Slipped Discs - September 2009
Discs You May Have Missed
by John Noyd
Canadian Metallers Anvil
Initial Thoughts
Long time no see. September somehow reins in our summer vagrancies to put us back on course. From national distribution for Canadian heavy metallurgists ANVIL’s first record since 2004, “This Is Thirteen,” to the return of funk-rockers LIVING COLOUR after a six-year hiatus, September’s resurfacing theme chooses new music from bands absent from the shelves. So let’s rejoin and rejoice - getting back down to it isn’t all that bad.
Disc Reviews
Radney Foster And The Confessions - Revival
Radney Foster And The Confessions
Album title: Revival
Record Label: Thirty Tigers records
Sage and resolute, hard-won and road-tested; life experience informs Radney’s straight-shooting, textbook tunes. Seeking relief in hindsight enlightenment and soulful regrets, “Revival,” engages and captures, corralling its deeply-felt sympathies beneath level-headed epigrams poured over muscular melodies and rousing choruses. A well-versed honky-tonk pilgrim, Radney rallies true-blue homilies into honest, everyman sentiments.
(3181) Page Views
Radney Foster And The Confessions online:
• Website • Wiki
• Download Revival from Amazon
• Purchase Revival on Amazon
Lita Ford - Wicked Wonderland
Lita Ford
Album title: Wicked Wonderland
Record Label: JLRG Entertainment
Hard rock boogie and wicked vixen blues reign over blistering bravado, cannonball caterwauling and tawdry anthems as Lita’s return after an eighteen year absence is a herald of rollicking riffs and stream-lined chaos. Shiny, sweaty, high-octane fun, “Wonderland,” floods the senses, churning a Mad Hatter’s bash into classic come-ons and pyrotechnical aggression.
(7078) Page Views
Lita Ford online:
• Website • Wiki
• Purchase Wicked Wonderland on Amazon
Hot Club Of Cowtown - Wishful Thinking
Hot Club Of Cowtown
Album title: Wishful Thinking
Record Label: Gold Strike Records
A phoenix rising from nests of effervescent finesse, “Wishful,” is packed with upbeat pluck, down-home charm and gracious glissando. Swinging between cocktail country, lonesome folk and chipper pitch-perfect jive, HCOC concoct a spiffy, hep-cat burlesque that addresses modern life in undulating harmonies. Catch the toe-tapping trio playing Beaver Dam October 20th.
(6512) Page Views
Hot Club Of Cowtown online:
• Website • Wiki
• Download Wishful Thinking from Amazon
• Purchase Wishful Thinking on Amazon
Lhasa de Sela - Lhasa
Lhasa de Sela
Album title: Lhasa
Record Label: Nettwerk records
Acoustic tapestries grace a tranquil, confiding voice; mid-tempo meditations, slow-moving harvest songs and phantom shanty waltzes float over fluttering melancholy. Lhasa’s beating dreams, reasonable realism and twilight candor snakes in a long, winding fuse igniting folk-blues blossoms among withering prophecies. In her first all-English album, the globe-trotting artist quietly embellishes clear-eyed feelings into beautifully serious poetry.
(3478) Page Views
Lhasa de Sela online:
• Website • Wiki
• Download Lhasa from Amazon
• Purchase Lhasa on Amazon
Marshall Crenshaw - Jaggedland
Marshall Crenshaw
Album title: Jaggedland
Record Label: 429 Records
Haunted by the golden age of early rock since he debuted decades ago, Marshall crafts crooning prom-night ballads and boppy paeans to love, waxing nostalgically in rockabilly twang, pistol-packed snares and turbulent, indie-pop jangle. “Jaggedland,” tracks the wistful singer pouring his wise, world-weary heart into incandescent comforts. Crenshaw visits Milwaukee’s Shank Hall Sept. 23rd.
(2890) Page Views
Marshall Crenshaw online:
• Website • Wiki
• Download Jaggedland from Amazon
• Purchase Jaggedland on Amazon
Shudder To Think - Live From Home
Shudder To Think
Album title: Live From Home
Record Label: Team Love
Sparking fiery thought bombs beneath serrated storms, angular angst and pounding, stalk-rock, “Live,” juices up STT’s catalogue. By all appearances a joyful event, Shudder’s 2008 reunion roll out pulverizing palpitation, a towering squalor through which slinks serpentine soliloquies performing jungle-gym twists around a steel web of mind games and shock logic.
(2992) Page Views
Shudder To Think online:
• Website • Wiki
• Purchase Live From Home on Amazon
Os Mutantes - Haih Or Amortecedor
Os Mutantes
Album title: Haih Or Amortecedor
Record Label: Anti Records
A moveable feast of theatrical rock turned multi-cultural pop, Brazil’s playful dance-party revolutionaries return more powerful and impassioned than ever. Throbbing musical mosaics piece together Kasbah grooves, political sambas, translucent blues and rainbow-colored psychedelia while, “Haih,” field surreal appeals through hyperbolic ballads, dramatic apparitions and intercontinental imaginations. OM hit Minneapolis’ Cedar Cultural Center Sept 26th.
(3114) Page Views
Os Mutantes online:
• Wiki
• Download Haih Or Amortecedor from Amazon
• Purchase Haih Or Amortecedor on Amazon
Final Thoughts
Balancing the karmic wheel, fall offers all kinds of new. From JACK PENATE’s sophomore, “Everything is New,” where he looks back at eighties New Romantics to POLVO, who recently reformed with a new drummer yet continue to defy categorization with their innovative, indie-twisted, acid-punk, jazz-rock constructs populating, “In Prism.” The most outré-nouveau release this season by far is ukulele-wielding, puppet-master, lo-fi trip-hop artist tUnE-yArDs’ spunky, funky, all-out courageous debut, “BiRdBrAiN.”