Brand New: Your Favorite Weapon

BRAND NEW: YOUR FAVORITE WEAPON (2001)

1) The Shower Scene; 2) Jude Law And A Semester Abroad; 3) Sudden Death In Carolina; 4) Mix Tape; 5) Failure By Design; 6) Last Chance To Lose Your Keys; 7) Logan To Government Center; 8) The No Seatbelt Song; 9) Seventy Times 7; 10) Secondary; 11) Magazines; 12) Soco Amaretto Lime.

Time for a little bit of emo, of which Brand New are the front line representatives in the New England area: Jesse Lacey on vocals and rhythm guitar, Vincent Accardi on lead guitar, Garrett Tierney on bass, and Brian Lace on drums — everything very concise and economical. This debut album was released on the Triple Crown label and, apparently, did not chart at all, but it helped them establish a footing, and even though it is usually dismissed as a «stepping stone» to success, it is not really that different from everything they'd do afterwards.

The angle under which this song collection could be discussed best, as far as my perspective is concerned, is «why the hell don't I hate this?» Because, really, the potential of this material to annoy and irritate is glaringly obvious. The songwriting is shoddy, with generic indie-rock riffs all over the place and the «quiet verse / loud chorus» opposition serving as the basis for most of the hooks. The lyrical and emotional themes of the songs concern breakups, breakups, and still more breakups, regardless of the song titles (yes, even a song called ʽLogan To Government Cen­terʼ is about a breakup — the title just metaphorically refers to a highway exit near Boston). The vocals are screechy, and neither the main nor the auxiliary guy have any individual manner of singing that would set them apart from college rockers all over the world.

But on the positive side, there is at the same time a tightness and a lightness to these tunes that makes these guys tolerable, and at times even likeable. As a band, they are very well coordinated; the drummer is smooth and flexible, the guitarists lock into each other with perfect precision, and they merge together pop structures and punk simplicity in a very professional fashion (they cer­tainly know their skill way beyond three chords, but this does not prevent them from a speedy and aggressive sound whenever they feel like it). Even more importantly, there is a whiffy sense of humor and a touch of intelligence behind the tunes — the songs are neither too whiny nor too foul-mouthed. It's almost as if they had a plan, to try and take this most boring of subjects (col­lege boy meets college girl, shit happens, college boy dumps college girl or vice versa) and see if they can present it in a way that does not annoy the hell out of demanding listeners. It doesn't always work, but they manage to do it while avoiding many of the usual clichés.

The thing is, the lyrics on their own look pretty darn bad ("so don't apologize, I hope you choke and die, search your cell for something with which to hang yourself" is not an atypical example), but they are delivered with a slightly ironic twist: this nervous nerdy character that Lacey por­traits in most of the songs sounds like a half-sincere idiot, half-clown who feeds on nervous tension but never truly suffers from suicidal (or even girlfriend-cidal) tendencies. On ʽMix Tapeʼ, he drops an almost jokey self-reference ("And I'm sick of your tattoos, and the way you don't appreciate Brand New... and me!"); on ʽSecondaryʼ, full of lyrical references to self-mutilation and suicide, he sings about all that stuff as if it were just an obligatory teenage ritual — all too often, it seems like a parody on teen angst, and it could well have been intentional.

Not that it saves the album from being forgettable: melody-wise, the songs have little to dis­tinguish themselves from millions of equally faceless pop-punk chord sequences. But the sense of sarcasm is refreshing, particularly on the last track, ʽSoco Amaretto Limeʼ, a semi-drunk acoustic anthem proclaiming that "I'm gonna stay eighteen forever" (hear that, Alice Cooper?), "we're the coolest kids and we take what we can get", and, finally, "you're just jealous cause we're young and in love" — all in perfect irony, of course. This is the best possible course: instead of puffing and huffing and showing off the overblown «tragic sincerity» of hormonal outbursts, lighten up and concentrate on the «fun» aspect of failed relationships, if at all possible. No thumbs up, but I expected so much worse that thumbing this down would feel unjust — even if everybody around seems to agree that the band got much better after this record (where I would quibble with the word «much», but that's just me).

The Brian Jonestown Massacre: Give It Back!

THE BRIAN JONESTOWN MASSACRE: GIVE IT BACK! (1997)

1) Super-Sonic; 2) This Is Why You Love Me; 3) Satellite; 4) Malela; 5) Salaam; 6) Whoever You Are; 7) Sue; 8) (You Better Love Me) Before I Am Gone; 9) Not If You Were The Last Dandy On Earth; 10) #1 Hit Jam; 11) Servo; 12) The Devil May Care (Mom & Dad Don't); 13) Their Satanic Majesties' Second Request.

It's too bad there are but 365 days in a year, because Give It Back! sounds so very much like those preceding three albums, it might just as well have been written and recorded by Newcombe in a matter of just a few more days, and then The Brian Jonestown Massacre would have four re­cords released within one year and set a personal high that even Frank Zappa would find rather hard to beat. There are some new band members here, including guitarist Peter Hayes who stayed with the band but briefly and then went on to form the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, but let that not bother you, because Newcombe is the Ian Anderson of this band and he ain't never letting its identity slip away or be usurped by an intruder, no matter how many different brands of hard drugs he is on at any given particular moment.

Some fans actually regard this as a special high point in BJM history, swearing by Give It Back! as a masterpiece or the culmination of everything that made this band so great — a sentiment I find hard to share, because the word «culmination» indicates some sort of growth or at least some sort of «still haven't found (var.: finally have found) what I'm looking for» idea, whereas New­combe's Sixties-fueled, drug-powered brain does not really function all that much in «search» mode — it simply has its own steady rate of predetermined metabolism. I could not even begin to describe in general what separates Give It Back! from the 1996 albums — so let us just talk a bit about the individual songs instead.

ʽSuper-Sonicʼ has a cool groove going on, with a bluesy bassline, funky percussion, Indian sitars, and noisy shoegaze-style lead guitars in the background — a freaky, typically BJM combination of ingredients, over which Anton pours out his usual vegetative-state mumbly philosophizing about living alone and how it's alright for him and not alright for her. As predictable as the song's strengths are, its flaws are equally easy to guess — it is a bit hard to sit through a five-minute song where everything that could have happened did so over the introduction and the first few bars of the main theme. But this complaint, as usual, applies to everything here that runs over three minutes and irritates people whose attention span for this kind of music qualifies as «short» (like myself, who'd rather waste my time on something a little more energetic and dynamic than the BJM — like Brian Eno's Thursday Afternoon).

Most of the other songs, if they are good, display this goodness in the same way: one nice melody looped in static mode. If they are not very good... they have one boring melody looped in static mode, like ʽSatelliteʼ, which simply takes the old ʽGreen Onionsʼ theme, modifies it very slightly, piles up additional acoustic and electric guitars, but does not care about making it snappy and aggressive — the whole thing limps, and if you're gonna limp all the way, at least do it in a more moody fashion. ʽSueʼ, the longest track on the album, is much better, especially in headphones where you have one folk-style lead guitar part serenading in your left ear and one heavy wah-wah blues-rock part blaring away in your right ear, but both mixed in at low volumes so as not to drown out the basic rhythm track — or else, God forbid, you might want to play air guitar or something instead of just bobbing your head up and down and sideways at the trance-inducing sound waves. But yeah, that wah-wah solo is actually quite frantic when you focus on it.

Of special note might be the brief jangle-rock tune ʽThis Is Why You Love Meʼ, which cannot really be anything other than a loving tribute to Gene Clark's ʽI'll Feel A Whole Lot Betterʼ — the difference being that, for some reason, the BJM track is neither played, nor sung, nor produced as nice-and-tight as any of the early Byrds material (go figure). And on the fast-paced ʽMalelaʼ, they try to play the sitar as if it were a banjo (well, sitars and banjos do have similar timbres, don't they?), even borrowing a few note sequences from ʽPaint It Blackʼ, but the end result is mildly funny rather than depressing.

The song ʽNot If You Were The Last Dandy On Earthʼ caused some controversy — formally, it was an obvious answer to The Dandy Warhols' ʽNot If You Were The Last Junkie On Earthʼ: apparently, the Warhols' song was a friendly reprimand of the BJM for sticking to drugs in an age when drugs are already so passé, to which Newcombe replies with a reprimand of the Warhols for sticking to «dandyism» when dandyism is already so passé, well, you know the rest. At least it helps Anton get a little angry and play some pissed-off distorted leads on a true garage rocker, although I would not describe it as a particularly good song — they just thought it necessary to hit back (not very successfully, because the Warhols' track was a commercial hit on the UK charts, whereas the BJM never charted at all).

The album also continues the age-honored tradition of putting your album title in one place and your song title in another — the lead-out track is ʽTheir Satanic Majesties' Second Requestʼ, a rather boring sonic collage whose only distinctive point is the sound of heavy snoring, looped all over the track and possibly sampled from the Stones' ʽIn Another Landʼ, or, at least, paying tri­bute to that song and Bill Wyman's massive lung activity. Not that the song title has anything to do with the collage, or Newcombe has anything to do with Bill Wyman, or anything has got to do with anything — all of this is on a simple take-it-or-leave-it level. I take some of it, but, as usual, I'd rather distill this album down to about 15 minutes of music rather than accept it as 55.

Boris: Attention Please

BORIS: ATTENTION PLEASE (2011)

1) Attention Please; 2) Hope; 3) Party Boy; 4) See You Next Week; 5) Tokyo Wonder Land; 6) You; 7) Aileron; 8) Les Paul Custom '86; 9) Spoon; 10) Hand In Hand.

The point of this third album released in the same year (in fact, on the same day as Heavy Rocks) sort of escapes me. New Album was their attempt to prove themselves in the J-pop sphere, and Heavy Rocks was a reminder that production is only skin deep, and the substantial difference between J-pop and heavy metal may be much less than one thinks. In comparison, Attention Please is more scattered and less explicit — although I guess that, with a little effort, it could be categorized as their «shoegaze album», or, at least, their «dark, moody, brooding art-pop album». It is much less heavy than Heavy Rocks, much less nipponistically irritating than New Album, but, on the whole, less striking than either of those two.

Like Rocks, this one also shares several (three) remixed songs with New Album, but this time, the differences are mainly cosmetic — ʽHopeʼ, ʽParty Boyʼ, and ʽSpoonʼ are all stripped of some of their electronic layers and receive additional noisy guitar overdubs, bringing them closer to «shoegaze» territory, but not necessarily making them any better. Amusingly, the new fuzzy bass­line that they gave ʽParty Boyʼ has made the song rhythmically similar to Arcade Fire's ʽRe­bellion (Lies)ʼ; however, it still largely feels like a deconstructed version of the original, only open to true appreciation if you are already a fan of its ancestral technostate. The new versions of ʽHopeʼ and ʽSpoonʼ are even less different.

There are some decent new experiences here, though, if you are still interested. The title track is an imaginative piece of «psycho-disco», if you can get past the heavy Japanese accent on the mystically, but clumsily, chanted "attention puh-rease" — the sprinkly electronics and the slow fireplace crackle of «woman tone-guitar» in the background create some suspense, and could even be called «haunting» if you let yourself get carried away. ʽTokyo Wonder Landʼ (as if we didn't know already) has some cool industrial-propulsive percussion and a nicely thought out «chimes / funky guitar» combination running in the background for most of its time. And ʽAileronʼ, sharing its title, but not its instrumentation or mood with the huge post-rock epic from the last record, is actually a pretty, if not outstanding, acoustic folk instrumental.

However, one other area where Boris probably have nothing to pick up is «dream-pop»: tracks like ʽYouʼ and ʽHand In Handʼ show that Wata is getting more and more self-confidence as a singer, but I am not sure if this is deserved — she is not a strong singer technically, her voice is not high enough to work proper «dream magic», and the very fact that she is singing in the beau­ti­ful Japanese language is hardly sufficient these days to make anybody melt in overexcitement. As a result, both these tracks also produce the impression of «failed imitations», and a failure to imitate always comes across as much more embarrassing than a failure to innovate.

Summing up... well, three albums per year is a little too much, especially when coming from a former noise-band who could easily fill up fifty albums of noise per year if it wanted to, but for some reason decided to prove itself in a wide variety of genres all at once. What they should pro­bably have done instead would be one, and no more than one, regular heavy metal album with touches of psychedelia — a Heavy Rocks purged of its «post-rock ambitions». As it is, this filler is in some ways instructive (in the «don't do that, kids» manner) and sometimes amusing for one listen, but I honestly hope not a lot of people will want to mistake it for «art».

Buggles: The Age Of Plastic

BUGGLES: THE AGE OF PLASTIC (1980)

1) Living In The Plastic Age; 2) Video Killed The Radio Star; 3) Kid Dynamo; 4) I Love You (Miss Robot); 5) Clean, Clean; 6) Elstree; 7) Astroboy (And The Proles On Parade); 8) Johnny On The Monorail.

The very name «Buggles» should probably indicate that you are getting into something quirky at best, and stupidly irritating at worst. «The Bugs», as Trevor Horn and Geoff Downes originally wanted to call themselves, is bad enough, but Buggles? Wouldn't that kinda sorta suggest a gene­ral trajectory where pop music begins with the Beatles and ends, that is, reaches its triumphant culmination with ʽVideo Killed The Radio Starʼ?

Well, in a way, it does. The Buggles were arguably the first successful pop band that achieved its success by refusing to be a band, and preferring to be a techno-mechanical unit instead. Trevor Horn, who took on the responsibilities of producing the album, took his major inspiration from Kraftwerk: total de-personalisation of the proceedings, a «robotic» attitude in all respects, begin­ning with instrumentation and ending with the lyrics and the personal image, but at the same time, with a far more poppy sound than Kraftwerk ­­­— the melodies here are inspired by ska, disco, Foreigner, and ABBA rather than stern Teutonic minimalism.

To say that The Age Of Plastic is «kitschy» or «gimmicky» does not even begin to do justice to these songs, which anyone with a mouth trashier than mine would most likely describe with the infamous appellation «faggy». They are so absurdly over the top, so reckless with their hooks and so arrogant with their production that Lady Gaga these days has nothing on these guys (well, at least if you adjust the comparison basis for the standards of 1980). Reviews of the album, both contemporary and retrospective, were about as split as the press used to be on Black Sabbath — some loved them openly, some hated them in public but stashed copies away in the basement anyway, until the time came when not loving Sabbath became poor taste. Yes, The Age Of Plas­tic leads you indeed into double temptation — on an intellectual level, it is tempting to trash it as an exercise in flashy stupidity, but on that damn gut level, it is just as tempting to put it on again... and again... and again...

Okay, the facts are simple: the eight songs that constitute this album represent some of the de­cade's catchiest pop music — all of them, not a single exception. Upon first listen, you're hooked even if you are disgusted. Upon second listen, you are entranced by the choruses. Third listen, and you pretty much got all these songs by heart. This does not mean that Trevor Horn and Geoff Downes are natural-born geniuses: the tunes were slowly and meticulously crafted over a period of several years, and never again would these guys approach this level of pop craft — neither in Yes, nor on their second album, nor in their subsequent projects (like Art of Noise or Asia). But then again, the ideology of the Buggles supposes that there are no «Trevor Horn» or «Geoff Downes»: there's only the music, and whoever is standing behind it is totally insignificant.

Not that this «whoever» is totally dehumanized — yet. Like Kraftwerk, Horn and Downes are fascinated with the conflict between technology and human spirit, and much, if not most, of the album relates to this idea one way or another. This is one of these self-ironic recordings where the musicians use the latest and trendiest technologies to complain about the relentless onslaught of technology: "Could this be the plastic age?", Horn asks us in desperation on the title track while at the same time ensuring, with his production, that this verily and truly be the plastic age. But where Ralf and Florian spooked people away by almost literally turning into robots, the Buggles still retain their human side — and thus give the layman a better chance to identify with their is­sues, seducing him with their hooks and ensuring a good source of revenue in the process.

And the hooks are unbeatable. Let's face it, we don't care that much about the saga of merciless human progress — we just love those happy-sad female vocals chanting "video killed the radio star, video killed the radio star" to that tight-as-heck bass-drum pattern that could just as well have been lifted off a Ramones song and adapted to the new realities of the synth-pop era. And does anyone realize that in between ʽEchoesʼ and Phantom Of The Opera there was ʽKid Dy­namoʼ, which uses the same descending-ascending pattern to create an atmosphere of tension and paranoia? Or that ʽI Love You (Miss Robot)ʼ already writes the book on a large part of what would later constitute the bulk of the Art of Noise legend — the techno-funk sound, the treated vocals, the multi-tracked vocal harmonies, the «cloudy» synthesizers?

However, in my opinion, the album does not properly begin to hit its stride until the second side, when the satirical and even snappy side of the Buggles starts to show up. ʽClean Cleanʼ, rocking out like a technofied version of Elton John's ʽSaturday Night's Alrightʼ, is actually a serious anti-violence statement, and the synthesizers on it sound as alive, angry, and punkish as any aggres­sive guitar part on any contemporary punk (even hardcore punk) record. ʽElstreeʼ, using the idea of starring in B movies as an allegory for an originally meaningless life made even more mea­ning­less, is the album's saddest track — Ray Davies in the robot age. ʽAstroboy (And The Proles On Parade)ʼ is hard to decode, but seems fairly misanthropic to me — I would imagine that some people might want to slap Horn in the face for his sneering intonation on the "let them be lonely and say you don't care" line, and who exactly are "the proles on the parade", I wonder? Even so, the intonation change from "romantic" to "sneery" on that bridge is priceless.

The best is saved for last: if you thought you knew everything about the Buggles after watching the ʽVideo Killed The Radio Starʼ video, think again after hearing ʽJohnny On The Monorailʼ, a song that combines nervous tension with a fast pulse, a slight touch of country-western, some melancholic romanticism, and a general feel of being pulled somewhere from where there is no return, as Tina Charles plays the part of «the siren of doom» with her haunting background vocals and the song stubbornly defies a straightforward explanation, all for the better. Amazingly, you begin to understand that by the end of the album, the Buggles have broken out of the «kitsch» mode and put a more serious face on their collective robot — then again, maybe Side A was the robot in his childhood, but even plastic matures with age, and sometimes becomes aware of the dark side on its own, without outside help.

Ultimately, repeated listens to The Age Of Plastic do not make its material seem any more catchy than first time around — but they might help one understand that the integration of Horn and Downes into Yes, which took place right after they released this, was not such a thoroughly absurd move as one could think of it just by being exposed to ʽVideo Killed The Radio Starʼ. Of course, the idea was that Horn and Downes could help the failing band regain commercial suc­cess, but they weren't hired just because they were catchy pop hitmakers — behind the flashy imagery and the production gimmicks there is a complete and largely original artistic vision, and plenty of intelligence and feeling. As of today, some of the gimmicks have become dated — in particular, Horn's passion for silly-sounding vocal overdubs (like the who-oh-oh's on ʽElstreeʼ or the chip­munkish uh-ohs on ʽVideoʼ that you usually get these days on messenger software) — but who knows, maybe I'm the only one to worry about that in the first place. In any case, a big thumbs up and a request: do not miss the perfectly human soul in this album. When I say «catchy hooks», I mean real catchy hooks here, big emotional ones. It's easy to misinterpret them or fail to grasp their meaning, but it's there alright.

Brian Eno: Before And After Science

BRIAN ENO: BEFORE AND AFTER SCIENCE (1977)

1) No One Receiving; 2) Backwater; 3) Kurt's Rejoinder; 4) Energy Fools The Magician; 5) King's Lead Hat; 6) Here He Comes; 7) Julie With...; 8) By This River; 9) Through Hollow Lands; 10) Spider And I.

In my life, this little record holds a very special position. There are musical pieces that you learn to respect or at least tolerate, there are those that you «sort of like», but could live your life with­out, and then there are albums that serve as your own personal «gateways» into certain spheres, of which, prior to this, you were unsure if you could ever connect with them on some deep per­sonal level — to the «this is it!» point. Selling England By The Pound, by Genesis, was my such introduction or, more correctly, initiation into the world of progressive rock which, up until then, I preferred to treat, at best, on a «politically correct» level. But Before And After Science was an even more major turning point — ultimately, it was the one album that convinced me, much more than formally, that the spirit of music did not die circa 1975, and that, most impor­tantly, there is no such musical form that cannot, one way or another, be properly inhabited by the musical spirit, if the artist is endowed with one.

Why do I bestow this praise on Before And After Science, an album that has earned its right­ful share of averaged critical acclaim but is hardly ever considered on the same level as Talking Heads, Joy Division, or U2 when it comes to lining up masterpieces from the punk / post-punk / New Wave era? There is no simple answer to this question, so let us first talk a bit about the al­bum in general, as well as some of its particular points, and maybe the answer will gradually crystallize out of all the different observations — on its own.

The record was not specifically intended to become the «swan song» for Eno as a pop-rock per­former — it just so happened that after its release he concentrated on various ambient projects — but it does eerily sound like a certain «wrap-up» of all the different directions that he pursued in the mid-1970s. It combines and stratifies both his energetic/dynamic side, as previously seen on Warm Jets, and the transcendental/ambient side of Another Green World, but with a new level of maturity and sonic depth that neither of these albums had seen. Formally, Side A is «rocky» and «bouncy» while Side B is slow, moody, and intimate, but the album is sequenced in a way that does not make the shift jarring (ʽHere He Comesʼ, which could technically be classified as a «folk rocker», is really a transitional point between the two halves), and many of the textures on both sides are quite comparable in style. Furthermore, both sides show a state of spiritual calm­ness — if there is one single difference from all that was before, it is that Before And After Science is no longer the album of a seeker; it is the album of a finder.

If Side A is to be considered the «Before Science» part, this implies that rhythm and energy are a vital force only for those who have not yet made the big intellectual leap — but make no mistake about it, these are rhythmic and energetic tunes that are as intelligent as it gets. The sci-fi funk of ʽNo One Receivingʼ, driven by a vivacious polyrythmic percussion track from Phil Collins (with which Eno has some additional fun as he loops the drums into mysteriously fading out rolls, as if the drumkit were located on a giant see-saw), takes James Brown's inventions and turns them into a strangely beautiful alien-tribal ritual. The dark seriousness is then immediately alleviated with ʽBackwaterʼ, which sounds like an oddly deconstructed McCartney «nursery ditty» of the ʽAll Together Nowʼ variety, with completely nonsensical lyrics and a highly catchy melody, simple as heck but gradually layered over with more and more synth and guitar overdubs until it becomes a three year old's equivalent of the Ode to Joy — repetitive, intentionally silly (the song, that is, not the Ode to Joy), but infectious like no other Eno pop tune.

ʽKurt's Rejoinderʼ, featuring Percy Jones on bass, is instrumentally reminiscent of contemporary Brand X — no wonder, since both Percy and Phil were key members of that quirky fusion outfit, and a bit of a wonder considering the additional fun elements that Eno brings to the formula, so much so that one can only guess how much more memorable could the Eno touch actually have made those already impressive Brand X workouts. The lyrics are once again delivered in a chil­dish style (they almost sound like a counting rhyme), but what really matters is the interaction between the propulsive rhythm section and the minimalistic electronic overdubs: the whole track is like a non-stop maniacal run through a musical jungle with flurries of ghosts hovering over your head the whole way. Percy and Phil are the heroes here, but without the electronic over­dubs and the odd «kid vocals», the song would never be so effectively visualized.

Then, after a brief moody instrumental intermission (ʽEnergy Fools The Magicianʼ — more cool «scrambled» bass lines here), comes the first side's conclusion and its most representative track. Although ʽKing's Lead Hatʼ is well known to be an anagram of ʽTalking Headsʼ, by this time Eno was not yet involved with the Heads as such, and the song itself, with its straight 4/4 beat and insane tempo, is not particularly reminiscent of the band — it just shows Eno as a big lover of anagrams and other word games, which he is (is that "the kilocycles, the kilohertz" or "the killer cycles, the killer hurts"?). More importantly, this is one song where we all so desperately needed a Jon Landau to come along and say something like "I have seen the future of rock'n'roll, and its name is ʽKing's Lead Hatʼ", because, unlike most Springsteen songs, ʽKing's Lead Hatʼ really does have (or at least credibly emulate) the true rock'n'roll spirit, and it does so in a technological­ly updated way that shows how electronics, tape manipulations, and other technological trickery are in no way an obstacle to just ripping it up like there was no tomorrow.

There are just so many things to love about that song — the maniacally strummed phased guitar, the little electronic mosquito-sting pings punctuating the beat, the weird «quaking» electronic pulses, and, of course, that insane half-Jerry Lee Lewis, half-John Cale pummeling of the piano (did the poor instrument even survive that instrumental break?). Throw in the hilarious lyrics that make no sense as usual but contain some of the most brilliantly absurd word combinations this side of Dylan ("the biology of purpose keeps my nose above the surface" has been my personal motto of existence for almost twenty years, and, come to think of it, "the passage of my life is measured out in shirts" may be much deeper than it seems at first sight), and the awesome «mer­curial explosion» of the electronic signals that Brian saves up for the coda, and you have yourself a modernistic rock'n'roll masterpiece that I can never tire of hearing.

Most people that I know of, however, believe that it is not until the second side, where the absur­dity and the childishness gives way to a much more relaxed, philosophical, meditative pace — now we are in the «After Science» territory — that the record truly hits its stride, and I am okay with that (these are probably the same people that prefer Lennon over McCartney as well). No need to worry, though: all these slower tunes have every bit as much melodic bliss and catchiness, even if their «ambient» nature can occasionally bore a not particularly easy impressionable lis­tener. But who could ever dislike at least the mid-tempo folk-rock of ʽHere He Comesʼ, which is somehow produced so that you really feel yourself gradually "rising above the clouds", not to mention "rising above reason"? There is the same kind of vocal melody here that you'd encounter on a record by some magical folk queen like Sandy Denny, but Eno, as usual, has it his own way: just barely speeding up the tempo so that nobody gets dulled out, dressing the jangly folk-rock guitars in silky electronic overcoats, throwing on New Age-y harmonies, and then coming up with the awesome idea of a bass solo — other people would probably just add some extra jangle, but the master of contrast tries out something completely different, so that you can expressly get yourself a distinct dark shape making a beeline through the guitar-jangle and synth-hum clouds. If this ain't ethereal beauty, nothing is.

Then, just to show you that beauty comes in all sorts of different shapes, including uncomfortable and dangerous ones, he switches from the day-light, cloudy ambience of ʽHere He Comesʼ to the twi-light, foggy ambience of ʽJulie With...ʼ. As the tempo slows down to a crawl and the lyrics suddenly become one with the music ("I am on an open sea, just drifting as the hours go slowly by..."), time begins to stand still and the slow rocking of the musical boat becomes so mesmeri­zing that you have no intent of wondering whether this slice of «suspended beauty» is of a good or of an evil nature (as somebody rightfully observed, the song could be seen from the perspec­tive of a romantic poetic admirer every bit as completely as from that of a serial psycho killer). Special mention should be made of the occasional one-note guitar «sighs» that punctuate the song at certain moments, minimalistically resolving the gradually accumulating tension — it would still be great without them, but they give it so much more, don't they? This is probably the most perfectly Taoist piece written by Eno in the «pop song» format — dark, mysterious, impenetrable, all-pervading, and completely devoid of «action», not to mention Brian's vocals that seem to be full of feeling by being completely stripped of feeling.

ʽBy This Riverʼ was co-written with Cluster, which is maybe why it sounds like the saddest, coldest, and most fatalistic track on the entire album — then again, with Eno there is no real sadness to be spoken of, because the man is at such a stage of enlightenment that he never lets pure emotion overcloud reasoning. The song's minimalistic piano melody is just one phrase that could well be inspired by some Schubert sonata — forming a soft backdrop for yet another mag­nificent vocal: the transition from the almost romantic-sounding "here we are, stuck by this river, you and I..." to the doom-laden "...underneath a sky that's ever falling down, down, down, ever falling down" that he finishes on his lowest note is just harsh. You know there's no escape... but somehow, you don't care, because at this point, tragedy is as much an inescapable and natural condition of being that it is no longer tragic. In fact, it is more beautiful than tragic.

Skipping the instrumental ʽThrough Hollow Landsʼ (nice, but I still cannot view it as anything other than a brief intermission between the two final major movements), we then go to ʽSpider And Iʼ, which ends this bliss on a perfectly transcendental note. If ʽBy This Riverʼ had a deeply intimate, piano-based sound, this one employs organ tones to mimick grand cosmic waves to which the protagonist attaches his personal conscience — "Spider and I sit watching the sky on a world without sound...". More Taoism here, perhaps, but what I am really amazed at is how the heck the man gets to create the illusion of such depth and broadth with just a bare handful of polyphonic notes — and the illusion actually grows as the song goes by. As the final blasts fade away, you begin to realize that, perhaps, after ʽSpider And Iʼ the man really had nothing left to say in the «song» format, that he is being carried away on the waves of nirvana, and now all we have to do is listen to him put three notes on an album for the rest of our lives, which are short enough, and his life, which is most likely eternal and not measured out in silly concepts like time, space, or Grammy awards.

If, by now, you have not yet glimpsed some of the possible answers to that question I asked in the beginning — why this record and not some other one? — you probably just need to listen to this thing for yourself. But the review still necessitates a conclusion, so I will try this. The balance of cutting-edge musical technology; pop sensibility; accessible, but not watered-down, mystical metaphysics in music and lyrics; and general humanity of it all (from humor to silliness to ten­derness) — there is not a single album in the «New Wave and later» era of modern music making that has this kind of balance to it, and yet, somehow, at the same time, «getting» Before And After Science has, at one point, allowed me to «get» so much more of everything else. A mini­malistic spiritual masterpiece that is almost too good for a routine thumbs up, but then again, let us not become too carried away and get way too ecstatic about it — such a reaction would, after all, be somewhat against its very nature.

Bruce Springsteen: Nebraska

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN: NEBRASKA (1982)

1) Nebraska; 2) Atlantic City; 3) Mansion On The Hill; 4) Johnny 99; 5) Highway Patrolman; 6) State Trooper; 7) Used Cars; 8) Open All Night; 9) My Father's House; 10) Reason To Believe.

And here comes another self-conscious «career bomb». An album even darker in tone than Darkness On The Edge Of Town, and this time, with Bruce doing it all alone — just a man and his guitar, with a little harmonica on the side. A perfect counterbalance, one would think, to the basic bigness of The River and its all-out-rockin' arena hits: an album that would never be able to sell as many copies by its very nature, even if, on the strength of Bruce's already respectable re­pu­tation, it did reach #3 on the charts (not the singles that were culled from it, though).

If analogies are still allowed to be indulged in, then this is Springsteen's John Wesley Harding, surprising the populace with its humble, intimate scope just as they'd finally gotten used to the grand scale of the previous records. However, if Dylan at least actually came from an original acoustic folk background, Springsteen's prowess with the guitar-harmonica schtick was previous­ly largely confined to occasional songs like ʽMary Queen Of Arkansasʼ: the man was anything but a moody six-string loner, and although his troubadour nature always hinted that something like this might one day appear on the horizon, I guess it still took most people by surprise when he emerged with the actual results.

But while these results are generally good, the project on the whole suffers from the obvious: a lack of mystery. Suppose that you have never heard a solo acoustic Springsteen album — now close your eyes and try to think real hard what such an album would probably sound like. Some folk melodies, some country waltzes, a bit of blues, maybe a touch of rockabilly, right? Strong, friendly, masculine, but tired, disillusioned, and weather-worn vocals? Lyrical themes that cover issues like poverty, depression, crime, maybe a little nostalgia, and properly mix desperation with just a spoonful of hope so that nobody kills oneself in the end? Everything sincere, passionate, and catchy, but probably not very imaginative or unpredictable?

Yep, this is Nebraska all right, even if I cheated and formulated these questions after listening to the album. Now as proof that the record «sucks» this would, of course, be laughable: formula is formula, and most artists live and die by the formula anyway. The problem is that it takes a great deal of skill and effort to make a minimalistic record like this that would truly stand out — and this one, for the most part, stands out just because Springsteen stands out. But do the songs stand out? What about the songs?

In my own humble opinion, there are only two songs on this record that have a special «pull» to them. ʽAtlantic Cityʼ ended up being arguably the most famous one, and for good reason: it is the other side of the ʽBorn To Runʼ coin, another desperately determined attempt to escape, but this time realising all too well that the escape takes place in the direction of Hell, since Heaven has been closed off tight — and this psychological mix of near-weeping desperation with clenched-teeth determination is brilliantly carried over by the vocals. Live, the Boss would turn it into a grand ten-minute E Street Band-backed anthem, with the entire arena chanting "put your make­up on, fix your hair up pretty / and meet me tonight in Atlantic City" as if celebrating a new begin­ning, but, as usual, there is quite a bit of irony here.

My personal favorite, however, is ʽState Trooperʼ, which carries the minimalist vibe of the al­bum to a logical conclusion — two chords altogether, somehow sufficient to generate a spooky, tense atmosphere, and nervous mumbled vocals from which we gather that the protagonist is probably guilty of something (most protagonists on Nebraska are guilty of one thing or another) and that "Mr. State Trooper" might actually get it if he tries to stop our guy. It's all in that tension — three minutes of incessant D-major-A-minor reflecting the relentlessness of the pulse, and then, right before the fade out, the tension is released with a single, short, well-placed scream that will have you jumping out of the chair... yes, one of these moments that still have me jumping after all these years (like the loud band opening on The Wall).

These two tracks, the way I see it, show a certain amount of divine inspiration, and confirm that Nebraska should by no means be considered as nothing but the result of stylistic calculation. Un­fortunately, the rest of the songs seem fairly pedestrian in comparison. The title track is basically just a generic murder ballad — the story of a serial killer and his girlfriend, Badlands in four and a half minutes, concluding with a strand of rather cheap «folk wisdom»: "They wanted to know why I did what I did / Well sir I guess there's just a meanness in this world" really doesn't cut it when you hear it from the lips of a supposedly literate singer-songwriter rather than some ano­nymous pre-war folk balladeer. Nostalgic musings like ʽMansion On The Hillʼ and ʽMy Father's Houseʼ have nothing but the unmistakable tone of Bruce's voice to recommend them. And ʽOpen All Nightʼ sounds like one of them clichéd rockabilly rockers from The River that would cer­tainly have benefited from a full band sound, if it cannot already benefit from innovative song­writing. And so on and on and on.

What makes it worse is that, despite all the superficial «humility», it is clear that Springsteen him­self must have felt pretty assured about the strong reactions these songs would cause — other­wise, there would be no need to wrap it up with ʽReason To Believeʼ, a tune that largely exists with the sole purpose of «providing hope» after the general bleakness of the record is supposed to wear you down and make you lose your faith in the human race and all. Yes, the world is just this one big Nebraska place where people lose jobs, lovers, health, and confidence, become crooks, hitmen, and serial killers, but don't worry that much, because "still at the end of every hard day people find some reason to believe". Credo quia absurdum. Hope that helps, folks. Do not begin reaching out for your razors and cyanide capsules just yet.

Because of the individual greatness of ʽAtlantic Cityʼ and ʽState Trooperʼ, I am that close to a positive rating, but a thumbs up here could be taken as a sign of my belief in Springsteen as a successful folk singer-songwriter, and I do not have any "reason to believe" this. At least this re­cord is livelier, wittier, and less thoroughly drenched in banality than the truly abysmal Ghost Of Tom Joad, awaiting us further on down the line, but overall, I think I'd rather have Woody Guthrie — who, as a poet, may have been far cruder and blunter than Springsteen, but who at least knew better how to separate his big ego from the struggle for working class rights.

Brian Wilson: Gettin' In Over My Head

BRIAN WILSON: GETTIN' IN OVER MY HEAD (2004)

1) How Could We Still Be Dancin'; 2) Soul Searchin'; 3) You've Touched Me; 4) Gettin' In Over My Head; 5) City Blues; 6) Desert Drive; 7) A Friend Like You; 8) Make A Wish; 9) Rainbow Eyes; 10) Saturday Morning In The City; 11) Fairy Tale; 12) Don't Let Her Know She's An Angel; 13) The Waltz.

Cured as he was, it is notable that Brian did not actually engage in that much new songwriting ever since getting rid of the evil Dr. Landy: the majority of his new albums either revisited old territory, or were filled with covers and tributes, or, like this one, were a rather choppy-chompy mess. Here, at least four or five of the songs were re-recorded from Sweet Insanity, an aban­doned project from 1991 — and quite a few others were pulled from various older projects as well. And for the really new songs, Brian gets himself extra security with the presence of three giants as guest stars: Elton John, Eric Clapton, and Paul McCartney.

Knowing Brian, though, «messy» is not necessarily a bad word when it comes to assessing the albums of a man who had once made it his business to arrange genius in messy ways, and wren­ching beauty out of chaos. The songs written for Sweet Insanity were more or less on the same level as those written for his self-titled debut; the presence of such eminent guest stars on a Brian Wilson record could hardly hurt, and, most likely, many fans had waited an eternity to hear Brian and Paul on the same record (technically, they already did, but Paul's carrot chomping is not nearly as distinctive and recognizable as his singing). There's even the ghost of brother Carl making a cameo here on ʽSoul Searchin'ʼ, an old outtake from which brother Brian erased all the vocals but Carl's, then added his own touch. Possibilities ahoy!

Critics and fans alike destroyed the album, though — almost literally knocked it to the ground, in a rather vicious way at that — and I am somewhat at a loss as to why, because I kinda like it. Now it is certainly true that it is not at all ambitious: clearly, the idea was to make a simple pop album, without aspiring to scale Smile-type heights. It is also possible that true fans, who were already well acquainted with Sweet Insanity through bootlegs, were disappointed about not get­ting their money's worth (not that they paid that earlier money to anybody except bootleggers). And it is also true that the lyrics to most of the songs are kinda crappy, but then Brian's never been a great lyricist on his own anyway.

But on the whole as well as in parts, Gettin' In Over My Head still offers enough cute, harmless fun — enough to empathize for the old guy and brighten your day, particularly if you're an old guy too (this is very important: ever since his «revival», Brian has stayed completely out of touch with the young generation, while at the same time staying young at heart — this is a paradox that can either irritate or amuse, depending on your initial attitude). The songs are reasonably well (self-)produced, relatively catchy, completely amicable, and each one contains a small drop of the Brian Wilson essence — maybe that ain't enough to love it, but I sure do not see that many rea­sons to hate it, either.

Of the three superstar collaborations, ʽHow Could We Still Be Dancin'ʼ is probably the best one. You really can't go wrong with Elton banging the keys like crazy on this sort of «pub pop» (his vocals, unfortunately, are rather dusty), the harmonies are top-notch, and the optimistic vibe of this typical «old geezer anthem» feels totally sincere. (Also, kudos to the line about "how could we still make music after MTV?", which is delightfully ambiguous). ʽCity Bluesʼ, with Clapton, has an almost surprisingly harsh blues-rock lead guitar part all over it, and although the Clapton / Wilson link is far from the most natural thing on earth, it is not the least credible, either: Brian's sad, melancholic side ("the strange loud people made a mess of the world", he complains) is quite compatible with Eric's trademark blues licks.

Weakest of the three, unfortunately, is the Wilson/McCartney collaboration. ʽA Friend Like Youʼ is just a bit too obvious a title for such a collaboration, and things get even more confusing when you realize that the title is the only line in the song that Paul is allowed to sing solo — when his is clearly the stronger of the two voices at the time (in fact, Brian now sounds like Ozzy's younger brother at certain times, which is all the more eerie considering how much Ozzy is a fan of senti­mental piano ballads, too). Even so, denying the song's catchiness or sincerity would be an insult to both of the elder statesmen.

Occasionally, the retro vibe does get corny — ʽDesert Driveʼ is a flat-out re-write of ʽ409ʼ that does not even try to mask this fact, and we do not usually take lightly to self-plagiarism, even if it invites us to take it symbolically and realize that Mr. Wilson still feels a very tight connection to the old days of pre-Beatlemania. It is also hard for somebody like me who is almost alergic to make-merry musicals to harbor positive reactions on cheerful dreck like ʽSaturday Morning In The Cityʼ (sorry). But, if anything, this all contributes to the rather colorful diversity of the record: having its relative ups and downs is probably a better fate than staying permanently jammed in consistent mediocrity. Even if Brian is not pushing for greatness, he is at least continuing to ex­periment with format, and that's unequivocally a good thing.

Ultimately, a thumbs up here: missteps and dumb lyrics ("she had a body you'd kill for / you hoped that she'd take the pill for" would be moronically sexist if it weren't already so completely ungrammatical) aside, it's too much of a fun-fun-fun carousel ride to be dismissed with an intel­lectual or musicological blast of arguments. You'll probably have to wait to hit at least forty to make an objective assessment — a twenty-year old hipster who reveres Brian Wilson for Pet Sounds and/or The Beach Boys Love You will hardly be impressed at this stop.

British Sea Power: From The Sea To The Land Beyond

BRITISH SEA POWER: FROM THE SEA TO THE LAND BEYOND (2013)

1) From The Sea To The Land Beyond; 2) Remarkable Diving Feat; 3) Strange Sports; 4) Heroines Of The Cliff; 5) The Guillemot Girls; 6) Suffragette Riots; 7) Heatwave; 8) Melancholy Of The Boot; 9) Be You Mighty Sparrow; 10) Berth 24; 11) Red Rock Riviera; 12) Coastguard; 13) Perspectives Of Stinky Turner; 14) Bonjour Copains; 15) The Wild Highlands; 16) Docklands Renewed; 17) The Islanders.

Apparently, it was a stroke of luck when these guys decided to call themselves British Sea Power and write grand songs with massive hooks — these days, whenever somebody films a movie that involves (a) the sea and (b) the British Isles, they are the first band to whom people turn to pro­vide the soundtrack. This time, it is for From The Sea To The Land Beyond: Britain's Coast On Film, a documentary feature by Penny Woolcock on various aspects, historical and modern, of everyday life on Britain's coastline. I have not watched the movie, but gather, from various descrip­tions, that, like most such documentaries, that the two major types of reaction to it would be either «breathtakingly beautiful» or «butthurtingly boring», depending on whether one is an idea­listic, impressionable artistic soul or a jaded cynical bastard. In both cases, though, the soundtrack by British Sea Power will be a natural part of the impression.

Although the album is about as long as the movie, featuring complete versions of compositions that were abridged in the documentary, it is definitely a soundtrack, whose purposes are secon­dary to the visuals. Some of the music is not new at all, but borrows old instrumental mixes from their previous albums (unfortunately, at this point I cannot state for certain which ones are which and am merely repeating outside information); some is new, and a few numbers even feature vo­cals, but on the whole, this is monotonous, atmospheric stuff, absolutely typical of BSP with their symphonic echoey sound, ringing guitars, swooping violas, crashing percussion, and sound effects (waves beating? check. thunder rolling? check. gulls shrieking? check, etc.), and featuring very little in the way of individual hooks. Well, a little. But not much. Really, it's not supposed to. Living on the British coast is not much of a hook-filled activity anyway — it's more about being one with nature, or with hoarding cultural memory.

The track titles, while they probably correspond to specific parts of the feature, are not that well correlated with the music. ʽSuffragette Riotsʼ, for instance, beginning with some isolated piano chords and the omnipresent seagulls, slowly builds up towards a crescendo, but hardly of the «riot» variety — these guys are the children of shoegazers and they couldn't properly picture a «riot» under pain of having to listen to Agnostic Front for the rest of their lives. ʽHeatwaveʼ has a lovely-lazy guitar/viola dialog going on, but I wouldn't necessarily call it indicative of a «heat­wave» (and it isn't atmospherically different from something like ʽStrange Sportsʼ), for instance. In fact, the album could definitely use more variety — that is, if the idea of the movie itself, as I understand it, wasn't that «the more it changes, the more it stays the same».

In brief, this is what happens when you get British Sea Power to just be British Sea Power and not worry all that much about anything else. I like their «average» sonic vibe a lot, but a thumbs up for this album would at least have to mean that it «got me» a couple of times, and it didn't: it was just nice in the usual, predictable, reliable way. But it is most definitely for you if you are one of those types with a habit of sharing «This Photographer Shoots The Most Amazing Pictures Of The World That Will Totally Amaze You And Make You See The World In A Totally Amazing New Light And Your Life Will Never Be The Same» links on Facebook. I myself tend to gravitate towards The Onion on those matters, so I'll just leave this record unrated, for justice' sake, and secretly hope that nobody on the British Isles is currently envisaging a UK-based movie re­make of The Old Man And The Sea.

The Brian Jonestown Massacre: Thank God For Mental Illness

THE BRIAN JONESTOWN MASSACRE: THANK GOD FOR MENTAL ILLNESS (1996)

1) Spanish Bee; 2) It Girl; 3) 13; 4) Ballad Of Jim Jones; 5) Those Memories; 6) Stars; 7) Free And Easy, Take 2; 8) Down; 9) Cause I Love Her; 10) Too Crazy To Care; 11) Talk - Action = Shit; 12) True Love; 13) Sound Of Con­fusion.

Okay, this one is actually more like a friendly post-scriptum to the two biggies from the same year. The first twelve tracks are mostly acoustic or acoustic-based, feature an absolute minimum of songwriting, and rarely go over three minutes — truly a record that could have been planned, written, recorded and released by someone like Anton in a matter of three days. The last track, included, I believe, mainly in accordance with the «leave no space unfilled» strategy, is a lengthy collage that features several minutes of street noises (cars, more cars, and still more cars), and then a bunch of lo-fi recordings that mostly constitute alternate versions of old songs from Space­girl and Methodrone. So yeah, just like that.

Actually, the first half is rather nice. At least it moves around at a larger variety of tempos than Second Request, and the short song lengths are also quite welcome. There are no highlights or lowlights — the point is largely to imitate various shades of acoustic pop and folk-rock circa 1965-66 which, at different times, will remind you of the Beatles in their Rubber Soul period, the Stones in their Aftermath period, the Kinks in their Face To Face period, the Easy­beats in their ʽFriday On My Mindʼ period, Dylan in either his Another Side or his Blonde On Blonde period, and of... uh... ʽYou Are My Sunshineʼ as sung by Peter, Paul, and Mary (ʽThose Memo­riesʼ). The only catch is that these are all Newcombe songs, and he predictably injects them with large dosages of his own bleak, romance-without-answer personality.

Arguably the least predictable track is the first one, ʽSpanish Beeʼ, where, to the sound of Spanish guitars and castanets, over which additional guitars drone in morose tones, Newcombe states that "This hopeless century, I've lived all alone" and that "I could have died, because of your greed". Whose greed is not exactly clear — but what is clear is that the dark Spanish style agrees with the BJM just as well as dark Anglo-Saxon folk or Afro-American blues motives. Another thing that certainly separates these acoustic tunes from all their influences is the endless pessimism and skepticism which they are soaked in — even within these thirty minutes, there is a general feel of total hopelessness that, in the Sixties, you couldn't even get from such kings of «mope rock» as The Doors (who played it on a grand theatrical level rather than on the «ordinary routine» level of Newcombe). Besides, even the Doors had some simple love songs — with Newcombe, the idea of a simple love song is always accompanied with the presupposition of «want her, need her, can never get her, not in a million years». In a philosophical sense, too — where «getting her» means much more than just a sexual liaison, and is essentially impossible in a Kantian sense.

One thing that seriously bugs me, though, is that once again it all smells of a self-conscious ap­proach. The LP title — Thank God For Mental Illness — seems awfully clever and uncomfor­tably true (considering how closely for comfort great art is often tied in with mental illness), but we do not regularly see actual madmen in art psychoanalyzing themselves (I mean, the above­mentioned Jim Morrison was definitely deranged, but could you see The Doors naming one of their albums this way?). This casts a shadow of self-absorption and maybe even unwarranted nar­cissism on the songs — like, who really is this Newcombe guy to appropriate songwriting and emotion-wrenching techniques from all these giants of the Sixties for his own egotistical pur­poses? Rewriting the classics is, after all, an act of arrogance, and if the arrogance is unjustified, the ship goes down fairly quickly. Oh, okay, at least the guy actually does drugs, so that's some sort of consolation-justification, I guess. He's legit... not really, no.

But if you don't take it too seriously, the record offers some quirky fun that is at least much easier to sit through than the endless slow drones of Second Request. I find it hard (if not useless) to discuss the individual songs — unless in terms of how they rearrange, reroute, and rewire the classics — but I found it easy fun listening to them, and in the light of this, I can disregard the awful (as usual) album cover and give the record a very lightweight thumbs up. And you can just detach and destroy the ʽSound Of Confusionʼ part — it works much better as just a thirty minute long album.

Boris: Heavy Rocks

BORIS: HEAVY ROCKS (2011)

1) Riot Sugar; 2) Leak (Truth, yesnoyesnoyes); 3) GALAXIANS; 4) Jackson Head; 5) Missing Pieces; 6) Key; 7) Windows Shopping; 8) Tu, La La; 9) Aileron; 10) Czechoslovakia.

How many bands do you know that have released two different albums with exactly the same title, and that title was not the band's name? I honestly cannot think of a single one at present, though I am almost sure that it's just my mind playing a trick on me or something. But if not, then Boris have this dubious honor of revolutionizing the musical world yet another time — and giving their already brain-ravaged fans an even harder time. Even the album covers, by the way, are com­plete­ly the same, except for the color: the first one was orange and this one is purple. Then again, Boris are well known for often releasing the exact same record with different sleeve colors, so essentially they're just trying to fuck us up here. Completely.

The largest irony of all, though, is that this new Heavy Rocks is... pretty dang good! In fact, it is really the closest thing to a «good» non-noise Boris album since... uh... scrolling... scrolling... scrolling... oh wait, we are already in the Boo Radleys... back... back... okay, never mind. This is a pretty dang good Boris album, period.

So, apparently, at the same time that they were working on their ridiculous «J-Pop» homage, they were also producing a much more hard rock/metal-oriented album, with shades of punk, indus­trial, and psychedelia, that ended up sounding more fun, more aggressive, more catchy, and ma­king much better use of the band's biggest strength (guitar tones). It is still not possible to say if they are being serious, ironic, or clueless, but at least they are definitely being less irritating, and at no times does this record begin to seem openly «stupid», which was my largest beef with New Album and its pervy vibes.

ʽRiot Sugarʼ opens the record with a bona fide Metallica riff, immediately followed by the shrill, multi-tracked, echoey wail of the lead guitar that is more reminiscent of old-school psychedelics, and then followed by vocals that do not openly suck — maybe because they are also echo-laden and multi-tracked, or maybe because they actually belong to Ian Astbury of The Cult, guest star­ring on this particular track. There are quite a few other guest vocalists on the album, by the way, including Aaron Turner of Isis and some Japanese people I am not familiar with, and this in itself is a good sign, perhaps indicative of the band actually willing to go out on a limb and produce something good in all respects... for a change.

The album is refreshingly diverse, too. ʽLeakʼ combines psychedelic falsetto choruses with dis­sonant lead guitar parts that remind you of the old Frisco scene, although the main body of the song is more reminiscent of some early New Wave act like Television. ʽGALAXIANSʼ gallops ahead with the speed and energy of a professional hardcore act, but the guitar tones and accom­panying «revving-up» electronic noises give it more of an industrial feel. The alternate version of ʽJackson Headʼ, with guitar instead of electronica, is a great reminder to me why I so much prefer guitar-based rock to electronica when we are talking energetic/aggressive music — Wata's chop­py guitar chords, backed with Atsuo's kick-heavy percussion, give the song a sharp edge that it sorely lacked in its techno mix. The difference between the two versions of ʽTu, La Laʼ is not as easily noticeable, but I also prefer this more guitar-oriented rendition to the synthesized strings of New Album, which made it kinda corny.

The feelings get more mixed when we get around to the two extended, atmospheric «post-rock» workouts. ʽMissing Piecesʼ seems like an attempt to outdo Godspeed You! Black Emperor, gra­dually building up from a mere trickle into an ocean of sound, with legions of trilling guitars and torrents of feedback eventually bursting through the dam; ʽAileronʼ sounds like some wailing sinner, calling to you out of the depths of hell while Wata's fried power chords and high-pitched guitar howls imitate underground volcanic activity. But both tracks go on for much too long and must have taken the band much less time to prepare than a typical GY!BE mini-symphony — as I already said, in «expanded» mode Boris have to be minimalist Nazis: anything more than «pure» feedback blasts and you begin to sense some deficiencies in their music-making.

Still, whether by accident or not, on the whole these «purple» Heavy Rocks nail it just right. There is no deep meaning to this album, no special social value or sharp emotional resonance — but whenever possible, it kicks ass, and it manages to do so without sounding too ridiculous, too overstated, or too overtly «shocking». I am genuinely surprised at how decent this one turned out: easily deserving of a thumbs up and recommendable to the community at large without any spe­cial reservations.

Brand X: Manifest Destiny

BRAND X: MANIFEST DESTINY (1997)

1) True To The Clik; 2) Stellerator; 3) Virus; 4) XXL; 5) The Worst Man; 6) Manifest Destiny; 7) Five Drops; 8) Drum Ddu; 9) Operation Hearts And Minds; 10) Mr. Bubble Goes To Hollywood.

A fairly ambitious title — particularly for an album that went by practically unnoticed, disap­peared in a flash, and was not followed by any new Brand X record ever since. Of course, if the intended intention was to manifest that Brand X's destiny is to fade away and never come back, then everything is perfectly correct. Especially because the record kinda sucks.

Well, no, I guess it doesn't exactly «suck» as such, but compared to XCommunication, it does not offer even the same kind of «moderate thrill». Obviously, Goodsall and Jones wanted, once again, to show that the old rocking horse could still learn new tricks. So now, instead of continu­ing to work in the nice and concise trio format of XCommunication, they puff up the band, re­cruiting two additional bass and keyboard players (Franz Pusch and Marc Wagnon), one more drummer (Pierre Moerlen of Gong fame) and even a flautist (Danny Wilding) — and proceed to reinvent their sound in this configuration.

The results are... well, it seems as if they finally have decided to modernize their classic sound, but do it gradually, so that, despite being recorded in 1997, much of the record sounds like it was done in the Eighties. Now they have some New Wave influences, some adult contemporary, some pop metal, some Prince-style electrofunk, some Belew-style electric guitar, and the overall tone of the album is more robotic, stiff, and harsh than it had ever been in the past. And this is not really a good thing, because making stiff robotic records prevents them from exploiting their biggest strengths as guitar- and bass-playing musicians.

For one thing, Goodsall's guitar here frequently sounds atrocious — already on the first track, he goes into overdrive and starts shredding all over the place, sending off metallic blasts that would rather be enjoyed by fans of Joe Satriani, and occasionally invade the particularly corny turf of Yngwie Malmsteen. Fortunately, this is not an all-pervading problem, but he does display this new penchant for finger-flashing in «virile metal mode» quite a few more times, and he never really did that before. For another thing, with this heap of new players, Percy Jones' fundamental role in the band is diminished — he still gets to have some great bass parts, particularly on his own compositions such as ʽThe Worst Manʼ and ʽDrum Dduʼ, but they are buried in the mix.

Finally, there is a serious lack of memorable themes: it just seems like they are so happy to test out this new lineup of theirs and the new groovy sound effects and playing styles that they forgot to write meaningful tunes. The only composition here that produces the immediate impression of «well thought out» is ʽXXLʼ, a «cool-sounding» funky dance number that has a sharp groove, some awesome fretboard finger-running from Percy, and even some vocals mixed deep in the background — but its «sexy» sound is hardly what we come to expect from Brand X, nice as it is to know that they have a fondness for James Brown and Prince.

Overall, the most memorable aspect of Manifest Destiny is its relative weirdness — as if the band were trying to change lanes on the highway and ended up swerving off the main road and finding itself lost in the middle of nowhere. This is a very subjective judgement, because, after all, we are dealing here with a fusion album from 1997, but it does sort of objectively agree with what would happen in the future for Brand X — nothing, that is. As of 2015, when this set of reviews is being finalized, the band has kept quiet for eighteen years: I guess Goodsall and Jones are still trying to come up with a good answer to the question «what should ʽunorthodox be­haviourʼ look like in the 21st century?», and until they believe they have found one, we're rela­tively safe from Manifest Destiny Vol. 2.

Brian Eno (with Cluster): Cluster & Eno

BRIAN ENO: CLUSTER & ENO (w. Cluster) (1977)

1) Ho Renomo; 2) Schöne Hände; 3) Steinsame; 4) Wehrmut; 5) Mit Simaen; 6) Selange; 7) Die Bunge; 8) One; 9) Für Luise.

This is the first of two collaborations between Eno, Hans-Joachim Roedelius, and Dieter Moebius — the latter two of the experimental/electronic «Krautrock» duo Cluster (sometimes thought of as a trio because of their long-term association with producer/musician Conny Plank, at whose studio this record was made as well). German electronica was riding high in artistic circles at the time, with Kraftwerk making it big, and it is no coincidence that Bowie's «Berlin period» hap­pened around the same time — all these albums should really be seen in the context of one ano­ther, as all these people were really excited about how all the new technologies allowed them to create new aural art with completely different textures.

Set against Eno's best works of the period, Cluster & Eno inevitably gets a little lost, and I re­member not at all being impressed when I first heard it decades ago. However, its main difference is simply that there are no immediately resonating themes/hooks that would shatter your brain­waves at once — like that searing-cutting sound of the Sky Saw that opens ʽSky Sawʼ. Cluster & Eno should not be formally classified as «ambient»: its basic melodies and overdubs are too com­plex and dynamic, requiring the listener to pay some attention at least. But on the other hand, its eventual charms are so subtle that paying this attention is a bit of a chore. This is why the album used to leave me somewhat frustrated... but I'm feeling better now.

One key to enjoying the record is realizing how diverse it is, and how many different, unpredic­table combinations these three guys have managed to search out. ʽHo Renomoʼ, for instance, combines a pretty piano ballad with an impassive electronic pulse, a specially treated «diving bass» part that sounds like Indian percussion, and faraway droney echoes of guitars that add an extra dimension to the experience. ʽSteinsameʼ is based on a draggy synthesizer melody remini­scent of some Bach organ piece and doubled on Fripp-style howling guitar (the actual player, if credits are to be believed, is Okko Bekker). ʽFür Luiseʼ, founded on a series of synthesizer power chords, ties them together with rising and falling electronic «swoops» that sound like a particular­ly drunken musical saw, tottering, wobbling, and just a little melancholic. ʽSelangeʼ sounds like an unfinished demo for a stern blues-rocker, for which somebody has recorded a piano part and some rudimentary percussion — then decided to turn it into an atmospheric piece instead by adding «heavenly» synthesizer overdubs. And ʽDie Bungeʼ is like a soundtrack to a rocking horse ride, with an electronic bug caught up in the fray, buzzing its way around you, unable to escape the gravity pull among all the gentle merriment.

It's no great shakes, for sure; the record would be of serious interest only to ardent fans of both Eno and Cluster — think something like Cluster's Sowiesoso crossed with a slightly more deve­loped version of Discreet Music, where elegant electronic soundscapes are integrated with ro­mantic piano loops. But it is a nice kind of sound, not aspiring to much depth, perhaps, yet still evocative, synthesizing a little cozy universe of its own, where you have caves, clouds, fogs, blizzards, swamps, pools, and, yes, rocking horses — no cozy universe should be without its own rocking horse. The three of them would get much better on After The Heat, but this one is totally deserving of its thumbs up as well.