Wilco – (The Album)
Personally I can’t remember ever feeling the same about any Wilco album a couple of months after the first experience. For instance 2007′s Sky Blue Sky seemed so short of my own expectations that I felt annoyed I’d have to wait another two years for the next one. But it was seeing those songs live and building a relationship with the them over repeated plays that has turned it into my favourite Wilco album to date. Only time will tell how Wilco will reveal itself . What’s clearly evident is that seamless and effortless leaps between genre and style mask the fact that the wealth of variety and diversion in this one album puts the vast majority of their contemporaries in the shade. Sure, there’s a recognisable motif that connects everything here, but it’s not a ‘sonic’ or genre-based theme. Instead the thread is that of a band seemingly increasing in confidence to produce something hugely rich, deeply luxurious and ultimately enormously generous. (Read the full review)
Levon Helm – Electric Dirt
His last record, 2007’s Grammy-nabbing Dirt Farmer, is as raw and engaging a country folk record as any in recent memory. Electric Dirt, his latest, faces South, too. Helm kicks it off with a cover of the Grateful Dead’s “Tennessee Jed,” which sounds more like a real country standard than Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter’s original. And his take on Carter Stanley’s “White Dave” is a mournful masterpiece that sounds like the songs on the slightly superior Dirt Farmer. “Growin’ Trade” is an aggie lament about a good farmer who is forced to start growing America’s biggest cash crop, despite its illegality. Helm teases with an intro that would trick a straight person into thinking it’s a version of the Band’s “The Weight.” The catchy hook, blue-collar vibe, and reverence for marijuana make it sound like the best Neil Young song he’s never sung. (Read the full review)
Moby – Wait for Me
Wait For Me is actually Moby’s best album since Play, with touches of his truly brilliant Animal Rights.
Apparently, the approach was inspired by a talk Lynch gave at BAFTA in the UK. Moby paraphrased a suggestion of Lynch’s thusly: “too often an artists or musicians or writers creative output is judged by how well it accommodates the marketplace, and how much market share it commands and how much money it generates.”
So Moby focused on making a record for himself, with no concern over how it might be received commercially. And if that’s something that he needed to make a conscious attempt to achieve, it’s really no wonder that his last few albums haven’t been very special from our standpoint. (Read the full review)
Away We Go OST
For a film that focuses on the intricacies of life: marriage, pregnancy, childhood, employment, social networking; its most appropriate that someone as simple and pragmatic as Murdoch should lend his talents to this film. His debut release Time Without Consequence won the praise of many a critic and sat atop numerous Top 10 lists. Oft-quoted for bearing an unshakable comparison to Nick Drake and Jose Gonzales, he is fortunate to possess a warm, woody tenor that’s appealing yet mildly tiring. Much like cedar or oak, his vocal tone at times appears dry and dull and were it not for some clever fingerpicking, the songs would most certainly flop.
This is exactly the problem with the first half of this soundtrack. Even though the jangly roots-rock of George Harrison’s “What is Life,” appears three songs in, the record is still dragged down by Murdoch’s lack of pace. Seriously, Alexi, would it kill you to do something uptempo? That being said, The Stranglers’ kickin’ “Golden Brown,” Bob Dylan’s pleading “Meet Me in the Morning,” and the crackling “Oh! Sweet Nuthin” from the Velvet Underground,” are the album’s highest peaks. (Read the full review)
