Album Review: "Ghosts" by Sadie and The Stark

Sadie and The Stark

*Ghosts*

(self-released)

On “Ghosts,” a six-song EP follow-up to the 2016 debut EP “Witches,” Chicago’s Sadie and The Stark continues to be a band that reaches listeners on a visceral level. Of the six tracks, “Wait For Me, Sansa,” “Rip” and “Crawl” employ the most aggressive guitar-bass-drums instrumentation that draws upon an elemental post-punk style to boost the raw and powerful vocal delivery of Sadie Rogers. It’s as if Shirley Manson were fronting Joy Division. “Riders” and “Wild In The Caves,” with its Native American-like wails of “Woah! Woah!”, highlight Rogers’ considerably powerful vocal style backed by more subtle instrumentation. But “Vampire Love Song”--featuring pedal steel guitar and a folksy rhythm and melody--might be the most surprising and interesting in lyrical content with Rogers singing: “Crush my soul, rip my skin off / after all, this is the end of the world.”

(www.sadieandthestark.bandcamp.com or www.sadieandthestark.com)

Print version of review appears in the July issue of Illinois Entertainer magazine. Click PDF and navigate to page 44.
Appearing 7/16 at Quenchers in Chicago.

Album review: "In Spades" by The Afghan Whigs

The Afghan Whigs

*In Spades*

(Sub Pop)

Desire, betrayal, heartbreak, regret...The Afghan Whigs’ frontman Greg Dulli has been fixated on these themes for nearly 30 years, and he’s no doubt perfected the subject matter. In “Demon In Profile” before the guitars and drums kick in, Dulli sings: “All over your body--this electricity / It was all that I wanted / Now it’s killing me.” It’s the most rocking track on the introspective album, the eighth from the band that currently only employs original members Dulli and bassist John Curley. Dulli is similarly pessimistic about the ways of love (would Whigs’ fans want it any other way?) on “Arabian Heights” when he sings as if in physical pain: “Breathe--my desire / Make no sound / And we’ll escape in each other” only to have the song end with: ”Love is a lie / Like a hole in the sky / Then you die.” A few tracks incorporate cello and violin string orchestration, including “Birdland,” a slightly off-putting ballad opener that thankfully and quickly fades into “Arabian Heights,” and “Oriole” and “The Spell,” which better balance the strings with more uptempo rock grooves. Curley’s  thudding bass lines drive “Copernicus” and “Light As A Feather,” the other pure rockers on the album. “Into The Floor” starts with piano, strings and Dulli’s wails and builds to wall-of-sound guitar and this final (ironic?) lyrical image: “And suddenly / A summer breeze.”

7/10

Print version of this review appears in the July 2017 issue of Illinois Entertainer magazine: click PDF and navigate to page 32.

Album Review: "Emperor of Sand" by Mastodon

Mastodon

*Emperor of Sand*

(Warner Bros.)

Mastodon has released concept albums about the deep sea (“Leviathan”), the mountains (“Blood Mountain”), time travel (“Crack The Skye”), space travel (“Once More ‘Round The Sun”), among others. Apparently it was time for a desert-themed album, and it may be the band’s best to date. These Atlanta-based progressive metal rockers keep evolving while proving to be the most creative and delightful outfit in heavy metal.

The album’s story concept loosely involves a character pondering mortality while wandering a desert ecosystem. The richly arranged tracks once again truly show a band that is the sum of its individual parts, with three of the four members contributing vocals to songs (often multiple singers on the same track).

“Steambreather,” with drummer Brann Dailor on primary vocals, features a catchy mid-tempo, area-rock guitar riff that would make Soundgarden proud, mixed with a trumpet-like synth chord for an off-kilter touch. “Show Yourself” may be the most accessible Mastodon song ever recorded. Instantly singable with an upbeat pop rock arrangement, it will over mainstream fans who may otherwise be turned away by Mastodon’s earlier harder metal sound, one they have gradually evolved away from during seven studio album releases.

The last two and a half minutes of “Roots Remain” comprise one of the most memorable movements on the album. Poignant lyrics mix thematically with an extended soaring guitar solo to end the 6:25-minute track: “Beauty fades, death decays...branches break, roots remain...and when you sit and picture me/Remember sitting in the sun, and dancing in the rain/The end is not the end you see/It's just the recognition of a memory." That’s  about as optimistic as prog metal gets.

“Ancient Kingdom” provides more best-of-album moments with its lyrics about a sultan fleeing battles literally as well as “pain in mind” battles. Bassist Troy Sanders belts out the story of an ancient kingdom that still remains but crumbles slowly, as well as the “ageless sounds” that “never die” and instead “ride beyond mortality.” The musical arrangement on this song and on all others is both fresh and timeless.

“Clandestiny,” with Ghost-like synthesizer parts, takes a more ominous lyrical approach. A metallic, robot-like voice at one point makes for an otherworldly aesthetic as other lyrics suggest self sacrifice for the greater good: “Give your life, so I can live.” “Andromeda” embodies “chronic delusions” in both lyrical content  (“It never ends/enough is enough”) as well as aggressive guitar riffs to match the progression of ideas and sounds.

Finally, “Jaguar God,” the closing song at 8 minutes in length, represents the most theatrical arrangement with three distinct movements, started with Brent Hinds’ acoustic guitar ballad introduction. It all collapses with a soulful guitar solo outro that punctuates the album’s overall ambition and majesty.

9/10
Link to print version of review, published in the May 2017 issue of Illinois Entertainer magazine. Click the link and navigate to page 46.

Concert Review: The Flaming Lips at The Riviera Theater, Chicago

There will be confetti...and balloons.

The Flaming Lips

The Riviera Theater, Chicago

April 17, 2017

The Flaming Lips are touring to support their latest album, a psychedelic electronic effort that was conceived after the band’s work as Miley Cyrus' backing band. “Oczy Mlody,” another evolutionary step away from the band’s long-forgotten art punk days, is a mostly mellow, drugged-out exploration of trippy themes, one that a listener would expect not to play well live.

Wayne Coyne astride a unicorn.

The band apparently knew this, too, and only played three new songs amid the 18-song, two-and-a-half hour set in front of a sold-out crowd. “How??” was the best conceived “Oczy Mlody” song in concert, with “The Castle” a dud eliciting relatively zero crowd reaction or enthusiasm--a rarity for a band that approaches each song as an event itself. The band added a dramatic visual to “There Should Be Unicorns”: singer Wayne Coyne--wearing inflatable wings, pink day-glo finger nail polish and  a blinged-out dollar sign pendant around his neck--was wheeled through the crowd on a unicorn prop, much to the crowd’s delight. Juxtapose that image with the more mundane one of bassist Michael Ivins tastefully wearing a Chicago Blackhawks sweater, barely moving from his back corner spot on stage.

Inflatables, in fact, are a theme at Lips’ concerts: there were actors wearing inflatable star and catfish costumes, as well as stationary mushrooms (some of them blocking the view of the stage) and rainbow inflatables. The crowd was also bombed from above with the requisite confetti and balloons, and a web of programmable LED lights hung over the stage. A visualizer screen swirled in the background of the stage, almost like an afterthought amid the other visuals demanding attention.

Coyne travels above the fray for "Space Oddity."

After the uplifting opener “Race For The Prize,” singer Wayne Coyne held up a massive balloon that spelled out “Fuck yeah Chicago!” before offering it to the crowd as a sacrifice that quickly got torn apart.

One third of the songs of the set were from the band’s breakthrough effort “The Soft Bulletin.” Songs including “Feeling Yourself Disintegrate,” “A Spoonful Weighs A Ton” and “Waitin’ For Superman” (played during the second encore) were crowd favorites. On “What Is The Light?”, Coyne played his deliberate, plodding guitar solo under the inflatable rainbow that was only used for that exact moment. It was an intimate moment in a night of outrageousness.

But the band’s faithful rendition of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” was the most thrilling moment. Coyne sung his parts inside an inflatable clear ball, held suspended in the air by the part of the sold out crowd that was mashed together front-and-center. Coyne channeling Bowie’s spaceman persona in a hamster ball: the most authentic gimmick of the show.

Link to my full review of the Lips' album "Oczy Mlody."

Album Review: "Nightmare Logic" by Power Trip

POWER TRIP

*Nightmare Logic*

(Southern Lord)

Power Trip’s song “If Not Us Then Who” really should be named, ”If we aren’t the ones to release the best thrash album of 2017, then who will?” The eight-song, 33-minute ripper of an album “Nightmare Logic” makes a strong case not only for best of 2017, but for best thrash album since Metallica and Slayer first released genre defining albums in the mid-1980s. Thrash as a movement was relatively short-lived, and Power Trip’s latest effort reminds listeners there is still much to explore. Songs “Executioner’s Tax (Swing of the Axe)” and “Firing Squad” combine uptempo shredding with urgent, anxiety-filled lyrical content and delivery. Compelling thrash combines accelerator-to-the-floor riffing with repetitious grooves, and all songs deliver in fresh ways. And amid all the sonic aggression and lyrical fixation on mortality, the band offers this motivational anthem on “Waiting Around To Die”: “‘Human being’ has lost its meaning when you refuse to fight / If I don’t force your hand it could cost you your life /  You’re waiting around to die and you’re all right with it / Just waiting around to die and I can’t stand for it.” Translation: there is hope in this nightmarish world.

9/10
Click this link to see print version of this review--in the April 2017 issue of Illinois Entertainer. Navigate the PDF file to page 24.

Album Review: "Oczy Mlody" by The Flaming Lips

THE FLAMING LIPS

*Oczy Mlody*

(Warner Bros)

For some Flaming Lips’ fans, this will forever be the album most associated with the band’s collaboration with pop star Miley Cyrus, the album they released after serving as her backup band for her tour the previous year. “We A Family,” the last track on their latest effort (the 14th album since 1986), features Cyrus on backing vocals on one of the most upbeat and optimistic tracks of the 12. Singer Wayne Coyne, vocals heavily distorted, sings amid chirpy synth effects and over-fuzzed beats, eventually letting Cyrus take over singing duties, ending with the repetitive and saccharine chorus “we a family...we a family.” The majority of the other tracks are slower tempo drug-themed explorations, arranged mostly with layers of electronic instrumentation (long gone are the days of the Lips’ analogue art punk sound). Some song titles are more interesting than the songs themselves--“Listening to the Frogs with Demon Eyes,” for example--with “How??” and “The Castle” representing the band’s best songwriting efforts. “One Night While Hunting for Faeries and Witches and Wizards to Kill” is interesting for its layered percussion (from taps to distorted kettle drums) backed by cricket and frog night noises. It’s an enchanting backdrop for Coyne’s languid vocal delivery as he weaves his psychedelic tale. But that’s balanced by the more pretentious “There Should Be Unicorns,” featuring guest vocalist Reggie Watts lecturing listeners in a pseudo-intellectual hippie persona: “...And we will be high and the love generator will be turned up to its maximum. And we’ll get higher, when at last, the sun comes up in the morning and we will collapse under the weight of the ancient earth...And it will be the end of the world and the beginning of a new love.” It’s a little much, but the Lips were never about moderation. 5/10 These "fearless freaks from Oklahoma City" will be in concert April 17, 2017, at the Riviera Theater in Chicago...Jill and I will be there.
Here's the link to the print version of this review, on page 24 of the February 2017 issue of Illinois Entertainer magazine.

Song Review: "The Clarity" by Sleep

SLEEP

“The Clarity”

(Southern Lord)

Sleep’s cult status as the trendsetter in stoner doom metal continues to grow despite the lack of new music released this millennium. That the band continues to actively tour (around guitarist Matt Pike’s High On Fire commitments) only contributes to rumors of potential new music or even a new album. For now, though, fans have “The Clarity.” Originally released digitally as part of the Adult Swim Singles program in 2014, the song still represents the only new track the band has released since 1998’s ill-fated “Dopesmoker” album, an album originally rejected from the band’s record label because it featured one epic 60-minute song (it became an instant genre classic once it did get released). The re-release of this single, slated for Feb. 10, will get the 12-inch, 180 gram vinyl treatment. The B side will feature the iconic spaceman artwork used by the band.

Staccato guitar notes herald the beginning of the nearly 10-minute track, eventually giving way to a repetitive, two-note power chord. But therein lies the song’s genius and appeal: the power chord is elemental, and combined with the bass and drums--heavy on the snare and crash cymbals-- leads to metal transcendence. Singer Al Cisneros doesn’t sing the lyrics about mind altering adventures, but rather chants them with cryptic and choppy word choice: “Toward the weed fields / to that which holds the worlds / walks the sinsemillian / refutes death / remains stoned constantly.” About halfway through, the trance is broken by a soaring guitar solo, only to dive back into the mid-tempo riffage and eventually come full circle to fuzzed-out guitar notes to let listeners down easily at the end. Although certainly different in its arrangement and sound, the track plays like a tighter version of “Dopesmoker” in other ways.

8/10
Link to Sleep concert review