Criminally overlooked (by me), this record has been sitting in the review bin for far toolong. Released last year, Sound Go Round, combines Dressy Bessy’s love for 60’s pop with post-modern word play. (continue reading…)
Rarely does one find boys this pretty outside of an E.M. Forster novel. Oddly when AAR were mere Doghouse recording artists, they were a duo. On Dreamworks, they have multiplied (or perhaps been cloned). Strange how things like this work, but I found the group more intriguing when they were a duo. (continue reading…)
Glossary are good people. The Murfreesboro band has been around for almost 6 years and turned over a few members but never lost their heart. Now a 6-piece and performing only Joey Kneiser�s songs, Glossary are hitting a comfortable stride. Their new self-released EP, Dear Friends and Gentle Hearts, is a well-documented 5 song introduction to the band. �When Easy Street Gets Hard to Find� is a rocker with Stones-y guitar interplay and Wilco (circa Being There) tunefulness. It captures the American spirit and independent direction the band has aimed at for years. Kneiser has found his strengths as a singer and plays to them. The band�s musical versatility allows them to frame his voice in different contexts. �Hold Me Down� features pedal steel accompaniment by Paul Niehaus in an easy-going alt.country song. �We Keep Changing� strikes a chord right in between their country and indie rock sensibilities � like Dylan slumming it with Malkmus. �West Liberty� (from their 2000 record This is All We�ve Learned about Living) is re-interpreted as a back-porch southern anthem complete with hoe-down. Glossary are more than a band; they�re a family and spending time with this EP is like drinking with an old friend.
–TA
Nick Cave has made a pretty good living out of feeling bad. Cave’s music has always stared into the abyss but beginning with 1997’s The Boatman’s Call, he drew a bead on his own demons. Where that record may have suffered from an errant self-indulgence (and sparse participation from Cave’s band, The Bad Seeds), Nocturama finds a balance between the soul-searching piano dirges and the dark, violence-threatening rave-ups of classic Cave tracks. (continue reading…)
[This piece originally appeared in the Rage.]
This isn’t like any other record you’ve heard. For starters, it’s huge. The guitar chords in the first song, “Your Bleedin’ Heart,�? tower over you. You could swim in the bass. The keyboards are so loud that it’s sometimes hard to tell they aren’t more guitars. The only real stumbling block to this rocking the hell out is that the voice is almost too similar to hundreds of pretty-boy rock bands – you know, that tuneful but indistinguishable quality. (continue reading…)
[This piece appeared in The Tennessean.]
You don’t have to be a gearhead to appreciate the stick shift. I know very little about the innards of my car. Cylinders, valves, hoses – I have no idea what they do. What I do know is that driving a stick feels like driving should. It’s a feeling you don’t know until you’ve driven one. If that sounds a bit touchy-feely, that’s because driving a manual is. Take, for example, the question every non-stick driver asks, “How do you know when to shift gears? The RPM? The speed?�? The answer: You just know. (continue reading…)
Dude, is it ever hard to watch a crazy person get interviewed.
[This review originally appeared in The Scene.]
Supergrass
Life On Other Planets
It’s almost a shame that Supergrass make their music sound so easy. The organ and piano that kick off the first track, “Za,” on their new record, Life On Other Planets, are so obvious but so charming that one gets the feeling of hearing something old for the first time. Since their second album, In It For the Money, Supergrass have found their voice in classic 60s American rock, 70s English space oddities and good old garage. Unlike their contemporaries in mid-90s Brit-pop, Supergrass never saw the Smiths as the Alpha and Omega of guitar music. (continue reading…)