As hermetic as always, Interpol return with one fine piece of art. Yes, we call this art, not mere music. While maybe the first three minutes or so are a bit of a grower, all the tension and build up of the intro blasts in the speakers as the guitars bloom and the song draws to an end. Paul Banks delivers his masterful lyrics with the same grace that put him amongst his generation's most talented vocalists. And Lights, with the band's by now branded moody feel, only makes us pray the new album will be arriving soon.
Besides being incredibly Depeche Mode, Hurts's upcoming single (out the 15th of May) could posibily turn out to be one of the best songs this year. It's positively addicting, it makes you dance and has great 80s harmonies. Plus, much to our great surprise (and delight), the video for the song was filmed in Bucharest. Check out the strange making of on their myspace(the post is named 'Dragostea') and the video below.
Sophisticated Lemons are a bunch of highschool kids who came down to teach us the meaning of the phrase "I danced and sang and clapped until my hands got on fire". I saw them live twice and I must say they are one of the few opening bands that were called back on scene for an encore. Life in 2D is a song I'm really obsessed with - it has an instrumental that seems especially created to awake up the wild punk kid that lingers in each one of us, and a catchy chorus that creates addiction ("From here I can't see your face, but I'm sure it's beautiful, yeah, I know it's beautiful... I think I'll just call you love, that's what you remind me of, that's what you remind me of"). Keep up the good work, guys.
When I first got a good look at the track list for Cypress Hill’s new album, entitled Rise Up, my eyes popped, I fainted a little and then decided I had to digest it. The people involved in making this album are like a big ice-cream filled with all the delicious flavors in the world. To picture the result is to see the ice-cream literally fall on the floor and on top of it be ran over by a giant truck wheel.
The first two tracks are so mediocre you literally choke that ice-cream up your nose. See I like B-Real’s voice and he has this clearly distinguished kind of rap rhythm. Most of the time it’s cool cause he’s like the Cypress Hill brand but here it just sounded like expired ice-cream. Moving on we get to the song, called Rise Up. Even before I ever looked at the song’s credits, the sole album name instantly took me to a Rage Against The Machine feeling. Tom Morello is guest on this track (and two more), a song that is only instrumental worth mentioning. Because it’s Tom doing what he did with Audioslave and Rage Against The Machine, again now with the hole reunion. Of course I like Rage. Hello, take the blue pill, take the red pill, I had to adore Rage. But it just doesn’t fit
Continuing with Pass The Dutch. That announces from the credits that some Indian, exotic vibe is coming your way. Still, great vibe doe to very prolific Dj-s, ergo Dj Khalil and Dj Muggs (producer of the masterpiece Jump Around among other stuff). Again, nice with the instrumental, but the lyrics and the voice are purely cliché.
Carry Me Away features Mike Shinoda from LinkinPark. Yes, that band that is supposedly (and they better) set to provide a new album towards the end of the year. Because of its featuring of course, this track I was mostly interested in. Predictably but nicely enough, Mike brought a certain dramatic softness and producer finesse alongside Cypress Hill sound. Another missed musical figure of the teenage musical frenzy is System of a Down. Here in the form of Daron Malakian on Trouble Seeker that does exactly what Tom Morello and Mike Shinoda did. Nothing new, same good sound characteristic to their bands and just mashed with Cypress Hill. This is 2010, can we please move forward from just mashing things. I mean when you mash 'Toxic' from Britney with 'Faint' from LinkinPark (I think), it’s funny. But it’s not good for an album.
Another eclectic choice for a featuring is Everlast on Take My Pain. The song is an album fill-up but just the mentioning of Everlast made me 'Jump Around' a little bit. And Malcom McLaren (RIP) credited as writer on I-Unlimeted that is a tribute song for the previous mentioned 'Jump Around' at the chorus. On Shut Them Down and Strike The Match, placed towards the ending of the album, Tom Morello does his string magic again. This time around a certain harmony between the voice and the instrumental takes place. But only because B-real & Co drift at voice tone towards de la Rocha. And that is why there is only one Zach de la Rocha.
Last track on Rise Up is Armada Latina. Merry match in the skies! No really, surprisingly they all fit. Marc Anthony is a great singer (no pondering there) and is perfect for the type of Hispanic musical influence that Cypress tried here. It seems as the best collaboration, better said the real collaboration on this new brand CypressHill - track list. To expect and think the song is a joke is not looking closely and really listening to Armada Latina. Safe to say their sins washed a little with such a closure. But for an album of 17 tracks and with that list of impressive names I really thought they were gonna pull it off. Hey, it’s Cypress Hill.
It seems such a long time since it started but still, my fingertips are holding onto the cracks in our foundation. Back in 2007 Kate Nash revealed Foundation her first single, and every time I listen to it I can’t stop adoring that song, overpowered with a strong feeling of a relationship ending. It doesn’t have to be personal, for so many it wasn’t, but Kate’s voice won everybody on her side in that tale of her relationship.
Three years after her debut album Made of Bricks, she is releasing My Best Friend Is You. Her new musical material is a tour de force a la Kate Nash. Unquestionably Kate comes back with renewed strength and desire. With this new album she consolidates her passion and dedication for music, revealing vivacious instrumental and emotional lyrics voiced in her own special way. She starts with tracks like Paris, where she makes the violin not another tear whipping instrument but rather a string bomb and Kiss That Girl (another 60’s reminiscent sound) where beside the violin she engages effective drums. This way Kate begins the mentioned tour.
Even if just after only two tracks she softens the pace, the song Don’t You Want To Share The Guilt strikes an emotional chord with its softness and depression. Her voice is almost lifeless and the monologue of rage provided towards the ending just pulls it off. As almost all songs, this track is rewarded with something special on the instrumental level too. She makes the Triangle a star like only rare artists ever did.
Further more surprisingly, the song I Just Love You More, brings out the wild Kate - naughty Katey. What am I saying? You’ll hear it when listening to the song. Word of advise: no big volume, unless you wanna be naughty too. With tracks like Doo-Wah-Doo, Kate returns to the 60’s sound a little, and redirects her negative feelings this time towards a female. And with Take Me To a Higher Plane, she returns to the oh so effective violin.
So far Kate has taunted with the 60’s sound reminiscence, well with I’ve Got A Secret she just goes all the way.
Don’t You Want To Share The Guilt had a rage-full monologue. It was surprisingly powerful.Ha! That was pish-posh. Mansion Song has the real rage-full monologue. Boy oh boy, Miss Nash can utter the ‘f’ word so hot. This song is just sexy atrocious. It’s not the mouth of a truck driver, but she does sound a lot like Joan Jett (in her troubled youth) and with a Courtney Love attitude.
No, Mansion Song was real. Not a delusion. Early Christmas Present and Later On succeed as definitely intended to twist you further by sounding like a classic Kate Nash in a merry tempo. Pickpocket is what Kate started her musical journey with. And You Were So Far Away is what soft is for Kate. But she ends her second album with big feelings: hate and likes. I Hate Seagulls is a song of pure romance.
Foundations is an amazing song, guaranteed for anybody who adores it to adore Kate Nash. Luckily with this new album Kate proves why anyone would adore Miss Nash starting that song.
I think it's only fair to let you, our readers, know we won't be posting that often the next month or so. All three of us, me, Smaranda and Leilana, are busy with college related issues. We have to study and all the chaos surrounding those issues leaves little time for other things, even writing about the one thing we love most, music. I promise that as soon as we get things together, we'll be back six days a week, as you were used.
Rufus has a new album called All Days Are Nights: Songs For Lulu. Rufus who? Rufus Wainwright. Wainwright? Yes, Wainwright – artistic contribution in American literature, journalism, cinema and music. Not to mention crème of the 19th century American society. So with such an impressive genealogical tree, Rufus must have inherited talent, musical one, like all his brothers and sisters. One of his sisters is the Marta Wainwright. Let’s just throw words like Set The Fire To The Third Bar to refresh memories. Anybody who has seen 'The History Boys' was even more mesmerized of the ending because of another incredible recording of Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered, with Rufus’s voice. Rufus’s interpretation completed an extraordinary movie. Yes, just a song, but not just a voice.
From all his previous releasing, and this new one as well, Rufus seems a bohemian artist, a romantic. A romantic singer and instrumentalist whose weapon, lover (he seems to actually caress it) and muse, is the piano. To say that the man knows his piano is putting it mildly. Rufus actually succeeds in using, expressing and reaching musical sensuality with honors.
New York is one incredible world. It is not surprisingly that Rufus chose to add a certain song on his new album. Thus first track, entitled Who Are You New York?. Where he so classically traces, some of New York’s most amazing sites. It is not a fast tempo song nor a slow one. It’s definitely not a ballade or an anthem. It’s an ode. The second track is a lament. The title announces beforehand so: So Sad With What I Have. The piano is his shoulder to lament on. And what a shoulder!
The next piece is something of a revival of sound. Dedicated undoubtedly to his sister Martha. It is a sight into family matters. Troubled matters: an angry relation with his sister and a troubled family due to their mother’s health. Unfortunately their mother, Kate McGarrigle, passed away in the beginning of 2010.A song like Give Me What I Want And Give It To Me Now, stands tall above others because of the upbeat tempo. The track is as vivacious as it can get in Rufus’s will.
Immediately next vivacious is let go, cast way, and is replaced by melancholic tracks. Oh, Mr. Wainwright does melancholy so well. A Woman’s Face is a heart pierce of a song. Poetics, vocals and of course the piano are at their peak. A few keys make a dramatic sound, a touching fatality that supports the voicing. He has a voice to remember, similar to that of Greg Laswell or Damien Rice.
On tracks like True Loves and What Would I Ever Do With A Rose? Rufus proves romanticism ‘till the last key note. And how can not a true romantic sing a little French, ergo Les Feux D’Artifice T’Apellent - if you are expecting a translation, you shouldn’t be. The song chosen as closure for this album is Zebulon. That touches delicate matters to the artist, like Martha. The piano is amazingly touching, something that maybe only the great Cole Porter could so easily and powerfully achieve.
So it’s not a stretch to say: Oh Rufus, the album is de-lovely!
American-esque all-girls band Dum Dum Girls charges into the new decade with a brand new album I Will Be. I will be frank and declare that this album is as provocative and powerfull as a leopard print garter belt attached to black stockings. After listening to their album, where femininity rules and nags in the most seductive way, you easily can catalogue the Dum Dum Girls as the 2000 version of The Ronettes. But luckily in all the resemblance they manage to lay their own path.
These dum dum ladies explore a cool genre and musical brand by creating and exploring charming voices that go on being quite diffused. I mention voices because there is more than one component of the band that sings. A happening worthy of true praising, since none of them alone, would seem to be extraordinary, on the voice level at least. Together they make a difference, an actual decent one.
The girls go on and around their voices they add and so do compliment some songs with a new thing. New things such as a classical and boyish snare drum rhythm in It Only Takes One Night, Oh Mein Me (they make even German sound good) and in Yours Alone. Or an homage to Nancy Sinatra on Bhang Bhang, I’m a Burnout and even a male voice as guest on Blank Girl.
On other tracks they merge cunningly modern beats with the already 60-ish sound. Ergo tracks like Rest of Our Lives and Baby Don’t Go. If the album I Will Be was catalogued as a fancy garter belt, the track I Will Be is definitely the lacy bra. No push-up, just good fabric, if you think of it. From fast tempos (Everybody’s Out, Lines Her Eyes) to slow, endearing ballads (the magic duo Baby Don’t Go / Rest of Our Lives), the girls can deliver on both ends of any instrument.
The Ronettes were amazing, like Isis, Hera and Juno in one band. There has long been a feeling in the air of something even a little reminiscent of them. Something good not copy-cat. The Dum Dum Girls are to be patted on their heads and encouraged to take it to the next decade with even more style and power.
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