Friday, October 09, 2009

ALBUM REVIEW TWEET-THOLOGY

Slightly reformatted.

Assück, Anticapital/Blindspot +3: Why do non-grind bands insist on writing such long songs? If you can't say it in <0:30, don't bother me.

Vijay Iyer Trio, Historicity: I keep fixating on Marcus Gilmore's drum sound. That, and the awesome version of J. Hemphill's "Dogon A.D."

Living Hell, Oblivion: Q: Why don't hardcore bands' singers wear rings? A: Because they'd spark when their knuckles drag on the ground.

Saviours, Accelerated Living: High On Fire with half the riff-writing skills and a singer who wants to be Cal from Discharge, not Lemmy.

The Red Chord, Fed Through The Teeth Machine: Less overtly anti-listener than Clients. (I hated it so much I skipped Prey For Eyes.)

Miles Davis, Another Unity: If time travel existed, I'd sell one of your kidneys to see any show on Miles's 1975 tour of Japan. Any one.

Dethklok, Dethalbum II: Death metal that dies without its cartoon context. Don Kirshner knew better than to sing on Archies albums himself.

Gwynbleidd, Nostalgia: Brooklyn black metallers with good taste. Yeah, I like Opeth a lot, too, guys.

Marion Brown, Juba-Lee: w/G. Moncur III, A. Shorter, B. Maupin, D. Burrell et al. Freedom manifested through introspection, not shouting.

Christian Scott, Anthem: Late Miles x Nils Petter Molvaer + rock guitar + Aaron Parks' crushing piano. Picked based on a #jazznow blurb.

Erik Deutsch, Hush Money: Soulful jazz with almost Ribot-esque guitar and melodies Donald Fagen would happily steal.

Genesis, Seconds Out: Post-Gabriel/pre-hits liveage: slow-burning arena-prog. Should I look into the studio albums from this era?

Kobie Watkins, Involved: debut CD by Sonny Rollins's current drummer. Not bad but too many personnel shifts track-to-track. Get a band.

V/A, Swedish Death Metal: Like it says. Three discs' worth. Oh, and it's the audio companion to an amazing book...

Ben Perowsky, Moodswing Orchestra: Hey, remember trip-hop? Jazz gets its own Peeping Tom, with excellent horns.

Shrinebuilder, s/t: This is the first thing Al Cisneros has ever been involved with that hasn't bored me into a rage.

Derek Bailey/Steve Noble, Out Of The Past: unearthed duets from 1999. Pissed-off, raucous and Sharrockian; DB for metalheads.

Samuel Blaser Quartet, Pieces Of Old Sky: trombone/guitar/bass/drums semi-ambient chamber-jazz awesomeness. Clean Feed label = underrated.

Jello Biafra, The Audacity of Hype: The cover parodies Obama, but the songs are about Bush & Clinton. Quick, Jello: What year is it?

Immortal, All Shall Fall: Fantastic riffs and killer production, but Abbath still sounds like Popeye, and it's okay to admit it.

Nile, Those Whom The Gods Detest...they make listen to Nile. Actually/amazingly, I'm kinda into this. I bet they still suck live, though.

Sam Rivers, Contours: I don't think any band has ever balanced sparkling melody and landscape-scorching waves of fire better than this.

Nazxul, Iconoclast: Black metal with a pomposity way out of proportion to its recording budget.

Leyland Kirby, Sadly, The Future Is No Longer What It Was: "Eraserhead" soundtrack + Morrissey-esque track titles = Brit critics' darling.

Jonathon Haffner, Life On Wednesday: alto sax, keyboards, guitar, bass, two drummers. Modern, electr(on)ic post-bop w/grit & groove.

Lita Ford, Wicked Wonderland: She can still play, but she still can't sing, and the production's more Rob Zombie than Runaways.

Marduk, Wormwood: This is really just a Funeral Mist album with Morgan et al. as de facto guest musicians. Which of course means it rules.

Arrington de Dionyso, Malaikat Dan Singa: tribal out-jazz drone-squonk + glossolalia. I used to hate this guy, but he's improved a little.

Austrian Death Machine, Double Brutal: I never thought I'd be saying "MORE fake Schwarzenegger, please," but the non-Arnie vox here SUCK.

V/A, Ghana Special: Soundway's bid for Afro-funk comp supremacy continues. Superb, if less berserk than the earlier Ghana Soundz sets.

Mike Reed's People, Places & Things, About Us: 2-sax 4tet + guests. Bluesy & swinging w/the occasional traffic-jam honk-spasm for spice.

Aaron Martin, Chautauqua: cello/banjo/organ/field recordings. Could score a documentary about stolen water rights or something, I guess.

Little Richard, King of Rock and Roll: the version of "Brown Sugar" might make this even weirder than Bo Diddley's early '70s funk albums.

Blind Lemon Jefferson, Classic Sides 4CD JSP box: not sure what I could possibly say about this. Why don't you just get yourself one?

Chad Taylor, Circle Down: Track 1 full of skips. All the others so far - delicate, swinging-on-tiptoe piano trio abstractions. Excellent.

Blue Öyster Cult, Agents Of Fortune: I no longer feel emotion. Hey, who started that fire?

Leyland Kirby, Sadly, The Future Is No Longer What It Was: Not so much living in the past as going there to visit, then committing suicide.

Tyshawn Sorey, Koan: Super-placid gtr/gtr/drums (in)action; if these guys toured w/Earth, clubs'd have to pass out pillows and blankets.

Rose Tattoo, s/t: Sure, Australia, send us INXS and Olivia Newton-John and keep these guys for yourselves. THAT SEEMS FAIR.

Rodrigo Amado/Kent Kessler/Paal Nilssen-Love, The Abstract Truth: Twombly-esque tenor and baritone sax + out-but-swinging rhythm = yay.

Cecil Taylor, The Willisau Concert: live in 2000 on a 97-key Bösendorfer that really lets the low notes rumble and boom. Breathtaking.

John Blum, In The Shade Of Sun: piano trio w/William Parker, Sunny Murray; blindfolded, I couldn't tell it from Matt Shipp circa 1995.

Freddie Hubbard, Red Clay: Yeah, it slipped through the cracks until now. Damn hot, though I think I still prefer the Blue Note albums.

King Crimson, The Great Deceiver box: impressively barbed, austere improvisations, deftly sidestepping the messy anarchy of human-ness.

Baroness, Blue Record: this record makes me want to jump up and down in such a way that I can conceive no higher praise.

Om, God Is Good: Flutes are not metal. UPDATE: Handclaps are not metal either.

Pitbull, Rebelution: better than The Boatlift, not as good as El Mariel. The song "Juice Box" is so vulgar it's gotta be single #3.

Crucifist, Demon-Haunted World: If you think the Hellhammer demos are the pinnacle of human achievement, this is your new favorite CD.

Joe Morris Quartet, Today on Earth: not as ferocious as the appropriately titled Wildlife, but a slab o' pure pleasure nonetheless.

Fire! (punctuation in original), You Liked Me Five Minutes Ago: another day, another Mats Gustaffson album. Reasonably blazin', I guess.

The Black, Alongside Death: new black metal release on Pulverised, came in today's mail. I lasted eight seconds.

The Gates of Slumber, Hymns of Blood And Thunder: Karl Simon may have just replaced Wino as my biker-doom-metal god.

David Ashkenazy, Out With It: sax/guitar/organ/drums. Weirder than expected = good. They do a Beatles song, though; that might sink it.

David S. Ware, Live in Vilnius: double vinyl of the DSW4's last ever gig. Opening "Ganesh Sound" is crushing my world.

Natalia Lafourcade, Hu Hu Hu: brilliant, bombastic art-pop. Why do I love this and not Feist (easiest English-language comparison)?

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