Tag Archives: album reviews
BRYTER WITH CLOUDS
Nick Drake had precious little success during his brief lifetime. None of his three albums reached the wider audience he hoped for and his descent into depression made isolation his preferred state. Drake did not perform his music live, had acquaintances rather than friends, made little conversation and had no intimacy other than a tortured […]
SUN + MOON + HERBS
From the golden art deco inspired cover through the fascinating story of a planned three LP magnum opus, The Sun Moon and Herbs is a highlight in the long career of the New Orleans legend ‘Mac’ Rebennack, aka Dr John, The Night Tripper. Blending the good Doctor’s various styles and influences into an ecstatic musical […]
THE NATURE OF DAN
It was no secret. Steely Dan fans knew the 1980 LP Gaucho was the last offering from studio perfectionists Donald Fagen and Walter Becker. They’d reached a pinnacle of consummate musicianship with their penultimate album Aja and were done with Dan. In fact, they were done with each other. So the buzz of excitement around […]
SMALLS
LPs by legendary bass players are sometimes less than legendary. Lamentable perhaps, but we cannot avoid this difficult truth. John Entwistle (The Who), Bill Wyman (Rolling Stones), John Paul Jones (Led Zeppelin); they rarely bothered the ‘Best Album of the Decade’ lists. Or ‘Record of the Month’. Or even ‘this week’s also-rans’. Who could forget […]
1973 COUNTDOWN: #30 — 21
30 ROXY MUSIC — STRANDED Don’t tell anyone, but I think I accidentally reversed this and For Your Pleasure (#72) in a moment of spreadsheet/red wine confusion. Such things can happen when you’re scrambling to write 70+ reviews and take all those photos. Oops. In sum, this third album is terrific but I think its […]
HIS DAY
For many years I had an ambivalent relationship with Tom Waits. Beat Generation revivalist or Carny huckster? Jazzbo pretender or theatrical joker? The moment of revelation—conversion, even—came from an unlikely source. In 1988 A&M Records released a fascinating compilation entitled Stay Awake: Various Interpretations of Music from Vintage Disney Films. Amongst left-field gems from Sun […]
REALITY BITES
For many music fans around the globe, the death of David Bowie in January 2016 left a gaping chasm in the rock world. No more new studio albums from one of popular music’s most restless creative spirits; no more tours, no more shifts of direction, no more jump-cut personas. David—and all his identities—were gone, leaving […]
AH, VIENNA
Vienna, the 1980 LP by UK synth-pop art rockers Ultravox, kicked off the second phase of their career. Original frontman John Foxx had departed in 1979 after three albums and an unsuccessful foray into the American market. But keyboard player Billie Currie—who had worked with Midge Ure in Visage—convinced Midge to join Ultravox and revitalise […]
DARK PLEASURES
It’s a striking opening line to the first song on your first album: “I’ve been waiting for a guide to come and take me by the hand”. Searching, yearning for direction, for counsel. The song is called “Disorder”, a one-word summary of the singer’s internal state. A plea for human contact: take my hand. Please. […]
TIMELESS
Cascading keyboard notes and flurries of guitar; soon they are dancing through a frenetic dialogue as dextrous as it is energising. Welcome to “Lungs”, the unexpectedly manic opening to Timeless, the entrancing 1975 album by John Abercrombie. “Lungs” was composed by the keyboard player Jan Hammer, he of Mahavishnu Orchestra fame. In group leader Abercrombie, […]
MORE SONGS ABOUT SEX AND BOOZE
What do you get if you mix the diamond grit of Dinah Washington, the heartbreak of Billie Holiday, the brash charm of Janis Joplin and the sass of The Ronettes? It’s a heady and potent cocktail, and one that resulted in soaring peaks and desperate troughs during the short life of Amy Jade Winehouse. In […]
INOCULATE AGAINST FEAR
One of the most popular on-line music guides lists more than 50 adjectives to describe the last album by progressive-metal masters Tool. This tells you a lot about the complexity of their 2019 eighty-minute epic. Some of the descriptors are pretty obvious… dramatic, powerful, intense, heavy… words that fans of the band will see as […]
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