Short Attention Span Record Reviews, Oct 22 Vol. III

THE LOUDER STUFF

DISTURBED – Divisive
I finally figured out what bothers me about these guys: Almost every song is the same song, especially the vocal lines on the uptempo ones. But at least it’s a good song. (7)

GOAT – Oh Death
Masked Swedes on new and exciting stoned ‘n’ fuzzy psychedelic rock adventure, female vocals still grating. (7)

THE OTOLITH – Folium Limina
Like the proverbial phoenix, The Otolith rises out of Subrosa’s ashes with a superior slab of doomy post-metal featuring, of all things metal, a twin violin attack. Awesome. (8)

SAHG – Born Demon
Shades of Sabbath (naturally) and 80’s Ozzy on a solid heavy metal album. Best of all is their cover of an old Norwegian hit, “Heksedans”, in their native tongue. (8)

SERJ TANKIAN – Perplex Cities
I won’t stop repeating this: Cut the crap and get the band back together. (7)

WITCH FEVER – Congregation
Probably the most exciting punk debut to come out of the UK in a decade. (8)


THE OTHER STUFF

ARCTIC MONKEYS – The Car
Lots of strings and pianos make this album sound much closer to his other band, The Last Shadow Puppets, or even Burt Bacharach, rather than the anthemic rock Arctic Monkeys of the first five albums. (7)

CORY BRANAN – When I Go I Ghost
A great heartland American rock ‘n’ roll record, probably Branan’s best. Buddies Brian Fallon (The Gaslight Anthem) and Jason Isbell help out. (8)

DRY CLEANING – Stumpwork
Last year’s breakout stars return with a decent follow-up sticking quite closely to the original formula – coolly and slightly annoyingly talking (not singing) over angular Pavement-style guitars and Gang Of Four English white boy funk. (7)

SOUAD MASSI – Sequana
Former frontwoman of Algerian metal band Atakor, now exiled in Paris to avoid death threats by fundamentalists, releases a fantastic album where traditional Berber music meets chanson, rock, American folk, and even bossa nova, with producer Justin Adams (guitarist in Robert Plant’s band) doing a great job. Includes a stunning Arabic version of NIN’s “Hurt”. (8)

SLOAN – Steady
It’s a glorious year for power pop. (8)

TAYLOR SWIFT – Midnights
Look, in the 20-year-old debate about rockism vs. poptimism it’s been fairly clear which side my bread is buttered on. But I do have a soft spot for Swift, and this is another wonderful Swift album. (8)

THE UNTHANKS – Sorrows Away
A beautiful British folk album by a band featuring two sisters who sound absolutely magical on vocals. (8)

VARIOUS ARTISTS – Here It Is: A Tribute to Leonard Cohen
Released on famed jazz label Blue Note, this is a very good tribute album featuring a crack band of jazz musicians with Peter Gabriel, Iggy Pop, Norah Jones, James Taylor, Sarah McLachlan, Mavis Staples and others taking turns fronting it. (8) 

Short Attention Span Record Reviews, Oct 22 Vol. II

THE LOUDER STUFF

BLIND ILLUSION – Wrath of the Gods
It’s sort of like Megadeth but with less annoying vocals and no born-again Christian crap. (8)

THE CULT – Under The Midnight Sun
This is not the hard rocking Cult of “Electric” and “Sonic Temple”, it’s actually closer to the post-punk goth Cult of “Love” but with extra strings, and it’s pretty good! (8)

LAMB OF GOD – Omens
This is a very good Lamb Of God album, i.e. a very good Pantera/Swedish melodeath hybrid. (8)

LITURGY – As the Blood of God Bursts the Veins of Time
Seriously fucked up music by and for seriously fucked up people. But black metal purists will hate this, again. (7)

VANILLA FUDGE – Vanilla Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin covers sounding like Deep Purple songs by a band older than both, but you can live without this. (6)


THE OTHER STUFF

2nd GRADE – Easy Listening
16 songs in 35 minutes by a band with ambitions to spearhead a power-pop revival. RIYL Big Star, Teenage Fanclub, The Posies. (8)

RYAN ADAMS – Devolver
His fourth album in 2022 (!) is given away as a free download and it’s punkier than usual. The guy’s in top songwriting form, too bad he’s still being cancelled. (8)

COURTNEY MARIE ANDREWS – Loose Future
A gorgeous album of spacious Americana by this talented singer/songwriter. (8)

BONNY LIGHT HORSEMAN – Rolling Golden Holy
Second album by indie-folk supergroup blurs the boundaries between traditional and contemporary folk music with a strong autumnal feel. (8)

JAKE BLOUNT – The New Faith
A fantastic album that’ll certainly make the year-end list a couple of months down the road – a minimalistic, Afro-futuristic concept album based on old gospel music and spirituals with a post-modern twist. I just can’t stop listening to this. (9)

JOHN FULLBRIGHT – The Liar
Fullbright’s approach to songwriting, a melting pot of country, rock, and pop, brings to mind another Oklahoman piano man, Leon Russell – when not verging into early Waits-ian whiskey-soaked territory. An all-around stellar album. (8)

RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS – Return Of The Dream Canteen
Second (extremely long) long player from the Chili Peppers in 2022, meaning they’ve released 150 minutes of new music this year. This one’s the better of the two, funkier and more fun. But if they had released just one 50-minute album featuring half the tracks from this album plus the top 3-4 tracks from “Unlimited Love”, it would’ve been a masterpiece. (8)

TITUS ANDRONICUS – The Will To Live
Working-class indie rockers forego the Clash-isms of their previous album and go full-on classic rock in a “Who meets Alice Cooper” sort of way – a few months ago this guy twitted that he was going for a Mutt Lange vibe on this album, and I suspect he was only half-joking. (8)

VARIOUS ARTISTS – Sea Songs Sessions
Some of the top names in today’s British folk music (Jon Boden, Seth Lakeman etc.) join forces on this great collection of traditional sea shanties given the contemporary treatment. (8)

Short Attention Span Record Reviews, Oct 22

THE LOUDER STUFF

BEHEMOTH – Opvs Contra Natvram
The high-quality and misspelled majestic death/black metal we’ve come to expect from Nergal and co. never disappoints. (8)

CLUTCH – Sunrise on Slaughter Beach
It’s Clutch. It’s groovy and it rocks. (8)

DROPKICK MURPHYS – This Machine Still Kills Fascists
With co-vocalist Al Barr sidelined for family reasons, the rest of the Murphys go acoustic and use unreleased Woody Guthrie lyrics for an album that sounds un-Murphys-like and very Murphys-like at the same time. (8)

FRAYLE – Skin & Sorrow
Pretty good gothic doom metal with female vocals that fortunately take a 4AD ethereal direction rather than the dreaded soprano route. (7)

GOGOL BORDELLO – Solidaritine
A new band with only Hutz and violinist Ryabtzev remaining from the classic line-up but you wouldn’t be able to tell – it’s a very energetic effort, their most punk rock record since “Gypsy Punks”. (8)

KINGS OF MERCIA – Kings Of Mercia
Following August’s A-Z album Jim Matheos also releases a non-Fates Warning melodic hard rock album with vocals by FM’s Steve Overland who brings a strong AOR flavor to the proceedings, sounding very much like Lou Gramm in places. Classy rhythm section (Joey Vera & Simon Phillips), great guitar tone, quality songwriting. (8)

THE MARS VOLTA – The Mars Volta
Does not sound like The Mars Volta at all – gone are the extreme prog-punk pyrotechnics of the past, this time around they go for Santana-influenced, almost-conventional rock. (7)

MELVINS – Bad Moon Rising
Like Forrest Gump said, Melvins albums are like a box of chocolates – you never know what you're gonna get. This one contains, among other things, a 14-minute exercise in downtuned sludge weirdness called “Mister Dog Is Totally Right”, two of their catchiest songs ever (“It Won’t Or It Might”, “Hammering”), and a guest appearance by Earth’s Dylan Carlson. (7)

SLIPKNOT – The End, So Far
Not afraid to expand their sound and experiment, this time around Slipknot often put melody above heaviness and step up as tunesmiths. It sounds nothing like Stone Sour, by the way. (8)


THE OTHER STUFF
    
AL-QASAR – Who Are We?
Paris-based band raises hell on strong debut album, with a little help from friends like Jello Biafra and Sonic Youth’s Lee Ranaldo adding oomph to Middle Eastern-flavored psychedelic rock. (8)

DR. JOHN – Things Happen That Way
New Orleans tradition meets country on the great Mac’s posthumously released farewell album. (7)

THE GODFATHERS – Alpha Beta Gamma Delta
Remember these guys? They were playing real British rock ‘n’ roll in the late 80’s when no one else was doing it. New line-up with only vocalist Peter Coyne remaining, but a surprisingly good album – looks at “Birth, School, Work, Death”, or at least “More Songs About Love & Hate”, in the eye without being embarrassed. (8)

JESCA HOOP – Order Of Romance
Hoop likes to hide her deep and eclectic musicality behind a childlike playfulness. (7)

MAKAYA McCRAVEN - In These Times
Jazz drummer/producer creates a gorgeous piece of work, going beyond “pure jazz” to incorporate all kinds of black music elements into his style. (8)

BETH ORTON – Weather Alive
The Queen Mother of what we’ve come to call “folktronica” is back with a beautiful, haunting self-produced record. (8)

SUEDE – Autofiction
I haven’t paid any attention really to these guys since Bernard Butler left the band in ’94 but this is an excellent album, more post-punk than the glam-infused Britpop I remember. (8)