fridmann gives Longwave a strong, clear sound. The drums are never muddied, and even when the guitar work gets fuzzy — as it does on “Exit” and “Meet Me at the Bottom” — they never bleed into the background.
Thing is, such a strong 80s influence calls into question the root of the band’s appeal — is it nostalgia or originality? The answer is a bit of both.
There’s no denying Longwave’s appeal to a thirtysomething audience, but the band’s songs stand on their own in spite of any pop culture resurgence.
Cuatros Camino may well be the most straight-forward album Café Tacuba has so far recorded.
And that’s still many steps forward from most angular, critics’ darlings indie acts in Estados Unitas.
The Mexico-based quartet isn’t afraid of dissonance, and the band’s collective avant-garde ear has attracted the likes of Beck and Kronos Quartet.
So it’s a bit surprising to hear singer Ramon Albaran delivering an actual hook on the album opener, “Cero Y Uno”. It’s even more shocking to hear the rest of the band crash in with alt-rock riffs from which the Flaming Lips wouldn’t shy away.
The normalness doesn’t stop there.
“Que Pasará” rumbles with a shuffle beat and an almost garage rock feel. “Eres” possesses a poignant melody but understates its Mexican influences for more of a rock ballad feel.
“Encantamiento”, on the other hand, is a ballad, although that intro is the same used on Duran Duran’s “Planet Earth”.
Sure. It’s pretty obvious isn’t it? Sell out.
Not so.
“Eo”, the first single from the album, possesses some quirky chords and Mexican beats sifted through electroclash effects. It actually sounds a lot cooler than that description.
“Camino Y Vereda” mixes up synthetic timbres and guitar hooks as well as anything off of Ré. While “Soy Y Estoy” shows the band can still turn its Mexican influences on its head.
Café Tacuba’s albums tend to be as scattershot as the band’s wildly diverse interests, but Cuatros Camino shows the band at its most cohesive. There’s not a bit of filler nor a moment of incongruency on the album.
Producer Gustavo Santaolalla has coaxed some of Tacuba’s best performances yet. The band’s more straight-forward songwriting may be disappointing for fans of its more esoteric work, but stack Cuatros Camino against what passes for mainstream nowadays and the distinction is still very much clear.
Cuatros Camino is a marvelously accessible work that doesn’t dilute Café Tacuba’s daring. If anything, it shows just how more accessible rock can benefit from a band that knows its stranger side.
While Musicwhore.org may have given a very favorable review to downy’s second untitled album, truth is that album is pretty homogenous.
In fact, the review in question pussyfooted around the issue by stating, “… the entire disc feels like a single-flowing work.” That’s just a nice way of saying it was monotone.
downy’s third album — also untitled — pretty much reveals its predecessor’s shortcomings. By comparrison, this latest work is far more textured, a lot more varied, and even more hypnotic.
Instead of jackhammering from the start, downy begins quietly, almost hesitantly with “Tetsu no Fuukei”. The band’s trademark minimalism seethes but never explodes.
Even on the more kinetic “Anarchy Dance”, downy carefully structures its outbursts, layering tiny blasts of distortion over an oddly lilting rhythm.
This time around,
downy opts to intersperse softer, intense moments with its more kinetic ones, often within tracks.
“Keijijogaku” starts off sounding like another slow piece but eventually reveals itself to be a sparse, quick song instead.
“Akatsuki ni Te” starts off mechanically, then breaks down to only a few instruments.
Frontman Aoki Robin is as obfuscating as ever, but this time, he doesn’t sound so buried. On “Zen”, an overdubbed chorus of Aokis produces one of the album’s most haunting moments.
downy’s music may appear to be cold and robotic, blocky in the way its repeated motifs insistently loop and curl. But just when it seems the band is stuck, something gives way — an underlying guitar line coming to the fore, a mumbled vocal giving way to a percussive explosion.
On this album — should we bother nicknaming it “Cloudburst”, while calling the previous untitled albums “Thunderbolt” and “Eye”? — there’s an ebb and flow to the music that infuses it with emotion.
There are enough twists and turns in the downy’s songs to keep listeners interested. And perhaps entranced.
I asked my friend, the biggest Radiohead fan I know, how many listens it takes before Radiohead albums to stop being boring.
He said 12.5.
I’m pretty sure I passed the 12.5 mark weeks ago with Hail to the Thief, and while the album may very well be beautiful, it doesn’t seem to want to sink in.
Sure, certain tracks have definitely made a dent.
“2+2=5” starts off hesitantly, then finishes with a rage Thom Yorke should have maintained for the rest of the album. “Scatterbrain” possesses the kind of appealing melody absolutely suited for Yorke’s angelic croon, and “Wolf at the Door” sounds like the nervous breakdown for which Radiohead’s music has served as a soundtrack for the past decade.
But those tracks anchor the ends of the album. What about everything in between?
Hail to the Thief is a difficult album to evaluate because on some level, the album offers up a lot — synthetic rhythms and electric guitars weaving into each other, Yorke’s vocals blanketing everything. It’s hard not to consider such tracks as “Backdrifts” and “There There” as anything less than good.
Unfortunately, the album misses something intangible to leave a lasting impression.
“Sit Down, Stand Up” is pretty much wallpaper until Yorke unleashes that crushing holler. “The Gloaming” does a nice job of bubbling under, but that’s all it’s good for.
Other tracks seem to resemble each other too closely in temperament: “A Punch Up at a Wedding” and “Where I End And You Begin”; “Sail to the Moon” and “We Suck Young Blood”. Thanks to skillful sequencing, none of these track bleed into each other.
While the band may be reknown for being pessimistic, it needn’t be homogenous.
Even though Radiohead offers up a lot of contrast on Hail to the Thief — fast songs with the slow, electric guitars with the sampling — there’s not enough to keep the album interesting.
Hail to the Thief may very well grow on you, given lots and lots of time, but for those first few spins, it’s sheer luck if any of it sticks in your subconscious.
Personally, Radiohead seems more interesting when other people are doing its music (except for that Christopher O’Rielly dude — he should listen to some Bad Plus.) So perhaps when Wayne Coyne and Shiina Ringo cover songs from this album, it’s real beauty may come forth.
Imagine what would happen if Mandy Moore somehow managed to morph into Björk or, to use a parallel closer to home, if Hamasaki Ayumi turned into Shiina Ringo.
That would only begin to describe the creative trajectory of ACO. The Japanese singer started out as a young idol, but in recent years, she’s transformed herself into a daring explorer.
Her sixth album, irony, demands a lot of effort on part of the listener. It’s not just a challenging album — it’s a work that defies comparisson from the rest of her repertoire.
And that’s perhaps the most difficult hurdle to overcome in approaching irony. ACO, who distinguished herself from other idol singers by writing her own music, has always been a skilled melodicist.
When she offered that talent to such producers as Adrian Sherwood and Sunahara Toshinori, it yielded two of the most gratifying electronica-influenced pop albums of the early decade — Absolute Ego and Material.
irony represents a natural and yet drastic leap from those albums. ACO has dived straight into a sonic ocean of strange sounds, primeval rhythms and eerie vocals. She sets human strings against inhuman effects, and she pushes her voice to extreme ranges.
Her gift for melody is still present, as demonstrated on the lullaby-like “hans”, the fragile “Subako” and the tender “Kitchen”.
But it’s been obscured, rendered unrecognizable by a tapestry of floating textures. On “lang”, harmonics played on violins double ACO’s wordless singing, a pairing that’s both chilling and beautiful. Rhythmless synthesizers almost sound like they’re broadcast alien signals on the album’s title track.
The vocals on irony almost take a secondary role. On “Akai Shishuu”, ACO doesn’t start singing till half way through the four-minute song. On the opening “00000”, they’re rendered backward.
For long-time fans, the aural world in which this album inhabits is perhaps akin to visiting an alien world. The few beats on the album are delivered in spurts, and any hint of the sensual jazz chords of her mainstream work are missing in action.
But once the lay of the land is set, irony becomes a fascinating work. Much like Björk’s Vespertine or Radiohead’s Kid A, the album abides by its own internal logic, its own atmosphere. And the more you listen, the more there is to discover in such sparse surroundings.
ACO has delivered perhaps the most strangely beautiful album of the year. It may take effort to appreciate it, but it’s well worth it.
Truth be told, Värttinä was more interesting when they went electric.
In the mid-90s, the Finnish folk collective recorded Aitara and Kokko, two albums in which the group augmented its already souped up instrumentation with a rock rhythm section. The rock musicians kept up with the band, but they (thankfully) never took over.
Starting with 1998’s Vihma, Värttinä returned to a more acoustic sound, and on 2000’s Illmartar, they explored their introspective side.
Iki, Värttinä’s 10th album, finds the group entrenched in its acoustic trappings, but it’s recaptured the spirit of its plugged-in diversions.
Front and center, of course, reigns the vocal triumvirate of Mari Kaasinen, Susan Aho and Johanna Virtanen. The versatile trio can deliver poignancy (“Tuulen Tuto”) or spit-fire virtuosity (“Nahkaruoska”) with equal aplomb.
The three woman are clearly the group’s central focus, as demonstrated on the Trio Bulgarka-like “Potran Korean”, and the album’s two-part framing tracks, “Syyllinen”. That doesn’t mean their six-piece backing band is no slouch.
On “Tauti”, bassist Hannu Rantanen and drummer Jaakko Lukkarinen navigate a thorny rhythmic mine field, while managing to infuse the track with a distinct rock feel.
On “Morsian” — a clear vocal showcase if there were any — accordian player Marrku Lepistö manages to comment on the singers’ melodies with his own flourishes.
Kaasinen and company get out of the way for “Vihi”, an instrumental track which shows why Celtic label Green Linnet was interested in the group long ago and far away.
There isn’t much else that can be said of the singers that hasn’t already been said. Their eastern European harmonies remain bittersweet and compelling. Thankfully, they’ve moved away from applying too many effects processors to their voices. They don’t need that kind of “help”.
While Vihma and Illmartar may have found Värttinä at its most sonically adventurous, Iki harkens back to the energy and confidence of its mid-90s work. To put it simply, it’s some the band’s catchiest work in a while.
It’s nice to see Värttinä getting back to getting down. It’s even nicer to know they don’t need to plug in to do so.