Review Wrap-Up: January - February 2013

Today we have a trio of solid albums that have been rocking The Professor's house lately. Newcomers Void Of Sleep delight with their metallic debut, soulster Jamie Lidell continues to mash the freak button, and the revered Steven Wilson unleashes his latest opus. Enjoy.

Void of Sleep – Tales Between Reality and Madness

Hailing from Italy, Void Of Sleep are off to a hell of a start to their careers with their ballsy debut Tales Between Reality and Madness. Their sound is balanced on the knife edge between European style stoner rock and bilious American sludge metal. All of their disparate influences come to a head on 'The Great Escape of the Giant Stone Man' (love that track name), a mammoth track that rides a titanic riff like their lives depend on it. They even get a big proggy on 'Ghost Of Me' and 'Sons of Nothing'. For a band cut from the stoner/doom cloth it is amazing at how much fun it sounds like they are having without sacrificing the heavy. Yes, a fun metal album, go figure. Void Of Sleep don't reinvent the wheel just make it perfectly round and damned heavy to boot.

Rating: B-

Recommended tracks: The Great Escape of the Giant Stone Man, Mirror Soul Sickness

Jamie Lidell – Jamie Lidell

Mr Lidell is quite a tricky customer. The English singer is up to his fifth album and he is working hard at being hard to define. He comes out of the gate like a nasty neon explosion of electro funk on 'I'm Selfish' and hams it up like a white Cee Lo Green. Later on he dabbles in some acid damaged Prince level material ('You Know My Name'). Just when you think you have a handle on his throwback future soul schtik, out he comes with some lopsided blues or tripped out jazz (see the Outkast meets Louis Armstrong 'why_ya_why' for an example). His previous album, Compass, was bolstered by the inputs of Beck and members of Grizzly Bear, but here Lidell is out on his own once again and proving once again that he is a freak. If you like your funk twisted out of shape like a seasick mutant disco orgy then this is the album for you.

Rating: B-

Recommended tracks: I'm Selfish, why_ya_why

Steven Wilson – The Raven That Refused to Sing (And Other Stories)

Steven Wilson is one of prog rock's most prolific and celebrated modern proponents. He has racked up literally dozens of albums among his different bands and projects (Porcupine Tree, No Man, Blacklight, Storm Corrosion) but The Raven That Refused to Sing (And Other Stories) is only his third proper solo record. It is a magical history tour of the world of prog rock, from 'Luminol' which opens in Rush/Primus-like fashion to the Tull-ian 'The Watchmaker'. The album was even mastered by Alan Parsons. Sombre and introspective to a fault, this is not a feel good record but is masterfully and loving crafted. None of this will be a surprise to anyone who has been following Wilson's career closely. Get out here and party (or sulk) like it's 1976!

Rating: B+

Recommended tracks: Luminol, The Pin Drop

Album Review: Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Push The Sky Away

It is hard to believe at times that Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds could channel their volatility to even make two albums together without self-destructing. Now that they have reached an impressive record number 15, what can you even say? Has the band formed out of the smoldering ashes of The Birthday Party lost their edge, watering them down but ironically allowing them to survive this long? All of these questions are answered, in one fashion or another, in Push The Sky Away. This album represents Nick Cave and company's post-Grinderman come down and it is more of a float to Earth than free fall. If the idea of a rock-less album (a la The Boatman's Call) sends you running away then you might have missed one of the essential truths about The Bad Seeds: they are good at what they do and excel when defying people's expectations. Many thought that Grinderman, a sleazy garage rock project from a band of hairy middle aged Lotharios, was bound to fail under a pile of fizzing amp stacks and embarrassing pussy jokes. Thankfully they were all proven wrong and their two albums stand as erect middle fingers to the “you're just too old” sentiments.

Unlike some of their previous ballad heavy albums Push The Sky Away has very little to do with love and romance, unless your idea of a magical night out involves prostitutes, dissection, metaphysics, and Wikipedia. Not a single track on this album raises the tone above 'meditative' so if it's a balls-out rawk assault you are after then this is not the Nick Cave album for you. Yes, it is uniformly mellow, and rather quiet, but it is anything but gentle. There is still the familiar themes of rage, lust, and redemption (that is Nick's naked wife on the cover after all) but they take new unfamiliar forms. The instruments tend to occupy the ominous low-end - much rumbling of bass, woozy violins, and brushed drums - all of which allows Cave's vocals and, therefore, his lyrics, to rightly take centre stage. “I was the match that would fire up her snatch” he croons on 'Mermaids' and on 'Higgs Boson Blues' he manages to reference both Robert Johnson and Miley Cyrus. The band has distanced itself from many of popular music's traditional tropes and structures, tapping into a more “stream of consciousness” style that suits their rambling well. Album highlight 'Jubilee Street' is accompanied by 'Finishing Jubilee Street', in which Cave discusses the aftermath of writing the former song in an artistic move of meta proportions.

Push The Sky Away is the perfect archetype for what is known as a “grower” album. It lacks the obvious hit single, there is no energetic rave-up that gets the people on their feet and dancing, and it is entirely without stadium-bating anthems to cheapen their vision. What this album does is slowly worm its way into the listener's heart via their ears. It ends up setting up base camp in your mind and begs you to return. What can you do but oblige?

Rating: A-

Recommended Tracks: Jubilee Street, Mermaids. Higgs Boson Blues

Album Review: Puscifer - Donkey Punch the Night EP

Donkey Punch The Night, the latest EP from Maynard James Keenan's Puscifer project, is a mixed bag of an EP and your enjoyment of it will undoubtedly vary from listener to listener. Some fans will be drawn to the pair of covers, others the pair of original tracks, others the quartet of remixes, and others still bits and pieces from each category. It is becoming clear that this is, at best, a challenging release.

The pair of covers come from very different ends of Puscifer spectrum. Album opener 'Bohemian Rhapsody' (by “you know who”) is alarming for a very simple reason. No, there are no dick jokes thrown in, no absurd rapping, and there are certainly no dubstep drops. It is alarming in how faithful to the original material this version is. Maynard pulls off a good Freddie Mercury impersonation here with enough grit to not sound like a pointless clone cover. On the other end is 'Balls to the Wall', originally played by 80s German metallers Accept. This is treated as though it was one of Puscifer's own – that's right no blistering guitar solos, just some mid-tempo post-industrial chug accentuated by Carina Round's spooky backing vocals. In fact I dare people not familiar to the original version to pick it as a cover at all.

Donkey Punch The Night's new tracks are probably a little closer to the expectations of the audience. 'Dear Brother' is perfectly serviceable but pails in comparison to 'Breathe'. This song just screams “hear me played live” and will no doubt be flooring live crowds for some time to come. Then there are the remixes. The new songs fare rather well as their remixes are just alternative versions of the songs; you can still see the familiar bone structure and the hooks remain largely intact. The covers do not bode so well as they are mutilated pretty much beyond recognition and are largely instrumental workouts. Many cover songs simply transplant the lyrics of one song into the music of the band performing it. In this state they are still recognizable as covers. It feels disingenuous to even refer to 'Balls to the Wall (Silent Servant's El Guapo mix)' and 'Bohemian Rhapsody (Sonoio Remix)' as covers in the way they are presented.

So what can you make of this divisive new EP? A better question is, what kind of Puscifer fan are you?

Rating: B-

Recommended tracks: 'Dear Brother', 'Breathe' (Ed: but then I'm the sort of fan biased towards the new songs)

Album Review: Jim James - Regions of Light and Sound of God

Jim James, the ever-engaging frontman for Kentucky's My Morning Jacket has once again struck out away from his “day job” band with his new album Regions Of Light And Sound Of God. This is certainly not the first time with his stint on indie-folk supergroup Monsters Of Folk and his tribute EP to the late George Harrison under the pseudo-pseudonym Yim Yames. But this time around he has deemed it necessary to use his real name. It is a subtle gesture but one that shows that this album is not just by him; it is about him. To achieve this he has stripped away the six-string bluster and sky-shaking prog that he made his name with. So what are you left with?

One thing that will never change is James' achingly angelic voice. The first track, a wonderfully subdued 'State Of The Art (A.E.I.O.U)' uses this mighty instrument for all that it is worth. Every single song (excluding the instrumental 'Exploding') is elevated by his vocal phrasing and delivery. In lesser hands some of these songs would collapse into airy nothings – a chorus here, a fragment of melody there – but through sheer strength of personality alone James keeps things in check and progressing forwards. This album is about freedom – the freedom of solo-hood and also freedom of creative expression. To this end Jim James has dragged in sounds from many different eras and genres to flesh out his core sound. 'Dear One' alludes ever so gently to the new-wave-prog shtick of King Crimson's Beat / Three Of A Perfect Pair era. Serene shades of doo-wop creeps into the back half of 'New Life', giving it, what else, new life.

As with many solo debuts not every song on Regions Of Light And Sound Of God holds quite enough water or has quite enough impact. 'Know Till Now' meanders along at a sedated pace, only the organ-led outro saves it from drudgery. A song like 'All Is Forgiven' sounds as though it is already defeated, more of a request than a statement. If you were a died-in-the-wool MMJ fan of old, accustomed to their riff-slinging backwoods fury and resistant to any deviation from that formula, then this album (just like Evil Urges and Circuital, in fact) may not be for you. In spite of his other forays into solo performance, Regions Of Light And Sound Of God is Jim James' more earnest attempt to step out from his band's colossal shadow. The creation of this record has allowed him to contemplate deeper things and spread his wings without posing any risk to MMJ's powerful mojo.

Rating: B-

Recommended tracks: State Of The Art (A.E.I.O.U), Dear One