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.

Beulah: The Coast Is Never Clear

BEULAH: THE COAST IS NEVER CLEAR (2001)

1) Hello Resolven; 2) A Good Man Is Easy To Kill; 3) What Will You Do When Your Suntan Fades?; 4) Gene Autry; 5) Silver Lining; 6) Popular Mechanics For Lovers; 7) Gravity's Bringing Us Down; 8) Hey Brother; 9) I'll Be Your Lampshade; 10) Cruel Minor Change; 11) Burned By The Sun; 12) Night Is The Day Turned Inside Out.

If this line of thinking applies to a band as intellectually twisted as Beulah at all, then this album should pro­bably count as their masterpiece. You can almost feel their brain cells writhe, sizzle, and burn up in flames, as they attempt to come up with «the perfect pop formula». Instrumenta­tion, production, hooks, moods, vocal modulations that reflect careful study of what there was before with a pinch of trying to look into what will come after — the Amazing Songwriting Labo­ratory of Dr. Kurosky at its functional peak, colored smoke rising out of the chimneys and bizarre fragrance smelled for miles around.

But the more they try, the more they baffle listeners such as myself (and I have also encountered the same reaction among quite a few music lovers on the Web). Every single song on The Coast sounds lovely, classy, and inspiring... while it's on. No sooner than the album is over, nothing remains in my brain — not a single goddamn note of it. And subsequent listens do not rectify the situation. This is their best album, clearly and expressly filled with pop hooks almost to the brim, but at the end of the day, they just skedaddle. Vamoose. Melt in the air like a mirage. Every single song on here has more «intelligence» and «depth» to it than ʽLucy In The Sky With Dia­mondsʼ, but Lucy is still here with us, and Beulah are not. What the hell?..

Let us take one single song and scrutinize it, to try and understand what's so wrong here. After the brief mood-setting intro, the first complete, self-sufficient, and technically impeccable number is ʽA Good Man Is Easy To Killʼ, whose lyrics deal with a car crash that involved Kurosky's father and prompted him to explore the proverbial father/son relationship in his art — so put this up as a plus (personal matter, adds to the song's level of sincerity and emotional involvement, etc.). The song begins with a loud, nasty fuzz riff, then expands with an agitated, Tull-style flute part and vocal harmonies, then calms down and slows down to the «baroque» verse section with strings, brass, and a pop vocal part straight out of the Beatles textbook. Short sparkling piano bridge to the chorus — a humble plea of "give up, give up your love / I promise it's not gonna kill ya" — and then back to the fuzz riff / flute / vocal harmony trio again. Repeat a couple of times, then cut to the fadeout where the brass and flutes get a little crazier and start threatening to punch each other out before the fadeout washes them all away.

Seems like a clever, sensible song, but something's just not fuckin' right about it. Maybe it is the disparity between the vocal and instrumental parts — the tenderness of the verse/chorus is in sharp conflict with the agitated nature of the fuzz riff bits, and the two give a «phoney» feel of being spliced for no particular reason whatsoever; there is no sense in the song fluctuating between these two states, nor does the music hint at any transition. Maybe it is the vocals — Kurosky cannot help it, of course, but his singing voice, devoid of solid range or any sort of in­dividual flavor, is bland, and does not do justice to the potential of the vocal melody. Or maybe it is the melody itself — take the fuzz riff, for instance, and try to compare it with a great fuzz riff, like ʽSatisfactionʼ, or, heck, ʽIn-A-Gadda-Da-Vidaʼ. Those ones had a bite and menace to them, but Beulah's riff just sounds thick and dumb to me. Same with the flute — if you are going to evoke Tull associations, why not learn more than just two different phrases on the instrument?

It would be all too simple to say that the song does not work properly just because Beulah are bad songwriters, but that would be wrong. Kurosky is a pretty good songwriter — his mistake is in that he is very far from a genius songwriter, yet he makes music that, want it or not, intrudes directly on the turf of at least half a dozen genius songwriters of the 1960s. Consequently, Beulah's masterpiece is their completion of the «triumph of form over substance» attitude — all the more ironic considering that the songs have their meanings, and reveal them to anybody who is willing to look for them. But there are meanings and meanings, and The Coast Is Clear, being full of «literal» meanings (as in, «ʽA Good Manʼ reflects the complex feelings that the author ex­perienced while his father was battling death...», etc.), has never once managed to hit me in my soft emotional spots — from which I conclude that it has no «musical» meaning, as such, as subjective as that harsh judgement may sound.

Still, due admiration must be expressed for all the doggone hard work that went into making the record so diverse and inventive. As long as I am writing this at the same time as the sweet sounds flow out from the speakers, ʽGene Autryʼ is a dang fine pop-rocker about the disparity between fantasy and reality (good hook — the pessimistic conclusion of "everybody drowns, sad and lonely alright" laid out on the listener in an optimistic manner); ʽPopular Mechanics For Loversʼ bops along with a clever mix of joyfulness and melancholia (and the "just because he loves you too / he would never take a bullet for you" bit might be the catchiest move on the album); ʽI'll Be Your Lampshadeʼ, whose title is probably a subtle reference to ʽI'll Be Your Mirrorʼ, mixes country and vaudeville in a very odd fashion; and they save their most ambitious and anthemic brass riffs for the album closer ʽNight Is The Day Turned Inside Outʼ to provide a suitably loud, mock-heroic, ride-out-in-the-sunset conclusion. It's all good.

But now the album is over, and... how did it go again? Damn, it's really irritating. No wonder, after all, that these guys were never able to find a mass market, or that retro-oriented art-pop in general stays so tightly glued to the indie community. Maybe it's just that the likeliest candidate to write the best Beatles song never written would probably be a person who's never listened to the Beatles in the first place. Or maybe it's all much simpler, and they should have found them­selves a better vocalist. In any case, I give the album one of those «intellectually-driven» thumbs up — for inventiveness, imagination, and hard labor. For everything else, please refer yourself to this band's many influences instead.

Bettie Serveert: Dust Bunnies

BETTIE SERVEERT: DUST BUNNIES (1997)

1) Geek; 2) Link; 3) Musher; 4) Dust Bunny; 5) What Friends; 6) Misery Galore; 7) Story In A Nutshell; 8) Sugar The Pill; 9) Rudder; 10) Pork And Beans; 11) Fallen Foster; 12) Co-Coward; 13) Heaven.

Who's got the floor? The Rev. Stephen Th. Erlewine from the All-Music Guide has got the floor: «Instead of developing or refining their sound», says the Reverend in his brief, but stern assess­ment of Dust Bunnies, «Bettie Serveert stay within their self-imposed boundaries, crafting small, simple jangle-pop songs that never rock too hard or sound too soft». And hear this: «Dust Bun­nies... doesn't necessarily return the band to the heights of Palomine. Musically, Dust Bunnies is no different than its two predecessors, and the group's lack of development is a little bit eerie...» Am I the only one to be a little bit confused here? One one hand, we have «the heights of Palo­mine», implying that the band's third album is a «low» in comparison, but on the other hand, musically, it is no different than Palomine. Hmm. Given my own experience as a review writer, I'd say these hard-to-resolve self-contradictions usually get written when the writer has nothing to say whatsoever. But if it is a band like Bettie Serveert we're talking about, I would think it's only natural. Let us not judge the Reverend too harshly. He probably had approximately 50,000 re­views scheduled for that day anyway.

In any case, I only mentioned this since my own reaction turns out to be surprisingly different: Dust Bunnies is the very first Bettie Serveert album that I can sit through without being consis­tently bored out of my skull. Indeed, it is «lighter», and also «tighter», than its two predecessors, as if the band had finally embarked on a definite journey to becoming a normal pop-rock band, rather than retaining their carefully styled «indie kids» image. What this means in objective terms: (a) the songs become shorter, so that they are now able to cram 13 of them into 41 minutes, rather than 11 into 49 minutes, as it used to be; (b) the songs frequently pick up the tempo, meaning that even if you can't memorize one, you can at least tap your foot to it (and it is psychologically important, no matter what the serious introspective types tell you with scorn); (c) some of the songs actually have distinctive power-pop riffs — not amazingly great riffs, but actual melodic lines that, you know, explore harmonic space rather than simply exist in it.

So it is not at all in the musical sphere where there has been no change; rather it is in the artistic sphere, since all the songs are still subjugated to the idea that Bettie Serveert is, above everything else, a platform for Carol van Dijk to materialize her endless rants about everything that's wrong in the world today — mainly guys behaving like dumbasses, dickheads, or chickenshits, but every once in a while she also takes on the music industry (ʽRudderʼ). Unfortunately, she still makes no effort to introduce even a little character-defining personality to her singing, but since the basic approach is to be tighter than usual, at least some of the songs now feature marginally catchy chorus hooks (ʽWhat Friends?ʼ, which also has one of the album's best riffs and could therefore qualify for the «best song» competition).

Other quality choices include ʽSugar The Pillʼ, written and performed in Lou Reed style, a per­cussion-free «urban ballad» with a laid-back, but bitter atmosphere, and probably Carol's only exceptional bit of vocal artistry on this record; ʽPork And Beansʼ, a jangly rocker à la Pretenders that seems to be about the unhealthy relationships between highbrow stars and lowlife admirers, but we've come a long way from Ray Davies to allow ourself to be so unambiguous in our un­derstanding; and, continuing the already established tradition, ʽHeavenʼ, the album's last track, is a softer, moodier ballad that shows Carol's «vulnerable» side (or «childish» side, if you will) and is somehow more charming than all the rest of the album put together.

In between these songs, there is still plenty of tunes that are completely non-descript (I mean, the draggy sound of something like ʽMusherʼ fully justifies its title), but regardless of that, this is a big musical step forward for the band. If critics at the time, like the Reverend quoted above, ten­ded to shoot 'em down, it could have really been triggered by overrating them right from the start: Palomine pretended to more depth and «authenticity of feeling», and felt right at home with the indie aesthetics, but ultimately, it was unoriginal, confused, and boring, and the realization of that must have caught up with the critics right by the time of Dust Bunnies — an album that is much less boring, yet the critical mass imagined it as more boring, go figure. Anyway, a mild thumbs up here, although the band is still growing up and only beginning to cut its teeth in the standard «art-pop» format.

Beth Orton: Central Reservation

BETH ORTON: CENTRAL RESERVATION (1999)

1) Stolen Car; 2) Sweetest Decline; 3) Couldn't Cause Me Harm; 4) So Much More; 5) Pass In Time; 6) Central Re­servation; 7) Stars All Seem To Weep; 8) Love Like Laughter; 9) Blood Red River; 10) Devil Song; 11) Feel To Believe; 12) Central Reservation (the Then Again version).

This is probably Beth's critical, if not commercial, peak, as the album mostly got rave reviews and ended up on several popular best-of lists. But this seems more a matter of conjecture and op­portunity than anything else — Beth was in good form, but she'd also worked on her public ap­peal and musical world connections, and by the time the record came out, there was an intellec­tual fanbase that was ready to sit up and take note. Well, I guess you just have to get some compensation for touring with Lilith Fair, after all.

The album as a whole is typical «mature» Beth Orton: boring as heck the first few times you listen to it, and then, depending on your Zodiac sign or diet peculiarities, it either just goes on being boring, or it «sinks in» and you begin to appreciate the subtle magic of the vocals or the intricate, if inobtrusive, details of the arrangements. You can also begin to appreciate the artistic personality of Beth Orton, but this may be the hardest task of all — she is quite elusive, and her joys and sorrows may pretend to more depth than they actually have (which, when proven, is the worst possible crime of all, but the jury is divided on that one).

If you feel like you'd want to enjoy this album, but can't imagine how, here's two possible lines of advice. First, this is one Beth Orton record where she managed to put together quite a few noto­rious guest stars, and every once in a while, they help out in spicing up her songwriting craft. On ʽStolen Carʼ, the lead-in track and first single off the album, Ben Harper contributes an eerie lead guitar part with something like a backward echo effect — it fulfills more or less the same func­tion as the strings on ʽShe Cries Your Nameʼ, which opened Trailer Park, turning a regular singer-songwriting effort into an «art song». Then, on the lengthy soft waltz ʽSweetest Declineʼ, which is nothing much to write home about by itself, Dr. John sits in on piano and gives it some of his nonchalantly brilliant New Orleanian atmosphere. Then there's quite a badass bass line on the trip-hoppy groove of ʽCouldn't Cause Me Harmʼ — maybe not much else of autonomous interest, but the coolness of the bassline rubs off a little on the guitars, strings, and chimes, making it all sound a little classy. And so on, and on: most of the songs have these «little things» that will stand out in time, provided time is given.

Second, this time, some of the songs that are built strictly around Beth and her acoustic guitar are actually quite good — me referring in particular to ʽBlood Red Riverʼ and ʽDevil Songʼ, whose bleakness, depression, and pathos (and preachiness, in case of the former) I do not find in the least irritating, because the former has a cunningly catchy verse melody and the latter, an equally cunningly catchy chorus melody. Atmosphere-wise, they are both sung from the point of view of some present-day Mary Magdalene, and this makes you feel uneasy — I mean, God only knows what that woman is wishing to confess by saying "Devil was my angel, now I'm just not sure / To travel as my angel there's always my whore". But I can buy it, musically and lyrically, and I can believe she's got some demons of her own to exorcise, so whatever.

Some of this stuff never clicks with me, like the lengthy centerpiece ʽPass In Timeʼ, allegedly written in memory of her late mother — not particularly clichéd, and certainly not overblown, but too musically close to generic «alt-country», and perhaps in need of a more nuanced singing voice to make an impression (and definitely without any need to arrange it as a duet with Terry Callier, whose voice adds nothing but extra blandness to the song); or the title track, which has no melodic backbone whatsoever and consists of a New Age-y mish-mash of keyboards, guitars, and strings without any progressive development or discernible hook (a typical Enya song would feel like a Beatles single next to this).

But on the whole, the record is hardly any worse than Trailer Park, and although it certainly has no business being on the list of 1001 Albums To Hear Before You Die, as Wikipedia informs me in one of its «stay objective» mood swings, there is no reason to deprive it of a thumbs up, either. Essentially, what Beth Orton has managed to do here is take a proverbially uninteresting prota­gonist — and use a combination of mediocre songwriting skills, inventive producers, and sympa­thetic guest stars to breathe some new life into her, and I appreciate that. What I don't appreciate is that the album's last song, ʽFeel To Believeʼ expropriates the basic hook of Paul McCartney's ʽFor No Oneʼ to build a thoroughly inferior song on top of it — "hey, that's no way to say good­bye", as Leonard Cohen would have said. But then again, she might just be an innocent victim of the «great Beatles curse» as we know it.

Black Sabbath: Master Of Reality

BLACK SABBATH: MASTER OF REALITY (1971)

1) Sweet Leaf; 2) After Forever; 3) Embryo; 4) Children Of The Grave; 5) Orchid; 6) Lord Of This World; 7) Soli­tude; 8) Into The Void.

Black Sabbath invented the image; Paranoid made it a part of the popular (sub)conscious and the general «rock idiom», if such a thing could be defined altogether. In comparison to those two records, the scope of Master Of Reality, the band's third and, up to that point, shortest record, seems to be more limited and concentrated — yet, as many agree, it is probably the single album in the history of music that is most responsible for the emergence of «heavy metal» as an auto­nomous genre. And, even more importantly, like quite a few of these daring progenitors, it is at the same time an album that sounds like no other heavy metal album ever recorded. Its ambitions are limited; its impressions, unparalleled.

This is where Tony began downtuning his guitar «in earnest», three semi-tones down, at first, just to ease string tension and save his chopped-up fingers some pain, and then, because it turned out to give such an awesome effect. Even without this decision, the riffs he came up with on Master Of Reality would have been among the band's best; with it, they come dangerously close to over­riding the band's «cartoonish» image and dragging your mind with them into some perilous, pre­viously unexplored abyss — ʽInto The Voidʼ indeed. If there is one particular subgenre of metal that this album should be associated with, it would be «stoner metal», because this is the kind of music capable of inflicting a brain meltdown. «Doom metal» would be a close second, though, since no other Sabbath album conjures up such a vivid apocalyptic panorama.

Lyrically and emotionally, Master Of Reality is, of course, a conceptual album. Most of the songs deal with sin, temptation, impending doom, catastrophes, and possibilities of redemption and salvation — essentially, as it is well known, Sabbath's heaviest and most musically brutal re­cord is also their most authentic «Christian rock» record, for which Geezer intentionally designed a set of lyrics that would help rid the band of their «Satanic» image. Of course, it did not help: with riffs of such impact and power that only Lucifer himself could have imprinted in Iommi's mind, who gives a damn about the lyrics? Oh, there's something about the Pope on the end of a rope in ʽAfter Foreverʼ, and we're really much too busy to explore the context of that line...

...but the fact is, the lyrics are way too dissonant with the music. Look at this song called ʽChil­dren Of The Graveʼ, where the title alone suffices to conjure an association with George Romero. Its basic message: "They're tired of being pushed around and told just what to do / They'll fight the world until they've won and love comes flowing through". Now think what sort of music this message would be accompanied with in the hands of, say, Jefferson Airplane. (You might need to relisten to Volunteers for that). Now look at the quintessentially «necromantic» guitar/bass riff duo that accompanies it in Black Sabbath's vision. Believing Geezer that the song glorifies young peaceful idealists is about as easy as believing that George Romero's zombies have really come to save the world from corruption and sin. The mercilessly galloping music, crushing everything in its path, seems to be more fit for the Horsemen of the Apocalypse — and the only thing that re­mains once the riders have trampled out everything in sight are a few eerie, ghostly wisps in the graveyard, providing a horror-movie coda to the song.

Or take ʽInto The Voidʼ. The verbal message: Earth is doomed, ruined by mindless slaves of Satan and destroyed by their mishandling of the ecology, but maybe some of us will be able to find peace and happiness somewhere out there in space some day. The music: First part — yes, yes, and yes, second part — where??? Is there anything in the song's iron melody that gives even the faintest glint of «peace and happiness»? It is simply one brutal beating after the other, an in­cessant queue of terror-inspiring melodic lines where the last instrumental section could be a musical interpretation of somebody being slowly tortured, stretched out on a rack, held over a burning flame, flogged, then finally decapitated in a last act of mercy. "Peace and happiness in every day", in this context, is like a faraway dream, an illusion in the inflamed mind of a slave that has no grounding whatsoever in reality.

Speaking of ʽInto The Voidʼ, I have to add that this song begins with my own personal favorite guitar riff of all time in the «complex» variety (as opposed to simpler, shorter phrasing). Nick­named ʽDeathmaskʼ, in actuality it has always generated one and only one image in my mind: that of a slowly awakening Great Serpent, lazily unwrapping its coils as it prepares to embrace and crush the whole world in them. In all the history of heavy metal that I have heard (and I've heard quite a few), no other complex riff, be it Metallica, Amorphis, Opeth, or any other thrash or art-metal act, has managed to conjure such a clear and vivid picture for me, though, of course, that is a purely personal impression. (A close second would probably be Led Zeppelin's ʽNo Quarterʼ and its horrifying Viking ships sailing out of the mist of J. P. Jones' keyboards). So much for «peace and happiness» indeed.

But the discrepancy does not end there. ʽSweet Leafʼ is the only heavy rocker on the album whose lyrical theme has nothing to do with the concept — it is, as is also well-known, the band's sentimental (and still somewhat brave in those days) ode to the joys of smoking pot, initiated with a looped recording of Tony's cough (apparently Ozzy brought him a pretty strong joint one of those days). That's understandable, but what of the music? Not being a dope smoker, I couldn't really vouch for it, but based on all sorts of outside evidence, the crashing, thrashing riff that drives the song is hardly typical of a pot smoker's sensation, unless we're talking some really bad trip, certainly not one that would cause you to sing "my life is free now, my life is clear". For what it's worth, the riff of ʽSweet Leafʼ also gives me a clear vision — huge ocean waves brea­king on the shore in steady rhythmic succession. Should have been a song about a thunderstorm or a tsunami or something like that.

For some reason, ʽLord Of This Worldʼ is the only song on the album that never made a com­parable impression on me — maybe because its riffs have seemed more «traditional», in a heavy blues-rock manner, to me than any others on the album (I used to think of this song as the only one here that early Led Zeppelin would be able to come up with just as well); which is not to say that it does not kick its own major ass, just in a slightly less mind-blowing way than everything else on here. At least it's one of those songs where the lyrical content does fully match the music, as Ozzy sings it from start to finish from the straight perspective of the «Master of Reality».

In between those ultra-heavy, earth-rattling monsters the band has inserted several rather worth­less «breathers» — two brief acoustic instrumentals and one dark folk ballad (!), ʽSolitudeʼ, which, frankly speaking, sounds more like Country Joe & The Fish than Black Sabbath and is not even all that interesting from a «novelty» point of view, like ʽPlanet Caravanʼ from the last al­bum. But, of course, this kind of structure became quite influential in heavy metal, too, with the idea of quiet acoustic interludes attenuating the ferocity of the heavy distorted riffs and serving as «book­marks» to help distinguish one heavy metal anthem from another. If anything, the band did not really have the intention of coming across as the proverbial one-trick pony, particularly when the songs threatened to merge together into one gigantic devilish monolith.

But as great an album as Master Of Reality is, perhaps its greatest greatness is in the fact that Sabbath never tried to make another one just like it — most metal bands, had they been blessed with the fortune of falling upon such a rich sound, would have probably milked it to death a dozen times over, running the formula into the ground and debasing it to self-parody status. In the case of Black Sabbath, though, there is only one Master Of Reality, spawning a million pale imitations from everybody except its own authors. Which easily makes it the heaviest album ever recorded in the history of popular music, bar none — from the crashing storm surge of ʽSweet Leafʼ to the thundering horsemen of ʽChildren Of The Graveʼ to the dreadful serpents and iron maidens of ʽInto The Voidʼ, no other collection has managed to match its simple, but stunning vision. So, clearly, a big thumbs up here for this unmatched show of brutality.

Bob Dylan: The Bootleg Series Vol. 6 (Concert At Philharmonic Hall)

BOB DYLAN: THE BOOTLEG SERIES VOL. 6: CONCERT AT PHILHARMONIC HALL (1964; 2004)

1) The Times They Are A-Changin'; 2) Spanish Harlem Incident; 3) Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues; 4) To Ramona; 5) Who Killed Davey Moore?; 6) Gates Of Eden; 7) If You Gotta Go, Go Now (Or Else You Got To Stay All Night); 8) It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding); 9) I Don't Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Have Met); 10) Mr. Tambourine Man; 11) A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall; 12) Talkin' World War III Blues; 13) Don't Think Twice, It's Alright; 14) The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll; 15) Mama, You Been On My Mind; 16) Silver Dagger; 17) With God On Our Side; 18) It Ain't Me Babe; 19) All I Really Want To Do.

Or maybe this, too, could be «Dylan's best live album», despite not featuring a backing band at all and not having anything to do with «rock and roll» as such — just Bob, Bob's acoustic guitar, Bob's diatonic harmonica, and Bob's Joan Baez on four of the tracks. Actually, if you do have the physical copy of the album already, this review will be completely unnecessary, because the astute liner notes by Sean Wilentz (who did really attend the show in question) provide all the information and all the extra food for thought you'd need, and I have nothing of use to add to the man's insightful retro-analysis of everything that was going on that night. But provided you do not have access to those liner notes, here be a lowly substitute of recycled information and plagia­rized conclusions for y'all.

The show was played on October 31, 1964, at New York's Philharmonic Hall, in preparation for Halloween ("I'm wearing my Bob Dylan mask!"). Another Side Of Bob Dylan had come out less than three months prior to that, and in two months' time he would be trying out the electric schtick; ʽMr. Tambourine Manʼ had not yet been officially released, but had already been exten­sively played out, and was clearly familiar to the audience. Basically, when the «Bootleg Series Team» decided that the next live album to be released would have to be for the acoustic period, the choice was between «classic acoustic phase» (Bob as Pete Seeger-approved hero of the protest movement) and «transitional acoustic phase» — and they settled on the tapes from the Philharmonic as a particularly well-played and well-preserved memento of the latter. What can I say? Awesome choice, probably (probably, because I don't have that much to compare it with).

Playing Live 1964 back to back with Live 1966 (especially its acoustic first half) will give you a good idea of just how much the man — and the times — had changed in less than two years. The Dylan of 1966 was a Dylan living in a cloud (and I don't even literally mean a cloud of dope, though that was relevant, too), separated from the audience by an invisible plexiglas layer. By contrast, the Dylan of 1964 is a lively, cheerful, charismatic fellow, already well aware of the great power that he can exercise over people and occasionally testing its limits — for instance, there is a moment there when he just absent-mindedly strums the chords to ʽI Don't Believe Youʼ for a couple of minutes before «admitting» that he does not remember the first verse, and having people in the front row explicitly remind him that yes, Bob, truly and verily we have faithfully memorized all the songs from your latest and greatest. (I do not buy it that he actually did forget the "I can't understand..." bit, although he does stumble once on a verse in the middle of ʽIt's Alright Maʼ, and then again, there's a hilarious stumble in the middle of ʽMama You Been On My Mindʼ where they have to trade some extra vocalising in between Bob and Joan).

He is also clearly a fellow that is way too tired of his «protest» image, as evidenced by the encore, where somebody jokingly requests ʽMary Had A Little Lambʼ and the man responds with "Did I write that?... Is that a protest song?" To that end, there are only three songs off The Times, his most symbolically «protest» album, and once he gives the impression of being about to launch into ʽBallad Of Hollis Brownʼ, but then switches gears and it becomes ʽHard Rainʼ. Even the early Freewheelin' material is downtrodden — no ʽBlowin' In The Windʼ in the setlist, no ʽMas­ters Of Warʼ, and as for ʽDon't Think Twiceʼ, it is executed in near-parodic mode ("well it ain't no use to sit and wonder why, BAAAAAAAAABE!") that sends the audience laughing rather than empathizing. Clearly, the time had come for something different, even if you had to slaughter some of your own sacred cows, or, at least, rudely de-sacralize them.

On the other end of the pole, we have previews of things to come — introductions of the as of yet brand new ʽGates Of Edenʼ and ʽIt's Alright, Maʼ ("it's a very funny song!" — yeah, right), which could have been known at best to a tiny handful of people in the audience; it is not clear how many people could get the words right, but it must be said that Bob plays both songs at slightly slower tempos than we are used to nowadays, and enunciates everything very clearly. For that matter, he also enunciates very clearly the comical sexual innuendos on ʽIf You Gotta Go, Go Nowʼ, sending the people up in roars of laughter after each verse — even a stren-faced folkie likes a good adulterous brawl every now and then.

The Joan Baez section is probably the weakest link of the show: she was a good foil for him in the «classic protest» days, but by late 1964 the vibe had died down, and their dueting on ʽWith God On Our Sideʼ feels a little «workmanlike» and not particularly inspiring. ʽMama You Been On My Mindʼ, envisioned here as a mental dialog between the two separated protagonists, works much better (when they do not forget the lyrics, that is), and Joan graciously gets a solo spot with the traditional song ʽSilver Daggerʼ (she is really very beautiful when she comes in small doses like this), but in the context of this show it is clearly seen that the Dylan/Baez partnership is over and out. "It ain't me you're looking for, babe". Was it intentional that he had her participate in this as the show's final duet? I think it was.

Anyway, even despite the fact that there is relatively little space to rearrange and reinvent your songs when you are only armed with the barest of equipment, Bob gives us plenty of quirks and tricks to make this experience every bit as valuable as the canonical studio recordings. (Might I add that aficionados of Bob's guitar playing might have something to treasure about this as well — for instance, the basic melody to ʽIt's Alright, Maʼ seems to be played in a more complex manner than ended up on the studio album, almost giving an illusion of two guitars played at the same time). Most importantly, even if he does admit to "wearing his Bob Dylan mask", he is still young and fresh here, and his self-constructed «wall» that would firmly separate him from the audience in the future only has the first few bricks laid in. In fact, dare I say it, you can actually hear the sound of the first brick plunged in position when the sixth song of the show is introduced as "a sacrilegious lullaby in D Minor", and then it becomes ʽGates Of Edenʼ, and many of the people sitting there in the hall probably sit around in a «what was that?..» sort of mood.

But historical importance aside, this is just a very good performance. Impeccable sound quality, good playing, and fabulous singing — on no other live album of his can you really feel this magnetic pull on the audience, this desire to work 'em for all they're worth. Soon enough, Bob would only be playing for himself. But before he started doing that, he had to build himself up plenty of credit, so as to make the people want him to be playing for himself. If you are a Dylan neophyte, or an accidental walk-in who has no idea why people are still flocking to his shows to hear an old codger mumble out seemingly toneless, incomprehensible blabber — rewind all the way to here and see the reverberations of 1964 still influencing the atmosphere of 2014, in a bi­zarre, but real chain of causes and consequences. Thumbs up.