One of the off-stage highlights of The Band’s The Last Waltz comes when Levon Helm discusses his love affair with the Big Apple.  To hear him tell it, you go there, get your ass handed to you, and crawl home to lick your wounds, only to return and have it happen all over again.  Eventually, “you fall right in love with the place.”  Aside from Richard Manuel’s dry “I just wanna break even” remark, Helm’s anecdote is my favorite non-musical moment from Scorsese’s classic concert film.

Josh Ritter’s mid-career arc as a singer/songwriter has followed a similar path.  Ritter’s early records sound as if a man who lived a bit had written them, a fella who had some experiences to call his own, possibly got his ass whooped once or twice, and put all that to song.  Then, after his masterpiece The Animal Years, his albums became filled with literary stories of other men and women; grandiose, and at times more metaphorical characters, who stood in as proxy for Ritter who traded in his omniscient narrator role for that of the invisible author.  Maybe this was his way of licking some wounds.

As time passed, my own love affair with the Idaho songwriter waned.  Then I spied his new “cozy” six-song EP in an indie record store in Philly last weekend.  I’ll admit that the cover art and handsome fonts tugged at my designer’s heart and it was those elements — not Ritter’s recent work — that made the sale. I discovered that the now Brooklyn resident, who has been through a marriage and a separation, and had his debut novel published since I bailed on him, has “fallen right in love” with something or someone.  Maybe it is New York City itself, I don’t pretend to know, but what I hear on Bringing in the Darlings is a guy who is again comfortable putting himself on the wax, wearing the songs on his wrinkled sleeves with his tender heart pinned there too.  The resulting hushed six-pack is indeed cozy, as advertised, and most definitely not for open-window highway driving (I tried), but the Josh Ritter charm, that endearing wink & a smile, that wooed my wife, my then 2-year-old daughter, and me is back.

“Why” asks some questions, as you probably could’ve guessed, that approximate a session or two on a therapist’s couch.  Moderately deep stuff, if you choose to go there, however “Why” doesn’t need to you to reflect for minute or initiate a shift of gears to be effective as a song.  Its nimbly plucked midsection might be all the self-help you require.

The EP’s standout cut is “Love Is Making Its Way Back Home,” a track that could easily pass as a Hello Starling outtake.  There’s a warmth in the simple instrumentation, cooing backing vocals, and Ritter’s less heavy lyrics, reminiscent also of M. Ward’s more Etsy-worthy selections from Transistor Radio and Post War.

An abundance of personal stories are tucked neatly inside the remaining tracks, “Darlin,’” “Make Me Down,” “See Me Through,” and “Can’t Go To Sleep (Without You),” each of which mimic, with great effectiveness, dusty, first-person country music odes to love, heartbreak, and redemption.

Someone got his ass kicked and has returned with true love in his eyes, and it’s not just me.

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Having said all that, we must accept that we still live in a world where we’ll hear this new album by Brooklyn-based TalkFine and instantly identify it with a very specific time period, that being the early to mid 1980s.

The dance-funk-disco aesthetic that TalkFine principals Clark Baxtresser and Pierce Siebers (via San Francisco Bay Area producer Jack Stratton) have appropriated on Lesser Known Hits certainly has been used over again in the 1990s (remember The Cardigans?) and the 2000s (Gorillaz, anyone?), but it really started as an outgrowth of 1970s disco and came to a suave, classy, semi-ironic but mostly earnest head with 1980s New Romantic bands like ABC, Spandau Ballet and Duran Duran. This is the DNA of TalkFine.

What keeps TalkFine rooted in the present day, however, is the band’s tendency to write songs that aren’t so much rooted in drama (romantic, social or otherwise) as they are based around having fun with life’s absurdities, whether ironic or straightforward.

Take the electro funk of “She Didn’t Have A Name,” for example. Its thick groove sets the stage for a bump n’ grind session ripe for a successful stroke of the male ego. But rather, the male protagonist is deftly denied by a booty shakin’ babe who “didn’t have a name” (“she didn’t need one!”). Or a phone, for that matter. Rejection, at the very least, sounds fucking awesome in this case. If you ever had a hard time coming to terms with the idea of a certain pick-up artist‘s suggestion that it can be fun just to go out and see how many times you can be rejected in one night, just listen to this song and think again.

Turning the tables with a tune anchored by a classic disco bass line is “Can’t Wait To Say No,” a casual face-saving verbal revenge fantasy of the “don’t bother changing your mind” variety – now it’s the guy’s turn to be the rejector, at least in his wildest dreams.

Pushing the absurdity bit even further is the album’s closing song, sung from the perspective of a guy who wooed a girl away from her old boyfriend not because her ex was a jerk, but, well, the title says it all: “It’s About The Bike.” Bikers everywhere, whether they be the tough guy leather n’ chains type or urban bicycle hipsters, now have their own super hooky pop anthem extolling the virtues of their own self-evident supremacy, not just in environmental friendliness but in virility as well.

But the clincher on this album is a creepy synth pop duet with another San Francisco Bay Area artist, singer Erica Fink. “Anonymous Lover” tells the tale of an urban voyeur who has fallen for a girl in the building across the street. He’s so into watching her that, even though there are lots of windows out there, hers is the only one his eyes ever see. It all sounds creepy until the girl, vibed all too perfectly by Erica, responds: “I come alive with your eyes on me.” Whoa! You wish that happened to you, don’t you? I bet you do. If you’re not ballsy enough to play this fantasy out in real life, it might be a bit safer to simply watch the video for The Rolling Stones’ “Neighbours” with the volume muted while listening to “Anonymous Lover.” Conveniently, they are exactly the same length. The Dark Side of Oz ain’t got nothin’ on Anonymous Neighbours.

At only seven songs, Lesser Known Hits immediately acknowledges our collective tendency towards shorter attention spans. It might have been called an EP at one time, or a “mini-album” back when Thomas Dolby was riding high in the early ’80s. But today, it’s just a right-sized album that never overstays its welcome as it revels in the comic absurdity of urban awkwardness. And yeah, it’s fucking good.

• Lesser Known Hits is available at Bandcamp and the iTunes Store.

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To me, Havok is the finest thrash band in existance right now so anything that makes its way to my ears is expected to be fantastic. Time Is Up was my favorite record of 2011 and these guys have been touring behind that record for what feels like forever at this point, including opening for Sepultura most recently. Somewhere in the midst of all of that, they recorded two new originals and a cover tune for release on an EP to hold people over until the next album.

As an ’80s fan I was kind of hoping that by titling their record Point of No Return, they were going to do a thrash cover of the Nu Shooz tune but my thirst for that to happen still goes unquenched as the title track is a blistering, speedy track led by some fantastic bass work. “Cradle to the Grave” follows that, which has more of a focus on the riff and solos than anything else. In fact, it contains what is probably the best soloing Havok has ever done.

Interestingly enough, one of the cover tunes is a reworking of the classic Sepultura track, “Arise” which I’m sure they can’t possibly play on tour before Sepultura hits the stage. The track is a bit one dimensional and somewhat boring – maybe the first time I’ve said that about something Havok put out in years. But then the EP closes with a blend of “Postmortem and Raining Blood” of course by Slayer, released as an iTunes only single back when the last disc came out. While no one matches the speed and total intensity of Slayer, Havok puts their signature guitar sound on it and crank out a pretty fantastic medley even reaching a few of those Tom Araya high-pitched screams now and again.

Point of No Return blows by but it’s thrash, what do you expect? Buy it, love it. Havok is the future of thrash.

“Postmortem/Raining In Blood”

Album: Furze, Psych Minus Space Control
Label: Fysisk Format
Release: May 15, 2012

Often referred to as an enigma, elusive and a shadowy being, Woe J. Reaper, the mastermind behind Furze is a weird dude. From the time he released his first demos back in ’98 until the present day, Furze records have gotten odder and odder at every turn. There are pluses and minuses to this. On one hand, Furze’s brand of black metal is really unlike anyone else’s and adventurous listeners could say he’s pushing the genre forward to places it hasn’t been before. On the other, a slew of odd instruments, oises and unconventional black metal can be tough to understand and drive people away.

I think a lot of people expected Furze to be much bigger within the metal scene than they are. Honestly, that can be said for pretty much any black metal band that brings something different to the table though, as the genre lacks variation for sure. While Reaper hasn’t flipped the genre on its ass, he does keep it on its toes. With every release, the first words uttered in reviews just like mine are “odd,” “weird” “strange” etc…something that has both plagued the artist and helped him become that shadowy figure. At this point in his career, I see a new Furze record coming and I have to listen just to see how weird it is. Maybe that’s the intrigue that he wants from his listeners.

Psych Minus Space Control may actually be his most listenable record though. It’s not easy to listen to by any means, but there’s no given point where I desire to turn it off like I do with every other album of his. The roots are certainly in black metal but masked and torn to shreds admist a swirling psychedelic vibe throughout the record. I can definitely go back to early Sabbath with this disc especially on the first two tracks, “Occult Soul, With Mind” and “Psych Mooz Space Control.” With the former there’s a darker doom element to the track with what could be a flute playing in certain parts. The latter song is wildly intriguing as not only does it seem like a fantastic acid trip but there are parts of the song where each instrument just takes over. His guitar work gives way to the bass in the forefront at times and at other times some really different sounding percussion with what is either a ton of cymbal work and cowbell or pots and pans crashing together. I wouldn’t put that past him. There’s a trumpet in there as well, almost bringing a lighthearted feel to an otherwise dark track. “Reaper Subconscious Guide” (yes, that was the name of his last album) is pretty straightforward on the surface with some fantastic ’70s rock riffs and upbeat drumming but when you put the headphones on and listen, the sublteties in the percussion as well as some creepy atmospheric keyboard (?) add a dimension that you don’t get if you aren’t paying attention.

Psych Minus Space Control is only five tunes clocking in at 43 minutes and the only time Woe J. Reaper sings is on “When Always Ready,” the closing track. The tracks were composed over the span of ten years of sessions but with material dating as far back as 1992. In most cases that would be somewhat of a compliation or outtakes but that doesn’t seem out of place at all for him to come up with something and store it for a decade or two until he finds the right spot for it. And since he plays, records and goes straight through with artwork and packaging himself, there’s no one else to worry about other than himself. Something does tell me though that there’s no one reading this to see if they should bother or not, if you know the name you made up your mind before I even started.

Album: Diablo Swing Orchestra, Pandora’s Pinata
Label: Sensory Records
Release: May 22, 2012

In one of the rare occasions where the name of the band perfectly describes the sound of them, this eight piece orchestra creates the most danceable metal tunes ever recorded. Normally, when you see that a band has a full brass section, a cello and an opera singer taking the lead vocals, you don’t think metal but Diablo Swing Orchestra definitely deserve the metal horns high.

Preferring to be called “Riot Opera” rather than metal, the craziness of this record starts right with the cover art. Looking like the box art to a Disney movie, Pandora and her friend are trying to get the spiked bat away from the clutches of the Pinata, which just happens to be have a live snake head! Then the picture of the band features seven gentlemen and a lovely lady all dressed in black looking much like something my mom might like watching. Opening track “Voodoo Mon Amour” definitely brings the swing up front, with catchy, danceable rhythms and upbeat horns. But then, the darkness starts to kick in. “Kevlar Sweethearts” has a metal guitar riff throughout the track and “Exit Strategy of a Wrecking Ball” starts off heavy and then mixes it up back and forth between that and stuff you’d hear on a Disney soundtrack before finishing up with the fiercest riff on the disc. “Mass Rapture” has a metal vibe to the whole tune while still featuring the horn section front and center.

I can’t remember the last time I wanted to headbang to opera but with Pandora’s Pinata, that’s exactly what you get. I have to think that the live show is probably fantastic as for a band like this as CD’s never really seem to capture the true spirit but it’s still the most fun metal record you’re going to hear this year.

“Kevlar Sweethearts”

Albums currently on the potential best of 2012 list:
Christian Mistress, Possession
Goatwhore, Blood for the Master
Human Toilet, Human Toilet
OSI, Fire Make Thunder
Terrorizer, Hordes of Chaos
Ufomammut, Oro: Opus Primum
Woods of Ypres, Woods 5: Grey Skies & Electric Light

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All hail, Varg Vikernes. The musical genius is back with his third post-incarceration album full of swirling, fuzzed out black metal riffs, bleak atmospherics and precise minimal drumming. Basically what I’m saying is that Umskiptar is no doubt a Burzum record.

Umskiptar is a little different lyrically so I’m told. Once again the vocals are in Norwegian so I can’t understand a damn thing from it but it consists of 66 stanzas from one poem called Voluspa. The story deals with the creation of the world all the way to its end, dictated to Odin. Many of the passages are spoken or consist of clean singing. There’s still enough growls that fans of traditional black metal vocals don’t need to be scared off though.

Of course, since I don’t understand the lyrics I have to focus on the music and you immediately know that Vikernes created this. There’s a lot of black metal out there that sounds exactly the same but somehow Burzum’s sound continues to remain instantly recognizable from the rest of the scene. Every note that Vikernes plays seems to be cold and calculated (that’s a good thing in this case), with both minimal drumming and the same guitar tone throughout pretty much every recording. What makes his records stand out is the uncanny knack to be able to paint the darkest, bleakest picture possible all while putting forth some of the greatest and catchiest black metal riffs laid to disc. Varg tends to find a great riff and stick with it for an entire song or at least the majority of it in many cases. But the riff is usually so fantastic that you forget you’ve just listened to eight minutes of the exact same thing repeated over and over again.

That said, while songs themselves don’t necessarily feel repetitive in nature, musically Umskiptar isn’t that much different from Fallen or Belus. “Alfadanz” is the tune that really stands out, both with the best riff on the disc and the distorted piano intro and interlude within the track. That leads right into another great riff used throughout the masterful, “Hit helga Tre.”

The only real downfall to the disc is that it’s too long. At 11 tracks, the final two could have been chopped off with the 10+ minute “Gullaldr” leading the way. With the Burzum sound not changing much over the course of the three records, it’s easy to see where a change in direction might be welcome but at the same time, I can’t imagine I’d listen to three very similar albums from any other artist and not rip them a new one. Umskiptar is a great piece of work by a black metal master but if you can’t understand the lyrics, don’t expect to hear anything that different from the other post-jail recordings.

“Alfadanz”

Album: Dee Snider, Dee Does Broadway
Label: Razor & Tie
Release: May 8, 2012

I can’t sit here and lie to you. When I first heard months ago that Dee Snider was doing a Broadway record, I immediately thought that he inevitably would lose any of the cred that he still has left. Then I heard there was going to be a duet with Clay Aiken and it changed from a thought to knowing that this would be the last straw for the man who brought us “We’re Not Gonna Take It.” But then I heard him talk about it, stating how much fun he had with the album and how surprised people were going to be when they heard it. Of course, all artists think their new work is great otherwise who in the world would buy it, so I took that with a grain of salt. Somehow though, Dee is right. Dee Does Broadway is a surprising, rollicking good time!

The part that I didn’t know about the record was that it was originally supposed to be an album with Dee and Alice Cooper. The whole idea for this apparently started when the two of them started leaving voicemails to each other to showtunes (and those are some voicemails that need to be leaked to youtube). Cooper was ready to do an entire record so Dee enlisted Bob Kulick and Brett Chassen who work on a lot of tribute records, Doug Katsaros on the arrangements and got Rudy Sarzo to play bass on the disc. He chose only tunes that weren’t rock oriented to begin with and rearranged each of them to rock out. Snider points out in the liner notes that while it isn’t metal, it does rock but hell, some of this actually may be metal. But either way, he’s not lying about the rockin’. And while back in the mid-80s, thinking about Dee Snider doing musicals would have been hilarious, looking back maybe no so much so. I mean, he was dressed in full drag most of the time and always had a voice that would have translated well to the stage. And of course, he’s certainly outgoing enough to see how it could work. While I’ve never seen it, I’ve heard amazing things about him and his role in Rock of Ages.

For the album, the first track I went to of course was the Clay Aiken duet of “Luck Be A Lady Tonight” to see if it was even decent enough to proceed. At the beginning it had a very traditional Broadway sound but then cranked it up a notch about a 1/4 of the way through. Although Clay Aiken really isn’t suited for rock music, it was actually quite decent, at least enough to start from the beginning. Then I uncovered the most rockin’ version of “The Ballad of Sweeney Todd” that I’ve ever heard. That was followed with a version of “Big Spender” with the always unique Cyndi Lauper and later on a really cool version of “This Joint Is Jumpin’” with his son ripping it up with him. But it’s really the loud rawk version of “Razzle Dazzle” that hooked me.

I have no real interest in musicals. I’ve been to a handful and actually liked Rent and Chicago but that’s about it. For someone like me there was no expectation that this would be anything but ridiculous so the fact that I’m fascinated by this is a real feat. Dee Snider loses no cred in my book for this and in fact he might gain a bit for turning something I don’t like into thoroughly enjoyable music. I may however lose some of that cred when I say it’s the best thing he’s done since Twisted Sister debuted with Under the Blade back in ’82.

“Cabaret”

Album: Sleep, Dopesmoker
Label: Southern Lord
Release: May 8, 2012

Sleep’s Dopesmoker is such a legendary monolithic beast that there’s no reason for Southern Lord not to re-release this son-of-a-bitch to the public again. After Sleep released Holy Mountain back in the day, London records picked them up to release their follow up, so naturally Sleep recorded “Dopesmoker,” a 63 minute fuck of a track that no major label executive could possibly know what to do with. After it was rejected, they reworked it by cutting 11 minutes off (ha, like 11 minutes was going to be enough) and retitled the track and album Jerusalem. London rejected this as well and that led to the band breaking up. All fans of Sleep and almost all fans of stoner metal have heard Jerusalem by this point but all versions released of that record were unauthorized by the band. The only time Dopesmoker saw a proper release was back in 2003 when Tee Pee records released it in it’s original form.

So forward ahead to 2012, nine years after that release. Sleep got back together in the past couple years to tour and blew my ass right out of the water with their stage prescence. They haven’t released a new record and Matt Pike went on to another High On Fire disc, so the natural thing to do was give Dopesmoker the proper release it deserved in the first place. Al Cisneros contacted Southern Lord in 2011 to see if they wanted to put this record out again. London’s rights to the recording had ceased and the band wanted to put it back out.

The recording was given to From Ashes Rise guitarist Brad Boatright to remaster and artist Arik Roper to create some new artwork and what results is a record that is even more powerful than the original. The wonderful remastering breathes fresh life into the tune and makes it crush so much harder than before (and that was a fierce recording in itself.) The truly amazing thing about the recording has always been the fact that you absolutely must listen to the entire thing at one shot and you actually want to. Nothing drags or feels too repetitive and you find yourself hanging on each riff to hear what’s next. It’s a landmark recording in the world of stoner metal and while I don’t normally review remasters, this one definitely deserves it.

At the end of the disc there’s a live version of “Holy Mountain” tacked on, which is the only part I hate. It’s a shitty audience recording which I’m sure someone listened to and thought that it captured the feel of the band but in reality it’s just a bad handheld version of one of their greatest songs. In addition, I really think it takes away from what this record is – one super long motherfucking bong hit. Maybe they thought no one would buy it without something extra on it but every one should own this disc for “Dopesmoker” itself, even if you own any of the previous versions.

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Tracks:
1. Terrorbird
2. Lonely
3. Mercy Dub
4. Set Flames
5. Flesh Ants
6. Below and Above You
7. Ill Consuming

Holy bleeding ears Batman. What a fucking monster Ursus Americanus is. And it may be an actual monster inside this disc. If you are unfamiliar with this up and coming act, it’s one guy named Tristan Shone. Shone creates his own instruments to make sounds that regular instruments clearly can’t. And they are all giant slabs of ugly metal that turn into a mix of industrial and doom better called “the soundtrack to your nightmares.”

Shone released his first album in 2005 and now Ursus Americanus marks this fifth album overall. I’m ashamed that the first time I’ve ever heard of this guy was when I was sent this album to review. But to his credit, it was so damn good that it made me go back and buy his other four. If you listen in order what you find is that with each record, Shone gets louder and louder. I think if I would have heard 2010′s Drone Machines before this new album I would have assumed he couldn’t make anything more punishing, as that was a brillant slab of loud industrial music. But Ursus surely continues that trend.

The album opens up with “Terrorbird” which is simply a perfect title to describe the tune. It’s like a mechanical bird poking at your eardrums while the evil creator laughs maniacally. Then there’s “Set Flames” which is the first track since some Khanate stuff many years ago that would probably keep me awake at night. The track starts off slow and droning before some fierce mechanical percussion and ungodly screams from Shone. And on the harder side, I have to mention “Flesh Ants” which is a mind fuck of jolting industrial noise. Someone needs to make a movie around this track with some flesh eating ants. It would totally scare the shit out of me.

Strangely enough though, it’s one of the quieter moments on the disc that is my favorite. With no pause after “Flesh Ants” the disc takes a sharp dramatic turn to “Below and Above” which is a slow, mesmerizing doom piece which adds an element of static-y noise similar to what you might hear out of a theremin, mixing it throughout the track with a haunting keyboard rhythm.

Again though, the real amazing thing about Author & Punisher is that he creates all these instruments from scratch. And listening to the discs in chronological order makes it seem like he’ll experiment with a piece of equipment, find parts he really likes and then expand on them to create something new the next time around. He’s not the first person to create his own music like this but I’ve never heard it to quite this level before. Ursus Americanus is the sound of Iron Man swinging his giant metal cock around to destroy enemies. You know, if giant metal cocks did that sort of thing.

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Pearl, the album that became Janis Joplin’s swan song, was at the time of its recording simply the next step in the progression of an artist who often struggled to find the appropriate collaborators with which to exercise her gifts. As documented in the liner notes for The Pearl Sessions, Columbia/Legacy’s new two-disk retrospective of the album, Joplin found the most supportive team she was ever to work with in producer Paul Rothchild and the Full Tilt Boogie Band, her hand-picked ensemble with whom she had road-tested many songs that would end up on the album. The resulting record is the best of Joplin’s short career, and far and away the most successful, riding the number one spot for nine weeks in 1971.

The Pearl Sessions consists of the album proper (along with mono mixes of the singles) and a second disk of outtakes and studio chatter. I won’t go into the original LP much except to say that it hasn’t undergone any remixing or remastering but still sounds great: Full Tilt Boogie played with just right mix of fire and precision, and Paul Rothchild did an excellent job of getting them and Joplin onto tape. As the most commercially and artistically successful album of rock’s pioneering female star, Pearl fully deserves a detailed look. That is where the second disk, featuring many (though not all) never-before-released tracks, comes in.

It should first be noted that anyone looking for a comprehensive account of the album’s making won’t find it — this is a general-interest release, not The SMiLE Sessions. For instance, we’re told that some songs were recorded live with Janis on vocals and others as instrumental tracks for her to overdub later. Why the mixed approach? We don’t know how many takes were recorded for each track (two different performances of “Get It While You Can,” recorded a month apart, are both listed as “take 3”) or how many extra tracks went unused. These questions are important for two reasons: for one, they reveal how much influence Joplin, neither a prolific composer nor arranger, had over the final shape of the material. As for the second reason, let’s be frank: Joplin died of an overdose before the sessions were complete. I understand the label’s and Joplin’s family’s reasons for not dwelling on this tragedy, but any real understanding of this album has to squarely address it. How much of Pearl was what Joplin envisioned, and how much of it was what Rothchild was able to piece together? The answers to all these questions are likely out there somewhere — I frankly admit I am no expert on Joplin’s life — but wherever they are, they’re not contained in this set.

Judging by the material that is presented here, Joplin’s composition “Move Over” seems to have taken the most effort to get right, with Janis and the band alternately fussing over the tempo, the rhythm accompaniment and John Till’s guitar lines. The easiest, by contrast, may well have been “Me and Bobby McGee,” a performance that by itself justifies almost every word of praise ever spoken about Janis Joplin. The one alternate take included here is too similar to the final master to be really interesting, suggesting that Joplin, Rothchild and the band were of remarkably similar minds on it from the get-go. That impression is confirmed by the inclusion of a solo demo performance by Joplin, recorded in the studio by Rothchild. The song is already complete: Joplin’s sense of pace and dynamics, her emotional journey through the song, are exactly as they would appear on the full-band version. I would have enjoyed a little fly-on-the-wall peek at the players working out the arrangement, but as far as understanding how the song came to be, it’s plainly not necessary.

Other highlights of the second disk are a longer version of “Cry Baby,” in which Joplin takes advantage of an extended spoken middle to tear a new asshole into a boyfriend who dumped her, and a mournful instrumental recorded by the band after Joplin’s death, and named for her: “Pearl.” There are no alternate takes of one my favorites from the album, “Half Moon,” presumably because it was cut by the band without Joplin (we are thrown a live performance of the song in consolation), nor of the Bobby Womack-penned “Trust Me.” There are five “Overheard in the Studio” tracks of Joplin bantering with producer and band: she comes across as fully in charge, even brusque (“Do it right and don’t miss that fucking change!” she snaps before a take), but also bubbling with good humor, cracking herself up during the aforementioned “Cry Baby.”

While I’m enough of a Joplin fan to have wanted more from The Pearl Sessions — deeper liner notes, more extensive outtakes — it remains a worthwhile peek into the making of a bona fide classic, and a testament to the artistry of a woman whose tumultuous life often obscures her very real, and justifiably enduring, achievements.

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The truth is that Sony has been packaging up these Essential collections for most of their artists for awhile now, and even in the stripped-back format as these tend to be, BOC’s edition was even more sparse; this is something the collection slated for April 17 should alleviate but regrettably doesn’t. For starters, the hand is played by Sony in that this is strictly the label’s material and is therefore all about asset recycling. There is no pre-BOC material (from Stalk-Forrest Group’s St. Cecilia) or post-Sony output (the Bad Channels soundtrack, Heaven Forbid or Curse of the Hidden Mirrors). There isn’t anything from Imaginos which actually was a Sony effort, so even as part of a previously established category of releases such as the Essential line is, this collection has a hard time living up to the headline.

And that is the big issue to deal with. The time for nice, comprehensive box sets seem to be behind us, and so efforts to cull a band’s full spectrum of work into one place now is best served by aggregation in iTunes rather than in a nice, complete package which is something BOC always deserved. At the very least it might have shown the goofier, slightly more thoughtful side of the band than what outsiders may have assumed — that they were just America’s answer to Black Sabbath.

Not true. Sure, the dire romance of  “Don’t Fear The Reaper” and the hell-bent “Burnin’ For You” has cast long shadows over the legacy of the band, but to take the music in full you find BOC to be mostly a bunch of amiable yarn spinners, from the daft “Joan Crawford” (“has risen from the grave”) to the band’s collaborations with Richard Meltzer, Patti Smith (“Fire of Unknown Origin“), Michael Moorcock and Eric Van Lustbader.  If Sabbath was the musical equivalent of a particularly gory Hammer Film, then BOC was more often the Roger Corman “Beach Party From Hell” variant, they knew it, and they reveled in it.

The collection is underserved by what Sony had at their disposal, aside from the omission of Imaginos. There is only one song from Mirrors (“In Thee”) which could very well have been a hit on A.M. pop radio, and only one track from Club Ninja (“Dancin’ In The Ruins,” a personal favorite, even with the disco bridge smack in the middle of it). Where is “Madness To The Method,” I ask you? Then add in the losses from outside the label — Stalk-Forrest Group’s “Curse of the Hidden Mirrors” which would have nicely bookended “Dance On Stilts” from their currently-final studio album Curse of the Hidden Mirrors, or “Harvest Moon” from Heaven Forbid. Essential? Not likely.

What this 2-disc set is, however, is a decent culling of names you know, wrapped in an affordable package for curiosity seekers not invested enough to hunt down the albums, many of which are not in print on CD anyhow. Decent, in my mind, doesn’t scratch the surface enough though. BOC really does deserve the full-on retrospective befitting a band that, to a certain extent, still exists and still holds a place in the hearts of rock/hard rock fans. It might be too late for that now. As such, this edition will have to do, even though it has been issued in the most cynical manner imaginable.

The Essential Blue Oyster Cult (2-disc edition) is available from Amazon.com

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This belief doesn’t diminish the album for those who love that recording, as the conglomeration of things that made the effort stand out for them remains there to enjoy. It’s just that those eccentricities kept the thing from being accepted by the mainstream audience, and as a fan you are required to understand that this is not something they’re going to like. Roughly half of my personal music collection consists of stuff I can’t casually pop on in social settings. Perhaps the point of view is too pointed, or the music is too complicated, or sometimes not complicated enough. They wouldn’t like it no matter how hard I might try to convince friends that this is something. I recall friends who were really into Tool’s Aenima at the time it came out and I tried to turn them on to King Crimson’s Red. It didn’t work out the way I thought it would.

It is important however that both albums remain obtainable in some form or another because you can never tell what you will connect with. For that, Rhino Records and executive producers Andrew Sandoval and Alec Palao are to be commended for getting the lost fan favorite, The Beau Brummels’ Bradley’s Barn back into print. The album was not a big seller for the Warner Bros. label in 1968 and likely alienated older fans that were introduced to the Brummels through the hit “Laugh, Laugh.” Much like how they perfectly adopted the British Invasion sound on that recording, the album has fully integrated a countrified groove. At this point only vocalist Sal Valentino and guitarist Ron Elliott remained, and Valentino sounds nothing like he used to here, his smooth delivery now replaced by a heavy drawl and quaver.

I can fully attest to the shock of the new Brummels fans must have felt. After all, I knew them from “Laugh Laugh” and their appearance on the TV show The Flintstones. When I received this disc for review (from 2011, in fact) my first reaction upon listening was “what the hell is this,” and that was that…until recently. Feeling in a country mood, as I do from time to time, I pulled out Johnny Cash At San Quentin, some Nickel Creek and, oh what the heck, let’s give that weird Bradley’s Barn another turn. This time it stuck.

I can’t say I’ve fully gotten used to Valentino’s excesses as he pronounces “coyote” as “cay-oh-teh,” among other moments of asserting his “con-tray-nayess,” but what first elicited flat-out antipathy now finds my toes shaking (if not necessarily tapping) with approval. The tracks that do it for me are conscious of the times they were in, so touchstones of sixties pop help ease the listener in to a place where acceptance leads to appreciation.

And as usual, Rhino went nuts on the reissue, a hardcover booklet roughly 7-inches by 7-inches (like 45 rpm records), the full album, nearly a CD-and-a-half of bonus material, and a complete history of the album in the liner notes. More than that, the label understood the material and chose to release this elaborate package as part of the Rhino Handmade program; a smart move, because this wouldn’t have passed muster in the larger music market. The small cult that follows this recording would have picked it up and, one can only guess, that would have been it. The discs would have been cut out, sent off to the bins at the local grocery store, and left to linger next to ever more prominent titles that also aren’t getting bought lately. This is a case of doing right by those fans that feel the recording deserves that degree of respect, but also gets the marketplace it is being introduced into, often characterized by indifference of anything that was not released fifteen minutes ago.

I enjoy Bradley’s Barn now, but I had to get there when I was receptive to it. It was not going to easily drag me in, but I’m glad I was given the opportunity to at least try.

Cherokee Girl- The Beau Brummels

Bradley’s Barn is available from Rhino.com.

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The supergroup finds Neal Morse and Mike Portnoy teaming up once again (not only are they members of supergroup Transatlantic, but Portnoy is the longtime drummer on Morse’s prog-oriented solo works). Only this time, instead of Roine Stolt (The Flower Kings) and Pete Trewavas (Marillion), they are joined by Dave LaRue (Dixie Dregs, Steve Morse Band), Casey McPherson (Alpha Rev), and Steve Morse (Deep Purple, Dixie Dregs, Kansas, and no relation to Neal). They are also joined by producer Peter Collins who oversaw several albums by Rush, Queensryche, and even Billy Squier. There is enough in this mix that you could expect the results to be a unique experience.

You get that to a degree on the track “All Falls Down” which, on first listen, sounds far too close to Muse for comfort. You also get the occasional muscularity that represents the push and pull of Portnoy’s dual interests: the prog and the metal (“Shoulda Coulda Woulda”). But mostly you get an album that sounds suspiciously like another Transatlantic release. For many in the audience, that’s perfect, and you can always count on the individual members to bring a high level of musicianship to the fore. Others, expecting this to be a departure, may well be disappointed that the changes in the lineup really don’t signify a lot of change in the end product.

You can imagine that I was a little confused while listening to it, as McPherson’s voice sounds much more like Coldplay’s Chris Martin (this sounds most evident on “Everything Changes”) than it does Neal Morse, the majority vocalist in the previously mentioned projects, yet delivers it very much as Morse would.  It was hard to accept this as an entirely new and separate entity when structurally, thematically, and often harmonically it was itself denying differences. Add to that Morse adding plenty of background vocals and Portnoy taking the lead vox now and then, and what you have left is a very good but slightly altered Transatlantic.

There’s the key phrase: very good. Morse and Portnoy are talented artists who surround themselves with talented artists, and Flying Colors features plenty of great melodies, but many of them are already familiar to longtime fans. Some will find that comforting and others will walk away from the disc with an appreciation, but not necessarily a deep and abiding love for the material. I’ve listened to it several times now, and the moments that stick out are the ones that could have been on Transatlantic’s Bridge Across Forever, or Morse’s recent Testimony 2.

I understand how that could happen. Every musician has a comfort zone of chord progressions and tonal eccentricities and, if they aren’t challenged to break from them, they can easily lapse into something more than just “sounding like themselves” and more like “repeating themselves.” Fortunately, Flying Colors isn’t quite at that point but they are perilously close.

Better Than Walking Away – Flying Colors

Flying Colors is available from Amazon.com

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For the reviewer on the other hand, some things don’t change. We still get music sent to us, and for the scrupulous practitioner you are obliged to respond in kind. You don’t take without giving. Intentions are always good, and the stack of discs that are sent to you steadily climbs higher and higher, as does the guilt for having seriously bent your own conduct code, if not breaking it outright. The other awful part of this is that something really good could easily fall through the cracks, something that could use the attention much more than the hot hits you’re focusing on. A low tolerance for quirk assists putting possible winners low on the listening order, and I found the album title Homewrecker Spoon from Life in a Blender extremely quirky.

I received it slightly before Christmas 2011 and this review is appearing a day before April Fool’s. How’s that for foot-dragging. To make matters more harsh, the album is very enjoyable. Tonally it rests somewhere between late-period Talking Heads pop and late-period Modest Mouse pop, and a lot of that has to do with the voice of lead singer Don Ralph. Ralph has the quality of not being right on the note, but close enough, being in the ballpark musically to sell the song and be unique all at once, much like David Byrne and Isaac Brock. Ralph is the primary songwriter but is backed by an impressive group of musicians bringing very un-pop-conventional tones to the mix. You have at any given moment a horn section, banjo and mandolin, violin/viola/cello, and a nicely skewed musical perception throwing them into the figurative blender (pun intended) with the guitar/drum/bass standard.

Other influences peer from corners, but these are only assumed on my part. I will say that the kinship between Life in a Blender’s “Hoot Owl” and Skeleton Key’s “Roost In Peace” cannot be merely my imagination. Not a rip-off by any stretch, but the hurdy-gurdy, shambolic mood and the avian references certainly put a definite “maybe” on the question of whether one knows of the other. Important note: Life in a Blender has apparently been around for over 25 years, meaning that Ralph and Co. predate what sound like some influences, and may have been contemporaries of the others. I would not have known this had I not received my reviewer’s copy.

The disc starts with the unabashed pop tune “Go To Man” and immediately made my stomach ache a little — not because I was having a negative reaction to the song; on the contrary, it was because I took so long to get to the disc. This tune is fun stuff.

The last track, “Stranger’s Foot” has the most Byrne-Heads feel to it, and by the time I got to it I was ready to listen to the disc again, which is always a good sign. Another thing that plagues the committed music reviewer is the need to play on a one-and-done basis. You listened, you wrote, you moved to the next object in the stack. It is this self-imposed rut that causes so many reviewer-types to start refusing discs, rather than turning into mechanical critique devices that learn to dislike what was once one of the coolest occupations you could have. I will say this: had I taken that route, I would never have heard Homewrecker Spoon and that would have been a sad thing indeed. Don’t make my mistake.

Go To Man - Life in a Blender

P.S. Why “Homewrecker Spoon” anyway? Well, if said spoon wasn’t such a filthy libertine, the dish might never have left…and now you get the joke.

Homewrecker Spoon is available from Amazon.com.

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