Asia: Archiva

ASIA: ARCHIVA (1996)

CD I: 1) Heart Of Gold; 2) Tears; 3) Fight Against The Tide; 4) We Fall Apart; 5) The Mariner's Dream; 6) Boys From Diamond City; 7) A.L.O.; 8) Reality; 9) I Can't Wait A Lifetime; 10) Dusty Road; 11) I Believe; 12) Ginger; CD II: 1) Obsession; 2) Moon Under The Water; 3) Love Like The Video; 4) Don't Come To Me; 5) The Smoke That Thunders; 6) Satelite Blues; 7) Showdown; 8) That Season; 9) Can't Tell These Walls; 10) The Higher You Climb; 11) Right To Cry; 12) Armenia.

Apparently, this is how this album (actually, two albums — Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 came out separate­ly, but I am no superhero to review them together) came through. One fine day in 1996, upon re­turning to their studio, the band members found out that a pipe burst through, destroying much of the equipment and, apparently, quite a few archival tapes lying around. At this moment, as I can reconstruct the situation, «oh no!», said Geoff Downes, «just imagine — all of our unreleased treasures could have been destroyed! not that we were ever going to release it, since it all sucks anyway, but imagine coming in here one day and IT'S ALL GONE! Would history ever agree to pardon us? Isn't this a sign from God and all?»

Well — you understand what happened next. Apparently, these frickin' bastards had tons of songs they'd recorded over the past few years, none of which originally made the grade; and now, just because a silly pipe had to blow up at an inappropriate moment, they pushed twenty-four of these on the market. Now you might think that, with such a large number of tracks, there could be sur­prises. After all, it does happen sometimes that, driven by an odd understanding of the word «co­mmercial», artists release sterile crap while keeping the real keepers under the pillow. If so, you can relax: this is clearly not the case here. Most, if not all, of these tracks were left unreleased be­cause there was a damn good reason to keep them unreleased.

Basically, these are all outtakes from the pre-Arena era of Payne — the worst single stretch in Asia's entire career. One single listen to one single choice of a cover track will suffice: the way this band butchers ʽShowdownʼ, one of my favourite ELO songs, is inexcusable, with an abysmal combination of plastic drumming and pop-metal riffage replacing the subtle textures of the origi­nal. And everything here is molded according to the same stylistics, be it «rocker», «ballad», or, God help me, «mood piece».

Every once in a while, I feel like a hypocrite here — after all, it's not as if I were ever bothered by the production style of ABBA, for instance, where other people would say exactly the same that I am saying here: «yes, there may be melodies all right, but how can one stand these arrangements? Glitzy trash!» Yet, for all its unfortunate glitziness, the music of ABBA never for one moment took itself as doggone seriously as Asia. Truly and verily, I cannot stand a song like ʽHeart Of Goldʼ because each single instrument, each single vocal note, each single second of it pretends to be Lord Fuckin' Byron, dark hair waving in the stormy wind as the Turkish guns raise hell from all four sides and the earth rumbles under the feet. Against this impression, unless your music is at least Beethoven-quality, no single pop-rock melody, no matter how good — and these me­lodies, whatever one might say, are at the very least nowhere near «genius» — will be able to come across as anything other than «moronic to the core».

I wish I could recommend at least one of these tracks, but as I browse through them once again, they all seem to be doing one thing — compete with each other in the single nomination of «How High Up In The Sky Can You Deliver Your Romantic Battle Cry?». Even when they try to let their hair down and just deliver some good old-fashioned rock'n'roll (ʽA.L.O.ʼ) or blues-rock (ʽSatellite Bluesʼ), the effect is the same. With these drums and guitars, you might just as well be rock'n'rolling on your PC's motherboard — and the «social» bite of ʽSatellite Bluesʼ is complete­ly lost against the same background as well. "Underground is just the place to be", howls Payne — not a bad idea, guys, why not actually try it out?

Overall, this is all awful: expect no random wonders, and keep a close eye on those pipes. Body waste freely floating around is fairly yucky, but at least it's natural, unlike this kind of «spiritual» waste, which has all the markings of a strong chemical weapon on it. Thumbs down, and if it were up to me, I'd slap a biohazard sign on it as well.

Average White Band: Person To Person

AVERAGE WHITE BAND: PERSON TO PERSON (1976)

1) Person To Person; 2) Cut The Cake; 3) If I Ever Lose This Heaven; 4) Cloudy; 5) T.L.C.; 6) I'm The One; 7) Pick Up The Pieces; 8) Love Your Life; 9) School Boy Crush; 10) I Heard It Through The Grapevine.

The Average White Band Live Experience is pretty much what you would expect it to be after gulping down the Studio Experience. Basically, everything is kept the same, with the addition of some major jam power. Naturally, in an era of double live LPs Person To Person could only be double, but that's understood — considering that ʽT.L.C.ʼ goes on for fourteen minutes and ʽPick Up The Piecesʼ is stretched to eighteen, only two LPs could have made this even the slightest bit representative of the band's actual shows.

Unfortunately, all of the things that confirm the «average» tag for the AWB in the studio do not seem to dissipate live, either. First and foremost, the band is still playing it cozy and safe. Stretch­ing the songs out into jam mode could give them a chance to go wild; but the individual solos that explain the length of ʽPick Up The Piecesʼ are still well-mannered and restrained, even Steve Fer­rone's drum solo, which is very pefunctory and boring in comparison to a John Bonham or a Ginger Baker or a Mi­chael Shrieve. And none of the other members are great soloists, either; in fact, there must have been a bery good reason why they always emphasized collective groove over individual showcases on their studio albums — none of the guitarists or brass players have anything even remotely approaching an individual style, preferring to blend into the surroundings. (Still wonder why Paul McCartney spent so much time recording and touring with Hamish Stuart in the late 1980s / early 1990s? This is the kind of sidekick that he appreciates the most).

Second, the setlist is good, but far from perfect. Everything is funky-midtempo or slow-balladry; a fast romp along the lines of ʽPut It Where You Want Itʼ would have made the experience far more convincing. Where, in a different context, I would bemoan the presence of disco, here I find its absence equally bemoan-ful: too much white-boy funk, even played with all due professiona­lism and inspiration, can eventually render the heart immune to its charms. It doesn't help matters, either, that the two new numbers, previewed from Soul Searching (ʽI'm The Oneʼ and ʽLove Your Lifeʼ) show that the formula, good for the first three years, was getting seriously stale and repetitive into its fourth. And finally, the cover of Marvin Gaye's ʽI Heard It Through The Grape­vineʼ is a genuine failure — it takes the guys a whole three or four minutes to set up the groove, and then the groove turns out to be rather limp compared to both the classic «black» and «white» versions (CCR's, for instance).

Overall, a huge disappointment — funk bands are supposed to give their best on stage, but this here is clearly not the case. I still like the fourteen-minute version of ʽT.L.C.ʼ (very few solos and some nice tension build-ups on the way), but if the boys place more emphasis on precision and cleanliness of playing than on letting their hair down, it should be obvious that studio records are the way to go. Hence, a logical thumbs down — avoid, unless one of those inexplicable forces of Nature happened to transform you into a major AWB fan.

Andrew Lloyd Webber: Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat

ANDREW LLOYD WEBBER: JOSEPH AND THE AMAZING TECHNICOLOR DREAMCOAT (1969)

1) Jacob And Sons; 2) Joseph's Coat; 3) Joseph's Dream; 4) Poor, Poor Joseph; 5) One More Angel In Heaven; 6) Potiphar; 7) Close Every Door; 8) Go, Go, Go Joseph; 9) Poor, Poor Pharoah; 10) Song Of The King (Seven Fat Cows); 11) Pharaoh's Dream Explained; 12) Stone The Crows; 13) The Brothers Come To Egypt / Grovel, Grovel; 14) Who's The Thief?; 15) Joseph All The Time; 16) Jacob In Egypt; 17) Any Dream Will Do.

Not too many people are aware of the fact that Jesus Christ Superstar was not the first time that A. L. Webber and Tim Rice desecrated the Bible under the intoxicating influence of the hippie age. And some of those who are aware of the duo's take on the life of Joseph might mistakenly place it after JC — simply for the reason that it was not until the worldwide success of JC made them household names that they returned to Joseph in all of its «splendor», getting it to run in prestigious Broadway and London theaters and engaging the services of Donny Osmond to en­sure a dramatic surge in teenage girl interest in the Book of Genesis.

But the original recording of Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat was actually released on Decca at least a year prior to JC. It did not manage to catch a lot of public attention, and is quite hard to come by these days as well. Completists should take note that the recording is usually credited to «The Joseph Consortium», which includes a selection of little-known players and singers in which The Colet Court Choir plays a central part: the whole work was originally commissionned by the Colet Court preparatory school, and was first performed on March 1, 1968 as a 15-minute «pop cantata», later expanded to a 30-minute «oratorio». This second version al­ready managed to catch the public eye — and the result was a contract with Decca and this here album, quite hard to come by these days, but available, for instance, as an MP3 download from Amazon and other commercial sites.

If you are a major fan of JC and expect to find something in the same vein, prepare to be disap­pointed. Joseph is not only shorter, simpler, and far more modest in scope and ambition: it is a work produced on an entirely different scale and in an entirely different musical paradigm. It's not just that, at this particular point in his life, Lloyd Webber was still mighty wary of this new potent force called «rock», placing much more of his trust into the variety hall format; it is also that Joseph is essentially just a bit of lightweight entertainment. Put a Bible story in a «pop musical» format? Say, what a golly gee novel idea.

That said, the actual music is not at all «retro». Rather, it is reminiscent of the light family-orien­ted psycho-pop of the times, such as practiced by The Association on one side of the ocean and Manfred Mann on the other. Heavy on strings, chimes, sunshine vocal harmonies, but with a light touch of electric organ, a pinch of fuzzy electric guitar, and some wobbly production effects for the sake of «hipness». Normally, this style is pitiful, although Webber seems to feel quite at home with it, churning out melody after melody in a dazzling sequence of eighteen tracks in thirty-one minutes — although some themes are reprised several times (most notably, the catchiest vocal moment on the album, ʽPoor, Poor Josephʼ, later recreated as ʽPoor, Poor Pharaohʼ), there is an impressive number of diverse chord sequences on the album all the same. Unfortunately, few of them are memorable or emotionally overwhelming.

There are several lead singers on the album, most notably David Daltrey of the contemporary psy­chedelic band Tales Of Justine (!; no relation to Roger as far as I can tell), but the whole thing is presented as an «oratorio» rather than a true «opera», and the vocal retelling of the story of Jo­seph, narrated Tim Rice-style, is nothing to write about. Most ear-catching of the lot is probably Tim's own take on the Pharaoh: ʽSong Of The Kingʼ is carried out as a pa­rody on Elvis — but it is not particularly funny because there is no clear reason why exactly the Pharaoh should be sing­ing in an Elvis manner (they pulled off a similar stunt in a much more convincing manner with ʽKing Herod's Songʼ, which parodied no one in particular but conveyed the hedonistic spirit of the character to a tee with its 1920's spirit). Like everything else, it's just there because there's no harm in trying anything once.

The attentive listener will probably spot a few melodic bits that ended up migrating into JC terri­tory: for instance, the shrill electric guitar solo in ʽOne More Angel In Heavenʼ would later deve­lop into «Pilate's theme», and the vocal melody of ʽWho's The Thiefʼ would be re-appropriated for ʽTrial Before Pilateʼ. But most of these melodies are too kid-friendly to ever suit the dark and tense mood of JC — and the entire experience is so completely tongue-in-cheek that one can ne­ver understand if the primary purpose of the two merry young Brits was to revolutionize the world of music by synthesizing traditional musical, psychedelia, and the Old Testament, or to simply take a hooliganish stab at the Scripture while no one was looking.

In any case, Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat in its original incarnation is still a fun listen; much more dated and strictly tied to its time than JC, but still a curious, one-of-a-kind experiment that has plenty of potential to survive as intelligent «family entertainment» — a musical fairy-tale for the young and old. At the very least, it is certainly far from the worst ef­fort ever undertaken to set the Bible to music — plus, the idea of Joseph as humanity's first psy­chedelic symbol is quite awesome in itself, only marginally less so than the idea of Jesus as hu­manity's first impersonation of the hippie ideal. Thumbs up.

The Beach Boys: Endless Harmony Soundtrack

THE BEACH BOYS: ENDLESS HARMONY SOUNDTRACK (1998)

1) Soulful Old Man Sunshine (writing session excerpt); 2) Soulful Old Man Sunshine; 3) Radio Concert Promo; 4) Medley: Surfin' Safari / Fun, Fun, Fun / Shut Down / Little Deuce Coupe / Surfin' U.S.A. (live 1966); 5) Surfer Girl (binaural mix); 6) Help Me, Rhonda (alternate single version); 7) Kiss Me, Baby (stereo remix); 8) California Girls (stereo remix); 9) Good Vibrations (live 1968); 10) Heroes And Villains (demo); 11) Heroes And Villains (live 1972); 12) God Only Knows (live 1967); 13) Radio Concert Promo; 14) Darlin' (live 1980); 15) Wonderful / Don't Worry Bill (live 1972); 16) Do It Again (early version); 17) Break Away (demo); 18) Sail Plane Song; 19) Loop De Loop (Flip Flop Flyin' In An Aeroplane); 20) Barbara; 21) 'Til I Die (alternate mix); 22) Long Promised Road (live 1972); 23) All Alone; 24) Brian's Back; 25) Endless Harmony.

It must have been quite risqué to select ʽEndless Harmonyʼ, out of everything there was, as the Beach Boy song title to serve as the title for a documentary on the band's history — in 1998, as Carl finally succumbed to cancer and the rest of the band drifted apart, with only Mike and Bruce going on as «The Beach Boys», selling out barrooms and spas either to people too old to remem­ber whoever was in the band anyway, or to people who didn't give much of a damn about whether they were being entertained by «The Beach Boys» or «The Backstreet Boys». Maybe ʽYou Need A Mess Of Help To Stand Aloneʼ would have been a better title.

In any case, the documentary provided Capitol with a respectable opportunity to unload some more of those archival dustbins, and the fans genuinely got over seventy minutes of new Beach Boy material. Granted, the word «new» can have lots of nuances, and in this particular case, way too often «new» simply means:

— new stereo remixes of well-known songs, e. g. ʽSurfer Girlʼ, ʽKiss Me, Babyʼ, and ʽCalifornia Girlsʼ (a thing that should have been done on a far more thorough level, e. g. have all the early al­bums remastered in two modes, the way they eventually did with the Beatles);

— underarranged demo versions that can only have historical interest (ʽDo It Againʼ, ʽBreak Awayʼ, etc.); everything listenable and in fine quality, but no unexpected twists. Well, you do get to hear Mike sing "let's get together and surf again", which was eventually deleted, for fear that somebody might actually start harassing the band into fulfilling that exhortation;

— «radio concert promo» bits written for the band by people who probably thought that such a dumb band deserved the dumbest of writing ("Hi! This is Al Jardine, and I am a Beach Boy"; "Hi, this is the greatest drummer on Earth, Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys").

Fortunately, that is only about a third of the album. The other third features an assortment of live rarities that range from the curiously fun (a five-hit medley from 1966 crammed into three and a half minutes) to the brilliant (ʽHeroes And Villainsʼ from 1967) to the unexpected (two highlights from the 1972 Carnegie Hall Concert: an inspired take on ʽLong Promised Roadʼ from Carl, and a ʽWonderfulʼ that is, for some reason, merged with a Chaplin/Fataar blues-rocker called ʽDon't Worry Billʼ — see, back in the old days this band did include surprising its audiences among its top priorities) to the so-so (ʽDarlinʼ should probably have been taken from some show prior to 1980's Knebworth concert).

Finally, there are six new songs that had only been previously available through bootlegs, al­though only one of them may count up there with the classics — consequently, it is also the one that opens the album: ʽSoulful Old Man Sunshineʼ, an outtake from the 1969 sessions, is a prime time Brian Wilson classic with all the works — multi-layered harmonies, varied instrumentation, catchy verse/chorus, and a lush, optimistic, anthemic atmosphere that was hardly a cherished guest on Brian's post-breakdown compositions. Why they ended up leaving it in the can is any­body's guess — maybe they thought it was too Motown-ish in sound (it does bounce around the room in the same way that a light, fast-tempo Supremes number can), although this never stopped them from covering Stevie Wonder on Wild Honey.

Five minutes are given to two different incarnations of the same song — ʽSail Plane Song' from 1968 began as a dark swirling piano number, then gradually mutated into 1969's 'Loop De Loop', a carouselambra-extravaganza of brass, chimes, harmonies, and circus spirit, before finally getting to be killed off by Jack Rieley, who thought the Beach Boys should not waste their pre­cious time working on such mindless fluff, and dedicate their efforts to things far more serious in nature and scope — such as ʽStudent Demonstration Timeʼ. Actually, though, ʽLoop De Loopʼ in its semi-finished shape is still a nice piece of Cali-psychedelia... but it certainly used to be cre­epier when it used to be ʽSail Plane Songʼ.

There is also a previously unreleased Dennis ballad (ʽBarbaraʼ), and at least one misguided in­clusion — ʽBrian's Backʼ, a song written in 1976 to celebrate the prodigal brother's artificial «comeback», sewn together from a miriad nostalgic leaves and, fortunately, shelved for the time being. Now that Brian had finally severed his ties with the remaining «Beach Boys» for good, the song's resurfacing on this anthology might have seemed even more comic.

It would have been better if they had let the album run its course on the «full» version of 'Til I Die' — the only song on here that has it in itself to compete with the original, lengthened by two completely instrumental minutes that allow the melody to be explored in all of its potential; if you ever wondered how all these late Sixties / early Seventies Beach Boy classics would sound with proper build-ups and fade-outs, well, here is your answer: this alternate mix, created by engineer Steve Desper, makes the song twice the epic that it is. (In fact, Brian himself liked it so much that he eventually started working around the extended version in live performances).

The end result is, naturally, a thumbs up, and a big overall improvement compared to Rarities: longer, cleaner, better sequenced, and with three or four genuinely awesome discoveries. Unfor­tunately, it also confirmed that, even in the CD age, as well as an age in which interest in the Beach Boys as «forefathers of cool» was perking up, the archives would not yield Holy Grails. However, the fact that it was still possible to brush the dust off an occasional ʽSoulful Old Man Sunshineʼ still left ground for suspicions that the people at Capitol were playing out their time-honoured strategy — never let go of everything at the same time, or you might make people way too happy for them to remember to make you way too rich.

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Billie Holiday: Songs For Distingue Lovers

BILLIE HOLIDAY: SONGS FOR DISTINGUE LOVERS (1957)

1) Day In, Day Out; 2) A Foggy Day; 3) Stars Fell On Alabama; 4) One For My Baby; 5) Just One Of Those Things; 6) I Don't Know What Time It Was.

The second album released from the same sessions as Body And Soul, Songs For Distingué Lovers commands even fewer words than its predecessor. It also has fewer songs (just six titles), not to mention the exact same backing musicians, general attitude, and chronological set of songs — not a single one going back to anything later than 1943.

One single difference is that, on this particular batch, not a single track is a re-recording — all six were selected as brand new «expe­rimental» puppies for the lady to sink her (rottin') teeth in. But that only makes the album harder to assess on its own, since there is nothing to compare it to — unless we start seriously discussing what it is exactly that the lady brings to 'One For My Baby' that is so different from Sinatra's classic version. Well, just about the same thing that distingui­shes any other tune tackled by both Holiday and Sinatra — she's her, and he's him.

For some reason, when re-released fourty years later on CD, it was Songs For Distingué Lovers rather than the two albums around it that got the first privilege — with six more songs from Body And Soul and All Or Nothing At All tacked on as bonuses. Perhaps the Verve people thought the exquisite French epithet «classy», unlike the others; the fact that they even used it at all back in 1957 means that they were consciously trying to market Billie as «penthouse» music for rich romantic couples... which, to me, seems like cheapening the issue.

The arrangements — yes, all of them typically «penthouse» arrangements; but the idea of «spiritually enjoying» Billie sing with half-drawn shades, a glass of Bordeaux, and a «that special someone» in an evening dress seems rather cheap and, in any case, much too stereotypical for a singer as dismissive of stereotypes as Billie. Above all else, all of these songs reflect pain, and it is rather hard to enjoy pain, let alone with a glass of Bordeaux (although, come to think of it, a big enough glass could make it easy to enjoy anything). Even though there is nothing even remotely close in spirit to a 'God Bless The Child' on Songs For Distingué Lovers, all of these songs — never mind the syrupy or corny lyrics — are delivered in Billie's usual late-period ragged tones, and these tones are not «enjoyable»: they are «experienceable», and, as such, do not really re­quire any additional settings, substances, or seductions.

Black Lips: Good Bad Not Evil

BLACK LIPS: GOOD BAD NOT EVIL (2007)

1) I Saw A Ghost (Lean); 2) O Katrina!; 3) Veni Vidi Vici; 4) It Feels Alright; 5) Navajo; 6) Lock And Key; 7) How Do You Tell A Child That Someone Has Died; 8) Bad Kids; 9) Step Right Up; 10) Cold Hands; 11) Off The Block; 12) Slime And Oxygen; 13) Transcendental Light.

And here comes maturity — a record that dispatches with the extreme tendencies of lo-fi and tries to be fun for us all, without segregating the listeners into those who will wade through the muck and those who do not think so much of having to wade through muck if it isn't a matter of life and death. Finally, after all these years, we will be able to tell if the Black Lips are really as great as their image has manipulated them into seeming — without having to shake the aural dust and so­nic soot out of our ears as a pre-requisite!

Of course, without the safeguard of horrendous production, the band runs an increased risk of pas­sing for trivial fetishists. But in my personal system of values, «trivial fetishism» ranks well above «trivial fetishism masked by intentional sloppiness». And besides, there is still way too much post-punk freedom here — in the lyrics, in the vocals, in the minimalism, in the roughness — for anyone to seriously mistake Good Bad Not Evil for a collection of garage oldies.

The singles are generally the best, just the way it is supposed to be with this kind of music. 'Cold Hands' starts off in an Easybeats mode, then, after a couple verses, segues into a Ventures-style surf-rock solo, everything at breakneck speed — the only thing that is missing is a sense of pur­pose, although the lyrics vaguely suggest some sort of social comparison going on ("We get along while their very bones decay"), but a little more fire and desperation could be welcome here. Then again, the Black Lips are hooligans and jokers — they'd rather piss on the cop than stick him up, and that goes for pretty much everything else, including Hurricane Katrina: 'O Katrina' probably would have been misunderstood, had they had the gall to write and release it way back in 2005, but two years later, with the tension gone for good, they can allow themselves to chant "O, Katrina, why you gotta be mean?" to a jolly catchy dance melody.

The big «anthem» of the album, however, is 'Bad Kids', whose particular lyrics are not very inte­resting (hardly any new insights into the problem since the days of the Ramones and the Clash anyway); what is interesting is that they are lain over an upbeat retro-pop structure whose roots go well back to Motown — the best proverbial illustration for «flower punk» that any encyclo­pae­dia could ask for. Punk-rock with a Motown smile does not blunder its way under your win­dows every day of the week; with these numbers, the Black Lips may be finally beginning to carve themselves out a niche all their own.

Or maybe it is with such «crowd-shockers» as 'How Do You Tell A Child That Someone Has Died' — a song whose lyrical message is quite well disclosed in the title, and whose melody pil­fers a standard country waltz to discuss the uncomfortable subject in Nashville terms? Not neces­sarily, since this approach shows too much of a Ween influence (particularly 12 Golden Country Greats, of course), and the Lips lack the proper musicianship to catch up with Ween in their reckless genre-riding. Which does not mean that the song does not leave a proper «impression»: each decade needs its own dose of brutal, mercyless country-thumping, and it just so happened to have been ten years since Ween gave us theirs.

In other news, the Lips poke blunt fun at world religions ('Veni Vidi Vici'), Native Americans ('Navajo'), rednecks ('Lock And Key'), psychedelics ('Off The Block'), and whatever else I might have missed, all of it set to these little ripped-off variations on Sixties' chord sequences that can each be traced to two or three singles from Nuggets once somebody finances the project (to do that, all that is needed is for the Lips to become the next Beatles, and then you could be their Mark Lewisohn). I hereby confirm that the album is indeed an honest example of «good bad not evil», and that corresponds to a thumbs up, offered with limited enthusiasm but, nevertheless, out of sheer free will. In fact, Good Bad Not Evil even raises some hope that, perhaps, some day these kids might actually begin writing songs rather than just pulling them out of their parents' stereos and filtering them through their asses.

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Arch Enemy: The Root Of All Evil

ARCH ENEMY: THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL (2009)

1) The Root Of All Evil (Intro); 2) Beast Of Man; 3) The Immortal; 4) Diva Satanica; 5) Demonic Science; 6) Bury Me An Angel; 7) Dead Inside; 8) Dark Insanity; 9) Pilgrim; 10) Demoniality; 11) Transmigration Macabre; 12) Silverwing; 13) Bridge Of Destiny.

Uh… well, this certainly does not sound bad, but the point of this record must have either been to simply buy some time in preparation for «bigger things», or to show the world, once and for all, just how much they really care about their old vocalist. Apart from the short atmospheric intro, all of the tracks are re-recordings from the Liiva era, naturally, with Angela on vocals instead; an idea possibly triggered by the successful inclusion of Liiva-era material on the band’s latest live album as well, where, under Angela’s command, it sounded well in harmony with the rest.

Predictably, all of the songs are very well played (seasoned fans will tell the minute differences, but my own taste buds have not been so finely developed for the likes of death metal), the track selection is strong (concentrating on Burning Bridges for obvious reasons), the production is far cleaner and clearer than whatever they used to achieve ten years before, and Gossow does all the songs justice in her gossowian way.

Still, the idea strikes me as somewhat unethical. I never cared much for Liiva as a vocalist, and thus, have no reason to be on the same level of ire as «hardcore» fans who think Arch Enemy «sold out» when they «hired that chick», but these songs were as much his as they are of the Amotts (and much more his than Angela’s). It is one thing to go on singing them in concert — that’s what the fans want, after all — it is quite another to re-record them in the studio, a gesture that could easily be interpreted as an invitation to throw the band’s pre-Angela past out of the window, leaving a few echos as souvenirs. Forget about Greedo shooting first — this is like a new edition of Star Wars in which all of Alec Guinness’ scenes have been completely replaced by re-shot sequences with a much-aged Ewan McGregor, «for the sakes of coherence, continuity, and credibility throughout the series».

Of course, the analogy is poor if you agree with me that Gossow is a much more interesting vo­calist than Liiva could ever have hoped to be; so did they really need to rub it in the noses of the fans, instead of letting bygones be bygones? I do not think I get the point of this album, and if I do, then it might indeed be «the root of all evil», and, in any case, I give it a perfect thumbs down — for moral reasons, probably the first time ever in a heavy metal band review. Let’s just pretend it never existed and move on.

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Asia: Arena

ASIA: ARENA (1996)

1) Into The Arena; 2) Arena; 3) Heaven; 4) Two Sides Of The Moon; 5) The Day Before The War; 6) Never; 7) Falling; 8) Words; 9) U Bring Me Down; 10) Tell Me Why; 11) Turn It Around; 12) Bella Nova.

One would expect Asia’s heroic ambitions, already well above and beyond their songwriting abi­lities and sonic taste, to burst right through the roof — with the release of an album titled like that; and Roger Dean’s winged lion on the sleeve is like a pre-ordered symbol of unbearable pathos. But, in a suprisingly unpredictable move, Arena turns out to be just the opposite: Asia’s most «restrained», even «down-to-earth» offering so far.

It must have been an intentional shift of style: the lineup is more or less the same here as on Aria, with the exception of guitar duties, for which the newly departed Pitrelli is now replaced by two players: Aziz Ibrahim, formerly of Simply Red, and Elliott Randall, formerly of whatever God wants. But there have always been two and only two instruments in Asia that really mattered: the synthesizer (still manned by Father Downes) and the drum (still kicked by Mike Sturgis). Plus the human voice, of course, still provided by John Payne. And all three have been toned down for Arena, although the most obvious change is in the drum sound — Sturgis pretty much renoun­ces the big, electronically enhanced, 1980s sound, going for a softer, more natural approach.

There are, in fact, congas on the opening track instead of basic drums, played by guest percus­sionist Luis Jardim, as the whole instrumental is set to more or less the Latin rhythm of Steely Dan’s ‘Do It Again’. This does not save it from sounding like unremarkable elevator muzak, but it is still the most unusual introduction to an Asia album since first we learned what a typical Asia album looks like. Experimentation? In some cases, even unsuccessful experimentation is better than continuing to sink in the same boring dreck — and since, on the whole, I ended up getting more kicks from Arena than from either of the preceding records, this must be one of those cases.

So as not to make the review too long, I will briefly list what it is that does not suck about Arena. The way ‘Heaven’ begins — with echoey guitars lifted directly from ‘Another Brick In The Wall’ and then the echo waves suddenly transforming into synthesizers and then the whole thing just going away into the background to give way to an upbeat pop song (which, in itself, does suck rather badly). The silly catchy chorus to ‘Two Sides Of The Moon’ which is so very un-Asia-like, more like simple generic 1980’s synth-pop (perhaps Downes was feeling ever more nostalgic about the young and innocent days of The Buggles). ‘Never’ and ‘Falling’, two more okayish pop rock contributions that do not provide much happiness but do not overreach or annoy, either. And ‘Turn It Around’ has a tiny pinch of clenched-teeth grit that always made Asia albums easier to assimilate (and an ear-catching guitar lead from Randall).

Basically, it’s just a livelier, slightly more diverse, and slightly less pompous proposition than it used to be. This does not excuse the nine minutes of ‘The Day Before The War’, the album’s sor­ry excuse for a «prog epic», or that the «big drums» finally start announcing their presence on tracks like ‘Words’, or, let us be frank, that the very concept of the band known as «Asia» still ex­isted in 1996. But in our quest for musical justice, we cannot not acknowledge that «…at least they tried». The title track states that “Into the arena we climb / We look to the sky” — words that might easily be interpreted as a new declaration of the right to fight for their artistic freedom and expect support from where it can least be expected.

Plus, an arena is the place to deal out thumbsets, isn’t it? The only problem is, when no one really gives a damn about the fight, it becomes somewhat irrelevant whether the fighters in question live or die at all. I would prefer to withdraw judgement as well — giving a thumbs up to a Payne-era Asia album is strictly prohibited by the Laws of Adequacy, but giving a thumbs down to Arena in particular would not acknowledge its honest attempt to break away from the formula, and I do not want to propagate the wrong concept that «All Asia (var.: All Payne-era Asia) sounds the same». That’d almost be like saying that all Asia looks the same, and that would be racist.

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Average White Band: Cut The Cake

AVERAGE WHITE BAND: CUT THE CAKE (1975)

1) Cut The Cake; 2) School Boy Crush; 3) It’s A Mystery; 4) Groovin’ The Night Away; 5) If I Ever Lose This Hea­ven; 6) Why; 7) High Flyin’ Woman; 8) Cloudy; 9) How Sweet Can You Get; 10) When They Bring Down The Curtain.

Recording of this album was somewhat darkened by the accidental death of the band’s drummer, Robbie McIntosh, from overdosing, with a story that would be fairly typical for the rock hero party style of the time — an unfortunate side effect of «normal» L.A. party entertainment, with someone «accidentally» substituting cocaine for heroin (could be from here that Quentin got the inspiration for Pulp Fiction, or from a billion similar stories, I guess).

The evil joker inside me wishes to state that the rest of the band were too stoned to notice any­way, and that is why they carried on like nothing happened, with Cut The Cake continuing in exactly the same vein as AWB; but, as a matter of fact, they did notice (if anything, Alan Gorrie nearly died as well in the same incident, only saved in the nick of time by Cher — «best thing Cher ever did», adds the evil joker), quickly replacing Robbie with Steve Ferrone and dedicating their next record to his memory. If there ever was an individualistic change in the drumming style, count me too coarse to notice.

Having mentioned the band’s transfer to sunny California in the previous review, I forgot to men­tion that the label was Atlantic, and the new producer was Arif Mardin — the same guy who was, at the exact same time, responsible for rebooting the career of the Bee Gees; and, for that matter, I find it quite unfair that even the finest efforts of the AWB have mostly fled from public memory where albums like Main Course managed to take solid root in it. The Bee Gees had the unques­tionable advantage of finding the better hooks for their dance grooves; but the AWB were far more respectable as a real groove-based band of actual musicians, rather than three pretty voices backed by interchangeable session players.

Even the songwriting, at this point, could be disputed. Maybe it was their bandmate’s death that provided an unprecedented fit of sentimental inspiration, but the ballads on this record — ‘If I Ever Lose This Heaven’, ‘How Sweet Can You Get’, and particularly ‘Cloudy’ — find beautiful vocal lines to host their emotions, and, at the same time, feel livelier and less glossy than any ‘More Than A Woman’ could be. They are glossy: Mardin, ever the dedicated escapist, gives every number the cleanest sound possible and lays enough echo on the vocals to place an unbrea­chable distance between the singer and the listener. But the playing is inventive and even impro­visatory, which compensates for overproduction.

That said, us tough guys will probably want to throw out the sissy stuff and look for red meat. The juiciest slice is right on top — the title track, a worthy sequel to ‘Pick Up The Pieces’ as one of those near-instrumental compositions that the AWB deserve to be remembered for: another combination of interlocking guitar, bass, drum, and brass lines that is simply infectious beyond reason, or adequate description. But there is also ‘Groovin’ The Night Away’, whose purpose adequately matches the title, and ‘School Boy Crush’, which starts out cool-struttin’ and arrogant like an Aerosmith number (unfortunately, not really delivering upon the promises of that terrific bass groove), all of them quite worth the while of any big fan of the syncopated approach.

And, for that matter, only the last number, ‘When They Bring Down The Curtain’, should pro­ba­bly qualify as proper «proto-disco», even if the rhythm section is still playing by its own rules without properly subjugating itself to the simplifications of disco. So for those who like drawing strict lines between «funk» and «disco», I can safely certify that Cut The Cake is quite «old school». It is also one of the AWB’s finest efforts, although the degree of its adventurousness will probably be better assessed by professional musicians than an average white listener: like all of its predecessors, Cut The Cake really only starts growing once your ear has been properly con­verted into a democratic six-track system, in which Gorrie’s bass is given the same attention as Hamish Stuart’s guitar etc. I am not sure I have completed the process, but at least it has progres­sed far enough where, without scruples, I would be glad to support Cut The Cake with yet another thumbs up — if everybody in the world who makes music without a single spark of ge­nius would at least aspire to this level, that would certainly save us all a lot of trouble.

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Alice Cooper: Welcome 2 My Nightmare

ALICE COOPER: WELCOME 2 MY NIGHTMARE (2011)

1) I Am Made Of You; 2) Caffeine; 3) The Nightmare Returns; 4) A Runaway Train; 5) Last Man On Earth; 6) The Congregation; 7) I'll Bite Your Face Off; 8) Disco Bloodbath Boogie Fever; 9) Ghouls Gone Wild; 10) Something To Remember Me By; 11) When Hell Comes Home; 12) What Baby Wants; 13) I Gotta Get Outta Here; 14) The Underture.

Sequels that try to catch up with the original thirty-five years later cannot work effectively — there must be some mathematical law out there to prove that, but I’ll take it on pure intuitive trust for the moment. Let us refresh our memories: in 1975, Alice was all but injecting one last breath into the dying lungs of «glam» rock, hybridizing it with vaudeville and Vegas, much to the dis­gust of some fans, but much to the delight of others. Under all of its glitz and camp, Welcome To My Nightmare had a purpose — it offered fresh, sizzling sensations with strategically placed drops of intelligence (so that for each ʽCold Ethylʼ and ʽBlack Widowʼ you got yourself a ʽDepart­ment Of Youthʼ or an ʽOnly Women Bleedʼ).

Compared against that landmark, the predictably, but uncomfortably titled sequel Welcome 2 My Nightmare (for one thing, you can’t even express the difference in spoken words, only graphi­cally) is an inevitable flop. It has only one advantage: SCOPE. What began as a light nostalgic collaboration between Alice and Bob Ezrin somehow managed to evolve into a sprawling, mega-ambitious project involving a whole army of people. Even if all of these songs sucked from be­ginning to end, it would still be worth at least one listen just to see all these guys assembled in one place. The three original Cooperites (Michael Bruce, Dennis Dunaway, and Neal Smith) col­laborating on three of the numbers. Steve Hunter and Dick Wagner, the Coop’s guitar god savi­ours of the late 1970s, on a couple others. Desmond Child, the malicious hero of Trash, co-wri­ting the lead-in track. Good old pal Rob Zombie adding backing vocals on another one. And that is just the beginning of the list. It must have taken lots of energy to simply get all these people to participate — let alone shuffle their contributions into some sort of coherent mix.

But is there a coherent mix? The question might be moot, since, at his most inspired, the Coop was always about eclecticism and unpredictability. The presence of a «heavy guitar rock» sound is, by and large, the only glue that holds most of this material together (and even then there are exceptions — ʽLast Man On Earthʼ is an attempt to work within the Kurt Weill / Tom Waits idi­om), but the original Alice Cooper band members certainly do not play the same way as Hunter and Wagner, let alone «modern» guitar players. From the industrial metal echoes of Brutal Pla­net to the neo-punk crunch of The Eyes Of Alice Cooper to the glam metal days of Trash to the MTV-friendly bowtie-guitars of ʽWhat Baby Wantsʼ, we have everything.

Concept? Well, was there really a concept behind the original Nightmare, other than just of­fe­ring a general framework within which the man could worship his fetishes and poke fun at so­ci­e­ty’s vices? From that point of view, the sequel works just as well. There are songs about ghouls, devil women, and disco dancing in hell, yet there are also songs about mechanical world evils, child abuse, life in the fast lane etc.: quite a workable mix if you know how to work it.

But the album still does not work as an album; it never becomes bigger than the sum of its parts, which is further exacerbated by the fact that, since there are so many different parts, quite a few of them sum together in the negative. The standard culprit, for instance, is ‘What Baby Wants’, a collaboration with a weird by-product of today’s pop culture called Ke$ha (supposedly, on the next sequel we will be seeing Justin Bieber take on the role of Steven). Some folks naturally sug­gested «big bucks» and «getting hip with the youngsters», but they are missing the point here: the former may work for Elton John and the latter for Mick Jagger, but the Coop is a seasoned joker, and bringing in the latest shit-hip-pop-sensation is this season’s idea of a joke. If only the song it­self had more to it than its insanely annoyingly catchy two-bit chorus, it might even have been a successful joke. But it doesn’t, so it wasn’t.

Other misfires include: (a) heavy use of auto-tune on ‘I Am Made Of You’, employed as a purely artistic device, of course (God save us from living to see the day when Alice starts needing auto-tune!), but still as utterly ugly as every other bit of auto-tune on the planet — and the song itself is one of Desmond Child’s least convincing contributions to Cooper’s legacy; (b) the lack of ei­ther humor or interesting musical ideas in ‘Disco Bloodbath Boogie Fever’, a song that tries to go for the same sort of vibe as the dance-oriented tracks on Goes To Hell, but add a little techno fla­vor to the soup — the effect is confusing, and the message seems misguided (a guy as smart as Alice should not, I think, try to write songs that attempt to make fun of Boney M and the modern dance scene at the same time); (c) the big obligatory ballad, ʽSomething To Remember Me Byʼ: even if it was announced as an old song, originally written by Alice and Dick Wagner in the late 1970s, it does not have the «grit» of ‘Only Women Bleed’, nor the pretty hooks of ‘I Never Cry’, nor even the simplistic sentimentality of ‘You And Me’ — and, furthermore, it is almost arranged as a power ballad; cutting down on some of that guitar pomp might help.

On the winning side, there is still ‘When Hell Comes Home’, a song that returns us to the already well-exploited topic of dysfunctional families, but with the aid of one of the meanest, darkest riffs in Cooper history; and the galloping rock’n’roll of ‘A Runaway Train’ (which is the only track here that does indeed bear a strong resemblance to the «Alice Cooper Band» era). (The third track written and recorded with the old pals is ‘I’ll Bite Your Face Off’; a far less interesting pro­po­si­tion, built on generic blues-rock chord sequences and sounding like, er, well, pretty much like The Rolling Stones on A Bigger Bang, which should be telling). ʽLast Man On Earth’ is a fairly funny Tom Waits imitation, and ‘The Congregation’ does indeed sound a little Beatlesque, as Alice himself claimed, but mostly due to his singing the melody in a Lennon-like style.

So, on the whole, there is a lot to learn about Welcome 2 My Nightmare and quite a few things to enjoy about it, but as an album it is still an embarrassment, unfortunately, making it Alice’s se­cond embarrassment in a row, and this time, I cannot even overcome myself and explicitly give it a thumbs up — creating the illusion that it, in any way, might rival Welcome 1. (And if you are not a fan of that one, don’t even fantasize about getting this one). What should have been done, under the circumstances, was to dispatch the idea of a «sequel» altogether, and simply profit from the presence of so many old-time pals by having them write better songs. Come to think of it, nei­ther Bruce, nor Dunnaway, nor even Desmond Child had anything to do with the original Night­mare — why saddle them with unnecessary responsibility for the «sequel»? (Fortunately, in the­ory only: their songs are the least 1975-ish on the album).

In other words, Alice keeps balancing on the fringes: after a decade-long genuine «comeback», he goes back to being happy about playing the fool for playing the fool’s sake, regardless of how many repulsive lapses of taste this attitude is bringing along. Too bad, because even at this well-advanced age, I believe, he still may have one or two Brutal Planets inside him, and if that is right, why waste that age with ridiculous «sequels»? Just to remind us one more time how all va­lues are relative, and how one man’s «lapse of taste» is another one’s «challenge to taste»?

PS. ʽThe Undertureʼ, masterminded by Ezrin, is a decent enough potpourri arrangement, but if its chief message is in persuading us to accept the blood brotherhood of Welcome 1 and Welcome 2, it is wasted on me at least. And I genuinely hope that «Steven» has finally made his last appea­r­ance on this record. Imagine McCartney sticking with Sergeant Pepper for the next thirty years of his career — as an evil running gag of sorts.

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