Bettie Serveert: Log 22

BETTIE SERVEERT: LOG 22 (2003)

1) Wide Eyed Fools; 2) Smack; 3) Have A Heart; 4) Captain Of Maybe; 5) De Diva; 6) Given; 7) Not Coming Down; 8) Cut 'n' Dried; 9) Log 22; 10) White Dogs; 11) Certainlie; 12) The Ocean, My Floor; 13) The Love-In.

After Private Suit had changed their image, but failed to make them superstars, Bettie Serveert took a two-year break — only to return with an album that sounded almost like a retreat to their original image. Almost, because Dollo's law says that you cannot really go back to the exact same state as you were, so Log 22 is still notoriously «artsier» than Palomine, and for Bettie, this means «probably better». Its major problem may be excessive length — a whole hour — but on the other hand, some of its better songs are its longer pieces, where the real juicy pieces of musi­cal meat are to be found in the jam sections, so...

But all in due time. In reality, the band explores quite a few different styles here. The first song is technically one of those stream-of-consciousness rants from Carol that used to be pretty boring, but now they have mastered the art of funky rhythmics and economical, broken-up strings of notes as riffs (somebody must have been on a Television kick recently), which makes the song's verse melody more interesting than the far more generic alt-rock all-out-loud chorus (that one could just as well be produced by the likes of Avril Lavigne). Then the second song is the brief, two-minute-long explosive punch of ʽSmackʼ — distorted guitars, pop hooks, whistling, and a Weezer atti­tude that we'd never heard from this band so far. Then the third song is... well, looks like a good old draggy B.S. shuffle, but this time, all smothered in horns, in search for some sort of Van Morrison-style epicness. Not particularly inspiring, but interesting.

All of which means that the extended holiday period got them prepped up for «search» mode, and that is at least better than wallow in the original formula, which was boring from the start and would only get more boring when put on endless repeat. The album still sags in the middle, with ʽDe Divaʼ being particularly irritating — going from jangle to distortion and back while Carol delivers a lengthy pretentious rant on herself as "a walking inconsistency". The song wants to be a confessional, but in reality it is self-aggrandizing for no good reason, and I get no extra respect for Carol just from learning that she is supposed to be "De Diva in denial", even presuming that I have guessed correctly what is meant by that (and if I haven't, it's not my fault).

But somewhere around the title track, which manages to transcend generic alt-rock with some clever guitar tricks from Peter, things begin to get better, and the album arguably reaches its peak with the two jam-extended epics — ʽWhite Dogsʼ and ʽThe Ocean, My Floorʼ. The former is one of the band's most obvious tributes to the Velvet Underground (Carol once again sings in her best Lou Reed impression and plays all the right rhythm chords from the Lou Reed songbook), but it honestly sounds like the band is having good clean fun, and Visser plays his heart out on the ex­tended section, totally getting in the groove as if the spirit of Lou himself, or of Robert Quine, at the least, had suddenly descended on him.

As for ʽThe Oceanʼ, its final section is also an extended jam, but carried out from a completely different angle — psychedelic rather than avantgarde, with a complex pattern of overdubs that speeds past you like a multi-colored mushroom field. This is the band's first serious experiment with «trippy» music, and while it is completely unoriginal, it works surprisingly well, showing a level of hi-tech sophistication that the early albums did not even hint at. For about four minutes, the mushrooms explode and the acid flows over our heads like crazy. This could have been a fine coda to the album — but then, in a ʽHer Majestyʼ-style paroxysm of self-deflating, they prefer to round things up with a self-consciously silly retro-disco throwaway that they title ʽThe Love-Inʼ: two and a half minutes of «body muzak» for the nostalgic proto-hipster.

Consequently, the album deserves a thumbs up despite its more than obvious flaws — upon first listen, I hated it for the excessive length and also because it seemed to turn them back in the direc­tion of Dust Bunnies. But it is more like a synthesis of Private Suit with Dust Bunnies and a whole lot of additional approaches. It is not cohesive, it makes relatively little sense and is not at all innovative, but there's also something to be said about general smartness, unpredictability, and professionalism — particularly professionalism, which seems to have properly arrived at the band's disposal on Private Suit and is not really going anywhere, unless they all go on a heroin binge or start touring in support of local politicians.

Beth Orton: The Other Side Of Daybreak

BETH ORTON: THE OTHER SIDE OF DAYBREAK (2003)

1) Ooh Child; 2) Thinking About Tomorrow (PG Dub); 3) Ali's Waltz; 4) Daybreaker (Four Tet remix); 5) Bobby Gentry; 6) Carmella (Four Tet remix); 7) Beautiful World; 8) Concrete Sky (acoustic); 9) Daybreaker (Roots Manuva remix); 10) Anywhere (Two Lone Swordsmen remix vocal).

It is not often that an album of outtakes, remixes, and rarities outshines the mothership to which it is appended as an afterthought / bonus-for-the-fans, but, depending on how you feel about Day­breaker, this might just be the proverbial case. There is no question, at the very least, that The Other Side is a much more diverse and much less predictable compilation; so if you thought, like me, that the monotonous moodiness of Daybreaker was somewhat limp and lifeless rather than mesmerizing, welcome to the other side. It is less ambitious and completely dis-conceptual, but at least it does not make you want to go to sleep and never wake up.

The series of remixes offered here significantly raises the bar on the -tronica segment of «folk­tronica», which is good — ʽAnywhereʼ, for instance, is transformed from a boring jazz-pop stan­dard (bordering on adult contemporary) into something livelier, darker, and notably more psy­chedelic than it used to be, and the same goes for ʽThinking About Tomorrowʼ, which is now all awash in astral noises and more reminiscent of Massive Atack than confessional singer-songwri­ting. The most radical transformation, however, happened to ʽCarmellaʼ, which used to be a three-minute country-pop single and now is an 11-minute long extravaganza, a huge sonic soup in which Four Tet, the remixer, crams every sort of digital and analog noise imaginable (the three-minute coda should be subtitled «The Amazing Life of Giant Robot Insects», and who cares that it is completely unrelated to the original song?).

The electronic remixes are interspersed with a couple of really good originals — ʽBobby Gentryʼ, on which Beth lowers her voice so much that she almost sings like a modern day Nico in places, combines acoustic folk backing with pseudo-mid-Eastern string arrangements, giving the song some majesty, mystique, and a pinch of roughness that was nowhere near in sight on Daybreaker; and the tender acoustic rendition of the old soul hit ʽOoh Childʼ by The Five Stairsteps brings on that criminal thought that maybe the lady should do more covers and less originals, at least when she cannot bring the originals to boil. Finally, there is a very good acoustic rendition of ʽConcrete Skyʼ that sounds not only more intimate, but every bit as catchy as the fully arranged original — that Johnny Marr guy writes some rock-solid material, doesn't he?

All in all, there is not all that much to say here, as usual, but that shouldn't stop you from searching out this album if you care at all about the artist, or, for that matter, the various artists from the electronica scene that helped her produce it. If it was intended as an intentional «anti­thesis» to the weightier, more «serious» and «personal» Daybreaker, it should count as an integ­ral part of Orton's discography, because «serious» and «personal» is not really what she does best; it is the inexhaustible bag of tricks that she gradually exploits with her various partners that matters, breaking barriers between tradition and futurism like some sort of female Beck. Ah, if only she also had Beck's sense of humor as well — but I guess that would be asking for too much. Anyway, an unexpected thumbs up here, as much as I expected to hate this album.

Black Sabbath: Sabbath Bloody Sabbath

BLACK SABBATH: SABBATH BLOODY SABBATH (1973)

1) Sabbath Bloody Sabbath; 2) A National Acrobat; 3) Fluff; 4) Sabbra Cadabra; 5) Killing Yourself To Live; 6) Who Are You; 7) Looking For Today; 8) Spiral Architect.

This and the following album mark a new, brief, and somewhat bizarre phase in the colorful career of Black Sabbath — the «art-rock» phase. Vol. 4 may not have been one of their best ef­forts, but it seems to have opened the band's minds towards two things: fear of stagnation and excitement of experimentation. Originally, «stagnation» got the upper hand: with drugs getting the better of them and endless touring sucking out the energy, the band spent a whole month in Los Angeles trying to come up with something new, and ended up with a bad case of writer's block — because, let's face it, Los Angeles in 1973 was just no place for that kind of band.

So they got back to the old UK, rented themselves a medieval castle in Gloucestershire, and things quickly started getting back to normal. With progressive rock pretty much at its peak in 1972-73, the basic idea here was that the band had to «mature» — explore something more com­plex and adventurous than the mere conception of a «song» being the near equivalent of a «heavy metal riff» and nothing more. This is most evident in the lyrics — with songs like ʽA National Acrobatʼ ("I am the world that hides the universal secret of all time...") and ʽSpiral Architectʼ ("Child of god sitting in the sun, giving peace of mind..."), Geezer is clearly struggling to work the turf of Jon Anderson and Peter Sinfield, often avoiding direct descriptiveness and moraliza­tion in favor of «obscure» metaphors and non sequiturs.

Those lyrical results are mostly laughable (and it's not as if those role models were beyond reproach them­selves), but, fortunately, it does not matter, because the collective musical genius of Sabbath was still going strong. Sure, the idea of Black Sabbath doing art rock might look like an elephant in a china shop, but every once in a while you get yourself an elephant inexplicably blessed with a good sense of balance and finesse. Most importantly, where the «quiet» moments on Sabbath albums, up to this point, usually just served as breathers (ʽOrchidʼ, ʽEmbryoʼ, etc., are definitely not the kind of stuff for which people remember Master Of Reality), they are now an integral part of the composition — and they sound nice.

The title track that breaks the record in is a classic example — a mere forty seconds after a classic Sabbath riff has ploughed the terrain naked, the earth is irrigated by a soft, «romantic», acoustic-driven bridge with a highly melodic vocal from Ozzy. «Soft» and «harsh» interact with each other continuously, setting yet another trend for future explorations in heavy metal, before, even­tually, the song settles on ultra-heavy mode: the dragon riff that enters around 4:05 is the toughest beast on the entire album, with a well-ahead-of-its-time proto-thrash guitar tone, a brief, but mer­cyless little musical Godzilla, in the sights of which "dreams turn to nightmares, heaven turns to hell" indeed. This is all so much better than ʽWheels Of Confusionʼ that it immediately strikes the idea of Sabbath Bloody Sabbath as a creative renaissance.

That said, I have always regarded this record as kinda «spotty» next to its follow-up, by which time the guys in the band would figure out exactly what works and what does not work in this new production formula. Twice over the record's course they bypass heaviness altogether, and twice the results are unimpressive — ʽFluffʼ, rather aptly titled, is a medievalistic instrumental ballad that mostly just spins around the same acoustic guitar and piano arpeggios, with some de­licate, but unoriginal lead noodling in the foreground, and is way too long at four minutes; and ʽWho Are Youʼ is essentially a stupid experiment with «evil» Moog synth tones that sounds like a first-grader's parody on ELP's ʽBrain Salad Surgeryʼ or something like that (but what could you expect from a song written by Ozzy with the basic purpose of testing out his freshly purchased instru­ment? It's good enough that he was actually able to come up with a quirky riff like that, then was left with nothing to do but to loop it around the whole song).

It all works much better when they leave in the heaviness as the song's basic foundation, then start weaving in little strands of experimentation. ʽSabbra Cadabraʼ, for instance, begins as your basic piece of heavy boogie, well suited for the likes of everybody from Deep Purple to Budgie, and we suspect nothing as Ozzy sings some innocent lines about loving that little lady, always on his mind. Then, hoopla, midway through they shift keys and tempos, bring in pianos and synthe­sizers (along with Rick Wakeman to play them, all for the price of a few bottles of beer!), mask Ozzy's vocals with phasing to create a ghostly effect, and suddenly what was a cock-rock-fest just a few moments ago is now a spooky extravaganza, because the protagonist turns out to be not a regular guy, but a mischievous guest spirit from the underworld (essentially, this is then a more subtle twist on the story of ʽN.I.B.ʼ).

Even more impressive is ʽSpiral Architectʼ, where metal, catchy pop, and lush orchestration come together in a perfectly balanced synthesis — this is probably the most musically complex piece on the album, and despite Geezer's silly-sounding lyrical pretentiousness, everything else goes like clockwork. It is more of an exuberant power pop anthem with a thick metallic base tone on loan than «art-metal» as such, sometimes breaking into an inspired «musical gallop», sometimes letting the orchestra take over, and always returning to the song's basic «spiral» riff for anchorage. It is also the first Sabbath song to end a Sabbath album on a decidedly optimistic note, even if it took a pinch of naïve mysticism to do it. But it gives the album a conceptual cohesion — we be­gin with the brutal heaviness of the title track to acknowledge the world's evil, then end with the orchestral beauty of ʽArchitectʼ to reflect the sweet opportunities offered by escapism. That at least seems more logical than singing about "peace and happiness in every day" to the doom-laden monster coda of ʽInto The Voidʼ.

Throw in ʽA National Acrobatʼ (another absolute metal classic, with Tony bouncing melodic ideas off the wall faster than you can catch them — the stoner rock bit, the hellfire wah-wah part, the power-pop riffage of the last instrumental section), ʽKilling Yourself To Liveʼ (this one I've never cared for all that much, but I do acknowledge the complexity of construction), and ʽLooking For Todayʼ, another heavy pop anthem that pales a little in the company of ʽSpiral Ar­chitectʼ, and you get an album not without its flaws — many of which would be rectified soon afterwards — but still one that should be inspiring musicians all over the world even today, so all you kids take your lesson here: this is how you «refresh» your formula once it gets stale, so as not to lose your quintessential strengths and skills while at the same time making a bold step forward. Plus, regardless of how one feels about the record, it must have taken real guts to produce it — the musical decisions taken here are some of the band's boldest since they first arrived on the scene. Granted, boldness alone does not cut it, but boldness + talent = thumbs up without further questions, even if some of the actual results turn out to be subpar.

Bob Dylan: The Bootleg Series Vol. 8 (Tell Tale Signs)

BOB DYLAN: THE BOOTLEG SERIES VOL. 8: TELL TALE SIGNS (1989-2006; 2008)

1) Mississippi (alt. version #1); 2) Most Of The Time (alt. version); 3) Dignity (piano demo); 4) Someday Baby (alt. version); 5) Red River Shore; 6) Tell Ol' Bill; 7) Born In Time; 8) Can't Wait (alt. version); 9) Everything Is Broken (alt. version); 10) Dreamin' Of You; 11) Huck's Tune; 12) Marchin' To The City; 13) High Water (For Charlie Patton) (live); 14) Mis­sisippi (alt. version #2); 15) 32-20 Blues; 16) Series Of Dreams; 17) God Knows; 18) Can't Escape From You; 19) Dignity; 20) Ring Them Bells (live); 21) Cocaine Blues (live); 22) Ain't Talkin' (alt. version); 23) The Girl On The Greenbriar Shore (live); 24) Lonesome Day Blues (live); 25) Miss The Mississippi; 26) The Lone­some River; 27) 'Cross The Green Mountain.

The next installment in The Bootleg Series returns us to the original format. Since the release of the original triple package, more than 15 years had elapsed, and in the interim Bob had managed to recapture the hearts of fans and critics alike one more time — clearly, the entire fruitful period in between the «pre-comeback» of Oh Mercy and the super-success of Time Out Of Mind, Love & Theft, and Modern Times needed some extra coverage, to bring collectors, completists, and cultists up-to-date with the latest developments. Sure the third disc of the original series had some duds on it, but that was the Eighties, you know — surely Bob's blistering comeback had to lead to its own precious leftovers in dust bins?

Well, to tell the truth, this one's been a little over-hyped. First, although two discs for 18 years of music making does not feel too disproportionate compared to three discs for the previous 28 years of music making — one should not forget that back in the 1960s, each year counted for five in comparison. Look at this track listing and you will see that approximately half of these songs are alternate versions of officially released counterparts (demos, rejected takes, live versions, the usual stuff), whereas much of the other half gathers leftovers that had been officially released — on various movie soundtracks (North Country, Gods And Generals, etc.). Altogether, you only get something like five or six completely new songs. This is still a treat, but one that gets diluted in a sea of all too familiar voices and melodies.

Second, Tell Tale Signs presents very little, if anything, in the way of actual big-time «surprises». Most of those years Dylan spent reconnecting with his heritage — the dark side of Americana, in so many different, but nearly always similar, ways — and these outtakes mostly just offer more of the same. Blues, folk, country-oriented tunes with predictable melodies and the usual hoarse singing: no wonder the liner notes are mostly busy discussing the wonders of the lyrics rather than anything else. This is not a jarring criticism, though — merely a warning that if you already have the original official LPs, Tell Tale Signs will not be opening your eyes in a manner of which the old Bootleg Series was sometimes capable.

That said, this is still Dylan's Bronze Age here, and the album is consistently listenable through­out, and there are even highlights a-plenty. Particularly treasurable are the Time Out Of Mind outtakes: ʽDreamin' Of Youʼ is an atmospheric guitar lover's paradise, with several haunting, weepy lines flowing in and out of each other, perfectly complementing the main lyrical message ("I'm dreamin' of you / That's all I do / And it's driving me insane"); ʽRed River Shoreʼ is a nos­talgic ballad with a Texmex flavor (the accordeon strikes again) that was, perhaps, deemed too happy-sounding for the album; and the two early versions of ʽMississippiʼ (one almost purely acoustic, one with a full backing band) are arguably better than the final take on Love & Theft, which seems a little overproduced in comparison.

Of the soundtrack tunes, ʽTell Ol' Billʼ is pretty good, even if the melody is basically just a rewrite of the verse melody for ʽMan Gave Names To All The Animalsʼ (well, we wouldn't ex­pect Bob to overtax himself for a goddamn soundtrack) — nice «dark boogie» atmosphere smelling of unexplored alleys and unseen dangers. But the real highlight is ʽ'Cross The Green Mountainʼ, a song commemorated to the Civil War (only too appropriate for a movie about the Civil War) that somehow manages to get a unique sound going, courtesy of Tony Garnier playing a minimalistic «doom-style» bassline and Larry Campbell contrasting it with a romantic violin part, while Bob is telling us a not-too-sophisticated moral tale on the evils of war. This is pro­bably the greatest song on the album, so, not coincidentally, it is also set at the very end — and it gives a deeper impression than any song from Love & Theft (both were recorded in 2002).

Honorable mention should also go to the live cuts — so far, Bob has not released a single com­plete live album from the Never Ending Tour, so this is the easiest way to check out his band on a good night (other than actually buying a ticket to the next show, of course). On Disc 1, there is a really gritty, nasty rendition of ʽHigh Waterʼ, with Bob's guitarists raising hell and, overall, turning the formerly moody-creepy song into a kick-ass blues-rocker (not necessarily a «good» thing per se, but a good example of how Bob can still radically reinvent his new songs even at this late date). ʽLonesome Day Bluesʼ on the second disc is closer to the studio version and also featured in surprisingly lo-fi quality, but the acoustic rendition of the old ʽCocaine Bluesʼ from 1997 is hard to beat, with Bob's «whining» voice perfectly fit for the whiny occasion.

Finally, there are just some extra nice touches here and there — the versions of ʽBorn In Timeʼ and ʽGod Knowsʼ, for instance, will be a drop (two drops) of pleasure to those who hated the keyboard-heavy production of these songs on Under A Red Sky (as it turns out, they sounded so much better under the original supervision of Lanois during the Oh Mercy sessions). A couple extra acoustic oldies, recorded in the 1992-93 «back-to-rootsiest-roots» period, would have made a good addition to the original Good As I Been To You and World Gone Wrong. And ʽDignityʼ has a more interesting and flashy arrangement than on the live Unplugged version. In short, some of these alternate versions can outshine the originals — the final list depends on the listener, but I guess you could say that is the privileged advantage of an album of outtakes from your not-so-revolutionary period.

Overall, this is a fine supporting companion to Dylan's latest creative renaissance, as long as you do not set your expectations unjustifiedly high or join the salivating crowds of worshippers, ready to overpraise each scrap as soon as it is found and laid out on the table. One thing that it proves is that it always makes sense to pry into the man's vaults, no matter from which epoch they date. But the quality of the vault in question is tightly correlated with the quality of its epoch — thus, if your favorite Dylan album is Love & Theft, for some reason, then run, don't walk, to get this stuff. Otherwise, just walk. A walking man's thumbs up here.

Bill Withers: Making Music

BILL WITHERS: MAKING MUSIC (1975)

1) I Wish You Well; 2) The Best You Can; 3) Make Love To Your Mind; 4) I Love You Dawn; 5) She's Lonely; 6) Sometimes A Song; 7) Paint Your Pretty Picture; 8) Family Table; 9) Don't You Want To Stay; 10) Hello Like Before.

So Sussex Records eventually folded, and Bill found himself in the arms of Columbia. Without some serious digging, it is hard to understand whether this very fact led to a change in sound or if, as usual, it was all just part of the global trend to adapt or survive. The fact is, Making Music is an album that is even more smooth, slick, glossed-out than +'Justments, and, consequently, is easier to categorize as a «typical mid-Seventies R&B album», which is not really what Bill Wi­thers was about in the first place. Some of the songs are still in the orchestrated folk-pop ballpark, but they are getting uncomfortably sentimental and sappy — alcoholics, jealous lovers, and pro­digal fathers are more or less out of the picture, replaced by romantics, moody lovers, and grate­ful descendants. We have an all-too-happy Bill Withers here, and that doesn't spell good.

The songs are still mostly enjoyable — the problem is that they draw much of their strength from being too repetitive. The slow, lazy funk groove of ʽMake Love To Your Mindʼ, combining wah-wah guitar, «cool» bubbly synthesizers, and proto-disco strings, is really all about making us enjoy and wallow in the awesomeness of the basic message: "before I make love to your body / I wanna make love to your mind", a refrain repeated so frequently that you are almost tempted to look for some extra depth in it. But there's no particular depth, just a quirky turn of phrase that Bill thought useful and attractive. It is, but not for six minutes.

There is nothing wrong as such with the lush pastoral ballad ʽPaint Your Pretty Pictureʼ, either, but exactly how many times do we need to hear that the protagonist is going to "paint your pretty picture with a song"? By the fourth minute, the repetition begins to border on parody, and there's still two more to go. Same applies to ʽShe's Lonelyʼ, a song that could be described as «anti-feminist»: "what she's doin' does some good", Bill admits, "but she lonely, but she lonely, she lonely, but she lonely". Would it have hurt to work on that chorus a little more? Because the song is really good — just way too repetitive.

The biggest departure from the old sound is on ʽFamily Tableʼ, a song with a nostalgic message taken from the same box as ʽGrandma's Handsʼ (but much flatter, lyrics-wise) but a melody that pushes Withers very close to disco, if not melodically, then at least in terms of all-out-danceable atmosphere. Again, it's not a bad tune at all — catchy, fun, probably still quite sincere — but to say that it downplays Bill's talents would be an understatement, since, other than the catchy vocal hook in the chorus, it leaves no space for any talent whatsoever.

Closest thing to a «classic» here would probably be ʽSometimes A Songʼ, which delivers the leanest, meanest groove on the album — I don't know whether the bass player is James Jamerson or Louis Johnson, since they are both credited in the notes, but whoever it is, thanks for that killer rockin' bass line that adds gruff seriousness to Bill's message. If Bill does not convince you that a good song is a real bitch, that bass line will. Of course, it is also a song that could have been written by anybody — from Curtis Mayfield to Isaac Hayes to even Billy Preston — but by 1975, it was clear that Bill had nothing against «streamlining» his musicmaking, and this here is sort of a cut-off point beyond which only serious lovers of solid, but «faceless» R&B are welcome, not those who welcome unique manners of artistic self-expression. At the very least, an album like Making Music should never serve as your introduction to Bill Withers, since there is very little Bill Withers here to introduce.

The Antlers: Familiars

THE ANTLERS: FAMILIARS (2014)

1) Palace; 2) Doppelgänger; 3) Hotel; 4) Intruders; 5) Director; 6) Parade; 7) Surrender; 8) Refuge; 9) Revisited.

Apparently, the effort that it took to record Burst Apart sucked whatever energy The Antlers had right out of their marrows — and instead of spending the next three years relaxing and recupera­ting some of it, they decided that they would rather capitalize on the situation. Lesson number one: if you have no energy to make an album, make an album with no energy whatsoever and present it as your latest and greatest artistic statement. And don't worry about bad publicity — you'll al­ways have Pitchforkmedia, as long as you stay within certain working limits.

There is an undeniable unity (easy to say «monotonousness») to the seven lengthy pieces on Familiars, and an undeniable «ambience» that separates them from the old indie-rock idiom and brings them closer to stuff that has been gruesomely labeled as «post-rock» in the past — the oceanic soundscapes of Sigur Rós and the like. In a way, the Antlers had always worked close to that style, but Familiars pushes them even further in the «music where nothing happens, or at least nothing happens fast enough» direction. Now, everything, in any given track, at any given moment, happens at the intersection of soft-as-silk late-night jazz guitar; atmospheric, mood-set­ting digital and analog keyboards; calmly funebral wailings of trumpets and trombones; and Peter Silberman's vocals, the very same ones that we are well used to but even more reminiscent now of a half-paralyzed person in the middle of a nervous breakdown.

In other words, Familiars is the soundtrack to a deeply internalized and restrained personal tra­gedy. Think of it as the equivalent of a Cure album in a world where musical hooks and dynamic playing are considered dangerous for the moral health of the population and are strictly prohibited under pain of death, lobotomy, or one year in the Lana del Rey correctional facility, so you have to come up with a credible substitute that could somehow convey the same idea of suffering, loneliness, and empathy, but without, you know, music in the most common sense of the word. It is hard to make this work, but I think it can be done. The question is, whether it can be done by a band like the Antlers.

My personal vote is «no»: I find Familiars to be at best boring, and at worst, irritating. There is nothing wrong about using your instruments to create a statically melancholic atmosphere, but there still has to be something special about it. You might be a genius like Brian Eno, using two or three chord changes, but finding just the right ones and just the perfect keyboard tone and depth and warmth of sound for them. You might be the above-mentioned Sigur Rós, trying out all sorts of combinations until you find the ones that work. You might think about crescendos, quirky overdubs, subliminal messages, whatever. For Familiars, Silberman came up with exactly one (1) idea, and carried it out in several variations for fifty minutes — and it wasn't even a totally undeniably jaw-droppingly awesome idea in the first place.

This crude, but honest, explanation takes care of the «boring» part. Where it gets «irritating» is in the department of «adequacy»: like Bon Iver or any of his colleagues in the «dream-whatever» department («dream-folk», «dream-pop», etc.), Silberman's latest creation clearly strives to in­duce catharsis. All those «majestic» keyboards, «saintly humble» guitars, and particularly Peter's broken-heartedly romantic deliveries are integral parts of one big plot — to make your reaction towards Familiars a religious one. The preachy lyrics are certainly religious (e.g., "to find the peace within the combat where we're standing, we have to make our history less commanding" on ʽSurrenderʼ, etc.), but the way they are sung and the way they are surrounded by instruments and echoes gives the impression of one great big Church of The Antlers, and the whole album is one big seven-part Mass that you'd rather attend while standing on your feet (unless you actually get the urge to fall on your knees). But why should you? To subscribe to the Church of The Antlers makes about as much sense as subscribing to any other Church just because it's nice and cool in the great cathedral and the big organ up above looks really awesome.

For some reason, one thing that really irritates me about the lyrics is Silberman's odd attraction to expletives this time around, be it the "fuck now, I'm outta here tomorrow" refrain of ʽHotelʼ or the embarrassingly crude "right when the blizzard ends, they throw a fucking huge parade..." intro to ʽParadeʼ. I suppose that the idea is, if we're building this new type of musical church, we might as well set up our own rules, including the right to swear at Mass. But any word has its preferable context, and the F-word, nothing as we have against it in general, sounds gimmicky and stupid when sung in that exaggeratedly «beautiful» tone by Mr. Silberman. He has the undeniable right to count it as part of his artistic vision, I have the undeniable right to call it stupid, you have the undeniable right to see it your way, we'll all be happy some day or in the afterlife.

Unfortunately, commenting on the individual songs is an impossibility for me, since great care has been taken for all of them to set the exact same mood, and my descriptions are all focused on moods, not chords. If it were made more clear that this is strictly «elevator muzak», a background sort of hum to accompany your glass of whiskey at sundown, Familiars would be forgivable and forgettable. But since the album sounds like it is making a Big Statement, yet the band members all behave like refrigerated, defrosted, and microwaved members of a post-Waters-era Pink Floyd, Familiars ultimately becomes offensive — one more reminder of what the hell is so goddamn wrong with «serious» music in the 21st century. Thumbs down.

Beulah: Yoko

BEULAH: YOKO (2003)

1) A Man Like Me; 2) Landslide Baby; 3) You're Only King Once; 4) My Side Of The City; 5) Hovering; 6) Me And Jesus Don't Talk Anymore; 7) Fooled With The Wrong Guy; 8) Your Mother Loves You Son; 9) Don't Forget To Breathe; 10) Wipe Those Prints And Run.

Allegedly, Beulah openly threatened that if their next record did not reach gold status, they would split up — quite a heavy threat for a year in which the top-selling acts were 50 Cent, Linkin Park, Christina Aguilera, and Beyoncé, to name a few. But most importantly, who in his right mind would name an album Yoko if he really wanted it to sell a significant amount of copies? Above everything else, didn't they realize that most people probably thought that «Beulah» was the name of the album, and that «Yoko» was the artist? (Unless that was the plan all along, of course, but in that case, why Yoko and not Lennon? Ain't no copyright on the word «Lennon», either).

More importantly, there ain't one single reason in the world why Yoko should have sold more than The Coast Is Clear in the first place. The previous record, at least, was Beulah's diverse and sunny masterpiece. Yoko, in comparison, is gloomier, bitter-er, full of depressed, melancholic, sometimes near-suicidal messages, endless references to broken hearts, losing sides, stars re­fu­sing to shine, and all sorts of diagnostic lights indicating that Mike Kurosky is, like, totally be­coming a cheerless whiner, and is, in fact, all set to take his musical cues from Pink Floyd now rather than the Beatles and the Beach Boys. And he wants this to sell? In 2003? No fuckin' way. Not even a little.

Besides, despite this «refreshing» change of face, the general Beulah problem remains the same: many, if not most, of these songs still suffer from a lack of solid hooks and fail to convey the de­sired effect. Basically, the record is gloomy, but not that gloomy. The first lines of ʽDon't Forget To Breatheʼ are delivered with a «tender sneer» that reminds of Roger Waters (listen to Mike bouncing those "land-MINES hide in your LINES..." nasal bombs off the wall), but there is no burning fire, no genuine intensity to that delivery, and the entire song, with all of its carefully thought out overlays, is still painfully «lite». Nice, but underworked and unconvincing — and the same predictably applies to everything else.

If you take Beulah as «intellectual musical theater», some of the compositions are still interesting to follow while they are on — something like ʽMe And Jesus Don't Talk Anymoreʼ can probably serve as the basis for an entire Ph.D. thesis as you pick out all the lyrical and musical references and try to understand how it's all tied together. There's some Tin Pan Alley, some New Orleans, some Nash­ville here, some odd mood swings from anger to optimism to some sort of nonchalant acceptance of the fact that "you're going nowhere", and then there's the song title that is not re­ferred to at all in the lyrics. A bizarre potboil.

But the very few songs that actually make a lasting impression are those that, somehow, most likely, accidentally, capture some nerve-tingling wisps — the world-weary banjo riff of ʽFooled With The Wrong Guyʼ; the honestly catchy chorus of ʽYour Mother Loves You Sonʼ (the "last night's a loaded gun..." bit); and, most importantly, the epic finale of ʽWipe Those Prints And Runʼ, where they give it their all and manage to generate some desperate stateliness in the face of all odds. These bits and pieces seem to work all right. Yet that is what they are — bits and pieces. Not a lot to feel good about when the first five songs do not register in my mind at all.

Given all these feelings and impressions, I must admit that I do not lament over the passing of Beulah. «All form and no substance» would be much too arrogant and unfounded a final judge­ment, but while there can be no question about Beulah mastering and owning a certain kind of «form», the «substance», most of the time, has eluded me — like so many of these other nostal­gizing bands, Beulah, to me, seem like they were so afraid of being judged as «simplistic» that they hid their emotional side behind a veil of metaphors, similes, understatements, deconstruc­tions, and heavy overdubs. A veil heavy enough to give you the right to doubt whether they did have an emotional side in the first place. It is almost symbolic, then, that Yoko, announcing the band's end, came out in September 2003 — approximately at the same time that Arcade Fire were beginning the sessions for Funeral, an album next to which the entire «Elephant 6» scene would look like a bunch of pathetic phonies. (Not really meant as an insult, of course, just to stress how much I personally prefer «substance» over «form»; and the lack of «substance» is one general characteristic that applies to any of the Elephant 6 acts, Neutral Milk Hotel included).

Bettie Serveert: Private Suit

BETTIE SERVEERT: PRIVATE SUIT (2000)

1) Unsound; 2) Satisfied; 3) Private Suit; 4) Mariachi Souls; 5) ReCall; 6) Auf Wiedersehen; 7) Sower And Seeds; 8) White Tales; 9) John Darmy; 10) My Fallen Words; 11) Healer.

Finally, upon their fourth try, they manage to get it nearly right — or, at least, as right as possible for a band deprived of original vision or melodic genius. Private Suit is the first Bettie album that I would gladly recommend to anyone, regardless of one's general attitude towards the «indie spirit» of the 1990s. And not just for the sexy album cover, either, even though the sexy album cover is already a good hint at some changes to come.

They went to PJ Harvey's producer with this one, and whether or not this was what made the difference, the sound of Private Suit is a radical departure from the old style. Suddenly, the songs begin to come together rather than fall apart; the sound becomes softer and glossier, more «pop» than «rock», but in a pleasant, tasteful way; new instruments, like lotsa keyboards, make a welcome entrance to cheer up the sound. But most importantly — this is the album on which Carol van Dijk finally learns to sing, or, at least, decides to learn to sing. Or, even more accurate­ly, this is an album on which she adopts a slightly more feminine image (check the album cover again for immediate visual reference!) and engages in a little smooth acting, instead of simply spitting it all out like a Riot Grrrl aficionado.

Already the first song, ʽUnsoundʼ, shows signs of all these changes, and it would be hard to believe that we are listening to the same Bettie Serveert. Lively tempo, swirling organs, guitars that sound more like R.E.M. than Pavement, and a singing voice that is probably an octave lower than Carol's usual style — the "it's good to be unsound, uh-uh" chorus sounds like Lou Reed. No screeching or drowning the listener in pools of distortion, but still plenty of energy and conviction, even if the actual hooks as such are still rather weak (but the shrill Visser guitar solo at the end, rising above the general level of the song and unexpectedly pulling it straight up into the strato­sphere, is top-notch).

For ʽSatisfiedʼ, they choose a different strategy — more psychedelic, with droning guitars, mul­tiple layers of mood-setting keyboards, melancholic cellos, and a vocal delivery that aims straight for the subconscious (the «nasal-somnambulant» type, with overdubs that have Carol engaging in a dialog with herself in the chorus); again, not a «great» song, perhaps, but surely an intriguing one, worth revisiting at least to make sure exactly how much you have missed — a sentiment that was consistently lacking for the first three albums.

Only the third track (title one) finally sounds like good old Bettie: ragged-nervous strumming, quavery, shaking, arrogant voice, and noise-a-plenty in the outro section. In other words, the usual under-written borefest, albeit even that one is still given extra support from a string section. But guess what — it is the only trace of good old Bettie on the entire album. Everything that fol­lows once again obeys the new laws, which demand clear production, well-rehearsed singing, and musical diversity, from the acoustic folk balladry of ʽMariachi Soulsʼ to the Cure-like mope-pop of ʽReCallʼ to the music hall piano waltzing of ʽMy Fallen Wordsʼ to the ultimate conclusion of ʽHealerʼ, which has a little bit of everything (some post-punk, some rhythm & blues, some art rock) and, for once, makes «Bettie Serveert-style depression» a reality.

But the best song of all is ʽSower And Seedsʼ, where the lead singer even tries on a bit of world-weary falsetto for good measure, and the combination of guitar distortion, organ, and that oddly drugged-out voice comes very close to striking out some real magic. Perhaps they were going for a Portishead emulation or something — anyway, it's not tremendously original, but it sounds convincingly tragic. The puzzle of it all, of course, is that songs like ʽSatisfiedʼ, ʽSower And Seedsʼ, and ʽHealerʼ all give us a completely new artistic philosophy — Bettie does not really serve any more, but goes into depressed, deeply wounded seclusion instead, and somehow it becomes her more than when she was all raving and ranting on us. Of course, that might simply be my ugly male chauvinist side speaking up — but then again, I've never pretended liking female rock acts merely for the fact of their lead characters showing «strong personalities», since «strong» by itself never guarantees «emotionally or intellectually interesting». Private Suit, on the other hand, is Bettie Serveert's most emotionally and intellectually interesting album up to that particular moment, and it guarantees the band a far more assured and probably un-retractable thumbs up than Dust Bunnies.

Beth Orton: Daybreaker

BETH ORTON: DAYBREAKER (2002)

1) Paris Train; 2) Concrete Sky; 3) Mount Washington; 4) Anywhere; 5) Daybreaker; 6) Carmella; 7) God Song; 8) This One's Gonna Bruise; 9) Ted's Waltz; 10) Thinking About Tomorrow.

Oh, Daybreaker. Well, you know, I'd never in the world claim that it kicks as much prime time ass as The Razor's Edge, but still, I feel it is a little underrated over these years. The murderous riffage on ʽHail Caesarʼ, the maniacal apocalyptic feel of ʽBurnin' Aliveʼ, the triumphant anthe­mic ascent of the wannabe-alltime-American classic ʽHard As A Rockʼ... oh wait a minute, that was Ballbreaker, seems like we're in the wrong sort of story here.

Well, anyway, Ballbreaker was no timeless classic and Daybreaker is no awful embarrassment, but still, intelligence and depth aside, I know which of the two I would choose. (I almost wanted to write "artistic symbolism aside", but then realized that AC/DC music is really full of artistic symbolism to a degree that Beth Orton could only hope for. It's not very decent artistic sym­bolism, of course, but whoever said art has to be polite?). The thing is, on Daybreaker Beth sets aside such values as (a) musical innovation, (b) sonic energy, and (c) melodic hooks, and goes all the way in the «singer-songwriter with atmosphere and attitude» department. In other words, she takes herself more seriously than ever before, and you have to take it or leave it.

One good listen to ʽParis Trainʼ, the album opener, will probably be enough for you to know whether to bother with the rest, because most of the album sounds in a similar manner. Slow-moving, moody, melodically predictable folk-pop with «proverbially deep» lyrics that hint at never-healing personal traumas. There is even some dynamics, as the orchestral layers gradually creep up on you like gathering clouds, bursting out in a thunderstorm midway through. There is even some class to it, and nothing specifically irritating about the whole thing. But it is all so bland, so limp, so middle-of-the-road in everything, that eventually I'd almost prefer to be irrita­ted than to have to be wasting time searching for a single dent in this impeccable smoothness.

Song after song, we get these densely arranged, multi-layered soundscapes — I think she might have set out to rival The Cure in their famous bid for membership in Monty Python's «Royal Society For Putting Things On Top Of Other Things» — that are all so dense and stately and noble and epic and... nothing. ʽMount Washingtonʼ, true to its name, spends six and a half minutes climbing up, and up, and up, and six and a half minutes later, we're still climbing and we still do not know where or why, we just do it. I'd like to love this song, but for some reason, it does not work at all. One possible thought is that it is fairly hard to be humble and bombastic at the same time — Pete Townshend could somehow manage that, but Beth Orton does not have comparable talent, and so a song like ʽMount Washingtonʼ is way too loud and over-the-top to be truly humble, yet not loud or intense or emotional enough to be truly bombastic. Like everything else on here, it gets stuck in between — and fades out of memory as soon as it is over.

It might have been better if she'd just drop it and made the entire album into a solo acoustic per­formance: I think that the most quiet songs here, like ʽThis One's Gonna Bruiseʼ with its lone­some cello backup (co-written with Ryan Adams), and the fussy country-pop of ʽCarmellaʼ, are the easiest ones to take with you on a reminiscence trip. Instead, they are brief interludes, as the lady sets out to convince us that she can mesmerize audiences without much use of the electronic devices, but I am not sure about that. The songs all deal with her personal tragedies, traumas, treasons, and tribulations, yet they do not convey a sense of too much suffering — in fact, some­times the conveyed feeling borders on exaggerated self-pitying, which is probably the worst thing we'd expect from an «authentic» singer-songwriter.

For the sake of extra trivia, ʽConcrete Skyʼ is co-written with Johnny Marr, and, perhaps not coincidentally, it is the most upbeat and even catchy folk-pop song on here, so you might wanna check it out if you happen to collect everything Smiths-related. But it is certainly not enough to rescue the album from a disappointed thumbs down — a classic case of «biting off more than one can chew», as far as my opinion is concerned. Naturally, as far as singer-songwriters go, this is still a million times better than, say, a phenomenon like Vanessa Carlton (whose debut album came out that same year, as I still remember with a shudder), but what we have here is a real singer-songwriter that has charisma, intelligence, and talent to burn, and it makes the lifelessness of Daybreaker all the more lamentable.

Black Sabbath: Vol. 4

BLACK SABBATH: VOL. 4 (1972)

1) Wheels Of Confusion; 2) Tomorrow's Dream; 3) Changes; 4) FX; 5) Supernaut; 6) Snowblind; 7) Cornucopia; 8) Laguna Sunrise; 9) St. Vitus Dance; 10) Under The Sun.

Much to the band's honor, back in 1971-72 they did not entertain the idea of milking a particular formula to death. The new sound that they discovered with Master Of Reality could have been a gold vein that they could have easily exploited for another dozen albums in a row. But the pres­sure was on to grow, develop, and explore — even at the risk of coming up with musically infe­rior results. Maybe the fans would be content with a total carbon copy of Master, but the band members themselves would not. The heat was still on.

As it is, Vol. 4 is a curious result of the clash of two conflicting factors — Black Sabbath's desire to chart out new territories, and Black Sabbath's personal decline under the pressures of fame, fortune, and everything that went together with the rags-to-riches transformation, most notably, booze and drugs. There is no better track to illustrate that clash than ʽFXʼ, a short non-musical interlude that walks the line between «avantgarde» and «coke-fueled stupidity» — apparently, Tony discovered that his crucifix could make a funny noise when accidentally hit against the guitar strings, and the band members then took turns hitting the strings with various objects and adding echo effects for extra giggly fun. Wheeee! (And no, there has been no positive evidence so far for Ozzy's ding-a-ling being one of the «various objects», but I wouldn't be surprised).

On a more serious note, Vol. 4 sees the addition of keyboards (used sparingly and all of them played by the band members themselves, although ʽChangesʼ is pretty much all keyboards), ele­ments of «soulful» soloing (such as the short intro to ʽWheels Of Confusionʼ), and even an actual orchestra (on ʽSnowblindʼ and most prominently on the instrumental ʽLaguna Sunriseʼ). Progress ahoy, but it comes at the expense of some of that earth-rumbling brutality: the «soul» component that suddenly appears out of nowhere takes the place of the «doom» component, and, above all, if you want to love Vol. 4, you have to have a little love for Ozzy, whose presence here is far more crucial than on Master Of Reality — no wonder they put him up on the album cover.

Riff-wise, Tony seems to be temporarily short on great ideas. This becomes obvious almost im­mediately: the main chord sequence that drives ʽWheels Of Confusionʼ is sort of a «basic» blues-rock pattern that carries little meaning in and out of itself (no «crashing waves» impressionism of ʽSweet Leafʼ here). ʽCornucopiaʼ, melody-wise, seems like a hybridization of Sabbath's own ʽAfter Foreverʼ with Cream's ʽPoliticianʼ — not a good sign at all. The «boogie» mid-section of ʽUnder The Sunʼ unexpectedly rips off Deep Purple's ʽFlight Of The Ratʼ — no big crime, but sort of a «telling» detail, I'd say.

And, finally, neither ʽTomorrow's Dreamʼ, nor ʽSt. Vitus Danceʼ have ever managed to stick with me, the former sounding like a failed attempt to do something different with the «fat» psychedelic distorted guitar tone of Leslie West from Mountain, and the latter trying to glue together a «power-poppy» part with a colorful guitar merry-go-round and a generic metal part that, again, sounds like a re-stringing of several chord sequences from Paranoid and Master Of Reality. (Even so, I think the descriptions them­selves suggest that at least they're trying to go in all these different directions).

The only song that is a total classic in all respects is ʽSupernautʼ, which has even managed to draw praise from Frank Zappa (one of the least likely persons you'd expect to go wild about a band like Black Sabbath). Its riff actually feels as if it should be played on a fiddle — there's a distinct Celtic folk dance flavor to it — but the psychedelic effect is even more strongly enhanced by Geezer's bass «zoops» on the verses, which go along pretty well with Ozzy's stated intention "to reach out and touch the sky". Throw in the mad percussion romp in the middle and the dis­orienting multi-layer solo guitar wobble overdubs, and the song becomes an exuberant celebra­tion of self-exaltation, or something like that. As heavy as the riff is, ʽSupernautʼ is one of the happiest and proudest anthems in the band's history...

...but it is quite telling that, once ʽSupernautʼ finalizes Side A and you turn over the LP (well, that's how it used to be, kids), ʽSnowblindʼ greets you with the flipside of that exuberance — it doesn't have a particularly great riff to match ʽSupernautʼ's, but it has its own doom-laden atmo­sphere. "What you get and what you see / Things that don't come easily", Ozzy warns us from the outset, and pretty soon we get to the midsection, which (maybe unintentionally, but who really knows?) borrows some tragic coldness from the Beatles' ʽShe's So Heavyʼ with fantastic results: when Ozzy begins his "My eyes are blind but I can see..." part, it is not only the most touching moment on the entire album, but it is the first time ever that they have allowed to open the door to a bit of depressed sentimentalism, and it totally works — just a couple minutes ago, you were sharing the band's happiness, and now they work you up to share their despair. No contradiction there, either — heavy use of cocaine has its ups and downs.

To be perfectly accurate, depressed sentimentalism is all over ʽChangesʼ, which comes before ʽSnowblindʼ and, in defiance of the formulaic Sabbath image, is a soft piano ballad decorated with some Mellotron atmospherics in the background. But even though it was inspired by a real life event (Bill Ward's breakup with his wife), it is way too clichéd lyrically and too trivial melo­dically to qualify for heart-touching genius. It's not as if Ozzy cannot sing a romantic ballad (it might have come as a shock back in 1972, but he's done plenty of them quite convincingly since then) — it's just that, as a first-time experiment, the song feels about as stiff as the Rolling Stones' ʽTell Meʼ from 1964 (maybe even stiffer, since «formulaic sentimentalism» by the standards of 1972 would be judged far more sternly than by the standards of 1964). Some reviewer went as far as to call ʽChangesʼ «the scariest thing about the album», but at least I like the Mellotron touch.

All in all, I'd never rate Vol. 4 as being on par with its three predecessors, but for the most part, it still works well enough to be consistently listenable. Even when the «meat» of the song is only so-so, it can still redeem itself in other respects — ʽWheels Of Confusionʼ, for instance, starts out fine with those several bars of soulful soloing, and fades out equally nobly, with a moody electric piano rhythm as the backdrop for another grand solo (which, by the way, reflects Tony's impres­sive progress a lead guitar player — ironically, the more his riff genius deteriorated, the better his knack for spirited blues-rock improvisation seemed to become). ʽUnder The Sunʼ may be ripping off Deep Purple, but its coda still manages to supply a properly bombastic, decisive conclusion to the album. A «transitional» effort, for sure — closing the book on the first chapter of the Sabbath story and already opening it on the second, «artsy» one — but still, at the very least, always in­triguing and interesting, and occasionally brilliant, so a thumbs up is fully guaranteed even de­spite all the criticism.

Bob Dylan: The Bootleg Series Vol. 7 (No Direction Home)

BOB DYLAN: THE BOOTLEG SERIES VOL. 7: NO DIRECTION HOME (1959-1966; 2005)

1) When I Got Troubles (home recording); 2) Rambler, Gambler; 3) This Land Is Your Land (live); 4) Dink's Song (home recording); 5) I Was Young When I Left Home (home recording); 6) Sally Gal; 7) Don't Think Twice, It's All Right (demo); 8) Man Of Constant Sorrow; 9) Blowin' In The Wind (live); 10) Masters Of War (live); 11) A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall (live); 12) When The Ship Comes In (live); 13) Mr. Tambourine Man (alt. take); 14) Chimes Of Freedom (live); 15) It's All Over Now, Baby Blue (alt. take); 16) She Belongs To Me (alt. take); 17) Maggie's Farm (live); 18) It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry (alt. take); 19) Tombstone Blues (alt. take); 20) Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues (alt. take); 21) Desolation Row (alt. take); 22) Highway 61 Revisited (alt. take); 23) Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat (alt. take); 24) Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again (alt. take); 25) Visions Of Johanna (alt. take); 26) Ballad Of A Thin Man (live); 27) Like A Rolling Stone (live).

Nothing lasts forever, and even «The Golden Age of The Bootleg Series» had to pass sooner or later. The first 3-volume set could rival at least a good half of Bob's officially released LPs, and the next three packages, in between them, offered a phenomenal retrospective of live perfor­man­ces, each one covering a completely distinct and autonomous Face of Bob Dylan. Alas, Vol. 7, nice as it is to have it on its own merits, shows that... well, we are not exactly scraping the bottom of the barrel, seeing as how there is seemingly no end to The Bootleg Series in sight, but we have definitely lifted off all the real juicy, creamy layers. The Bootleg Series Vols. 1-6 were for every­body; here begins the hardcore stuff for the truly inquisitive fan.

Actually, this album did not even begin its proper life as part of The Bootleg Series. It just so happened that Bob's old admirer Martin Scorsese finally got around to shooting a documentary on the man's rise to fame and his early, glorious years, with special focus on the «acoustic to elec­tric» tran­sition. The documentary had to have a soundtrack, but since it was deemed too boring to simply reuse the already available recordings from the movie, it was decided that the soundtrack would be a «pseudo-soundtrack», offering alternate cuts to much, if not most, of the music that was actually used in the movie or previously released on audio. And if so — hey, why not count the soundtrack as one more part of The Bootleg Series? Happy coincidence.

No Direction Home is the first Dylan album to be very similar, in principle, to the Beatles' Anthology: a few outtakes of songs that we have not previously heard from the man at all, inter­spersed with a boatload of alternate takes and live versions of stuff we do know pretty well. And, just like the Anthologies, it shares the same problem — there are good reasons why none of these alternate takes made the final cut. Live performances aside, there is a huge deal of «work in pro­gress» here, and for myself at least, these takes hold only historical interest. They might be seri­ously different from the final version — but in most cases, «being different» means «does not really work all that well».

One myth that the availability of these outtakes does ruin, or, at least, shatter a little bit, is the myth of «total spontaneity», according to which the usual process was as follows: Bob just threw some lyrics together, got some guys together, gave them the key to play in, and then they'd record everything in one, at max two or three takes. Very rarely, it was like that indeed, but in reality most of the tunes did go through a gestation period, and the second disc here, covering the early elec­tric years (1965-66), proves that all too well. We already knew about ʽIt Takes A Lot To Laughʼ and how it started out fast and raunchy and then only started making real sense when they slowed it down (there is yet another fast version here, and it works no better than the one on Vol. 2). But we may not have known that there was a take on ʽDesolation Rowʼ with Al Kooper on electric rather than Charlie McCoy on acoustic guitar — it sure sounds different, with Al's raga-like, proto-Velvet Underground improvisation a far cry from Charlie's quasi-baroque flourishes, but fact is, Charlie knew what the song needs here much better than Al did, and thank you very much, Bob, for understanding that.

Or take the two early outtakes from the New York sessions for Blonde On Blonde, recorded without the aid of the Nashville session people. ʽLeopard-Skin Pill-Box Hatʼ is slower and lazier than the finalized Nashville take, and has more of that uncomfortable «white boys play the blues» aura to it than the almost punkish punch of the final version. But the worst offender is ʽVisions Of Johannaʼ, which is seriously the only song on this album that I cannot listen to without crin­ging — the only excuse I can find for The Hawks' complete lack of understanding of how to play that song is that Bob, at this point, does not seem to understand it himself, screaming out the lyrics in «battle cry mode» as if this were ʽTombstone Bluesʼ. Horrible. And fascinating — that he did work it out, and eventually turned the disaster into an atmospheric masterpiece.

Even in the acoustic era, some outtakes sucked: the version of ʽMr. Tambourine Manʼ, included here, for some reason features Ramblin' Jack Elliott on rather out-of-tune background vocals, adding a semi-drunk echo to Bob's main part. Worth one listen out of general amusement, I guess, but believe me, these harmonies sure ain't Byrds quality. (For that matter, the liner notes state that this might have been the version that was actually sent to the Byrds — if it was the «duet» that prompted them to try out group harmonies on the chorus, then, okay, this take has much more historical significance than I'd generally award it).

Curious, but inferior alternate takes aside, there is still about 70 minutes of excellent live perfor­mances here. Real early stuff like an honest-to-goodness, but somewhat bumblin' cover of ʽThis Land Is Your Landʼ, is not all that great, but then we get to hear some peak-level acoustic-era numbers from 1963, which already show him experimenting with the tempos and modulations, and a very spirited rip through ʽChimes Of Freedomʼ from the 1964 Newport Festival (so spiri­ted, in fact, that some might probably suggest he was quite high at the time). Of course, the cake is taken by that one bit from the 1965 Newport Festival — that very performance of ʽMaggie's Farmʼ, cleaned up and remastered here in pristine sound (now we can hear what was actually played!), that started off the entire «heroic Dylan goes electric in the face of overwhelming odds» legend. Legend aside, it is one hell of a punk rock performance indeed, where Mike Bloomfield and his crazy electric guitar hystrionics rule the day more than Bob Dylan himself — naturally, the one crown jewel of this collection that should be present on any Dylan anthology.

Boosted by a few biographical oddities, like the low quality home recordings from 1959-1961 (ʽI Was Young When I Left Homeʼ is kind of a fun song to hear from a 20-year old, don't you think?), No Direction Home: The Soundtrack will boost your understanding of Bob Dylan and give you a few pointers about the nature and functioning of his genius. But unless you have worn out your copies of the «regular» albums no less than three times, I doubt that you will have strong «affection» for the seventh issue in The Bootleg Series. And to uphold that doubt, and also to stress the significant drop in quality, no thumbs up for you this time. As great as these songs are, we cannot give away thumbs up to any album that has any version of ʽDesolation Rowʼ or ʽMr. Tambourine Manʼ on it, can we? That'd be debasing the currency in too cruel a fashion.

Bill Withers: +'Justments

BILL WITHERS: +'JUSTMENTS (1974)

1) You; 2) The Same Love That Made Me Laugh; 3) Stories; 4) Green Grass; 5) Ruby Lee; 6) Heartbreak Road; 7) Can We Pretend; 8) Liza; 9) Make A Smile For Me; 10) Railroad Man.

By the time Bill got around to recording his third studio LP, it seems like his sudden burst of popularity went to his head a little bit — the album shows much more «self-importance» than its predecessors, starting from the incomprehensibly scribbled sermon on the front cover ("life, like most precious gifts, gives us the responsibility of upkeep..."), and ending with the songs them­selves: ʽYouʼ, the five minute long soft-funk opener, is one continuous preachy rant that does not even begin to bother with the issue of a chorus.

Of course, Bill Withers is an insightful individual and an above-ordinary lyricist, so that his prea­ching as such never gets irritating, and sometimes you even get caught up in it — ʽYouʼ, in fact, should be counted among the angriest, most sharp-tongued AAPs (Anonymous Antagonist Put­downs) in the history of popular music this side of ʽPositively 4th Streetʼ. ("You're like a man loving Jesus / That says he can't stand the Jew" is just one of the many spikes). But even so, prea­ching is sort of a universal business, and Bill's idea to try and re-route his music in the direction of «lessons in morality» goes against his individual gift — musical, lyrical, and theatrical imper­sonation of the psychologically imbalanced person.

The main problem with the two lengthy «epics» that bookmark the album (ʽYouʼ and ʽRailroad Manʼ, the latter featuring José Feliciano on congas and, as it often happens in songs about trains and railroads, nostalgizing about Bill's childhood) is that their length is not backed up by musical dynamics — it is more or less exactly the same funky groove from beginning to end, restrained and repetitive. And at least ʽYouʼ bothers to come up with enough fire-and-brimstone lyrics to pull it through, but with ʽRailroad Manʼ, Bill just repeats the same lyrics twice, as if they really really mattered or as if they did not matter at all, and we were just supposed to get in the groove and carry on for six minutes. But it ain't that cool a groove, even if Feliciano can indeed bang some mean congas.

Fortunately, there are still some very good songs in between. ʽThe Same Love That Made Me Laughʼ is a catchy dance number that successfully combines proto-disco toe-tappiness with Bill's melancholic attitudes (unfortunately, its release as the album's lead single pretty much confined Bill back to the R&B chart section). ʽStoriesʼ is a beautiful piano ballad with the album's finest vocal delivery (the «airplane lift-off» modulation on Bill's voice does make it soar, and blends in brilliantly with the otherwise corny harps and strings). ʽRuby Leeʼ may not be a masterpiece in all of its ingredients, but its «insinuating» bassline is easily the single greatest bassline that Melvin Dunlap came up with (and Bill made the just decision to reward him with a songwriting co-credit for it). And ʽHeartbreak Roadʼ is... well, sort of fun to tap your foot and clap your hands to. Nice, if a little silly-sounding, keyboard accompaniment.

So, on the whole, it wouldn't be at all bad if Bill himself didn't sound disinterested and rather «ordinary» much of the time — especially on Side B, much of which is given over to sentimental ballads and generic preachiness that cannot be fully redeemed even with a lead acoustic guitar part from Feliciano (ʽCan We Pretendʼ). And a song like ʽLizaʼ, a hyper-tender ode from "a worldly old uncle" to "a very innocent young niece", will probably have to wait until you are just in the right mood for it — its potential «gorgeousness» stems mainly from the vocal and key­board tone rather from any jaw-dropping melodic moves, and not all of us are always on the ready for that kind of tone to make us swoon and fall over. Whatever be the case, it'd be best to wait until you have a very innocent young niece.

Criticisms aside, +'Justments does earn its thumbs up, but remember: if, like myself, you loved the first two albums for their unique attitude, you will most probably find that the attitude has changed, and that this post-Carnegie Hall edition of Bill Withers, modified by success, public attention, and simply the passing of time, is not nearly as unique as it used to be. However, the «base mix» of R&B groove with singer-songwriter atmosphere is still very much in place, so, in a way, you could say all that's really lacking is that tasty cherry on top.

Arch Enemy: War Eternal

ARCH ENEMY: WAR ETERNAL (2014)

1) Tempore Nihil Sanat; 2) Never Forgive, Never Forget; 3) War Eternal; 4) As The Pages Burn; 5) No More Regrets; 6) You Will Know My Name; 7) Graveyard Of Dreams; 8) Stolen Life; 9) Time Is Black; 10) On And On; 11) Avalanche; 12) Down To Nothing; 13) Not Long For This World.

As our favorite pop pranksters, the Mael brothers of Sparks, once said, "Just like everything else in this world, time wreaks havoc on every girl. What do you do? Throw her away and get a new one!" Now I have no idea whether Michael Amott is a big Sparks fan, but he took the Maels' advice quite seriously. In the light of Arch Enemy's continuing descent into stagnation, Angela Gossow announced her departure from the band (apparently, an amicable one, as she stayed on as their business manager), and welcomed her replacement — Alissa White-Gluz (what a name!), former lead vocalist of The Agonist, up to now Canada's chief competition for Arch Enemy, but apparently no longer so.

With all due respect to Ms. Gossow and her decade with the band, this was a good decision, and not simply for reasons of physical health (growling does take its toll even among professionals), but also because, well, no offense intended, growling only takes you that far in your life: Wages Of Sin was a fun ride, but we'd learned everything we needed to know about Angela Gossow on that album and we really haven't learned anything new ever since — at a certain point, in this sort of genre, the singer ceases to be a personality and becomes a generic, predictable piece of para­phernalia, merely accompanying the different riffs and solos.

The catch is that the replacement would have to be worthy of the predecessor, and it is not every day that a growler of Angela Gossow caliber comes along. But as much as I am skeptical of the profession in the first place (and who wouldn't be?), White-Gluz turns out to be God's unexpect­edly generous gift to this band. Where Gossow's growling was almost genuinely scary in its car­toonish cackling taken to the extremest of extremes, this Alissa gal approaches the task in a simi­lar, but different manner — I'd probably define her growling voice as just a tad «sharper» than Gossow's, and more distinct, to the point where you can occasionally even make out some of the actual words she is «singing». She seems to have a drop of the punk spirit in her, too (not sur­prisingly, she is said to be in a relationship with Doyle of The Misfits), and there is a «pissed-off / violent» flavor to her growling, rather than the «infernal / doomsday» attitude of Gossow, which can help take it more seriously than usual.

Most importantly, though, the introduction of White-Gluz helps rekindle the band's collective spirit as well. I certainly cannot vouch that with War Eternal, Amott and Co. have given us the finest collection of riffs and classically-influenced melodic passages in 5, 7, or 10 years, since the melodic basis behind Arch Enemy's work has always been so similar (to say the least). But every once in a while, you'd have yourself an album that sounded «fresher» — Wages Of Sin being the most obvious example — and War Eternal, despite having the same superficial features as any Arch Enemy album, also has that «new-beginning» look to it, and not just because of a new sin­ger, but also because the new singer triggers a new desire to excel in what they do.

That desire does not translate (at least, not upon my initial attempts to discover them) into writing any exceptional, «where-the-hell-have-you-been-all-my-life» bits of riffage, but the band's over­all melodic drive seems to have improved, with a large number of symphonic themes interwoven among the brutal sledgehammering, including no less than three atmospheric interludes, the last of which, ʽNot Long For This Worldʼ, provides the album's most memorable and stylishly «heavy requiem»-like theme, building up crescendo-style and then fading out with a ghostly piano coda that, gratifyingly, leaves no hope whatsoever for the doomed humanity. The synthesizer tone re­s­ponsible for those symphonic elements is certainly cheesier than if they'd thought of adding real strings (ʽAvalancheʼ is a good example), but at least it supplies some variety.

Still, the band is really at the top of their game only when they are at their speediest, their angriest here — which is where Alissa's infuriated vocals really connect, and you get not too memorable melodically, but quite impressive stylistically tunes like ʽNever Forgive, Never Forgetʼ (give it a better set of riffs and it would not be out of place on an Iron Maiden album) or ʽAs The Pages Burnʼ. When they slow down, the whole thing occasionally starts dragging, but even there you have things like the title track, which is like... like a Foreigner arena-rocker derailed and turned into a death metal anthem. Yes, it's actually hilarious when you think about it this way.

Fans of White-Gluz' past karma have dared to complain that she is not given an opportunity to use her clean vocals on the record (other than a tiny bit of background overdubs on ʽAvalancheʼ), but this may not have necessarily been due to the band's stubborn conservatism, but rather to the fact that much, if not most, of the songs were written with a «growling» delivery in mind before the lineup change — a hypothesis that will be tested once the band returns to the studio once again. In the meantime, I am about as heavily excited by War Eternal as I could find myself excited about a present-day «melodic death metal» album written and executed in strict accor­dance with the genre's Procrustean formula. And that translates to a mild thumbs up, even though far be it from me to recommend spending too much time on a record like this, or on mo­dern heavy metal in general, for that matter.