Audioholic Media

»Album Reviews For Release Date: 03.22.11
by Joshua Krage

Downtempo is dominating (if that’s possible) this week. Keren Ann, Shawn McDonald, William Fitzsimmons and members of Cornelius joining forces with Petra Haden and Cibo Matto’s Yuka all make this week a mellow cushion of audio heaven to bookend your winter and launch you into spring 2011 like a paper sailboat down a forest stream. Or something serene like that. Read on for other rock happenings as well:

Acid House Kings
Richard Ashcroft

Bing Ji Ling, Shadow to Shine – the puzzling moniker of NYC singer/songcrafter Quinn Luke, who combines a few pages from the ’70s classic-pop era book of arranging and ends up somewhere between Jeff Lynne’s ELO and Kool & the Gang. Highly tuneful, selectively soulful, and rather danceable in a retro way.

Maggie Bjorklund, Coming Home – an alt.country pedal steel player from Denmark. You read right, Denmark, and she’s a seasoned vet at this point, able to reel in guest spots from Mark Lanegan and some guys out of Calexico, among others. Very low-key, very beautiful.

Joe Bonamassa
Chris Brown
Solomon Burke/De Dijk
Caedmon’s Call
CKY – b-sides/rarities
Edwyn Collins
Cunninlynguists
Billy Currington

Deep Dark Robot, 8 Songs About a Girl – gritty new rock band from Tony Tornay and seminal music fixture Linda Perry, who penned these songs over the past six or so months and rocks the hell out of all eight of them, even the slow-burning ballads. Decent proper return to performing and great end track.

Papa John DeFrancesco
DMX – best of

Duran Duran, All You Need Is Now – conceived as a modern followup to some of their earlier classics and produced and directed (musically) by Brit phenom Mark Ronson. Plenty of classic-quality new wave melodies and rock-star lyricism from Simon LeBon and co., perhaps not quite the sequel Ronson envisioned, but a decent album.

Emery

William Fitzsimmons, Gold in the Shadow – I am far too meager a music reviewer to adequately convey the lyrical gift of acoustic wordsmith William Fitzsimmons. Phrases that take other songwriters full paragraphs to express are delivered perfectly and succinctly with brimming catharsis by his world-weary whisper, possessed of a poeticism unmatched by any songwriter to pick up a pen this century. Think of him as the midpoint between Joshua Radin and Henry David Thoreau and you’re halfway there. Some subtle keyboard and laptop-beat flourishes switch things up a bit, as does an uncharacteristically catchy duet with Julia Stone (sans Angus) on album centerpiece “Let You Break.” A lush study in songcrafting, a heart-rending sojourn into introspection, and a breathtaking sailboat in which to drift down a sparse, delicate, and deliberate sonic stream.

Kirk Franklin
Green Day – live CD/DVD
Jennifer Hudson

If By Yes, Salt on Sea Glass – definitely my favorite supergroup of the 21st century, teaming Petra Haden and Cibo Matto’s Yuka Honda with Yuko and Shimmy out of electronic geniuses, Cornelius. In execution, this comes off with the combined tunefulness of those two bands and more, meshed into a stylish collage or art-pop, downtempo ambience with Petra Haden’s perfectly low-key and sepia-tinged croon. This is music which effortlessly embodies the sense of art culture and you can almost feel the white walls and environment-controlled ambience of your nearest gallery while listening.

Josh Kelley

Keren Ann, 101 – just as calm and mesmerizing as her last LP four years ago, Keren Ann Zeidel has grown in her songwriting and her ability to bewitch with a word but also packs a bit of an extra groove punch on a couple of tracks. I always grab one of her old albums when I need to mellow down a bit and sail away into aural bliss and luckily this LP still lets me do that, just on a much more sophisticated level. And the closing title track is an artistic and lyrical masterpiece on multiple levels.

Ke$ha – remix
Adam Lambert – live
The Lonely Forest
Shawn McDonald

OST – Sucker Punch – surprisingly little buzz about this top shelf soundtrack, eclipsed by the hype and the jaw-socking visual intensity of the Zak Snyder film it supports. A brief, potent mix of remakes, mash-ups, and imaginative pairings, these nine songs feature film star Emily Browning crooning with mesmerizing dread over Eurythmics’ “Sweet Dreams,” The Kills’ Allison Mosshart teaming with Autolux’s Carla Azar to restructure Beatles classic “Tomorrow Never Knows,” Skunk Anansie adding extra balls to Iggy Pop’s “Search and Destroy” and contributing, with others, to a surprising Queen mash-up of “I Want It All” and “We Will Rock You.” Zak Snyder pays just as much attention to the sounds of his films as to the visuals, and seeing the visuals, this is saying something large. Check out the Sucker Punch remix of Bjork’s “Army of Me” for a taster, which I never imagined could be remixed to rival the original– and if you lose patience, jump to the 4:00 mark for more crescendo than your body can rightfully handle.

Panic at the Disco
Saliva

Tommy Shaw, The Great Divide – sure he made his name with Styx, but this stratosphere-voiced guitar rocker cut his teeth on bluegrass and shows his down home chops here.

Soundgarden – live

The Strokes, Angles – we finally reached the point in the last year where the Strokes’s solo projects had eclipsed their source band’s creativity and stylishness, and so finally all five NYCenesters can reunite on a full band record without fear of any of their singular voices being muffled for the greater good. Their time away and alone (or at least in other forms) served all these guys very well, and the energy and creativity of this record is immediately apparent, if a bit more like reinvigoration than new spark. To my ear, the production and hard-panned stereo guitar mix on this LP sounds a bit stripped-down, reminding me instrumentally of albums by Tokyo Police Club, Test Icicles, or early ’00s NES-rockers The Advantage, which is all a very good thing. Thankfully they couldn’t be more disaffected (as always), meaning their characteristic nonchalance remains intact, as does their style and, most importantly, their excellent brand of raw and well-cultured rock and roll.

Bobby V
Yellowcard
Zion I & The Grouch

Yes there are plenty of happenings in rock, but when downtempo tuneage can grab the spotlight, I rejoice. Plenty of great stuff from which to choose this week, grab your monies and get buying.

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