Kids in the Hall: Death Comes to Town DVD review

The thing to keep in mind when settling in to watchDeath Comes to Town for the first time is that this series is not sketch comedy. In fact, it barely qualifies as comedy at all. The Kids in the Hall made their name peddling a brand of humor that was very much devoid of narrative structure; maybe there would be a recurring idea here or a consistent character there, but for the most part, the Kids leaned on their sly delivery, odd characterizations and utterly bizarre imaginations to deliver the laughs.

When the team tried to combine their comedic approach with a story – as they did with 1996’s Brain Candy – they failed pretty miserably. Yet, with Death Comes To Town, the focus is almost purely on the story. Hell, it’s a murder mystery, so they end up trying to drive a cohesive story arc for eight half-hour episodes. They don’t completely succeed.

Stocked to the brim with a baffling array of new and classic Kids characters, Death Comes to Town feels like a Canadian take on “The League of Gentlemen” or “Little Britain”: outlandish and occasionally grating characters orbit around a central plot that alternates between being on-the-nose (who killed the mayor?) and incomprehensible (why is the Grim Reaper hanging out in a hotel?). The astonishing number of characters that are poured into the eight episodes are, for the most part, all played by the five Kids (of course, the women are too), and while such role-switching works in five-minute comedy sketches, it winds up (especially during a DVD marathon of the episodes) muddling the viewer’s ability to play along. Which wouldn’t be too terrible if the jokes were flying, but it appears that the Kids have moved beyond punchy surrealism and into a sort of aggressively cynical weirdness that ends up subverting both the humor and the narrative.

First appeared in Orlando Weekly on May 26, 2011.

White Denim: D CD review

(7 out of 10)

At what point does a waterfall of surprises become just another drowning crush of predictable unpredictability? It’s a question that Austin-based White Denim has been wrestling with for much of their five-year existence, and it’s one that they’ve yet to come to answer completely. On D, the band’s fourth full-length album, they once again seem determined to jam just about every sonic element from all the FM-oriented records released between 1966 and 1976 into a vaguely modernized template. Yes, “Street Joy” quotes the melody from “Hey Hey, My My,” the band busts out a Jethro Tull-style flute riff on “River to Consider” (and it’s not Tull-style just because it’s flute … it legitimately sounds like a bit that Ian Anderson would play), and a cut like “Bess St.” splits the previously vast canyon of difference between Foghat-style boogie-rock and the noodly tempo complexities of King Crimson.

So yes, just as with White Denim’s previous releases, there’s a lot to unpack on D — if, of course, you even want to bother. The alternative is to just give up on trying to figure out exactly where these guys are coming from and just let their relaxed rock ’n’ roll virtuosity work its magic. Because at the end of the day, D manages to show White Denim doing one very specific thing: being White Denim. At this point in the game, all those influences and touchstones have jelled into a sound that’s both easily identifiable and quite unique, and though it’s still occasionally jarring in its schizophrenia, it’s one that manages to be consistent on its own terms. In fact, the few moments when D missteps most obviously are those when the band settles into a relatively straightforward and conventional groove — like, say, the gentle, Blitzen Trapper-ish acoustica of album-closer “Keys.”

First appeared May 25, 2011 in Paste.

Danger Mouse & Daniele Luppi: Rome CD review

(5.5 out of 10)

What’s most shocking about this long-gestating collaboration between the increasingly polymath-tastic Danger Mouse and Italian composer Daniele Luppi is how un-cinematic it is. To be sure, Rome is designed to be taken in like it’s some sort of Cinemascope of Sound — hell, the album took longer to make than most of the classic Italian films of the ‘60s from which it draws inspiration — but the end result is much smaller, more intimate, and far less gregarious than the Cinecittà movies or spaghetti westerns of the ‘60s and ‘70s. Although Danger Mouse and Luppi go right to the source for Rome’s sonic bona fides by utilizing some of the same studio musicians, singers, and even equipment that giants like Morricone did, those tools still don’t keep the album from sounding more like bedroom-based baroque pop than the swinging grandiosity of the era they’re trying to emulate.

In fact, it’s truly remarkable how much work went into the making of this album — we’ve heard tales of bartering bottles of wine for vintage equipment, recording with analog tape in the famed Ortophonic Studios, calling out of retirement the elder statesmen who played on the soundtracks of films like Once Upon a Time in the West. Yet all of that fetishism is quickly and completely eclipsed by the jarring presence of the distinct voices of Norah Jones and Jack White (each of whom appear on three tracks) and the plodding, midtempo modernity of the songs composed by Luppi and Danger Mouse.

The combination finds none of the elements complementing one another, resulting in an amorphous and unchallenging bit of pleasantry, rather than the ambitious result of, as the marketing materials say, “a half-decade of hard work and unstinting perfectionism.” Actually, I take that back. Rome does sound like the result of five years of Very Serious Effort, except instead of honing a few rough spots, the hubris-driven tinkering ended up chipping away all the soul from what could have been a jaunty and lively homage to some of the best movie music ever made.

First appeared May 17, 2011 in Paste.

Inside Hard Rock Cafe’s Memorabilia Warehouse

Antiques Roadshow

Inside Hard Rock’s hidden closet

As 1970s yearbooks from private California schools go, this one doesn’t seem that unusual. The students look kind of privileged and kind of stoned; the teachers look like they’re totally cool with the events of the late ’60s. The students aren’t broken down by age, but listed in alphabetical order. The cast of characters is uniformly white … at least until you get to the “J” page, where four black faces stand out: Marlon, Tito, Jermaine and 
Michael Jackson.

It’s a jarring moment. It’s strange enough seeing the world’s biggest pop star in a relatively ordinary context – there are other immortalized schoolboy moments in the book, including one of Michael hanging out in science class in that goofy J5 hat and flares – but it’s downright disorienting when it finally clicks: I’m holding Michael Jackson’s yearbook.

This isn’t an M.J. convention or a memorabilia auction or the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. It’s a modest-sized warehouse room nestled in the back of a completely nondescript building in a MetroWest office park. And this yearbook is just one of the thousands of remarkable items that are stashed here.

Booker T. Jones: The Road from Memphis CD review

I know it’s hard to do, but admit it: those Booker T. & the MG’s records are kinda corny. Yes, yes, they’re fun, they’re groovy, they’re funky, and they’re slathered with so much Memphis-style sauce, it wouldn’t be hard to mistake ‘em for a dish at Payne’s BBQ. But still, those Beatles covers, that Rascals cover, hell, even “Green Onions” … they’re all just kinda corny in a lighthearted, we-cracked-the-bottle-open-and-this-is-what-poured-out kinda way. This is an observation that nobody likes to make, mainly because it casts an aspersion on the World’s Best House Band, the guys that defined the Stax take on Memphis soul in the ‘60s. But I don’t think the band would mind; they knew that the rock-solid grooves they were laying down behind the likes of Isaac Hayes and Otis Redding were the meat and potatoes; “Green Onions” was just a garnish.

Booker T. Jones’ recent solo work, however, is anything but corny. His last solo record — 2009’s Potato Hole — was a tour de force of gritty, twangy blues on which he completely and appropriately overshadowed the contributions of the Drive-By Truckers and Neil Young. On The Road from Memphis, Jones ups the collaborator ante: the Roots are the backing band this time around, guests like Sharon Jones and Jim James make appearances, and Gabe Roth (Daptone Records) was brought in to man the boards. And, once again, the real stars here are Jones’ organ hands. Demonstrating a style that’s less concerned with the cheerful melodies and jaunty basslines of the M.G.s’ most famous work, Jones’ sound here is more measured and full-bodied, giving substantial leeway to Questlove’s ferocious, on-the-mark drumming. The organ still leads the way — sometimes in quirky and near-improvisational ways, such as on the fiercely funky “The Hive” — but most of The Road from Memphis sounds like the work of a band that’s spent years together, rather than a leader and a backup band.

The funk here is deep and solid, but what’s most refreshing is how Jones and the Roots never opt for the most obvious breaks or riffs; the noodly, soulful cover of “Crazy” (you knew he’d cover something, right?), the punishingly unpredictable twists and turns of “Harlem House,” and the head-bobbing crunch of “Down in Memphis” all manage to punch your gut with a groove without giving the slightest indication that the compositions are taking anything for granted. Of the 11 tracks on The Road from Memphis, the only real bummer is the treacly hometown homage of “Representing Memphis,” featuring Sharon Jones and The National’s Matt Beringer; instead of burning through the track with Sharon Jones’ fringe-flecked fire or Beringer’s deep-throated melodrama, both guests seem to shy away from the enormity of the job at hand, making the tourist-board-ready tune even more … well, corny.

First appeared May 10, 2011 in Paste.

Beastie Boys: Hot Sauce Committee, pt. 2

(amazingly, quite a few people thought this was a positive write-up.)

You’ve seen the Beastie Boys’ “Fight For Your Right Revisited” video, haven’t you? If you haven’t, you should. It’s hilarious, right? All those cameos? And it’s a pretty good conceit, poking around with the whole notion of “what would have happened if the B-Boys would have remained complete goofballs for the past quarter-century?”

After all, it’s been pretty impressive to see how much the Beastie Boys have grown and matured since Licensed to Ill. Sure, they raised the bar on hip-hop production techniques and all that with Paul’s Boutique, but what’s been truly amazing is how these three have just kept stepping up their game. I mean, To the Five Boroughs? That was some crazy, hardcore-intellectual shit, right? And the way Hello Nasty busted out that retro Poor Righteous Teachers vibe?

Can you argue with the diversity in the Beastie Boys’ post-Licensed catalog? At times, the way these guys have whiplashed between styles and attitudes has been dizzying, almost like Prince and Bowie decided to explode Nietzsche’s philosophies into a working musical model. There are the cuts with the beer-soaked laughs, the tracks with the brick-heavy party beats, the songs that show off how the Beasties actually play their own instruments and used to be in a punk band … yeah, there’s all of that shit. They’re All Over The Map.

So it’s a good thing that, after being on the vanguard of hip hop’s innovation and expansion over the past 25 years, the Beastie Boys are finally giving us fans a break and getting back to their roots with Hot Sauce Committee, Pt. 2. The loose sense of fun that permeated the “Fight for Your Right Revisited” short film gave us some sense of how goofy and retro-minded Hot Sauce would be, but the album itself really goes all out. Just like Will Ferrell popping out of a time machine as the Ghost of Ad-Rock Future in that short, the tunes on Hot Sauce boom out of your speakers to remind listeners that, although the Beastie Boys have been on the edge of hip hop’s avant-garde for years now, these Boys still know how to party.

Who would expect a line like “Party on the left, party on the right/Make some noise if you’re livin’” from these guys after all these years of experimentation? And it’s right there on the first track! Like some sort of statement of intent, “Make Some Noise” opens the album as if to say “Hello world. This Beastie Boys album is going to sound like exactly what you think of in your head when you think ‘Beastie Boys album.’” Which is a good thing, because, again: Beastie Boys are always so full of surprises.

Back in 2008, when promoting The Mix-Up, Mike D said: “Hip hop is what we grew up on, and it continues to be one of the only forms of music left that strives on evolution and innovation.” But there is very little on Hot Sauce that points toward any evolution or innovation on behalf of the Beasties. Sure, asking Santigold and Nas to make guest appearances is revolutionary and completely bizarre, and “Ok” dabbles in some DEVO-esque nerditry, but everything else on this album finds the the Beasties turning their back on their experimental side in favor of straightforward party-time jams, bro.

Like they promise on “Long Burn the Fire,” the Beasties are back to “make you sick like a Kenny Rogers’ Roaster,” which is an amazing line, because it makes it clear that these guys are spitting out incredible rhymes like so many pieces of food from a chain that’s been bankrupt for the past decade. DON’T DRAW ANY PARALLELS though. Just because the Beasties are dipping into their own bag of sonic tricks – referencing “Hey Ladies” on “Too Many Rappers” is some super-meta shit, y’all – doesn’t mean they’re out of ideas. It just means their ideas are so dope (kids still say “dope,” right?) that they can do whatever they want with old-ass ideas and still make ‘em sound new.

You may think that it’s old and sad for these dudes in their mid-40s to be rapping like they’re 18-year-old hooligans, but that’s your problem if you can’t see how clever and classic and COMPLETELY NON-REDUNDANT Hot Sauce Committee, pt. 2 is. I mean, they’re still working with Mixmaster Mike and Money Mark. And they’re still reminding us that they live in New York City. And they really did release a track called “Funky Donkey” in 2011. It all comes together to make this new Beastie Boys album a work that’s so self-referential, so mindful of its past, and so steeped in pop-culture history that it’s very nearly postmodern. Or, there’s the slight possibility that, rather than being a postmodern piece of art, it’s just a tired, unnecessary, and slightly unseemly piece of uninspired crap. JUST MAYBE.

First appeared May 6, 2011 at Something Awful.

The Raveonettes – Raven in the Grave CD review

(4 out of 5)

There is absolutely no reason to expect the Raveonettes to turn in an album that’s exciting, interesting, or surprising in 2011 — but somehow, RAVEN IN THE GRAVE manages to be all three. The duo has downshifted their tempo and attack markedly, making an unexpected turn towards beautiful, clear-eyed guitar pop; the reverb still echoes, and the girl-group harmonies still pop up here and there, but RAVEN IN THE GRAVE marks a sharp turn away from the vroom-vroom vibe the Raveonettes seem to have been locked into on pretty much every other record they made. While RAVEN doesn’t have any song as superficially shocking as 2009’s “Boys Who Rape (Should All Be Destroyed),” the entirety of the album is, in and of itself, something of a shock. There’s only one moment here – the appropriately titled “Ignite” – that finds the Raveonettes stirring into something resembling their old, uptempo selves; but even that cut, with its stomping beat and “recorded in an airplane hangar” production style, is reserved and a bit muted in its approach. The rest of the set finds the band indulging their dream-pop tendencies, with slow-burn, near-epic stabs at beauty. It’s an absolutely remarkable step for a band to take, and while some may truly miss the red-line fever of their earlier works, it’s encouraging and inspiring to see the duo take a risk by making material as pretty and gently powerful as this.

First appeared April 5, 2011 at Shockhound.com.

The Kills: Blood Pressures CD review

(2 out of 5)

The creative trajectory of the Kills has been an interesting one to follow. Defiant, artful, and very nearly contemptuous in their early years as a duo, the cooler-than-thou vibe that Allison Mosshart and Jamie Hince projected had a massive impact on their early recordings. The duo’s first full-length album sounded like a raw, dirty, and confrontational slash at the modern-garage-band approach, making for an unfussy and explosive sound that bristled with electricity and venom. In the years since, though, the Kills have become more and more interested in expanding their sonic palette; and to the degree that their formative sound was based on simplicity and directness, BLOOD PRESSURES seems to spring from the idea that more is better. Cuts like “Nail In My Coffin” are birthed from the barest elements, but wind up sounding overly-polished and oddly half-baked. While the Kills circa 2001 would beat a simple idea into glorious submission, the Kills in 2011 seem content to take a sliver of an idea and pad it unnecessarily into something resembling a song, resulting in plodding, mid-tempo mush. “Satellite” and “DNA” sound expressly crafted to capitalize on the success the duo has had placing cuts like “Cheap and Cheerful” in video games and television shows; it’s as if the songs are calculated to contain just enough sleaze and sinister swagger to evoke the idea that they’re somehow dangerous. It’s easy enough to blame this misstep on Mosshart’s newfound glory in the Dead Weather – a band that seems to continually benefit from her creativity and attitude – but what seems more apparent is that the Kills have simply run their course creatively. While nothing on BLOOD PRESSURES sinks to the level of being purely awful, none of it rises to the heights one would expect from this once-great band.

First appeared April 5, 2011 at Shockhound.com.

Royal Bangs – Flux Outside CD review

(4 out of 5)

If you’ve read anything about Knoxville’s Royal Bangs, it was probably accompanied by the words “discovered by Patrick Carney of the Black Keys.” And if you’d only read about the band, you’d be forgiven for thinking that they mine a similarly gutbucket take on noise-blues. You’d be forgiven, but you’d be wrong. As the band has shown on their last two albums, they hit pretty much every stylistic stop besides the blues, flinging glam-rock, indie-noise, synth-powered pop, and ‘90s alt-rock against the walls of their practice space to come up with a sound that’s fairly unique. Much of the band’s power comes from guitarist/vocalist Ryan Schaefer’s voice, an instrument that easily indulges in punky shouts, emotional melodrama, and laissez-faire mumble. On FLUX OUTSIDE, Royal Bangs are a bit more focused than in the past, settling in on a singular sound that seamlessly merges their influences. Only on the disco-y misstep of “Faint Obelisk Two” – where they attempt to actually sound like, well, the Faint – do they stumble. That cut is more than made up for with tracks like the expansive “Bad News, Strange Luck” which utilizes a similar – though more engaging and personality-rich – fusion of noise-pop and electro-distortion. That latter track finds Royal Bangs firing on all cylinders, somehow meshing roots-rock muscularity with forward-looking artfulness to make a fuzzy, epic mini-anthem.

First appeared March 29, 2011 at Shockhound.com.

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart – Belong CD review

(4 out of 5)

While on past releases, the Pains of Being Pure at Heart merely flirted with a ‘90s shoegaze sound – a little guitar squall here, some mumbled vocals there – for the most part, the band’s previous releases were fairly straightforward noise-pop records. On BELONG, the flirtation is over. From the start of the album’s opening cut (and title track), you get a propulsive, Hacienda-friendly beat, a walloping blast of guitar, and swoony harmonies. It’s an effective statement of intent, and one that is great to see the band so fully embrace. Granted, TPOBPAH errs toward the beefier, less gauzy realm of shoegaze – more Swervedriver than Slowdive – and also seems to have something of a soft spot for lesser-known approaches like the giddy/woozy garage-gaze of a band like the Nightblooms, but it’s actually impressive how the band has stopped tip-toeing around the elephant in the room. There are notes of modern indie-rock that make their way into BELONG – most notably on the rather bland and predictable “Heart in Your Heartbreak” – and, oddly, it’s then that TPOBPAH sounds the most dated and unoriginal. On the rest of BELONG, however, the band is a powerful animal indeed, unleashing their always infectious and occasionally dreamy guitar-pop in a way that may have obvious inspiration, but has few peers.

First appeared March 29, 2011 at Shockhound.com.