Archive for the ‘Music reviews’ Category
Poison Idea: The Fatal Erection Years, 1983-1986
From last month’s Record Collector.
As convenient as it is to find an era of Poison Idea’s work compiled on one disc, even the most ardent fan of the band would surely prefer to hear each component of The Fatal Erection Years separately; forty-five blasts of vehement hardcore that stretches to over an hour is an exhausting endeavour.
With thirteen songs in as many minutes, The Pick Your King EP (originally released on 7”) is an exhilarating if entirely rudimentary rush of controlled aggression with Pig Champion’s surprisingly tight riffs backing Jerry A’s bellowed vocal attack. The Record Collectors Are Pretentious Assholes EP repeats the same trick with a beefier production and slightly more substantial songs (the longest of which, Time To Go, just about passes the two-minute mark). Four tracks taken from compilations find the band’s power streamlined into something which more closely resembled the sound of their later years. The collection is completed by a bootleg-quality recording of an anarchic show in Portland.
The package is bolstered by some blunt, witty liner notes courtesy of Jerry A. As he concludes: “I think these songs you have here are all cool. I hope you like them too. But really, I don’t care if you don’t.”
Ben Folds Five: The Sound of the Life of the Mind
From last month’s Record Collector.
Thirteen years after they broke up, music’s most famous three-piece Five return. Looking back, their self-titled 1995 debut fought a pitched battle between piano and fuzzy bass, complemented by thick floods of vocal harmonies. Two years later, Whatever and Ever Amen broadened the palette of their music with greater emotional intensity. They signed off with 1999’s The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner which boasted some fine Bacharachian compositions even if the sonic shakes didn’t always satisfy.
After a dozen listens, The Sound of the Life of the Mind sits firmly at the bottom of their discography. As the uninspiring first single Do It Anyway suggests, this is Ben Folds Five on competent, pedestrian form. With the exceptions of Michael Praytor, Five Years Later, On Being Frank and Sky High, there’s nothing that can touch the joyous exuberance of Philosophy, the creative contrasts of Fair or the devastating Magic. It doesn’t help that Darren Jessee and Robert Sledge’s vocals are rarely given the prominence they deserve – Folds has always been an excellent songwriter, but the duo’s oohs and aahs would often take his material to the next level.
Hopefully, this will be a slowburner of an album because as it stands, it’s disappointingly conservative.
Sugar / Bob Mould: reissues series
From a recent issue of Record Collector.
In the wake of Nirvana, major labels swooped to sign anyone making a buzz on the alternative rock scene. After the collapse of Husker Dü and the release of two solo albums, Bob Mould’s new band Sugar found a less obvious home with the pre-Oasis Creation Records; then growing in reputation following releases from Primal Scream and Teenage Fanclub.
Largely ignored in retrospect, it’s almost surprising to recall how successful Sugar were. Not only did all three of their albums hit the top ten of the UK charts, but their Copper Blue debut won NME’s 1992 album of the year. Blessed with the sweetness and crunch that typified Seattle’s most famous sons, Copper Blue traversed the power-pop range – jangly acoustic pop (If I Can’t Change Your Mind), searing melodic punk (Fortune Teller) and a cheeky Pixies parody (A Good Idea) – all complimented by Mould’s imaginary friend vocal delivery and world-weary lyrics. The result is the most consistent and accessible album of his already acclaimed career.
Consisting of outtakes from their debut, the following year’s Beaster mini-album was Copper Blue’s psychotic sibling: the pop hooks jettisoned in favour of grotesque choral harmonies, ferocious aggression and Mould yelping about Jesus like a demented preacher. Mould has never been one to take the obvious route and Beaster consequently brims with an intensity that effectively killed their upwards momentum stone dead.
Flooding its opening track Gift with bursts of squalling feedback, File Under Easy Listening is split between songs that wouldn’t appear out of place on Copper Blue with softer forays into country rock. That wouldn’t be an issue stylistically, but half of the set falls far short of Mould’s highest standards with songs that stamp or strum without direction. Nonetheless, it contains one of the finest moments that Mould has put his name to in the shape of Explode and Make-Up, a harrowing ballad that offers little hope of redemption.
Unlike 2002’s electronica-influenced Modulate, Mould’s subsequent solo albums didn’t take huge leaps away from Sugar. Aside from some very dated drum machines, his eponymous 1996 collection differed atmospherically rather than sonically: the crushing bleakness of Anymore Time Between giving way to I Hate Alternative Rock’s cutting sarcasm. The Last Dog And Pony Show doesn’t fare quite as well as Mould revisits his previous styles with little consistency. The most notable example, the sample-heavy half-rapped Megamanic, is dire. It’s telling that LiveDog98, recorded at London’s Forum, closes with Sugar’s Man On The Moon.
Each of these four releases is boosted with a huge amount of bonus material – even the six-track Beaster adds a DVD featuring a video for Tilted and a five-song live DVD. Collectively, the additional content proves that Mould, like many prolific singer-songwriters, isn’t necessarily the best judge of his own material which is especially true of the five b-sides on File Under Easy Listening, all of which would easily enhance the main album. The point is reiterated across three live albums which awkwardly scatter b-sides and unrecorded songs amidst more familiar album tracks.
Ginger Wildheart: 100%
From a recent issue of Record Collector.
Unable to secure funding for a proposed triple album, Wildhearts figurehead Ginger turned to crowd-funding in a final attempt to make it happen. The reaction was extraordinary. At the time of writing, the project had landed 583% of its target figure. While the full project will be available exclusively to those who pledged in advance, fans voted for their favourite twelve tracks which feature on 100% – a single CD compilation of the triple album’s highlights.
The first half of 100% veers towards Ginger’s prime strengths: somewhere between the less aggressive side of The Wildhearts and mid-paced pop-rock that breaks no new ground but has too much quality to be dismissed as the cheapest trick of all. The remainder sees Ginger’s experimentation come to the fore with lurching Eighties funk and jaunty reggae rhythms offering different sonic shakes. Perhaps ironically, the album’s highlight Time is one of the few that melds both approaches as a recurring Mott The Hoople-styled motif is punctuated with jarring time signatures and bursts of vehement riffing.
Musically, 100% is almost entirely a success, but as a product it’s close to immediately redundant. Surely any halfway committed fan will have already pre-ordered the full package?
Poison Idea – Darby Crash Rides Again: The Early Years
From a recent issue of Record Collector.
By 1990, Poison Idea had much mastered their streamlined metallic punk with the album Feel The Darkness. Now seemingly best remembered through Pantera’s cover of The Badge, this release compiles demos and live tracks from 1981-1983.
Like most punk demos of the era, 1981’s Boner’s Kitchen material is a raw blast of murky instrumentation and semi-decipherable vocals, which combined with the band’s paucity of ideas (short, loud, fast!) offers little beyond historical curiosity. They’d soon progress, however, as evidenced in two parallel versions of Give It Up – the
1982 Darby Crash demo version showing that their fury was being channelled into something far more cohesive.
Elsewhere there are live tracks ranging from the ferocious Typical to the sloppy (I Hate) Reggae and out takes from the Record Collectors Are Pretentious Assholes EP. Two versions of Motörhead’s signature track rattle by but fail to match the version they’d later record for the covers album Pajama Party.
Ultimately The Early Years is one for pretentious assholes only – those eager to discover Poison Idea at their best should hold for the Feel The Darkness and Kings of Punk reissues that Southern Lord will be releasing later in the year
