Barclay James Harvest: Live

BARCLAY JAMES HARVEST: LIVE (1974)

1) Summer Soldier; 2) Medicine Man; 3) Crazy City; 4) After The Day; 5) The Great 1974 Mining Disaster; 6) Galadriel; 7) Negative Earth; 8) She Said; 9) Paper Wings; 10) For No One; 11) Mockingbird.

Released just a wee wee bit too late — I would much have preferred a live album recorded prior to the stylistic transition that we see on Everyone Is Everybody Else, in full-fledged «Stuck Be­tween the Procol and the Moody Blues Again» mode. As it is, five out of eleven songs are here to promote the latest studio album, and the difference between the «impoverished» new sound and the much richer sound of the days of yore is still striking — although, granted, nowhere near as striking in a live setting, where the sound is beefed up with thicker guitar tones and denser clouds of Mellotron radiation, as it is in the confines of the studio.

Still, other than the «intertextual cheese» of ʽMining Disasterʼ, the new songs all range from great (ʽFor No Oneʼ) to passable (everything else), and the only reason for sorrow is that they leave no space in the setlist for anything off the debut album (which the band had pretty much disinherited long before that anyway). The soundboard recordings have not been captured too well — or, per­haps, have not received all the digital remastering they deserved — but the «brutal» aura of the sound quality is quite appropriate for a live show, where, after all, one does not expect to revel in all the subtle minutia of the studio equivalents.

John Lees is, of course, the unsung (but singing) hero of the album: his rough, extra-distorted, but melodic, psy­chedelically tinged, and occasionally, quite glammy soloing makes him a serious competitor of Mick Ronson in the «knock-yer-pants-off» department. ʽMedicine Manʼ, in particular, is trans­formed from an acoustic guitar / strings-based art song into a heavy riff-rocker, with a lengthy instrumental part where John plays the god of thunder, scattering lightning bolts through the audience (and Woolly keeps up respectably, playing the god of hailstorm and occasionally tor­turing his organ in perverted ways previously known only to Keith Emerson). But everything else, with the exception of the short and soft interlude of ʽGaladrielʼ, also bears the burning stamp of his electric (and electrifying) solos.

I wouldn't say that, except for the completely revamped ʽMedicine Manʼ, any of these versions open up and explore previously unknown dimensions. The band knows what the people want when they come to see them — a feeling of collective ecstasy that involves both romance and power — and they stock up on the power without losing the grasp on romance, sticking fairly closely to the original creativity but giving it a little more gas at the expense of subtlety, which is what a predictable solid art-rock concert should look like, I guess. Fans of Lees should know that most of the guitar tones are different, and fans of Woolly should know that the man is capable of losing his head and getting carried away in a power frenzy. All of this is enough to guarantee a solid thumbs up, and leave BJH with at least one all-through excellent live album in their history — their Yessongs and Welcome Back My Friends rolled into one, although, funny enough, they did refrain from making it into a triple LP set.

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Bee Gees: High Civilization

BEE GEES: HIGH CIVILIZATION (1991)

1) High Civilization; 2) Secret Love; 3) When He's Gone; 4) Happy Ever After; 5) Party With No Name; 6) Ghost Train; 7) Dimensions; 8) The Only Love; 9) Human Sacrifice; 10) True Confessions; 11) Evolution.

Probably a toss-up between E.S.P. and this one for the ugliest-sounding Bee Gees album ever. Okay, E.S.P. would likely still win, since its production values were about as suitable for the Bee Gees as having them sing an entire album through a Vocoder; but this monstrosity from 1991 does not lag too far behind, and it has at least one edge over E.S.P. — considering the musical fashions of 1987, one would not really expect the band to have fared much better, but in 1991, with hair metal and synth-pop both on their way out, some of the old vets were gradually starting to get out of their midlife crises and reconcile their older selves with their true selves.

Not so with the Gibbs, who, for some reason, thought it beyond their sense of dignity to retrace their steps. What is even worse, they thought that they still had some hopes of positioning them­selves as a dance-oriented outfit — that after the blandly somber balladry of One, it was high time to return to some foot-stompin', body-thumpin' rhythms, provided by the latest fads and trends in nightclub territory. Thus, most of High Civilization — yes, with the exception of an ob­ligatory bunch of slow ballads — is set to chuggin' lite-techno tracks, a rhythmic shell that the Bee Gees embrace just as recklessly as they did with disco.

Alas, if the disco encasing did not by itself prevent them from losing their strength (melodies and harmonies), this particular style is completely disastrous. On E.S.P., the singing was loud enough, but utterly lost in its own echo merging with the sonic effects of electronic percussion. On High Civilization, the vocals sort of just splatter away in different directions, launched in thin pres­surized streaks from under the speeding wagon wheels of the hi-tech vehicle. Once again — any­one could have sung this crap, Barry, Maurice, Robin, Andy's ghost, the sound engineer, the cleaning lady, Bugs Bunny, no matter. The harmonies play no role here, and neither do the melo­dies — instrumentally, there are none to speak of, and vocally, nothing makes sense.

In a different age, ʽSecret Loveʼ, aptly selected for the band's first UK single, could have been a decent Motown-style hit; and ʽGhost Trainʼ could have been a nice New Wave-style mood an­them — perhaps they should have donated that one to Bryan Ferry, he might have brought out its «sensuous potential» by attaching his microphone to his mouth rather than some other body part. These two are songs with traces of hope; everything else ranks from instantaneously forgettable (title track) to abysmal (ʽDimensionsʼ, ʽParty With No Nameʼ — in 1991, I'd honestly rather hear that generic dance crap from the young Alanis Morissette than from three middle-aged guys way past not only their prime, but also their ability to get a proper grip on contemporary fashions).

For technical reasons, it is worth noting that the sound engineer here was Femi Jiya, who had pre­viously worked with Prince (but it didn't help, not this time); and that the album was supposed to be conceptual — everything except for the politically loaded title track was supposed to narrate a «secret love» dream sequence in the head of the protagonist. The Bee Gees later disrupted the psychedelic cohesiveness of the album by reshuffling the songs, but even if they hadn't done that, it's not as if the thematic unity of the songs were a good enough justification for the crap-o-matic unity of the structures and arrangements. Thumbs down, yucky-yuck.

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Blues Magoos: Gulf Coast Bound

BLUES MAGOOS: GULF COAST BOUND (1970)

1) Gulf Coast Bound; 2) Slow Down Sundown; 3) Can't Get Enough Of You; 4) Magoos Blues; 5) Tonight The Skies About To Cry; 6) Sea Breeze Express.

The new-look Blues Magoos' second and last album, recorded in the wake of more lineup chan­ges and heavily relying on the use of session musicians, almost manages to hit the mark — hard as it may be to believe this, it is more coherent, focused, and overall adequate than Never Goin' Back To Georgia. It was commercially doomed, since it did not have a proper hit single to it, and, come to think of it, with a vocalist as «gifted» as Peppy (at this point, he already sounds like Eric Burdon's twin brother, however, unfortunately mutilated at birth), a hit single would be impossible in the­ory and practice.

They do try with the title track, which is a bouncy-friendly jazz-pop concoction in the vein of the post-Al Kooper Blood, Sweat & Tears, but could really use a more attractive vocalist to, well, attract the necessary positive attention on the part of the buying public. And then Peppy does even worse on the aggressive R&B workout ʽSlow Down Sundownʼ — this is where the vocals get genuinely awful, as the singer almost revels in his drawn out, torturously out-of-key vowels, probably believing that soul and sincerity will easily compensate for this. If Keith Richards can get away with this, why not Peppy Castro? Unfortunately, most of us, upon hearing the two, will probably figure out several easy «why nots» soon enough.

Surprisingly, though, the worse the vocals, the better the instruments. The band must have been inspired by the presence of sax player Pee Wee Ellis, who had previously worked with James Brown for five years and added an unexpected element of «authenticity» — it is not so much that his sax parts are great (although they sometimes might be) as it is that they subconsciously spur the band into trying something... well, something that used to be outside their reach, and now they are on the verge of nailing it, and sometimes they nail it pretty close.

What I mean is this: normally, the idea of a twelve-minute funky jam from a third-grade band like the Blues Magoos would seem preposterous. It is possible that ʽCan't Get Enough Of Youʼ was inspired by CCR's cover of ʽI Heard It Through The Grapevineʼ — it moves at a similar tempo, includes more or less the same amount of cowbell, and, without a warning, switches to jam mode midway through. But where CCR made the whole thing work by conceiving it as a spirited dia­log between Fogerty's pre-rehearsed theatrical guitar phrasing and Cosmo's pissed-off drum bash re­torts, the Blues Magoos pretty much just let the tapes roll without any preconceptions or, as it seems, any prior rehearsals. Amazingly, it still works — it isn't anywhere near as memorable as the CCR epic, but the band catches a good fire, and the sax, guitar, and vibraphone solos are quite lively and well on the level, even if they can't help but lack the inventiveness and technical dex­terity of serious competition from master jazzmen.

But the band's ballsiness goes beyond that — no sooner than the one lengthy instrumental jam is over, another one begins, and this time, there is no singing at all: ʽMagoos Bluesʼ is a long jazz-rock monster that echoes Bitches Brew in spirit (if not quite in form, since the band's rhythm section remains poorly equipped when it comes to tricky time signatures) but brings it closer to the average rock listener by retaining a bit of ye olde blues-rock aggression (mostly through the grim­ness of the bassline).

Lastly, ʽTonight The Skies About To Cryʼ (original orthography preserved) is a «monumental» soul ballad that would have worked well had they invited Van Morrison to guest star; and ʽSea Breeze Expressʼ is the album's most adventurous number, with elements of atonality and free-form improv gradually scrambling together to take the more concise shape of yet another short blues-rock jam.

Altogether, bad singing and a pervasive lack of personality do haunt the record, and there is no way I could argue about a «lost masterpiece» or anything. But neither does it deserve to be com­pletely forgotten, and, most importantly, there is nothing here to support a naturally biased judge­ment of the «yet another grrrrreat garage band turned to shit by deciding to go artsy-fartsy» vari­ety. Fact is, the Blues Magoos, other than one or two accidentally impressive singles, were never that great a garage band in the first place; and their turning to «artsy-fartsy», at the very least, fol­lowed a slightly unusual path compared to many of their peers — and produced generally lis­tenable and occasionally exciting results.

It is not a tragedy that, following the predictable flop of Gulf Coast Bound, the band came apart once again — it is not very likely that Eric Kaz would have firmly steered them onwards to fur­ther greatness. But it seems to me that the album may still be considered a rather respectable B-level en­try in the jazz-rock log — at the very least, it has far more integrity than anything Blood, Sweat & Tears or Chicago have ever done past their few initial prime years. Consequently — a modest thumbs up here, provided we can disregard Peppy's narcissistic feelings.

P.S.: Apparently, as of 2012, Peppy has reunited with Ralph Scala, and the oddly revamped Blues Magoos have released a new album called Psychedelic Resurrection (yeah right) which I have not yet been able to locate. Such behavior is not very typical of classic one-hit garage bands (at best, they usually just reunite briefly to go on a local club nostalgia tour), so it might be worth checking it out just for curiosity's sake.

Bobby Bland: Blues You Can Use

BOBBY BLAND: BLUES YOU CAN USE (1987)

1) Get Your Money Where You Spend Your Time; 2) Spending My Life With You; 3) Our First Blues Song; 4) Restless Feelin's; 5) 24 Hours A Day; 6) I've Got A Problem; 7) Let's Part As Friends; 8) For The Last Time; 9) There's No Easy Way To Say Goodbye.

It should probably be mentioned that, since 1985, Bobby Bland had been signed to Malaco Re­cords, probably the largest and most fashion-independent Southern label that saw its mission in preserving the old ways — and that, although the move did not bring him a lot of financial stabi­lity, it certainly helped him recover and keep his integrity after all those strange MCA records with stiff models on the sleeves had nearly destroyed it. Thus, even if the Malaco house band is not the best there is, or could be (although, in 1987, who can really tell?), it is a house band, and these late Eighties' records of Bobby's sound as respectable as they could at the time. The electro­nic keyboards are dull, the horns are mechanistic, and the rhythm section uninventive, but this is blues, soul, and R&B music done the good old way, in styles that feel natural for Bobby. That is no big reason to ever use this kind of blues, but it is reason enough not to feel ashamed or sorry for the guy. Except when he keeps snorting, that is.

The variety is not too bad here, from the old upbeat, fast-tempo 12-bar blues-rock formula (ʽ24 Hours A Dayʼ) to funky R&B with rambling guitars and horns (ʽGet Your Moneyʼ) to old-style soul with a touch of flute (ʽRestless Feelin'sʼ) to slow blues-de-luxe (ʽI've Got A Problemʼ) — and, of course, plenty of torchy bluesy balladry for the old lady fans, culminating in ʽThere's No Easy Way To Say Goodbyeʼ, a song that clearly hints at the inescapable: this guy is not going away any time soon. Alas, as usual, there are no curious insights to be gained from the songs; the best that they can amount to is to simply sound decent.

The problem is somehow connected, I suppose, to the fact that most of Bobby's songwriters here are completely unknown — this is all derivative, clichéd hack material, without any sense of humor or attempts at individual melodic twists. Ted Jarrett, the songwriter star of «Nashville R&B», is the only guy to have at least a bit of information available on him (he contributes the bouncy ʽ24 Hours A Dayʼ, the album's most fun, but still completely generic number), but who is Larry Addison? Who is Robert A. Johnson? (Thank God for the «A.», or one could have thought the unthinkable). Who are all these people and why do they have careers in songwriting? At this point, it would have been far more pleasant if Bobby just stuck to old chestnuts — heck, even an album of Sinatra covers would be preferable.

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Burial: Burial

BURIAL: BURIAL (2006)

1) Untitled; 2) Distant Lights; 3) Spacescape; 4) Wounder; 5) Night Bus; 6) Southern Comfort; 7) U Hurt Me; 8) Gutted; 9) Forgive; 10) Broken Home; 11) Prayer; 12) Pirates; 13) Untitled.

Apparently, for the first few years of his career, William Bevan did not even reveal his true iden­tity, stating out of the gloom that he was «a lowkey person» and that he «just wants to make some tunes, nothing else». It was known only that he was holed up somewhere in London, hooked up to a computer with Sony Sound Forge, and some went as far as to suggest that he was really Aphex Twin in disguise. Reality turned out to be less extravagant than we usually want it to be, but, fortunately, this has little bearing on the extravagance of the music.

The genre labels for Burial's self-titled debut that one usually encounters involve «2-step», «dub­steb», «UK garage», etc., but all of this is misleading — yes, with a little effort you might learn to dance to these tunes, yet there is really no serious reason why you should: the real reason why Burial's output is valued so highly is in the atmosphere, not in the beats. And that atmosphere... how should I put it? Well, from my old-timer school's perspective, let me put it this way: Burial sounds as if, above everything else, it drew its chief influence from Side 2 of David Bowie's Heroes — particularly ʽSense Of Doubtʼ; and this point stands even if the resemblance is purely coincidental (which I doubt, since no respectable electronic musician these days may be ignorant on the subject of the «Berlin Trilogy»).

«Burial» is right, in fact — it is basically an album about burial, with so many of its beats sound­ing like dull shovels pounding against the clodded earth and loose rocks of the graveyard. What this album really has on so many other electronic productions is that all of its tracks merge toge­ther in a genuine sense of purpose, and that purpose (the way I interpret it) is — to picture a deva­stated, bombed-into-oblivion, post-apocalyptic planet where lonely ghosts, occasional zombies, roaches, and loose radio signals represent the only remaining traces of life. (Strange enough, no Keith Richards in sight, though — must be a parallel universe after all).

The actual samples used by Bevan do not interest me in the slightest — the only point of interest is in that they are deliciously random, ranging from bits of Benicio del Toro's dialog in 21 Grams to reggae (Sizzla) to ambient (Eno) to mainstream R&B (Ashanti and Destiny's Child). But they all get the same treatment regardless of their original context: Ashanti's "you hurt me" from ʽFoolishʼ is a ghostly echo now, rising out of some dreary chasm that the nuclear fallout and the acid rains have ripped in the former heart of the city, barely registering against the incessant pum­meling of the excavator and the vaguely mid-Eastern shreds of melodies emanating from the earth's pores.

What makes Burial so particularly spooky is that there is nothing intentionally and arrogantly look-at-me-I'm-so-spooky about it. The beats — and all other sounds, for that matter — are deci­dedly quiet and inobtrusive. Nothing ever «builds up» to anything — most «songs» end the same way they started out, so the only suspense to be experienced is found in between the tracks. There is no danger in the air, because it seems as if everything dangerous that could have happened already has — even if there are zombies here, they seem to have completely lost interest in any­thing other than simply hobbling around, moaning and groaning in quietly stunned mode. The two-minute long sonic scape called ʽNight Busʼ is not about going anywhere — it is actually a beatless, rhythmless ambient interlude that focuses, at best, on the rusty remains of a night bus that has long since run its last run. The only serious tension throughout is provided by the bass frequencies — «sensed» rather than «heard», they are the perfect embodiment of the technogenic catastrophe residue, and have a primary role in creating the overall illusion.

Individual tracks do not need any description here: this is a cohesive experience where separation of ingredients will only decrease the admiration. Naturally, the pictorial interpretation that I offer here is far from the only one possible, but at least I can honestly state that Bevan paints a musical landscape that is open to a concrete interpretation — one that borrows heavily from the experi­ence of, say, Autechre, but is at the same time much more accessible than Autechre. I am not in­terested in the slightest if Burial does indeed «legitimize dubstep», as Jason Birchmeier pro­claims in the All-Music Guide review — its formal percussive trappings are just that, formal per­cussive trappings. What matters is only that, if you listen to it long enough, you might start be­lieving that what you hear on it is the future of humanity. And that's sufficiently creepy — not to mention oh so frickin' dark-romantic! — to justify a thumbs up.

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Barenaked Ladies: Gordon

BARENAKED LADIES: GORDON (1992)

1) Hello City; 2) Enid; 3) Grade 9; 4) Brian Wilson; 5) Be My Yoko Ono; 6) Wrap Your Arms Around Me; 7) What A Good Boy; 8) The King Of Bedside Manor; 9) Box Set; 10) I Love You; 11) New Kid (On The Block); 12) Blame It On Me; 13) The Flag; 14) If I Had $1000000; 15) Crazy.

Leave it to a bunch of ugly-looking Canadian nerds (some of them of a predictably Jewish origin, too) to form a band called «Barenaked Ladies» — surely you would not expect a bunch of real barenaked ladies to call themselves that? No, of course not; the name should inevitably prepare us for a meeting with Steven Jay Page, a plump, curly-haired, bespectacled chump that generally looks like your local math professor; and Lloyd Edward Elwyn Robertson, a rough-built, highly masculine figure that generally looks like your local football coach. For some reason, instead of heeding nature's call, both guys sing and play guitar, keyboards, and cowbell — and write songs, some of which are funny and some of which aren't, but all of which ultimately sound like... like they might be giants, but they prefer to be barenaked ladies.

In other words, please welcome the quintessential «college rock for pop culture buffs» band of the 1990s. Although Page and Robertson had already released a couple of «semi-official» tapes prior to Gordon (starting with Buck Naked as early as 1989), most of the good stuff from these recordings was redone once they landed a proper contract with Sire Records — and since they had been honing their skills for about four years already, Gordon runs for almost an hour with a surprisingly scarce amount of filler (that is, for those who do not consider everything that Bare­naked Ladies ever did the encyclopaedic equivalent of filler — a position that has its fair share of defendants and one which I acknowledge, but respectfully disagree with).

The rest of the band formally includes brothers Jim and Andy Creeggan, on bass and keyboards respectively, and drummer Tyler Stewart, but there is a whole host of friends, relatives, syco­phants, and innocent bystanders credited on the album as well — a little surprising, actually, because Gordon never aims at a wall-of-sound impression; on the contrary, most of the songs show a singer-songwriterish nature, with acoustic guitars as the primary sound-carrier (some­times in the guise of a small jazz combo) and the singers (more often Page, less often Robertson) ten­der­ly hugging the mikes so you can assess all the minor imperfections in their work while at the same time forming a subconscious friendly bond with the guys.

For formal technical reasons, Barenaked Ladies have always been classified as «indie», yet the sound of Gordon owes very little, if anything, to classic «indie» influences — the main inspira­tion for Page and Robertson comes from the direction of light jazz, bossa nova, music hall, and, only very occasionally, from barebones indie pillars like Nick Drake or John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band. That is, they make one more retro-step compared to the already past-oriented style of They Might Be Giants, and by digging deep into hilariously «irrelevant» brands of music, only endear themselves further to roaming bands of overweight slaves of used vinyl, bright-colored T-shirts, Star Trek, and pizza stains on the desktop keyboard.

The actual songs are, of course, lovable for their subject matter, atmosphere, spirit, humor, and sonic texture rather than for any awesome melodic insights — similar to Randy Newman, who must have been the real big idol for these guys, even though his music was never that closely tied to the high school / college circuit. Page and Robertson certainly know what a catchy pop hook is, and work on their choruses as carefully as they are capable of, but this here is a case where words really matter, if one wants to understand what all the fuss is about, and not get too irritated at the «look-at-us we're-so-stylishly-retro» attitude.

Separating the songs into highlights and «the rest» is pretty difficult, because the mind tends to make into «highlights» those songs that have the biggest verbal shock quotient. ʽHello Cityʼ, for instance, opens the album with an unexpected chorus of "hello city, you've found an enemy in me" even as one realizes that Barenaked Ladies are the quintessential city band, and would just quickly lay down and die in any other environment. ʽBrian Wilsonʼ and ʽBe My Yoko Onoʼ are placed back-to-back in an unforgettable duo of pop icon analyses — Brian Wilson himself actu­ally liked his song, enough to include it in his own setlist (you can hear a brief snippet on the Live At The Roxy album), but I am not so sure about Yoko; she might have had a tougher time appreciating a chorus like "You can be my Yoko Ono, you can follow me wherever I go".

Then there's ʽBox Setʼ, to the Latin rhythms of which you can shake your proverbial ass while admiring the cruel lambasting of the average mediocre artist receiving unwarranted promotion ("disc six — a dance remix, so I can catch the latest trend, and it'll make you scratch your head and wonder where my taste went"); and the ska-influenced ʽGrade 9ʼ, a potential personal anthem for way more people than we know ("I went out for the football team to prove that I'm a man / I guess I shouldn't tell them that I like Duran Duran"). And, of course, the band's calling card — the soft folksy roll of ʽIf I Had A Million Dollarsʼ, culminating in a most unpredictable lyrical apodosis that only matters after four and a half minutes' waiting time.

Every once and while, though, the songwriters get more serious and soulful, saving on humor and trying on the Big Thinker's hat — for instance, ʽWhat A Good Boyʼ comments on the art of social hypocrisy; ʽBlame It On Meʼ comments on the art of getting out of strained relationships (but even here, they cannot avoid the temptation of throwing on smarty-punny lines like ʽI wax poetic as you're waxing your legsʼ); and ʽThe Flagʼ tries to shift the mood from comedy to morose me­lancholia, with a melody vaguely reminiscent of ʽWorking Class Heroʼ and lyrics that could have just as well be influenced by watching Bergman's Scenes From A Marriage rather than the more predictable Wrath Of Khan (as mentioned in ʽGrade 9ʼ).

These tunes really put people on different sides of the fence — should Barenaked Ladies, with their general fluffiness, limited instrumental skills, and college humor, be allowed to make se­ri­ous social statements, or should they just stick to their Seinfeldian schtick? Personally, I would not grieve much if the «darker» sides of the Ladies were removed from Gordon, but then, on the other hand, I cannot deny that Page and Robertson have more talent than it usually takes to keep alive a «novelty band», and that even the novelty numbers, once the instantaneous laughs are over, actually offer genuine — and quite serious — insights into many of the factors that dominated youth culture in the early 1990s (and still dominate much of it today).

So, overall, I would be ready to accept the album as a whole — and give it an unflinching thumbs up. There is certainly much more going on here than just goofing off, in the good old tradition that goes all the way back to Sparks, and it all sounds just fine: the instrumental melo­dies may be nothing to write home about (although some of the acoustic guitar solos are impres­sively speedy, and fun, too), but the light, tasteful backing does just exactly what it is supposed to do: provide a mood-wise compatible «so-out-of-style» cocoon for the «so-out-of-style» prota­gonists of the band's lyrics. The real bad news is that it is all going to sound tremendously dated ten years from now (some of it already sounds quite dated as of 2013, when I am writing this assessment), but then I guess that even ten years from now, there will be out-of-time nerds feast­ing on Wrath Of Khan and dusting off old vinyl preserves of Milli Vanilli — so who'd be willing to openly claim, under pain of death, that with Gordon, Barenaked Ladies have not created a sarcastic, intellectual, deep-penetrating masterpiece for ages to come? Think twice before you do.

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Bangles: Everything

BANGLES: EVERYTHING (1988)

1) In Your Room; 2) Complicated Girl; 3) Bell Jar; 4) Something To Believe In; 5) Eternal Flame; 6) Be With You; 7) Glitter Years; 8) I'll Set You Free; 9) Watching The Sky; 10) Some Dreams Come True; 11) Make A Play For Her Now; 12) Waiting For You; 13) Crash And Burn.

There are two things that make Everything feel like an artistic embarrassment: the album cover and ʽEternal Flameʼ. The album cover, because it pictures the Bangles in typical late-Eighties glamor fashion, quite a far cry from the sharp looks earlier in the decade; and ʽEternal Flameʼ, because it is the song on the album to go along with that look. If it weren't to become the girls' greatest commercial achievement, it wouldn't be so heartbreaking. But it was, and it would.

As far as power ballads go, ʽEternal Flameʼ is hardly the worst example. Not only was it not written by Diane Warren (instead, Susanna Hoffs is aided here by the corporate songwriting team of Billy Steinberg and Tom Kelly), it doesn't even begin to properly pick up «power» until half of the song is over, and its vocal melody is at least mildly imaginative; plus, it is actually a nice showcase for Hoffs' vocal range — she is not much of a mighty «belter», but it is technically im­pressive, at least, how she inflects the chorus in so many varieties.

None of which matters when we take the song in its context. This is not Whitney Houston we are dealing with here — these are the Bangles, America's pride and joy in the realm of colorful gui­tar-based power pop, and to sing a song like ʽEternal Flameʼ for them means musical prostitution, fair and square. Yes, one could say that the loss of innocence had occurred long before, with the coming of Prince, or maybe even prior to that, with the girlie looks, the make-up, and the coquet­terie they had sported from the start, but there are «problems on the way», and then there is the «point of no return», and there is a crucial difference between the two. With ʽEternal Flameʼ, the group commits a travesty that is not easily forgotten — kind of like a vegan accidentally being caught munching on a lamb chop.

It does not even matter that the rest of the album, for the most part, does not even remotely re­semble the style of ʽEternal Flameʼ. Although the band relies more heavily on synthesizers than they used to, and, in accordance with the times, goes along with the electronic coating on the drums and a metallized sheen on formerly «clean» guitars, the songs are still mostly in the pop-rock idiom, not too different from the ideology of Different Light or even All Over The Place. After all, the album does not open with ʽEternal Flameʼ — it opens with ʽIn Your Roomʼ, a fun, fast, vivacious, love-struck rocker, and with a psychedelic coda to boot (mid-Eastern flavor for the synths and Revolver-style acid harmonies — whee!). And the rest of the songs generally fol­low ʽIn Your Roomʼ rather than ʽEternal Flameʼ, just as well.

Michael Steele contributes two jangle-pop numbers, of which ʽComplicated Girlʼ is the lighter one, a fun pop nugget, and ʽGlitter Yearsʼ is the bitter one, with a bit of misplaced nostalgia ("I don't really know how we survived the glitter years" — come now, 1988 was hardly any less «glitter» in essence than 1973). The Petersons rock their hearts out on ʽBell Jarʼ, a song that could have been an easy highlight on an early Blondie album — the chorus is very accurately written in classic Debbie Harry language. Occasionally, songs are quite seriously spoiled by cheesy arran­gements (ʽBe With Youʼ), but the catchiness still cannot be denied.

In fact, the only other ballad on the entire album is ʽSomething To Believe Inʼ, whose adult con­temporary nature and lack of proper hook (the main melody sounds like an impoverished varia­tion on Paul McCartney's ʽListen To What The Man Saidʼ) only proves further that the Bangles, fortunately for us all, are simply incapable of writing ballads, period. And even more fortunately for us, they do not really try — 11 pop rockers vs. 2 ballads is a ratio that I quite approve of, even if it would have been much better for us all if they'd at least waited until the «grunge revolution» to release these.

My original review for Everything gave it a really low score and complained about the lack of songwriting — presumably, the combined treachery of ʽEternal Flameʼ, hideous hairstyles, and sickening production values went to my unexperienced head: nowadays, it seems that the core structures of these songs do not generally fall behind what used to be. And yet, this does not, per se, make Everything any less of a sellout. Unlike some other artists, the Bangles did not enslave themselves to the industry bosses, but they agreed to a humiliating compromise — with a short-term gain and long-term loss, since the working relationships within the band broke down com­pletely as a result, and the girls parted ways soon after the album's release.

Actually, most of these songs (expectedly) sound much better when they are played live (es­pe­cially when they make it to the setlists of the reunited Bangles in the 21st century), so, in the end, let us be generous and blame it all on the times, not on the artists. Interestingly enough, the band's big hit from 1987, a cover of Simon & Garfunkel's ʽHazy Shade Of Winterʼ that they recorded for the soundtrack of Less Than Zero, did not make it onto Everything — maybe because they intu­i­tively felt how pathetic all of their songs would sound next to the genius of Paul Simon? (Actual­ly, I guess Susanna Hoffs' own biggest hit from 1987 was her underwear dance stint in The All­nighter, but since it was done to the sounds of Aretha Franklin rather than her own songs, there was no place for it on Every­thing, either. Still gets millions of Youtube views, by the way — true art never dies!).

Anyway, seeing as how I honestly enjoy most of these songs now, I give the album a thumbs up today — a humiliating compromise it is, perhaps, but play it back-to-back with, say, something from late 1980s Heart to see what truly constitutes a genuine nosedive in this sphere: even ʽEter­nal Flameʼ is miles ahead of ʽWhat About Loveʼ in the taste department.

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Barclay James Harvest: Everyone Is Everybody Else

BARCLAY JAMES HARVEST: EVERYONE IS EVERYBODY ELSE (1974)

1) Child Of The Universe; 2) Negative Earth; 3) Paper Wings; 4) The Great 1974 Mining Disaster; 5) Crazy City; 6) See Me See You; 7) Poor Boy Blues; 8) Mill Boys; 9) For No One.

Be warned — this is a different band now, a seriously different one, and without a single change in the line-up at that. A little of it may have had to do with the record label change (a shift from Harvest/EMI to Polydor); a little more of it may be related to the new producer, Rodger Bain, who had previously worked with Black Sabbath and Budgie. But I would guess that most of it had to do with shifts in popular taste — with complex symphonic prog already on the way out of fashion, and a more straightforward, simplified approach to «intellectual music» gaining the upper hand on the charts, Barclay James Harvest ditched the orchestra, restrained the Mellotron (without, however, shutting it out completely), cut down on the multi-part epics, said goodbye to the psychedelia, and decided that they were, after all, a «rock» band. A nerdy, wimpy, naïve one perhaps, but firmly committed to the idiom.

In a way, the band now sounds like an English equivalent of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young: so­cially conscious roots-rock for the post-hippie age, produced by world-weary music veterans tee­tering between idealism and disillusionment. The one thing that they do not have on CSNY — gorgeous three-way / four-way harmonies, that is — they compensate for by retaining echoes of their baroque-pop sensibilities: there is still some occasional «lushness» in the arrangements, and John Lees, when in the mood, can still cut a richly melodic solo in the romantic idiom (where a Neil Young or even a Stephen Stills would rough-cut a kick-ass ragged block of «rawk» notes). But overall, the sound seems significantly impoverished compared to the first four. Not surpri­singly, it was this album that almost put BJH on the charts — picking up the interest of the ave­rage listener. From here on, the second half of the 1970s would be more commercially viable for the band, but much more disappointing artistically.

Not coincidentally, the album marks the complete elimination of Wolstenholme from the roster of songwriters: from now on, Woolly would be getting one, maximum two tracks per album for the rest of his tenure with the band. (The one track he did write for Everyone, the anthemic ʽMaes­tosoʼ, was canned by the rest of the guys, and not released until 1980 on Woolly's first solo album, although, as a repentant compromising gesture, it is now available as a bonus track on the re­ma­s­tered CD version). The songwriting is now completely dominated by Lees and Holroyd — the latter having risen quite highly from an initially modest position.

Lees, at this point, illustrates both the very best and the very worst about the band. On one hand, his two tracks that bookmark the record are probably its high points. Both are anti-war anthems and could, in fact, be regarded as a two-part suite: ʽChild Of The Universeʼ opens up from a more personal angle ("I'm a small boy with blood on his hands"), whereas ʽFor No Oneʼ concludes the subject in communal prayer mode ("please lay down your pistols and your rifles"). Both are very straightforward, lyrically trivial, and melodically monotonous, but played with enough strength and conviction to justify the simplicity, and the stormy wah-wah solo at the end of ʽFor No Oneʼ could rank among the finest displays of flashy guitar pyrotechnics of the decade (the good ones, fueled by the spirit, not just the fingers).

On the other hand, it is also Lees who is behind the corny idea of «reworking» the old classics on the tellingly titled ʽGreat 1974 Mining Disasterʼ — a song that superficially purports to reflect current class struggle in the UK, but in reality is a serious-faced deconstruction of the respective Bee Gees number, right down to a direct aping of the chorus: very strange, actually, that the Gibbs did not sue for copyright infringement, since what BJH do here goes way beyond «fair use». Additionally, the song throws some Beatles ("heard a song the other day... and though the song was kind of grey...") and some David Bowie ("...about a major out in space... about a man who sold the world away...") into the melting pot, with unclear purposes and ambiguous effects. Altogether, it seems as if the intention was to make a synthesis that would claim originality and, perhaps, simulate depth, but ultimately, it gives the impression of intentional theft due to lack of one's own ideas — an embarrassing failure, the way I feel about it, although it would soon be overshadowed by the even deeper crime against taste on the next album.

Holroyd's contributions are generally less ambitious than Lees'; the most prominent of these is probably ʽPoor Boy Bluesʼ, which sounds like a slightly «fairy-folksier» variant of Eagles stuff, and is seamlessly integrated with Lees' ʽMill Boysʼ in one big Muswell-hillbilly-whole (yes, the Kinks are also in here somewhere). The bass guy also continues to explore the outer sphere theme with ʽNegative Earthʼ, one more lonesome romantic space oddity that adds relatively little to the already available collection and relatively a lot to our understanding of Les Holroyd as a rather obstinate fellow — who knows, maybe he would have made an even better astronaut than a mu­sician, had he really been able to pursue his one true dream.

In overall curve terms, Everyone Is Everybody Else is the beginning of the fall — the initial transition works reasonably well, but when you start saving up on ideas (and most of these songs are really based on quite simple, repetitive, and scarce hooks), it does not usually take long before the infection takes over completely. With only one openly embarrassing track, at least one major highlight worthy of the old days (ʽFor No Oneʼ), and an overall inoffensive aura everywhere else, the album deserves an equally inoffensive thumbs up — much like, in fact, the Eagles do at their best, or CSNY do at their most relaxed. But it is an ominous thumbs up: from here on, the «big cheese dip» is all but completely predictable.

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Bee Gees: One

BEE GEES: ONE (1989)

1) Ordinary Lives; 2) One; 3) Bodyguard; 4) It's My Neighborhood; 5) Tears; 6) Tokyo Nights; 7) Flesh And Blood; 8) Wish You Were Here; 9) House Of Shame; 10) Will You Ever Let Me; 11) Wing And A Prayer.

This relatively quick (considering the previous six-year gap) follow-up to E.S.P. is nowhere near as awful, but, consequently, also lacks that album's shock factor — meaning that one might end up «liking» it more, but forgetting it quicker. With Mardin out of the picture again, the brothers went back to self-producing, and also relocated back to London from Florida; whether these trivia are related to the fact or not, on One they seem to have mostly overcome the difficulties of work­ing with new sounds, technologies, and equipment, so that the subdued synthesizers and electro­nic drums now grudgingly agree to work for the Bee Gees, not vice versa.

To be more precise, the melodies are a little more noticeable, the vocal harmonies are reasserted as the Gibbs' chief reason for existence, and the final mix corrects the major sonic errors of E.S.P. All of which is positive, but, unfortunately, never eliminates the main problem: the Bee Gees are now firmly stuck in «soft adult contemporary» mode, and there is no escape — going retro is not a solution, as the brothers continue to stubbornly believe in their commercial vitality, and this means trend-hopping and sucking up to mainstream values.

Actually, maybe if these efforts of theirs had sunk like a stone, this would have given them food for thought. Unfortunately, they did not. One was nowhere near as commercially successful as E.S.P., but it did climb high enough, and the title track, released as a single, hit No. 7 on the US charts — their absolute peak there ever since the late 1970s. Maybe the public sensed traces of the old magic in it: the opening upbeat rhythm and Barry's trademark-sexy "I feel my heart beat.." intro are indeed reminiscent of ʽJive Talkin'ʼ, as if somebody wrote a simple computer algorithm that would create a robo-electronic variation on the original theme. Which kind of gives you the lowdown already: imagine the old disco vibe revamped for the late 1980s market of rhythmic adult contemporary muzak. And that's ʽOneʼ the song, and One the album for you in a nutshell.

Mood-wise, the record is sad, since the latter part of the sessions took place in the wake of the departure of brother Andy Gibb, victim of an unfortunate combination of genetic weakness and drug abuse. Hence all the stuff like ʽTearsʼ and particularly ʽWish You Were Hereʼ, sincerely de­dicated to Andy's memory — it's only too bad that the songs received such bland, pale-grayish electronic cocoons instead of something at least superficially more tasteful: I mean, why not hire a string quartet,  at least? Or just use a solo acoustic guitar? Something?..

The album includes only one piece of «rock»-oriented material: Barry and old friend Alan Ken­dall have finally mastered the pop-metal style and feed ʽIt's My Neighborhoodʼ with distorted guitar riffs and a hysterically screeching Van Halen-style guitar solo. The effect is mostly laugh­able, since the song's biggest hook is still the pop chorus of "it's my neighborhood, it's where I belong", and the «tough» guitar sound of the track is just flamboyant poseur stuff. Much the same goes for the generic electro-funk of ʽWill You Ever Let Meʼ, with nothing to distinguish it from ten million songs in the same style — although both songs provide some respite from the endless stream of slow, mood-oriented ballads (ʽBodyguardʼ, ʽTokyo Nightsʼ, etc.).

Robin and Maurice take lead vocals on a few songs: Maurice dominates the lost love pop-rocker ʽHouse Of Shameʼ, and Robin directs the broken hearted blues-rocker ʽFlesh And Bloodʼ, and both end up more or less equally tedious. Barry lapses into falsetto occasionally, but this is not nearly as big a problem as the noticeable aging of all the voices — now that the brothers are past fourty, some of the sharpness is lost and their tones tend to gravitate towards each other: twenty years ago, it really mattered a lot who sang what, but now it isn't that much of a deal.

Anyway, by far the only recommendation for One that I can think of is that it is, indeed, «dark», probably the most sincerely tragic record they had ever made up to that point. Considering that a lack of sincerity had always been the major accusation hurled at the Gibbs from the very begin­ning of their career, this could be a hell of a recommendation. Unfortunately, in 1989 it was more than just a little late — whatever genuine emotion they try to preserve on these tapes is ultimately wasted with (at best) mediocre songwriting and thoroughly unimaginative arrangements. I cannot imagine the album being enjoyed by anyone but the starkest Gibb fans, always ready to look be­yond the form and right into the spirit — or, at least, what they think of as the spirit. Everybody else will probably have to just share the thumbs down.

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Blues Magoos: Never Goin' Back To Georgia

BLUES MAGOOS: NEVER GOIN' BACK TO GEORGIA (1969)

1) Heartbreak Hotel; 2) Heart Attack; 3) The Hunter; 4) Feelin' Time; 5) Gettin' Off; 6) Never Goin' Back To Geor­gia; 7) Brokedown Piece Of Man; 8) Nobody Knows You When You're Down And Out; 9) Georgia Breakdown.

Oh yeah, as if these Bronx fellas had ever been to Georgia. This and the following album usually get a very bad rap compared to the earlier stuff — for the simple, objective, and respectable rea­son that this is a «phony» version of the Blues Magoos. The real Blues Magoos, fed up with lack of success, split in late '68: the only original member of the band to have renewed the contract with ABC Records is Peppy Castro, a.k.a. Emil Thielhelm, and the rest are all new — including keyboardist and songwriter Eric Kaz, who would later earn a living by getting his songs covered by the likes of Linda Ronstadt and Bonnie Raitt. The others are even darker horses.

The «revamped» Blues Magoos, sniffin' the whiffin' of the times, were no longer a psychedelic or a garage rock band — they were «rootsy» artists now, dabbling in blues-rock, jazz-rock, and folk-rock with such a serious face on that the album is stuffed with five-, six-, and seven-minute-long explorations of this suddenly discovered «earthy» component of their spirits. The shift — if it is at all possible to speak in terms of «shifts», considering that what we have here is an entirely dif­ferent band — anyway, «the shift» is quite expectable, given the times, but the ability of Peppy Castro to make his new band rival The Byrds or The Band?..

Still, this is an interesting album. It does feature an unusual gimmick — in the keyboards depart­ment, huge emphasis is placed on chimes (xylophones?) as a lead instrument, which gives the record a nifty «cool jazz» flavor; and many of its pieces are either purely instrumental or feature lengthy instrumental sections, which is quite alright considering that the band still lacks a good singer — Thielhelm's voice is weak and stiff, completely beyond competition in an era of Van Morrisons, Joe Cockers, and Rod Stewarts (and these are only the white guys). On ʽGettin' Offʼ, they go as far as trying to play some dissonant jazz piano solo passages à la Thelonious, and you know what? I couldn't really state with certainty that they're «bad» solo passages.

The album really falls flat on its face on the «tough» numbers — ʽThe Hunterʼ, due to the weak singing and the unimaginative, harmonica-based arrangement, is virtually nothing compared to, for instance, the Free version from that very same year. ʽHeartbreak Hotelʼ is a brave choice, but a suicidal one: the chosen arrangement, with its waltz tempos and xylophone solos, could be quirky and fun if the base song were different, but as it is, they drain the tune from all of its origi­nal darkness, and end up looking like clowns. Many a critic must have shot the needle off his stereo system in disgust before that first track was over.

Which is too bad, since the instrumental tunes on Side B are fairly moody — particularly the title track, with its quasi-Santana Latin beat; ʽGeorgia Breakdownʼ, added later on as a counterpoint, is slower and breezier, with lots of woodwinds spilled over the rhythm section, and it brings the record to a smooth, quiet end. Again, both are certainly more worthwhile than a flat, pedestrian rendition of ʽNobody Knows Youʼ — at this time, the new-look Blues Magoos are actually better as a «voiceless» lite jazz combo than as a rock band, and this is the biggest surprise of the album, one that prevents me from rating it with a thumbs down. Who knows, maybe this kind of sound might even have had a bigger future, had these guys themselves managed to properly understand what it was they were really on to here.

Bobby Bland: First Class Blues

BOBBY BLAND: FIRST CLASS BLUES (1987)

1) Two Steps From The Blues; 2) St. James Infirmary; 3) Members Only; 4) Sunday Morning Love; 5) In The Ghetto; 6) Sweet Woman's Love; 7) Angel; 8) I've Just Got To Know; 9) Can We Make Love Tonight?; 10) After All; 11) I Hear You Thinkin'; 12) Straight From The Shoulder; 13) Love Me Or Leave Me; 14) Second Hand Heart; 15) Wal­kin' & Talkin' & Singin' The Blues; 16) Heart, Open Up Again.

Bobby's records of the first half of the 1980s, caught in the short, but sadly prolific period be­tween his nasty fall from artistic grace and the start of the CD era, are fairly hard to come by these days — an Ebay enthusiast would probably have few problems getting his hands on most of them, but why? Hint # 1: Sweet Vibrations (1980), Try Me, I'm Real (1981), and Here We Go Again (1982) each feature a hot young lady on the album sleeve — and only Tell Mr. Bland (1983) features a hot young lady next to Mr. Bland in person. Hint # 2: the first song on Sweet Vibrations actually bears the name of ʽSweet Vibratorʼ, which must be the lowest point in Mr. Bland's career, ever, even if the song were to have a melody of the highest caliber.

Anyway, judging by the few snippets of some of the songs that I did manage to hear, not all of this stuff is utterly awful — in fact, one of the reasons these albums may have disappeared without a trace is that, after the disco embarrassment, Bobby made no effort whatsoever to adapt to the electro-pop standards of the new decade. Just the same old story all over again — perfectly evident on his first CD, First Class Blues, which combined the «best» selections off his previous two albums, Members Only (1985) and After All (1986) with two re-recordings of old classics (ʽTwo Steps From The Bluesʼ and ʽSt. James' Infirmaryʼ).

Quotation marks around «best» are necessary for the simple reason that, at this point, there is really no best or worst, no good or bad, no ups or downs in Bobby's suitcase — slow blues, blues-rock, and balladry are all on the same level of technicality and inspiration. The backing musicians are real enough, but sound like they're mostly in it for the money (the joke is on them, of course, since all the money to be made on Bobby Bland was made at least a decade ago). The drums and keyboards have the predictable electronic sheen; the guitars are professional and modestly taste­ful (no pop-metal influence detected), worthy of a Robert Cray on an effortless day («formally better than shit, but less impressive than shit», that is).

Probably the biggest piece of news is that Bobby's voice has not lost a single frequency in five years — only the grunting / snorting habit has become more irritating, what with the tendency to succumb to it on just about every song that builds up a tense atmosphere. Consequently, those who just love Bobby B. for being Bobby B. will love First Class Blues as usual — as long as Bobby's vocal cords are in order and the arrangements follow traditional patterns, who's to claim that anything here is actually second class?

However, those who are willing to discriminate will probably yawn and cringe at the routineness (not awfulness, but routineness) of the arrangements, and at the fact that pretty much the same emotional load is spread over Vegasy ballads like ʽMembers Onlyʼ, Vegasy blues like ʽSunday Morning Loveʼ, and old-time «socially relevant» songs like ʽIn The Ghettoʼ (personally, I've ne­ver been much of a fan of the Elvis version, but at least it used to convey something special — here, the song does not even begin to stand out against the background). It's all listenable, for sure, but generic mid-1980s blues arrangements are a couple notches below generic mid-1970s blues arrangements (yes, the grass was greener and all that), and in the absence of any compensating factors of «surprise», this is altogether a thumbs down type of album, even if, probably, not the same kind of a thumbs down album as the one that has ʽSweet Vibratorʼ on it.

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Adele: Live At The Royal Albert Hall

ADELE: LIVE AT THE ROYAL ALBERT HALL (2011)

1) Hometown Glory; 2) I'll Be Waiting; 3) Don't You Remember; 4) Turning Tables; 5) Set Fire To The Rain; 6) If It Hadn't Been For Love; 7) My Same; 8) Take It All; 9) Rumour Has It; 10) Right As Rain; 11) One And Only; 12) Lovesong; 13) Chasing Pavements; 14) I Can't Make You Love Me; 15) Make You Feel My Love; 16) Someone Like You; 17) Rolling In The Deep.

Not a lot of people, I would guess, get to play the Albert Hall upon releasing only two albums. To the skeptics, this would probably mean a gruesomely played out PR campaign — and to the idea­lists, it would be a confirmation that here we finally have something really great, really other­worldly, so phenomenally talented that even the tightassed music industry bosses have to kowtow before this unbelievable power of a 21-year old upstart who doesn't even have the sex appeal of a Taylor Swift. And in a way, both the skeptic and the idealist would be right.

The album, actually, is not a «proper» CD release: the entire concert was predictably captured on video, and comes in DVD format with all the tracks duplicated on an audio CD. However, I do feel, upon both watching and listening, that this is an important release in «The Extraordinary Story Of Adele A.», deserving of its own brief review — not to mention that it did sell around 3 million copies worldwide, and hit No. 2 on the UK charts as well, which is fairly impressive for a live album these days.

First of all, the setlist is a little discomforting — with only two albums behind her back, she re­produces 21 almost in its entirety, with less than half of 19 getting an honorable mention; surely at least such highlights as ʽDaydreamʼ or ʽCold Shoulderʼ deserved, well, more than a cold shoul­der. Some of the reasons could be technical — for instance, much of the material on 19 was ra­ther sparsely arranged, leaving out many members of her current touring band (which, for this particular occasion, also includes a small orchestra), or perhaps she already thought of some of those early songs as tentative or even «dated». But it wouldn't have hurt, then, to compensate maybe with some obscurities or covers, considering how she has the same knack for doing Bob Dylan or The Cure as she has for her own songs.

Second, the lady has an obvious stage problem — not so evident on the audio CD, which gene­rously cuts out all the banter, but very irritating on the DVD, where almost every song is intro­duced with around two to five minutes of narrative on life experience told in prime quality Tot­tenham dialect. Frankly speaking, the few bits I did manage to understand were neither too in­sightful nor particularly funny, and overall, the impression was very much the same I get from listening to Ani DiFranco live albums: the artist is trying way too hard to come across as a «real human being» — in a sense, this really comes across as a condescending gesture: trying to get the audience to relax and shed its tenseness and confusion in the presence of The Great Artist, who is really The Average Everyday Person in artistic disguise. (Also agrees with the swearing — heavy use of the F-word is one of the true features of the AEP, and so, in the good old tradition of Pete Townshend and Co., there is plenty of that there. One might ask why the heck isn't there any ac­tual swearing in the songs, then — oh, right, to avoid radio censorship.)

Fortunately, this talkative attitude does not seep in much into the music, other than a few evil cackles every now and then that she inserts at the end of the songs to beat down the pathos level (see ʽRumour Has Itʼ, for instance). The music is flawless — since she is no R&B queen and does not feel the need to flutter around the stage, this allows her to fully concentrate on the singing, and every single tune is done at least as well as on the original version, and occasionally maybe even better. (She does not play any instruments here, although she used to in the early days of 19 — but now that she can afford as many backup players as she needs, why bother?). The only dis­appointment is ʽRollin' In The Deepʼ, where a large chunk of the chorus vocals is given over to the audience — when the first "we could have had it all..." comes along and Adele is not in it at all, that's sort of a bummer. But I guess it must have felt different back there: audience participa­tion feels like a total gas until you get to hear it reproduced on an audio recording.

Anyway, returning to the beginning of the review, Live At The Royal Albert Hall really does show that the Adele phenomenon owes its success to about fifty percent genius and fifty percent meticulous image calculation — which is alright by me, since that's the way it's been since the Beatles, heck, since Mozart and Liszt, I guess. By all means, the DVD is epochal and a must-have, capturing all the strengths and weaknesses of the artist at the same time: in fact, despite the gene­rally negative feel I have about this wound-up stage image, the contrast between how she looks and sounds when chattering away and when singing one of her soulful ballads or rhythmic stom­pers is strong enough to make you appreciate «Adele the artist» even more than you did before you got the chance to «know» a little bit of her as «Adele the commoner». Thumbs up.

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Amorphis: Circle

AMORPHIS: CIRCLE (2013)

1) Shades Of Gray; 2) Mission; 3) The Wanderer; 4) Narrow Path; 5) Hopeless Days; 6) Nightbird's Song; 7) Into The Abyss; 8) Enchanted By The Moon; 9) A New Day; 10*) Dead Man's Dream.

Apparently, Amorphis work around the clock now — their internal algorithm is programmed to print out the results every two years, and thus, here is yet another set of melodic death metal an­thems that sounds every bit as loud, proud, and doom-laden as every other set of melodic death metal anthems they had released since... well, you know.

One thing that I have noticed is that, by this time, even some of the veteran fans on Internet message boards started to sort of fiddle around and grumble about how preciously few new sen­sations they were offered. This may have to do with an important change in style, which might not be noticeable immediately, but whose surreptitious effects may be harming the listener's sys­tem from the very start — the album is extremely hot on guitars and quite modest on keyboards. Most of the songs drop the «wimpy» keyboard intros that were quite prominent, for instance, on The Beginning Of Times, and dive straight into battle. Santeri Kallio is still there alright, but he is intentionally pushed into the background, as if Amorphis decided to make a «hardcore» album all of a sudden.

But the decision does not do much good. Essentially, all the songs simply sound even more like each other now than they did before — dissipate your attention a bit and you will never know which one is which. Granted, some of the riffs are more memorable than others... and some are less memorable than others... and... and... okay, the flute is back in ʽNarrow Pathʼ, so prominent­ly, in fact, that one could take the song for a Jethro Tull circa Songs From The Wood outtake, re­done in a grinding heavy metal arrangement. (There is even more flute — in fact, a whole delirious Ian Anderson-style solo — in the middle of ʽNightbird's Songʼ as well).

Other than that, as usual, the album is undescribable in non-technical terms, because each single riff aims more or less at the same emotional goals that Amorphis have pursued since the dawn of time. Mind you, they aren't bad riffs: on the whole, this is not the dullest Amorphis album ever — Skyforger is probably worse — but if the band's concept of rethinking their sound is really con­fined to ideas like «let's cut down on the keyboards a little bit», this is not even funny, and just goes to show how deep the rut is.

I actually wish more of the tracks here were like the bonus inclusion: ʽDead Man's Dreamʼ breaks in with a top-notch death metal riff, growling vocals, and speed — something that is completely lacking on the main body of the album (which is probably why they relegated it to bonus status, so as not to disrupt the conceptuality). ʽNarrow Pathʼ, with its Celtic dance focus, and this thing, with its speedy thump, are pretty much the only mood-breakers on the record. But yeah, at least these guys can still play, that is for certain.

An interesting technical note is that this is pretty much the band's first album (in a long time, at least) not to draw its lyri­cal inspiration directly from Kalevala — this time, there is some sort of «original» concept about a struggling loser empowered by a spiritual guide and, well, whatever. In reality, this makes about as much difference as the downtoning of the keyboards — big-time fans will take notice, and as for the rest of us, who really cares these days? The good thing is, with these guys still steering the ship with firm hands and iron vocal cords, good old Finland probably has nothing to fear but fear itself.

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