Posts Tagged ‘CD Reviews’

CD Review: Rammstein, “Liebe Ist Für Alle Da”

(Note: As a show of solidarity with his teutonic brethren, Anthony Hansen translated his original review into german and then back again. We hope you enjoy his unique, if undeniably misguided approach. The original draft of the review will follow.)

Although one can accuse Rammstein of its easily not possibly to take seriously could it their saving beauty of also be. Has each possible volume, which has those cojones not to begin to their album with first but the second song, which marks a group singing of its own name any, an excellent direction of irony or the self-confidence gold fish. I decide to believe the former.

If it aren’t already bent toward to Rammstein’s over point mixture of the epischen, expanded keyboards, changing stripped and the roared vocals and the strong wall of the distorted metal guitar and – ramming trommelt, this album won’ T-influence (sic) your opinion. However find with an inclination toward to this kind of the high-quality cheese much, in order to enjoy here. Not there’s not much deviation of the formula. It’s Rammstein. It don’ You do t-purchase, which a AC/DC album, which expects a bundle of the prince, covers?

This said, there is the feeling that the joke carries thinly that the band’ s-stilistische stamps begin to believe like a straitjacket. As usual that the most memorable song is one, English-sung novelty number called to explain Pussy? Seriously you hear simply to this thing. If that’s a novelty song then my brows are not ear worms. It’s also the most binding song on the album by any distance. (more…)

CD Review: Built to Spill, “There Is No Enemy”

Built to Spill, There is No Enemy (2009, Warner Bros.)
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If Doug Martsch sang like Dave Grohl, Rivers Cuomo, or even Thom Yorke, Built to Spill would be huge, arena-packin’ gunslingers and rich bastards, to boot. In a parallel universe, Martsch might have killed Chris Martin in some combination one-on-one basketball game-cum-minor celebrity death match, ridding us of Coldplay and winning the hand of Gwyneth Paltrow, only to discard her upon hearing her Oprah-fied tips on beauty and spiritual wellness. Built to Spill might’ve then invaded some minor republic like Kalmykia, slaying its meager armed forces with nothing but the brute volume of their amplification and building a towering monument to the band’s undisputed leader, made entirely of reconstituted Fender and Gibson products and melted-down copies of Coldplay’s X&Y. The new nation’s national anthem would have been Neil Young’s “Love and Only Love”—a ten-minute distorted guitar manifesto, the kind King Doug loves and would insist upon being added to state radio playlists.

The Idaho-born Martsch, in other words, is a fucking god, but his reedy, nasally singing voice—a hallmark of every Built to Spill album—is the very thing that keeps his band from being the kind of international proggy juggernaut those cutie-pies in Muse currently are. Things are not bound to change with There Is No Enemy, good as it is, as Martsch’s elastic whine once again blends into the overall sound of the band, becoming, in effect, another instrumental layer you either grasp or you don’t. Even without many immediately discernible lyrics, though, the album’s songs still satisfy, displaying the full and mighty power of Built to Spill in all its parallel universe-shakin’ glory. (more…)

CD Review: “Let It Roll: Songs by George Harrison”

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George Harrison was an intensely spiritual man, but the compilation gods have never been kind to him. His first best-of – actually a kiss-off from Apple/Capitol after he signed with Warner Bros. in 1976 – was downright insulting, with one LP side devoted not to his solo work, but to his Beatles songs. The Best of Dark Horse (1976-1989), compiled with Harrison’s participation and released in time to capitalize on the success of the Cloud 9 album and the Traveling Wilburys, was considerably more thorough in covering its timeframe; yet it failed to include the Apple hits. With Harrison now sadly gone, and his musical legacy split between two conglomerates that have not (yet) managed to merge, it long has seemed that newcomers to his music might never find a comprehensive sample of his best work in one package.

But lo, this week brings the new, “career-spanning” EMI comp Let It Roll: Songs by George Harrison … and I’m sorry to say that the wait continues.

Of course, any reduction of a long career to a single, 19-track CD is bound to be full of holes. (Though it must be said, while we’re on the subject of single-disc solo-Beatles comps, that EMI did an excellent job with Lennon Legend and even did right by Ringo with the recent Photograph set.) But Let it Roll’s inclusions (and exclusions) seem so random, its sequencing so thoughtless, that one can only wonder whether the compilers gave any consideration to (or even had much knowledge of) the arc of George’s career. That’s a sweeping accusation, I know, and I’ll be suitably embarrassed if it turns out that George himself wrote the track listing on a napkin while lying on his deathbed, or perhaps put it in his will. (Such information might be in the album credits or in Warren Zanes’ liner notes, neither of which EMI saw fit to include with review copies of the CD.) (more…)