Soundgarden, ‘King Animal’

Given their pedigree of punk-rock roots and Pacific Northwestern gloom, grunge bands are more likely, say, than spandex'd graduates of the '80s Sunset Strip to do some soul-searching when they feel that ol' reunion itch coming on. So it's no big surprise that the opening song on Soundgarden's strong King Animal, the Seattle-bred band's first new studio album in 16 years, finds the quartet offering some justification. Turns out that frontman Chris Cornell, guitarist Kim Thayil, drummer Matt Cameron, and bassist Ben Shepherd are back to class up the joint. "No one here knows where the edge of the knife is / No one knows what intelligent life is," wails Cornell on the unbridled, instructively titled opener "Been Away Too Long."

They've actually been gone for exactly the right amount of time. Unlike contemporaries from Smashing Pumpkins to Alice in Chains, Soundgarden didn't piss away any brand capital by fumbling around with gothtronica or new lineups. (Cornell's Timbaland-produced solo debacleScream, though….) So what you get on King Animal is, blessedly, what you remembered. "Blood on the Valley Floor" and "Non-State Actor" are reassuringly heavy — knownSuperunknowns. Thayil scribbles his modal guitar lines around Cornell's off-kilter riffs, while Cameron and Shepherd make those strange time signatures flow. Meanwhile, Cornell's voice is still a wonder, and he takes full advantage. When, on the Zeppelin-esque "By Crooked Steps" and more Sabbath-esque "Taree," he multi-tracks his vocals — singing harmony in different octaves, inserting rock-god wails deep into the mix, uncorking chest-beating countermelodies — the effect is thrilling.

King Animal's skeleton is also refreshingly pre-digital. Soundgarden made an album here, with all sorts of internal connections and deliberate emotional ebbs and flows. The eerie loss-of-innocence ballad "Birds of Bones" combines with "Taree" and the crushing "Attrition" to create a mid-album, mid-tempo mini-set; that combo is then followed by the softer, acoustic-based "Black Saturday" and "Halfway There."

But, at times, the production by Adam Kasper, who co-helmed 1996's Down on the Upside and co-engineered ’94's Superunknown, feels a little too manicured. Thayil's guitar tone and Cameron's drum thump, in particular, would've benefited from some Louder Than Love scruff. Sonically, King Animal could stand to be a woollier beast. Occasionally, the clean consistency of sound — Thayil includes more than his share of vaguely "Eastern," alternate-tuning lines — makes the album feel longer than its 52 minutes.

Sentimentally, though, Soundgarden are in a good spot. Lyrically, there's no tortured depresso anthem equivalent to "Fell on Black Days" or "Jesus Christ Pose"; instead, Cornell talks of being a "walking believer" on "By Crooked Steps." Rather than mope, he declares, "We'll settle for a little bit more than everything" on "Non-State Actor." And the bluesy closer "Rowing," built on what sounds like a scuffed drum loop, offers up some tough-love wisdom: "Living is hard / But living beats losing all that we are." Soundgarden — and the hungry, vital King Animal — are proof of that.

www.spin.com

Selengkapnya...

Gary Clark Jr., ‘Blak and Blu’

Make no mistake: Gary Clark Jr.'s major-label debut aims to introduce the Austin-based blues luminary to the widest possible audience. But which Gary Clark Jr. do you want to meet? The forceful stylist, sent to enrapture long-suffering blues fetishists? The cunning neo-soul charmer who's played sidekick to Alicia Keys? How about the "New Hendrix" that rock critics spent the past year stammering over? Or perhaps the heir apparent to garage-rock breakouts like the Black Keys or White Stripes? Depending on where exactly you sink into Blak and Blu, you might encounter any or all of the above; the collection places Clark among the most promising and unpredictable artists to break out of Austin's fertile scene in years.

But it's naïve to think of this wildly eclectic maiden voyage for Warner Bros. as a debut in the first place. Hardly an upstart, the 28-year-old has been around the block and back, cutting a handful of records on his own Hotwire Unlimited label and vying for a self-made career akin to the deified musical icons with whom he's so frequently compared: uncle-rock gods like Stevie Ray Vaughn, Eric Clapton, and Hendrix. In the wake of prime-time reality shows, Twitter chicanery, and Auto-Tune, Clark's grassroots ascent smacks of the Old-Fashioned Way, largely powered by his swaggeringly confident live shows and hundreds of thousands miles on the road.

Clark’s 2012 tour de force of festival appearances created a deafening buzz; he's jumped onstage with everyone from Sheryl Crow to Dave Matthews (the latter for an explicitly torch-passing "All Along the Watchtower" cover), and has jammed at the White House with a pick-up band that included B.B. King and Mick Jagger. The dude is no joke. When his band gets a chance to stretch out, they burn through blues-based rock with the destructive, mountain-leveling force of a comic-book super-weapon.

But what does all that make Blak and Blu? A mixed bag of eclectic overachievement, boasting a huge stylistic range that, while loaded with flashes of brilliance, might sound better parceled out in pieces than consumed as a whole. With help from producer Mike Elizondo (Dr. Dre, Fiona Apple), Clark isn't pandering to diehards who've crowned him the Savior of the Blues; there are moments, like the hard-grooving drum loops and punchy horn lines of the title track, or the cyclical urban groove of the "The Life," where he eschews his muscular guitar heroics entirely to adopt the alluring posture of a Maxwell protégé. But elsewhere, Clark plugs directly into the manic energy of his live gigs, churning through badass, belligerent dirges like "Numb" or shuffling, up-tempo jams like "Travis County." (Given his pedigree and genuine skill, this kind of stuff makes blues-inclined indie crossovers like the Black Keys sound like lily-livered school kids.) Add a couple of smoothly executed throwback grooves — the classy Al Green wah-wah seduction of "Things Are Changin'," the Smoky Robinson falsetto of "Please Come Home" — and Clark's versatility will astonish you, provided that it hasn't completely disoriented you.

All its experience and pedigree aside, Blak and Blu still suffers from a few beginner's blunders. The coyly repentant theme of the "The Life" is loaded with chintzy rhymes about driving drunk, hanging with "So-Cal friends," and longing to "hit the ATM." Then there's the dueling calamities of turntable scratching and tabla drumming that weigh down the Hendrix/Little Johnny Taylor medley "Third Rock From the Sun/If You Love Me Like You Say," which might work live, but on record, hits you with all the odd-couple subtlety of a Judgment Night B-side.

And yet, despite such growing pains, Clark's penchant for restless, exploratory tangents ensures that Blak and Blu hits like a ton of bricks. "You Saved Me" couples metallic guitar fuzz with some Purple Rain handclaps, and despite pulling our host far outside Austin's city limits, it still capitalizes on his vocal control, his volcanic guitar, and his lyrical earnestness. Even better is the dead-simple guitar strut of "Bright Lights," which honors Clark's blues-god roots but boasts a memorable enough hook to realize his crossover aspirations. Toward tune's end, as he's twisting though a euphoric solo and the groove rides a cresting wave of washed-out cymbals, he crows, "You gonna know my name by the end of the night." It's like a mantra, a threat, a promise, a guarantee.

www.spin.com

Selengkapnya...

new album Deftones, ‘Koi No Yokan’

The respect denied so many '90s rock perennials persists for Deftones for two reasons. First, despite being an alleged nü-metal band, they could be really sexy. (We'll come back to that.) Second, they've typically decorated their slightly grungy and very slightly punky aesthetic with tasteful bells and whistles: a synth here, some programmed drums there, a song called "Digital Bath" with a lot of empty space in it. Koi No Yokan, their seventh album, doesn't contain much of that kind of thing at all, nor does it contain the band's best work. But it does make clear how little being fancy has to do with being sexy.

Deftones always have gotten praise for their (modest) curiosity, but they were always less like reigning magpies Radiohead and more like Smashing Pumpkins — a more minimal, more focused, and much heavier Smashing Pumpkins, as devoted to operatic emotional intensity, but less distracted by stupid bullshit. It's their sensuality, not their experimentation, that's carried them all the way from 1995 to 2012 intact. Deftones songs envelope you in an amplified wash, a swaddled state in which every emotion is stretched to the dramatic width of one of frontman Chino Moreno's vowels, then swept majestically away.

Of course, this is bathetic; of course, it can be a little tacky. But these guys aren't Muse or Coldplay — the grandeur-peddlers. Nor are they proggish technocrats like Explosions in the Sky. Their songs don't take deep breaths before working themselves to climax — they don't even usually build much. They circle and chew, like sharks. Riffs are either stacked in aggressive spirals or stretched atop entire verses like bodies on beds. Their best songs slip between both modes — between desperate, knotted violence and languid bliss — until the differences between them aren't as clear as they used to be, and they both start feeling suspiciously like sex.

Thus, the obvious complaint — that Koi No Yokan isn't as inventive or accessorized as older Deftones records — doesn't matter that much. There are no gently stuttering synth tracks or overt nods to D.C. hardcore, but even a decade ago, this band was at their best when they could show how easily and suddenly extreme fury could shift into tenderness, and they were at their worst when they couldn't. Gimmicks — even dynamics — are more than they need. Thus, a song like "Romantic Dreams," which is about three things — a grainy, spidery guitar riff; Moreno's habit of occasionally lurching, genuinely moved, into an uncontrolled scream; and the weirdly sexy vocal filter that makes him sound like he's seducing an intercom — has already showed you all it has to show, has already clawed at and caressed you, by the time it starts to get fancy. When the quiet, dramatic intro of "Tempest" inevitably explodes, it doesn't teach you any more about emotional volatility than the circular, churning rest of the song. And the best track on the album, or at least the purest, is "Leathers," whose verses are screaming staccato messes that downshift abruptly but smoothly into long, drawling chorus phrases, like the song's trying to bind your wounds after inflicting them upon you itself.

Of course, all this sensual juxtaposition stuff happens on other Deftones albums, most consistently on 2000's critically beloved White Pony, which was worth carrying with you as you exited the wrecked house of our century's first decade. There's definitely something welcoming about Koi No Yokan's comparative purity, in the band's understanding of how little they need.

www.spin.com
Selengkapnya...

new album The Rolling Stones - GRRR!

As a 50th-anniversary souvenir, the Stones have assembled a three-disc, 50-track compilation that is the best and most comprehensive collection of the band's high points available. "Doom and Gloom," one of two new songs here, is the Stones at their best – nasty, funny, sexy and rocking hard. As for the rest, it's impossible to overstate the importance of these songs. The Stones' obsession with American blues and R&B ("Time Is on My Side," "Little Red Rooster") transforms into a sexually charged class critique ("19th Nervous Breakdown"). Finally, the indelible guitar statements, from "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" to "Start Me Up," are inextricable from the very idea of rock & roll. The third disc skims great moments like "Mixed Emotions" from the top of the band's underrated post-1989 material. Is GRRR!perfect? No. But as the band once said: You get what you need.  

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com

Selengkapnya...

new album Green Day - ¡Dos!

 The second installment in Green Day's ambitious trilogy of albums opens with "See You Tonight," a bare, ragged benediction where Everly Brothers harmonies mask stalker-y undercurrents, and puppy love might turn nasty if you don't text back soon. Like ¡Uno!, ¡Dos! is full of these moments, where the band follows lineal threads from Dookie-era punk into all manner of overheated angst – nervy-Jam mod soul on "Stray Heart," Who-mad maximum R&B on "Wow! That's Loud," even mascara-streaked soul balladry on the album-closing "Amy," where Billie Joe Armstrong makes like the skate-park Sam Cooke.

Armstrong, Mike Dirnt and Tré Cool harness the sound of immolating, teenage-wasteland lust for an album with a distinct sense of life coming off the rails: "I can't stand for fallin' down/I'm too sick to throw up," Armstrong sings against a Wipers-like downstroke riff on "Lazy Bones." He went to rehab in September. Yet while you can read all the pathos you want into "Ashley," a plea for a meth-addicted friend that comes on like a runaway ambulance, the angst here is as archetypal as it is personal. At times, it's just as election year urgent as American Idiot, despite being packaged as a batch of shit-hot punk purges with titles like "Fuck Time" rather than a grand rock opera. "I'll trade you blood for dirty cash," Armstrong promises on "Stop When the Red Lights Flash." In any guise, dude channels the voice of America. 

www.rollingstone.com

Selengkapnya...

Linkin Park Debut New Song, “Lies Greed Misery”

Linkin Park have just unveiled the second single for their upcoming fifth studio album, Living Things. Listen to “Lies Greed Misery” below.
In a recent interview, frontman Mike Shinoda state that Living Things would be a far more personal album than other recent efforts. “On the last few records we’ve had an interest in global issues and social issues and those things are still around,” he said, “there are certainly traces of them, but this record is far more personal.”
Living Things is due out June 26.


http://www.revolvermag.com/news/linkin-park-streaming-new-song-lies-greed-misery.html Selengkapnya...

albumreviews : Pink Floyd - The Wall: Immersion Edition

There was agreement, at first. In the summer of 1978, Roger Waters, Pink Floyd's singer-bassist and primary songwriter, presented the other members with two sets of demos and a choice: Pick one for the next album. The rest of the Floyd wisely voted for Waters' bleak, enraged observation on emotional exile and totalitarian celebrity, provisionally titled Bricks in the Wall. (The other demos became Waters' 1984 midlife-crisis opera, The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking.) It was also a disastrous decision. The Floyd fell into eventually fatal throes of conflict and division on the way to the 1979 album's grim, towering splendor. Waters designed, and the band built, The Wall too well.
Immersion is a good way to characterize the grip and whirl of construction recounted on the two CDs of demos in this seven-disc box, which includes a previously released recording of the 1980-81 stage show. (An Experience edition has the original album and a single CD of demos.) Excerpts of Waters' early sketches are sequenced into a stark vertigo of his contempt ("Mother") and despair ("Goodbye Cruel World") at birth. Later band demos – "Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2" as a crisp funeral march instead of disco revolt; "The Doctor," a prototype of "Comfortably Numb" – and discarded ideas like the plaintive "Teacher, Teacher" and the static blues "Sexual Revolution" prove development came slow if steady. It is obvious, too, that Waters' authoritarian drive was not enough to get this job done. The crucial difference between Waters' initial notion of "Run Like Hell" – slow, snarky bullying – and the perversely gleaming menace of the final version is in David Gilmour's demo of jangling commandant's-strut guitar.

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/albumreviews/the-wall-immersion-edition-20120228#ixzz1o0uxOJBa

Selengkapnya...

albumreviews : Imperial Teen - Feel the Sound

 
It's a good time to be Imperial Teen. The San Francisco quartet were squishing together hooks and drones before everyone had broadband, and now they've returned with their first album in five years, just as bands like Frankie Rose and Weekend are helping revive the sound of classic indie pop. Feel the Sound turns blipping guitars and synth riffs into roller-skate jams the whole band can harmonize over. Even if Imperial Teen's gay pedigree seems, thankfully, far less of a big deal than it used to, it's still cool to hear "Last to Know" endorse "pumped-up pecs and sticky skin," while "Over His Head" and "Hanging About" are perfect for pretending the Pacific Coast Highway is the Autobahn.

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/albumreviews/feel-the-sound-20120131#ixzz1o0tIdHQH
Selengkapnya...

Elvis Costello & The Imposters - The Return Of The Spectacular Singing Songbook

Elvis Costello wasn’t himself 25 years ago, the musician credits on the two albums he released in 1986 listing him as Little Hands Of Concrete (King Of America) and Napoleon Dynamite (Blood & Chocolate). While the former was a self-mocking reference to his habit of breaking guitar strings, the latter was a more boastful persona who made his stage bow as the mad-eyed master of ceremonies at fairground-like live shows.
Revived earlier this summer on a lengthy series of dates across America (and coming to the UK next May), the Spectacular Spinning Songbook is a novel way for Costello to take requests; a giant multi-coloured wheel, resembling a pie chart containing the names of about 40 songs, dominates the stage, random audience members are plucked from their seats and invited to give the wheel a spin. Wherever it stops determines which number EC and his Imposters will play next.
This elaborate box set comprises a CD and DVD (plus a bonus 10-inch vinyl “encore” disc) of two shows from the Wiltern Theatre in Los Angeles, the location raising questions about how random the selection of audience spinners might be. Can it really be just by chance that (i)Mad Men(i) creator Matthew Wiener and (i)Sideways/Grey’s Anatomy(i) actress Sandra Oh made the journey from stalls to stage the night the cameras were there?
Whoever spins the wheel, though, it still results in unpredictable sequences of songs, never guaranteeing that big hits or long-term live favourites get an airing, Elvis (or rather Napoleon Dynamite, an over-the-top circus barker making the alliterative declarations in keeping with Costello’s guest introductions on his Spectacle TV show) following the raucous garage of “Stella Hurt” from 2008’s Momofuku with the baroque lament “All Grown Up” from 1991’s Mighty Like A Rose. Of course, the song has to be on the wheel in the first place, and there are some intriguing inclusions.
A soulful cover of the Stones’ “Out Of Time” gives The Imposters (and the manically dextrous Steve Nieve in particular) an opportunity to pretend they’re Booker T & The MGs, “Tear Off Your Own Head” enables special guests The Bangles to croon away on the comeback hit Costello wrote for them, but the real surprise is the fatalistic ballad “Earthbound”, one of 10 tracks Elvis allegedly knocked out in a single weekend for a Wendy James album in 1993. “Of all the songs I’ve ever written, I think this is the truest,” he tells us.
As a performing unit, The Imposters take everything thrown at them in their stride, all pomp and majesty on “Man Out Of Time”, lean and hungry on a cover of Nick Lowe’s “Heart Of The City”, and Nieve’s delicate new arrangement of “God Give Me Strength” more than compensates for the lack of lush orchestration from the original Burt Bacharach collaboration. The wheel spins, and the mood swings; in the space of an hour-and-a-half Elvis gets to be the surly aggressor of his youth, the wordy troubadour of the Imperial Bedroom era, or the deep baritone crooner of more recent times.
Before 2011, Costello had been averaging an album of new songs every 12 months since brokering a lucrative deal with Universal five years ago, allowing them to exploit his first decade of releases in any way they see fit, in return for leaving him alone to make records at his own pace and as often as he wanted.
Cynics may suggest that while the Allen Toussaint collaboration The River In Reverse, the aforementioned noisy Momofuku, the bluegrass-tinged Secret, Profane & Sugarcane and last year’s National Ransom hardly had the label’s sales teams popping champagne corks, Elvis staying away from the studio this year and once again gamely pitching his back pages opens the door for further marketing of former glories. Certainly, another re-upholstered My Aim Is True or Punch The Clock may ultimately shift more units than this bespoke offering, a limited edition of 1,500 which, despite the top-notch music, lavish packaging and poster/book/diary/postcard extras, might struggle to justify its £200 price-tag.
Terry Staunton

http://www.uncut.co.uk/elvis-costello-the-imposters-the-return-of-the-spectacular-singing-songbook-review Selengkapnya...

review album Snoop Dogg & Wiz Khalifa

'Mac & Devin Go to High School: Music From and Inspired by the Movie'

No Sister Mary Elephant features, just efficiently rendered, high-spirited hijinks

 Over 12 tracks and 36 smoke breaks, Wiz Khalifa and Snoop Dogg incinerate enough chronic to convince themselves they really are the two oldest high school students since Andrea Zuckerman. Throw reality out the El Camino window. Instead, we have this Atlantic Records-assembled blue dream, with the pop-savvy stoners goofing off like their generation’s Cheech & Chong (they wish). The soundtrack to Mac & Devin Go to High School (which exists, apparently, and stars the duo in an attempt to grab some How High-type glory) shows no menace, merely mischief, full of tightly wrapped joints and loose references to “high school.” (Seems Wiz has a real problem showing up to third period on time.) Over ground-up funk, soul, and pop, the pair sound unusually alert, if not you-fill-in-the-blank. They even sneak in Curren$y, Alchemist, and Juicy J to make up for a few cloying baby-baby-baby moments. Ideal for anyone who finds Cypress Hill too sober.

http://www.spin.com/reviews/snoop-dogg-wiz-khalifa-mac-devin-go-high-school-music-and-inspired-movie-atlantic

Selengkapnya...

Dillinger Escape Plan’s Ben Weinman Remixes Lacuna Coil for ‘Underworld: Awakening’ Soundtrack

Dillinger Escape Plan guitarist Ben Weinman has contributed a remix of Lacuna Coil’s new single “Trip the Darkness” for the soundtrack to the upcoming film Underworld: Awakening. The album also features remixes of tracks from a host of other bands including Evanescence, Ministry, and Linkin Park. The bulk of the remixes have been carried out by former Nine Inch Nails multi-instrumentalist Danny Lohner, a.k.a. Renholdër.
The soundtrack will be released on January 17. Tracklisting below.
01. “Made of Stone” (Renholdër Remix) – Evanescence
02. “Heavy Prey “- Lacey Sturm of Flyleaf feat. Geno Lenardo
03. “Blackout” (Renholdër Remix) – Linkin Park
04. “Apart” (Renholdër Remix) – The Cure
05. “Killer & a Queen” – Stella Katsoudas of Sister Soleil feat. Geno Lenardo
06. “Watch Yourself” (Renholdër Remix) – Ministry
07. “Trip the Darkness” (Ben Weinman Remix) – Lacuna Coil
08. “Young Blood” (Renholdër Remix) – The Naked and Famous
09. “It Rapes All in its Path” – Black Light Burns
10. “The Posthumous Letter” – William Control
11. “How’m I Supposed to Die” – Civil Twilight
12. “Consolation Prize” – & SONS
13. “Liar” (Revenant mix by 8MM) – 8MM
14. “You Won’t See The Light” – Ryan T.Hope of The Lifeline feat. Geno Lenardo
15. “Bottle of Pain” – Combichrist
16. “Intruder” – Collide
17. “Exit Wounds” (Justin Lassen Remix) – Justin Lassen feat. Silent Fury

http://www.revolvermag.com/news/dillinger-escape-plans-ben-weinman-remixes-lacuna-coil-for-underworld-awakening-soundtrack.html Selengkapnya...

PULP TO REISSUE FIRST THREE ALBUMS IN FEBRUARY 2012

Jarvis Cocker 'It', 'Freaks' and 'Separations' will all be released with bonus material

Pulp are set to reissue their 1983 debut album 'It' along with their 1987 LP 'Freaks' and 1992's 'Separations'.

The re-releases were supposed to come out in August on the Fire label, but a delay means that all three albums will now be released in February 2012.

The albums will be accompanied with new liner notes from rock critic Everett True and have been remastered, as well as coming with new artwork and added bonus tracks.

The 'It' reissue will feature four bonus tracks, including the single version of 'My Lighthouse', an alternative mix of 'Blue Girls', the previously unreleased 'Sink Or Swim' and 'Please Don't Worry' from the band's 1981 John Peel Session.

'Freaks' will come with a bonus disc made up of the non-album singles 'Little Girl (With Blue Eyes)' and 'Dogs are Everywhere' as well as b-sides 'Tunnel' and 'Manon', while the 'Separations' bonus material includes 'Death Goes To The Disco', 'Is This House', an extended version of 'Countdown' and 'Death Comes To Town'.

Pulp's frontman Jarvis Cocker recently blamed the tabloids for contributing to Amy Winehouse's death. He claimed the constant media attention the late singer received on a daily basis forced her to turn to drink and drugs and he went through a similar situation during the height of his fame during the Britpop era.

Cocker told The Guardian: "Amy Winehouse passed away this year and it was all 'Drugs killed Amy Winehouse'. I think that the press killed Amy Winehouse as much as drugs did, because it sends people into that place where they've got no peace, and so they just try to escape. And sometimes you use drugs and drink to do that." 


http://www.uncut.co.uk/news/jarvis_cocker/news/15345 Selengkapnya...

Trent Reznor Shares Release Info for How to Destroy Angels Album

Rocker also expecting second child with wife and bandmate Mariqueen Maandig

How to Destroy Angels – the new rock project from Trent Reznor, his wife Mariqueen Maandig and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo co-composer Atticus Ross – is almost ready for their grand debut. "[We are] finishing our full-length record, which has fully matured our sound into something that is very unique," Reznor tells Rolling Stone. "I can’t wait for that record to come out, actually probably [in the] first quarter of next year."
The new album, which follows a previously released EP, subtly shifts the band's sound into richer territory. "When we did the first EP, it was the result of six weeks in the studio, just kind of seeing what happened," Reznor explains. "We didn’t have a lot of time to explore that much and figure out what our sound is. It felt very close to other projects I’ve been involved in or direct influences, let’s say. [This] sounds like How to Destroy Angels now, instead of sounding like other stuff, so I’m proud of that and I’m excited to unleash it into the wild here."
For the forthcoming, still-untitled record, the trio had to juggle two members' other high-profile project: during recording, Reznor and Ross were in the process of creating their score for the upcoming film The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, the follow-up to their Academy Award-winning music for The Social Network. "We’d do three weeks of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and need a break from the heaviness and ugliness of that and switch over to How to Destroy Angels," says Reznor. "That became much more rhythmic and not any happier, but it really started to take on its own identity. We were influenced by early Cabaret Voltaire – it’s very deconstructed rhythmically and more textural. Mariqueen found her place; we used her in a quite interesting way, I think."
Turns out, Reznor and Maandig will be much busier soon; as he reveals to Rolling Stone, the couple is expecting their second child. "At the moment, I’ve got a baby due in a couple of weeks and that’s my main priority, to have that show come off without a hitch," he says. After that, he suggests, How to Destroy Angels may attempt a tour. "We’ve been discussing the idea of playing some live shows. I can’t tell you that I’m dying to go on a year-long tour right now, but I am feeling the itch of performing live in some capacity."
Regardless of How to Destroy Angels' next step, Reznor is pleased with the band's experimentation. "Really, why I stopped Nine Inch Nails as a live entity was because it started to feel like I’ve done it, I’ve done it, and I’ve done it again. [I] started to feel like I needed reinvention and I needed to force myself into that," he explains. "How to Destroy Angels has been an interesting creative outlet. I think when people hear what we’ve been up to, it will be very validating on my part."
The fact that the band is unproven to audiences only adds to the allure. As he enthuses, "It’s scary and the possibility of failure exists, so that’s exciting to me."

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/trent-reznor-shares-release-date-for-how-to-destroy-angels-album-20111215#ixzz1ggPM5o1D

Selengkapnya...

'Sons of Anarchy' Releases Indie Soundtrack

Show's music supervisor says 'the songs become the narrative' on 'Songs of Anarchy'

The FX television series Sons of Anarchy is known for its brutal depiction of biker life in the fictional town of Charming, California, but another hallmark of the series is its clever use of independent music. Its new soundtrack, Songs of Anarchy, explores the program's use of up-and-coming artists to convey the gritty reality of the motorcycle club's members and those closest to them.
"I think sometimes of the music as a character in and of itself," music supervisor Bob Thiele, Jr. tells Rolling Stone. "The songs become the narrative. They're moving the story and functioning emotionally like some of the characters would."
Thiele is a member of what he calls the Sons' "house band," the Forest Rangers, who play on the majority of Songs of Anarchy and have appeared in a few episodes. Sons actress Katey Sagal sings on four of the album's tracks, and Kills singer and SoA fan Alison Mosshart joins the Forest Rangers on a cover of Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World."
Random Notes: Hottest Rock Pictures


Despite music's major presence on the show, producers have waited four seasons to release a soundtrack. "Halfway through season two, we knew there was a soundtrack somewhere, but Fox is a big company and they had a little show called Glee," says Thiele. "It's hard to measure up to that."
Adds fellow SoA music supervisor Michelle Kuznetsky, "I think that now is the right time, exactly." And perhaps it is: season four is the highest-rated one yet for the series. The finale airs December 6th at 10 p.m. ET/PT on FX.

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/sons-of-anarchy-releases-indie-soundtrack-20111206#ixzz1foIqCMjR

Selengkapnya...

She & Him - 'A Very She & Him Christmas'

 Sufjan Stevens brought indie rock to the Yuletide table, and She & Him's wistful cuteness is an even safer bet -- though their inevitable album of holiday standards could stand a shade less reverence. The mood ranges from melancholic to lighthearted, with nods to various Crooners of Christmas Past (Frank Sinatra, Elvis, Brenda Lee) throughout. "Baby It's Cold Outside" is the money shot, with M. Ward standing in for Zooey Deschanel's Elf costar Will Ferrell, and their gender-role reversal is a nice twist: Now she's trying to talk him into staying, and what fool could resist?

http://www.spin.com/reviews/she-him-very-she-him-christmas-merge Selengkapnya...

Mary J. Blige - 'My Life II... The Journey Continues (Act I)'

Amid overwrought theatrical gestures, MJB still finds a slinky groove

For someone who heard her first hits played on the radio while still living in the projects, hip-hop soul's Queen of Pain has rarely repeated herself. Since taking more songwriting control with 1994's My Life, she has chased her wrenchingly emotional autobiography across every R&B style, cycling through producers like hairdos, often peaking on deep cuts. So forgive the clunky title, Dolly Parton-worthy schmaltz, and wack "Ain't Nobody" cover, and cherish such funky, mid-tempo beauties as "Irreversible," "Midnight Drive," and "Someone to Love Me (Naked)," where she gets name rappers to slow down like lovers.

http://www.spin.com/reviews/mary-j-blige-my-life-ii-journey-continues-act-i-matriarchgeffen Selengkapnya...

The Roots - 'undun'

Philly crew's 13th album has an intriguing concept and artful playing, but lacks a leading man

Does anyone still consider the Roots to be harbingers of a kinder, gentler, more approachable iteration of hip-hop? Because ever since 2004's The Tipping Point (their one consensus flop), each new album has been more dogged than the last in its determination to confront the unconverted, and undun is their most uncompromising work yet, 14 tracks clocking in at a blunt 38 minutes with nothing that feasibly could be considered a "single." It also continues the indie-folk all-stars summit begun on last year's How I Got Over with a concept album inspired by, no joke, Sufjan Stevens.
No, the similarity to Greetings From Michigan has nothing to do with civic pride or xylophones: instead, the Philly crew clearly fixated on Stevens' vivid characters, crippled by an absence of real choices and manipulated by economic forces they neither can alter nor understand -- sound familiar? And so undun introduces an everyman hustler named Redford Stephens, his story told in reverse, starting with a flatline beep. The attitude of Roots MC Black Thought is unrelentingly grim throughout, and even the occasional nods to gangsta opulence -- lobster dinners, Just Blaze beats -- are treated as a brief respite from a relentless flood of garden-variety hassles.
The music itself is phenomenal, harkening back to Curtis Mayfield and Donny Hathaway's storytelling classics with understated funk, analog warmth, and just plain tremendous mixing -- "Kool On" works wiggly guitars into something irrepressibly funky, and although the impossibly lush, two-minute instrumental coda of "Make My" takes up a relatively large piece of real estate on such a short record, it really should be longer. Yet even with all the conceptual heft and cerebral satisfaction, undun is a strange experience, the narrative both diluted and made redundant by a glut of guest rappers, from those in the band's extended crew (Greg P.O.R.N., Dice Raw), who simply reprise their approaches from earlier albums, to turns by Big K.R.I.T. and Phonte, rappers too philosophically similar to Black Thought. Is the lack of contrast or innovation a conscious decision to illustrate the endless, unchanging plight of a lower-level drug dealer?
But the biggest problem of all lies right in the center: Black Thought himself. As a technician, his flaws are few, and he's bullshit-free, values-based, and always ready with a brusque slogan -- "There I go from a man to a memory." He's ideal for public office, but he never gives Redford a pulse. Thought's tales of the day-in, day-out grind -- bitter rivals, unforgiving cops, the dollar's unyielding lure -- scan as surprisingly rote. Is this, too, supposed to be indicative of the pathetic universality of the hustler lifestyle? Or are we stuck with the same arguments about Black Thought's charisma or lack thereof even after he's been handed the juiciest role of his career?
It's a shame, since undun feels like a legitimately weird and risky experiment, pushing the Roots into territory they may not be equipped for: See the four-part orchestral suite -- "Redford (For Yia-Yia & Pappou)" -- which serves as the "big finale." Once again, it's great in theory, but also completely marooned from the rest of the record, and does little besides remind you that ?uestlove is a very, very good drummer. Sure, the Roots work hard and play hard on undun, but there's not enough pleasure to balance out Thought's business-like, consummately bland reading of the character who's supposed to bring the entire album to life.

http://www.spin.com/reviews/roots-undun-def-jam Selengkapnya...

Ryan Adams Says Mandy Moore Is 'Luckily Not Terrified of Black Metal'

At private L.A. show, singer-songwriter performs tunes from his new album and discusses his love of metal

 

There is black metal in the heart of Ryan Adams. It is an obsession for the folk-rocker, who hosts a black metal talk-show on YouTube called "Night Sweats," where his female co-host, Balphazar, wears corpse-paint and groans her approval amid the skulls and candelabras. Adams performs the morose theme song on banjo.
So Adams was not being ironic when he wore a pentagram Slayer T-shirt a couple weeks ago at a private performance for KCRW-FM in Santa Monica, Calif., that will be broadcast and streamed online at kcrw.com this Friday night. He is the most metal of sensitive singer-songwriters.
"I love it," he told station DJ Jason Bentley during an onstage interview. "There's all these musicians in the world, and anybody that takes enough time to create a record or even think about the fantasy of rock & roll, it's a vulnerable place to be in, it's a huge thing to do. I hear that when I listen to black metal."
Adams performed no metal at the KCRW taping, instead focusing his 15-song set largely on the solo acoustic rock of his new album, Ashes and Fire. Sitting onstage at engineer-producer Bob Clearmountain's intimate Berkeley Street Studio, Adams explained that he's most happy while hearing musical variety that goes from Napalm Death's "Scum" to Toots and the Maytals to the Go Go's.
He noted that his wife, singer-actress Mandy Moore, is "luckily not terrified of black metal – I desensitized her to the entire thing." He recalled taking her to a shop in Norway called Nose Blood Records, where one of the gift items was made of real body parts. "Several of the spokesmen of this movement are totally dead and some of them impaled each other, burned a lot of churches down."
Adams also praised metal icons AC/DC, Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne, and endorsed the newest album from Ratt, last year's Infestation. "It is so good. Put track two on, sit down on your couch and wait for fucking Memorex hair," he said, only half-joking. "The sickest guitar parts ever. It's like every song is 'Round and Round.' Every song is that good."
His own songs were not as loud, but were fueled on subtle playing and sudden vocal bursts of searing emotion as he swayed in his chair, strumming and singing with his eyes shut. The song "I Wait" was a mix of anguish and resignation as he sang, "I've been waiting here all night / If you're not going to show, we're not going to fight."
During the interview, he said he still writes his songs on a typewriter. "I'm super ADD. I have to work on something simple and keeps me focused," he said. "I like the sound of it and I like the permanence of when I see the lyrics written out. It makes me feel good. I can write on a computer, but there's too many options."
He also prefers an open window in front of him when he writes, not a glowing computer screen: "You can get the far away eyes thing – you can get that glaze when you're really lost in thought. And I can never attain that in front of a computer unless there's a vaporizer. You can't naturally space out."

Set List:
 "Oh My Sweet Carolina"
"Ashes & Fire"
"Dirty Rain"
"My Winding Wheel"
"Invisible Riverside"
(Interview)
 "Let It Ride"
"Please Do Not Let Me Go"
"Lucky Now"
"Chains Of Love"
"Do I Wait"
Encore:
"Somebody Remembers The Rose"
"Houses on The Hill"
"Jacksonville Skyline"
"When Will You Come Back Home?"
"Like Yesterday"

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/ryan-adams-says-mandy-moore-is-luckily-not-terrified-of-black-metal-20111129#ixzz1fC1JT9nv

Selengkapnya...

new-releases Lou Reed & Metallica - 'Lulu'

 Though it seems an unlikely collaboration, both artists involved here share the important distinction of riding the genius/joke line for more than half their careers. They met last year when Metallica played backup on "Sweet Jane" at Reed's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction, and that's mostly where this collaboration settles: blunt, '70s-style hard rock. Reed babbles like he's leaving a frustrated voice mail, while Metallica vamps. Later, Reed shouts, "C'mon, James!" and James Hetfield takes what I think is supposed to be a noise-guitar solo. Beats thud, chords chunk.

The aim seems to be to take the house down to the studs, to get loose. Reed's biggest genius/joke is his uncanny vulnerability, which sometimes comes through -- especially on the meditative "Junior Dad" -- but often gets buried in 11-minute-long songs that stop relatively close to where they started. Metallica, meanwhile, don't always know what to do with the freedom granted them. The result is gorgeous, hilarious, eerie, and, after 90 minutes, exhausting.

It would be blatant cultural prejudice to assume Reed is clowning Metallica for being self-serious metalheads or that Metallica is paying Reed lip service because he's a Historical Rock Poet. Like, are Lars and James insulted or flattered when Reed refers to them as his "power team" in a video trailer? Who knows. You can't understand narcissists this complete; you can only watch from afar, arms crossed, eyebrow raised.

http://www.spin.com/reviews/lou-reed-metallica-lulu-warner-bros

Selengkapnya...

new-releases Yelawolf - 'Radioactive'

He's not the new Slim Shady - and that's a good thing

His "mullet mohawk" may not resemble close-cropped, bleached-blonde 'do of label boss Eminem, but Alabama rapper Yelawolf treads familiar territory on his Shady Records debut: a pasty-faced MC from a previously barren hip-hop wasteland attempts to make it huge in the authenticity-obsessed world of rap. And like Marshall Mathers, the man born Michael Wayne Atha pulls off this feat by skillfully sticking to his roots.

Eminem acts as executive producer of Radioactive, but he's not concocting his own Mini-Me. Although both rappers possess an exhilarating ability to rap at warp speed, reciting densely packed syllables in a high-strung voice, Em channels Detroit's dilapidated 8 Mile strip, while Yela trades in the trappings of run-down Alabama backwaters. And Yela switches out Em's sociopathic tendencies for something inclusive and even tender. On "The Hardest Love Song in the World," he likens himself to Axl Rose and pays tribute to a girl who "Don't gotta drive a Fleetwood Cadillac / You just got to know some of the words to Fleetwood Mac / Horror movies turn you on, pull the seats back / Fuck it, I'll role play, do it to you in a Jason mask."
Moreover, while Em's breakthrough album had him cruising around looking to dispose of his baby's mom's body, Yela's fantasy envisions him and his girl skipping across the country like Mickey and Mallory from Natural Born Killers; he drives, and she hangs out the window with a pistol, taking potshots at dogs and cats for kicks. This unity of sentiment and persona drives the album and casts Yelawolf as a likable character — you warm to his honesty, even if you're a card-carrying Petco Pals member.
Much has been made of Yelawolf's Southern rock fandom, but Radioactive is more an ode to the Southern hip-hop movement that started to seep across the world a decade ago. Yela's influences dot the region: At times, he leans respectfully towards Outkast's mid-career work, all 808 drum patterns and synth lines; Atlanta's Lil Jon appears briefly on first single "Hard White (Up in the Club)," ranting and yelling like it's the 2002 crunk invasion all over again; and Yela himself pays homage to his spell living in Tennessee by inviting one-time Three 6 Mafia temptress Gangsta Boo to guest on "Throw It Up." (Em also appears on that song in full-on "trailer trash pioneer" mode, dropping references to White Castle, K-Mart, and Payless.
But the album's most guttural moment is "Slumerican Shitizen," which has Yela talking about being "on a sidewalk with this fuckin' skateboard and these dirty-assed jeans." It's a characterization writ large across Radioactive, delivered with sincerity and conviction.
http://www.spin.com/reviews/yelawolf-radioactive-ghet-o-visiondgcshadyinterscope
Selengkapnya...