Recommended Albums #45

29 Apr 2013 Leave a comment

by Ed Cyphers in Recommended Albums Tags: ,

zevon

Warren Zevon: Sentimental Hygiene (1987)

Even the most rabid Warren Zevon fan would admit “Werewolves of London” was a fluke–an unlikely intersection of eccentricity and mass appeal that in large part came down to a hook comprised of a simulated werewolf’s howl.

Excepting this one-off that’s become a Halloween perennial, Zevon’s sardonic, often bizarre lyrical bent has ensured his status as cult figure, albeit a very well-connected one. One of his musical friends, Jackson Browne, produced Zevon’s second album, which featured two more, Lindsay Buckingham and Stevie Nicks–with whom Zevon had shared a house a couple years earlier–as well as several members of the Eagles and Bonnie Raitt. The Warren Zevon album, though a critical success, was all but ignored by the public. Fellow Californian Linda Ronstadt was hip, though: she covered no fewer than three of the album’s tunes, including hit single “Poor, Poor Pitiful Me”.

Excitable Boy, Zevon’s only top ten album, followed in 1978, its sales spurred by the success of the aforementioned “Werewolves”. But for most of the next decade, alcohol addiction somewhat derailed his career; he only managed to release two studio and one live album during that span.

Finally in 1987 a clean and sober Warren Zevon proved what he was capable of with all cylinders firing. With Peter Buck, Mike Mills and Bill Berry of R.E.M. on board, and guest appearances from Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Don Henley, George Clinton, Flea, Brian Setzer and more, Zevon unleashed his most focused and best work since Excitable Boy.

This album was my introduction to Zevon, and it’s a fine how-do-you-do indeed. While it was his most radio-ready album in ten years, its populist tendencies did not come at the sacrifice of Zevon’s wry wit. Even the touching “The Heartache”, which speaks of the risks of falling in love, is pure Zevon:

Shadows falling in the noonday sun/Blue feeling to the maximum

Listen for Neil Young’s soloing on the title track–it’s unmistakable “Like a Hurricane”-style Neil.

If you’re interested but unfamiliar with the Warren Zevon catalog, this superb album is a perfect place to start. And if your appraisal of his work is largely based on “Werewolves of London”, take him up on his proposition to “Reconsider Me”.

Listen to: “Sentimental Hygiene”

Listen to: “Boom Boom Mancini”

Listen to: “Trouble Waiting to Happen”

Listen to: “Reconsider Me”

Don’t miss: “Even a Dog Can Shake Hands”

Listen to: “The Heartache”

See also: https://edcyphers.com/2012/11/11/songs-you-may-have-missed-224/

See also: https://edcyphers.com/2025/03/05/songs-you-may-have-missed-767/

Recommended Albums #44

16 Apr 2013 Leave a comment

by Ed Cyphers in Recommended Albums Tags: ,

  burn a quiet place downmy dead air

My Dead Air: Burn a Quiet Place Down (2010)

My Dead Air: My Dead Air (2011)

Sometimes–not often, but sometimes–it’s an artist’s so-called “side project” that resonates more with a particular listener than their “day job” band. For instance, as respected as Steven Wilson’s Porcupine Tree is in contemporary prog circles, his work with Aviv Geffen in Blackfield means much more to me personally. Punk band The Bronx never made any connection with me until they made a mariachi album.

I’ll give you a second to absorb that last sentence.

Brothers Josh and Dan Ballard make up two-thirds of Until June, a band in which stratospheric vocals are matched with dramatic arrangements for an almost Coldplay-esque brand of hyperemotive pop. They are (or were) a fine band, and one which deserved wider popularity. Check them out here.

But the Ballards have produced music under at least two other brands. And it’s with brother Dan’s material issued under the banner of My Dead Air that I’m truly smitten.

It’s almost too good to believe the way a series of gently beguiling melodies follow one after another in unbroken succession on these too-obscure releases. Perfect for (among other moments) the bedtime hour, My Dead Air has been singing me to sleep for two weeks straight now, and as much as I like variety in my music selection nothing seems to be able to displace them.

Maybe the fact that this is more of a lark than a stab at stardom is the secret formula here. Where Until June’s music is driving, sweeping, almost melodramatic, with soaring vocals and kettle drum percussion for added gravitas (all things I love about the band by the way) this is the flipside of that band’s melodic pop personality: understated, with a relaxed vocal delivery and a soothing sound–almost lullaby-soft at times. The melodies bring to mind a few of the more haunting tunes on Ben Folds Five’s Reinhold Messner LP–high praise by my reckoning.

If this isn’t the music with which Ballard can break big on a major label, then I’m grateful for the secondary outlet of this side project. For me at least, My Dead Air has proved to be the most richly rewarding of his work.

Listen to: “Won’t Let Me Go”

Listen to: “Your Eyes Are Killing Me”

Listen to: “Dropped On My Head”

Listen to: “Two Of You”

Listen to: “What A Foolish Thing”

Listen to: “NY/LA”

See also: https://edcyphers.com/2015/12/30/songs-you-may-have-missed-561/

See also: https://edcyphers.com/2013/02/07/songs-you-may-have-missed-323/

See also: https://edcyphers.com/2012/03/15/songs-you-may-have-missed-54/

See also: https://edcyphers.com/2017/03/25/songs-you-may-have-missed-613/

Recommended Albums #43

08 Apr 2013 Leave a comment

by Ed Cyphers in Recommended Albums Tags: ,

terra

Stornoway: Tales from Terra Firma (2013)

Impressed by this Oxford, England band’s latest, I wanted to select a representative song to post in another category of this blog. Trouble was, I couldn’t choose between the beautifully haunting song, the smartly philosophical song, or the cheerfully whimsical song. So here we are, under the heading of Recommended Albums.

“Farewell Appalachia” is the haunting melody, and one that shows the band’s penchant for using atypical instrumentation (and even non-instruments). In the past, the sound of a saw or that of carrots being chopped have served as percussion. In this case, and fittingly so, it’s the sound of crunching leaves accompanying the scene-setting first stanza’s lyric “From the cape/To the hook/With a carpet of leaves underfoot”.

The insinuative melody evokes the work of a band like Winterpills or even the Decemberists, whose songs similarly reward repeated listening–even require repeated listening, but then sink deeper into your soul than the ephemeral pop of lesser bands.

A second point of comparison with the Decemberists is a lyric that is both of the caliber and style of Colin Meloy:

And in the house where I last held you
our bed was cast adrift all night
and you were taking me to higher ground
out of my skin above the clouds

“The Bigger Picture” rambles along to an organ/mandolin vibe as vocalist Brian Briggs puts context to mundane concerns by casting them against the larger universe. Briggs’s distinctive dialect isn’t immediately identifiable as English; rather it possesses only a vaguely European quality that lends intrigue to the band’s sound. It’s one more point of similarity to the Decemberists’ Meloy who, despite calling Portland home and being American, possesses a dialect seemingly all his own.

“The Great Procrastinator” takes a cheeky lyric tone with lines like “I’ve been busy as a beaver/And I’ll be damned if I don’t ease the flow” to an arrangement that conjures a ragtime feel, of all things.

Tales of Terra Firma is smartly engaging throughout, and Stornoway are exactly what I’d expect from a band that formed at Oxford University. Not a cup of tea for everyone, mind you. But an aromatic and gently intoxicating blend for people of a certain taste.

Listen to: “Farewell Appalachia”

Listen to: “The Bigger Picture”

Listen to: “The Great Procrastinator”

See also: https://edcyphers.com/2012/02/24/songs-you-may-have-missed-23/

Recommended Albums #42

27 Mar 2013 1 Comment

by Ed Cyphers in Recommended Albums Tags: ,

riverside

Riverside: Shrine of New Generation Slaves (2013)

Riverside emerged as the best of a crop of metal-influenced Polish progressive rock bands who formed in the 2000’s. Their debut, 2004’s Out of Myself, was remarkable for its seamless blending of the metal and prog genres. It was a brooding concept album on which quiet, contemplative acoustic tracks intermingled with heavier guitar songs over a well-paced, melodic, and never-dull 53 minutes.

Subsequent releases have possessed the same magic to lesser degrees, or have leaned toward one or the other of the band’s main dynamic moods, but each seemed to trade chiefly on guitar and keyboard atmospherics ahead of songcraft.

With Shrine of New Generation Slaves  however, the focus seems to have shifted. Lead singer and chief songwriter Mariusz Duda’s propensity for acronym literally spells that out. Where their last release, Anno Domini High Definition, was an exploration of modern life’s constant swirl of motion and activity–and had a title with the acronym ADHD, the acronym code this time, SONGS, bears out the stronger emphasis on tighter, more focused writing.

And if this is indeed the breakout album for Riverside in America that many are saying it could be (they’ve already established significant followings in countries like Holland and Germany and are unquestioned kings of Poland’s prog scene) it will be the songs that kick down the door. From the multi-textured beauty of “The Depth of Self-Delusion” to the retro stoner rock sound of “Celebrity Touch” to the emotional resonance of “We Got Used to Us”, the band have assembled their finest collection of songs at least since their debut.

Nothing feels forced, it all feels organic: a well-placed riff here, a spare breakdown there…all adding up to a masterful album by a band who’s clearly come of age. And all in the capable hands of singer Duda, one of contemporary prog’s most lauded vocalists.

Spend some time with this one and it’ll reward your effort.

Listen to: “The Depth of Self-Delusion”

Listen to: “Celebrity Touch”

Listen to: “We Got Used to Us”

Listen to: “Feel Like Falling”

Listen to: “Coda”

See also: https://edcyphers.com/2012/03/13/songs-you-may-have-missed-51/

Recommended Albums #41

19 Mar 2013 Leave a comment

by Ed Cyphers in Recommended Albums Tags: ,

smash mouth

Smash Mouth: Fush Yu Mang (1997)

Hear me out.

“All that glitters is gold/Only shootin’ stars break the mold” is a true jumblefuck of mixed metaphors that never sat well with me. That said, if you think “Disney soundtrack lightweights” when you think of Smash Mouth, you probably missed part of the picture.

Prior even to “Walkin’ On the Sun” beginning it’s stupefying 60-week chart stranglehold in July of ’97, I took a flyer on their debut album based on a review in Goldmine magazine.

Come to think of it, that’s also where I read about Barenaked Ladies’ debut Gordon album, and liked them way before it was…uh…

Anyway, “Walkin’ On the Sun ” was the only song from Fush Yu Mang to grace the American pop charts, although a cover of War’s “Why Can’t We Be Friends” did make a dent in the Alternative top 40. Within a year, the follow-up LP was out and there were no further efforts to cull singles from the debut. Not that there were any more hits, but there were, in my opinion, some very entertaining songs that deserved wider exposure.

I think.

The one necessary caveat is that the “Walkin’ On the Sun” isn’t representative of the album. Smash Mouth was a ska-punk band at this stage; the evolution to their signature catchy, farfisa-drenched retro pop sound was basically complete by the second album. But what we have with Fush Yu‘s album tracks is trashy hyperactive ska with sly, rapid-fire lyrics that are worth a replay if you don’t catch them on first listen.

“Pet Names” tells of a love affair gone stale through the lens of those cutesy love “handles”. “Padrino” takes a cheeky poke at the mob. “Disconnect the Dots” has riffs galore, and makes me wonder if someone put a bunch of pills in Herb Alpert’s espresso and invited him to play along.

It may be too late to revise your opinion of the band; or maybe you like the sound of “I’m a Believer” Smash Mouth better. That’s certainly valid. But I think it’s worth knowing that before they made that right turn onto Main Street, they careened breathlessly through some relatively interesting neighborhoods–places where Shrek definitely wouldn’t hang out.

Listen to: “Let’s Rock”

Listen to: “Pet Names”

Listen to” “Padrino”

Listen to: “Disconnect the Dots”

Recommended Albums #40

19 Feb 2013 Leave a comment

by Ed Cyphers in Recommended Albums Tags: , ,

mountain jack

Hans Rotenberry & Brad Jones: Mountain Jack (2010)

The original compact disc, as developed by engineers from Philips and Sony in a rare collaborative effort, was 74 minutes, 42 seconds in length. Why? Because Norio Ohga, the head of Sony and a former opera singer, insisted his company not produce a new format that could not play Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in its entirety.

But musically speaking it’s a long way down from Beethoven to the bottom-feeders. And the fact that we now have 70+ minutes’ capacity on an album, as opposed to the 45 or so the vinyl LP afforded, is too often taken as an invitation for modern artists to shovel additional music onto an album–music that wouldn’t have made the cut in the vinyl era.

That’s why it’s refreshing when an album like Mountain Jack comes along. Clocking in at under 33 well-paced, enjoyable and ballad-free minutes, it sounds like an edit I’d make myself from a longer album.

Hans Rotenberry is lead singer, guitarist and songwriter of Nashville power pop band the Shazam and Brad Jones is that band’s long-time producer. Outside of Tennessee the Shazam’s profile is pretty low; for these guys to release an album outside the band umbrella places it into even more obscure territory.

But this one’s well worth tracking down.

Mountain Jack is just a good old-fashioned guitar rock album, leaning toward the power pop sound in some places (“Back to Bristol” and the sunny, anthemic album closer “It Would Not Be Uncool”) and hewing closer to a rootsy Americana vibe in others (the Steve Earle-channeling “Ain’t Gonna Hurt Anyone” and the Wilburyesque shuffle “Next to You”). And “Greef” is the best new Rolling Stones song I’ve heard in years.

Rotenberry always knew how to deliver power pop with a little more backbone than most. His winning formula consists of plenty of bottom, some vocal grit and an extra helping of guitar riffage. And personally, I’m always trying to get more riffage in my diet.

Listen to: “A Likely Lad”

 

Listen to: “Next to You”

 

Listen to: “Ain’t Gonna Hurt Anyone”

 

Listen to: “Greef”

 

Don’t miss: “Back to Bristol”

 

Listen to: “Putting On Airs Tonight”

 

Listen to: “It Would Not Be Uncool”

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