Blind Blake: Complete Recorded Works Vol. 2 (1927-1928)

BLIND BLAKE: COMPLETE RECORDED WORKS, VOL. 2 (1927-1928)

1) You Gonna Quit Me Blues; 2) Steel Mill Blues; 3) Southern Rag; 4) He's In The Jailhouse Now; 5) Wabash Rag; 6) Doggin' Me Mama Blues; 7) C. C. Pill Blues; 8) Hot Potatoes; 9) Southbound Rag; 10) Pay Day Daddy Blues; 11) Elzadie's Policy Blues; 12) Goodbye Mama Moan; 13) Tootie Blues; 14) That Lovin' I Crave; 15) That Lonesome Rave; 16) Terrible Murder Blues; 17) Leavin' Gal Blues; 18) No Dough Blues; 19) Lead Hearted Blues; 20) Let Your Love Come Down; 21) Rumblin' And Ramblin' Boa Constrictor Blues; 22) Bootlig Rum Dum Blues; 23) Detroit Bound Blues; 24) Beulah Land; 25) Panther Squall Blues.

The ratio of mediocre to great on this second volume is more or less the same (as is the ratio of crackle to cleanliness). Early highlights of late 1927 include ʽSouthern Ragʼ, which features some of the most complex guitar runs recorded at that time — people amazed at the ability of Robert Johnson to play rhythm and melody simultaneously should take a listen to this, where at times it sounds like there are three guitars playing at once, where there is only one (and somehow he also manages to rap out brief accounts of Southern life as well); and a solid version of ʽHe's In The Jailhouse Nowʼ with the original, political lyrics ("Remember last election / Everybody was in ac­tion") rather than the depoliticized tale of crime and punishment, popularized by Jimmie Rod­gers and then, further on down the line, in Oh Brother Where Art Thou? Particularly of note is Blake's suddenly-turned-gravelly voice as he changes the refrain from "He's in the jailhouse now" to "He's in the graveyard now" — a classic moment in country blues history, I'd say.

Further on down the line, we get some diversity: on ʽDoggin' Me Mama Bluesʼ, Jimmy Bertrand all but steals away the spotlight with a funny xylophone part, while Blake is content with provi­ding rather ordinary accompaniment; and on ʽC. C. Pill Bluesʼ, he is paired with Johnny Dodds on clarinet — incidentally, this happens to be one of Ry Cooder's favourite pre-war recordings, due to the sheer added value of all the talent involved (apparently, Dodds is considered to be one of the pre-Benny Goodman era clarinet greats). Bertrand, meanwhile, switches to slide whistle, an instrument rarely heard in principle and almost never as a counterpart to acoustic blues perfor­mances in particular.

Later on, Blake is again accompanying singers, such as Elzadie Robinson and Bertha Henderson; however, neither of the two is tremendously interesting, and neither seems to have had any inte­rest in supporting Blake's interest in ragtime guitar, preferring to stick to generically slow urban blues. We do get to see the man in some exciting piano action, though, on ʽLet Your Love Come Downʼ, which proves that he was just as adept on the ivory keys as he was on the strings (hardly sur­prising, though: you'd have to learn your ragtime on the piano first, before transposing it to guitar). But overall, for most of early 1928 Blind Blake was generally engaged in playing so-so urban blues, even when playing solo, exactly the way that, say, a Leroy Carr would perform it on piano. The worst thing about these performances is not even the lack of a proper territory to show off his technique, but rather the very fact that urban blues sifted through an old-time Delta atti­tude is almost a contradiction in terms. «Urban blues» is generally middle-class entertainment, whereas Delta blues grows on much lower depths, and both require different skills and attitudes to be successful.

«Smooth» players like Lonnie Johnson could get away with it — Lonnie was quite «urbanized» in his soul and sound; Blind Blake, on the other hand, was a figure cut out for dance frenzy, de­bauchery, and drinking (which is why the former lived to a ripe old age, and the latter only left us one single photograph). So give me ʽSouthern Ragʼ and ʽHe's In The Jailhouse Nowʼ over boring material like ʽDetroit Bound Bluesʼ any day. For these songs alone, the second volume earns ano­ther certified thumbs up; but filler will always be filler, no matter how many thin-grained subtle­ties a jaded listener's ear can locate in the blueness of the man's blue notes.

Blitzen Trapper: Field Rexx

BLITZEN TRAPPER: FIELD REXX (2004)

1) James & Larry Earley; 2) Lux & Royal Shopper; 3) Love I Exclaim; 4) Summer Twin; 5) Cold Gold Dia­mond; 6) Concrete Heaven; 7) 40 Stripes; 8) Asleep For Days; 9) Dreamers & Giants; 10) Turkey In The Straw; 11) Dirty Pearls; 12) Leopard's Will To Live; 13) Country Rain; 14) Moving Minors Over County Lines; 15) Love.

The band's second album had an extremely limited budget, making the sound suffer: a little mud­dier and duller, but still, this is hardly «lo-fi»: wherever they recorded it, they made the best of whatever they had at their disposition. In fact, they even invented a certain pretext to justify the shoddier standards — parts of the album are introduced with snippets of archival recordings by a certain James Earley (could he be Eric's father?), singing bits of old hillbilly tunes. So that almost makes it into genuine «Field Rexx» indeed. In any case, whatever they recorded will inevitably sound much better than archive field tapes. Genius idea, no?

The good news is that the songwriting has not been impaired at all by financial troubles. On the contrary, Eric Earley is slowly, but steadily growing into a Renaissance man of pop music, sprea­ding his nets far and wide and always successfully. Furthermore, Earley steadily continues to link his persona to that of Jeff Tweedy's: soulful and literate roots-rocker with an experimental drive and vast ambitions. If that already sounds awful, do not despair: the ambitions are not vast eno­ugh to prevent the man from abandoning archaic concepts like melody, harmony, rhythm, or even «rock and roll». On the contrary, the record is even more accessible than the first one.

ʽLux & Royal Shopperʼ, for example, takes a simple, effective garage riff and turns it into the ba­sis for a small exploration that first takes us to the country (with a little backyard harmonica in­terlude), then into outer space, with classic psychedelic sound effects, treated guitars, and multi­ple head-warping overdubs. The other end of the record is symmetrically bookmarked with ʽMo­ving Minors Over County Linesʼ, the album's only other genuine «rocker», albeit with a country-pop whiff all the same — think Mike Nesmith or something in that vein.

In between we have some old-school pop-rock (ʽCold Gold Diamondʼ; ʽAsleep For Daysʼ, with the catchiest vocal melody on the album, wisely reproduced note-for-note in the solo in the good old Beatles tradition); some meditative country balladry with lazy harmonica and sentimental, but intelligent vocals (ʽConcrete Heavenʼ — with a bigger-than-ever nod to Tweedy); some banjo plunking tied to a well-imitated Southern accent (ʽDirty Pearlsʼ); a hipness-oozing novelty indie-pop number that would not be out of place on a Flaming Lips record (ʽLeopard's Will To Liveʼ); and some post-Woody Guthrie acoustic folk thrown in for good measure (ʽCountry Rainʼ). None of these songs are masterpieces on their own, but all of them are growers, and, if nothing else, al­most each one boasts an ear-catching sonic combination of some sorts. On ʽCountry Rainʼ, for in­stance, you do not just get an acoustic guitar and a fiddle, but a Jew's harp as well plinking and plunking in the background. It needn't be there, but if it weren't there, attention would not be drawn to the song's melody nearly as much. Who wants to simply hear an acoustic guitar and a fiddle? Bring on the Jew's harp — and, for that matter, where is the «electric jug»?..

Another pair of tracks that bookmark the album is ʽLove I Exclaim!ʼ and its reprise, performed in a style that I could only define as «homely-funky», or, perhaps, as a deconstructed version of trip-hop performed with actual instruments, rather than pre-programmed. It's all novel, yet it provides the album with a «mutant anthem», a song that establishes an idealistic agenda and, by the way, prevents me from being able to recognize this band as «The Ween of the 2000's», as I have seen a few people call it. It took the real Ween more than ten years before they started letting us in on some of what was going on behind the Boognish mask; Eric Earley had no problem with that right from the start.

Hence, another thumbs up. The diversity of the styles and approaches here compensates for the re­lative lack of hard-rocking material (especially as compared to the self-titled debut): most pro­ba­bly, Field Rexx should be best enjoyed when «lazing on a Sunday afternoon in the summer­time», to quote the classics, but all it takes is to properly synchronize it with one of those moods, and you will be taking a trip to Portland in no time.

Archers Of Loaf: Vee Vee

THE ARCHERS OF LOAF: VEE VEE (1995)

1) Step Into The Light; 2) Harnessed In Slums; 3) Nevermind The Enemy; 4) Greatest Of All Times; 5) Underdogs Of Nipomo; 6) Floating Friends; 7) 1985; 8) Fabricoh; 9) Nostalgia; 10) Let The Loser Melt; 11) Death In The Park; 12) The Worst Has Yet To Come; 13) Underachievers March And Fight Song.

Although Icky Mettle usually gets all the hoopla, I personally find the follow-up, Vee Vee, to be far more interesting. As it often happens, the sophomore effort is a little less aggressive, a little more experimental, a touch more oriented at subtleties and a touch less at basic punch. But if The Archers Of Loaf were to find their own place in the already huge and still growing world of in­die rock, they had to rely more on subtleties and less on punch — because, want it or not, we gene­rally punch more or less in the same way, whereas our subtleties are all vastly individual.

The subtle side of Eric Bachmann, in particular, led him to exploring the capacities of the drone, the trill, and the jangle. There is a lot of exciting dual guitar playing here, and a lot less boring generic noise than on Icky Mettle. Check out ʽUnderdogs Of Nipomoʼ, where one low-pitched gui­tar begins playing the song like a jerky mid-tempo blues-rocker, then a different, higher-pit­ched, one joins it in a weeping psy­chedelic manner and prevents the song from being «just an­other» alt-rocker. And that happens all over the place on this album.

Additionally, there is a little more emphasis placed on the accessibility of the lyrics — the surre­alism is still there, but the «key phrases», like root notes, are more firmly accentuated to set cer­tain moods for certain songs. Thus, "all of my friends have floated away", sung in a croaking, al­most breaking voice, immediately sets a lament-like sort of mood for ʽFloating Friendsʼ, and even if the rest of the lyrics seem to insist that the phrase be taken literally (because "they clog up the valley and drift up to outer space"), you know that's not really it. It's just a sad song, if not a par­ticularly great one in terms of melody.

In terms of melody, most of the really cool stuff happens early on. ʽStep Into The Lightʼ is a swir­ling kaleidoscope of droning and jangling guitars, much more early Velvet Underground in style than Nirvana or even Pavement. So is ʽHarnessed In Slumsʼ, except it is much faster: if you really let yourself go, the contrast between the masculine and feminine guitars spinning round and round will suck you right inside the circle. Yet it isn't a happy psychedelic merry-go-round — it is a grim circle, maybe more like an inescapable vortex, not overtly pessimistic and suicidal like The Cure, but with a strong whiff of negativity all the same. If it looks like I am babbling, it is simply the result of having to listen to these songs too many times in order to get their appeal.

Words, intonations, notes, overdubs, structures, everything seems to come together here in a ge­ne­ral message that is perhaps best summed up in the next to last song, ʽDeath In The Parkʼ: "It's always the same people / Pissing the same people off". The surrealism and psychedelia with which Bachmann and Johnson are toying around is just a mild attempt to break the circle of de­pressing boredom and routine, predictable happenings of life. The grim guitar drone symbolizes the boredom, and the high whining guitar... the pain? Whatever. Anyway, it is not about the sin­gle ingredients, it's about the whole package — it works, although it also takes quite a bit of time to sink in. But concentrate on understanding that these two guys swirl their guitars like few other couples of guys ever swirled them, and that is the first step towards feeling the coolness of Vee Vee rather than just stating it.

Ironically, the record ends on a completely unpredictable note: after the depression reaches a climax of sorts on the aptly titled ʽThe Worst Has Yes To Comeʼ, the band launches into an al­most carnivalesque «ditty», replete with kiddie-style whistling, simplistic banjo strum, and stupid horns — ʽUnderachievers March And Fight Songʼ, indeed. "Underachievers / Total domination / Kill a billion years / Of total frustration" — hey there hordes of people all over the world, The Archers Of Loaf have written the perfect anthem for you to wake up to every morning, and most of you probably don't even know about it. Oh well, here's one little thumbs up to help with the promotion, even if it's coming about fifteen years too late.

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Asia: Fantasia - Live In Tokyo

ASIA: FANTASIA – LIVE IN TOKYO (2007)

1) Time Again; 2) Wildest Dreams; 3) One Step Closer; 4) Roundabout; 5) Without You; 6) Cutting It Fine; 7) Intersection Blues; 8) Fanfare For The Common Man; 9) The Smile Has Left Your Eyes; 10) Don't Cry; 11) In The Court Of The Crimson King; 12) Here Comes The Feeling; 13) Video Killed The Radio Star; 14) The Heat Goes On; 15) Only Time Will Tell; 16) Sole Survivor; 17) Ride Easy; 18) Heat Of The Moment.

Most likely, it was just a matter of time before the original Asia came back — old proggers, lite or hardcore, are particularly prone to nostalgia kicks. As far as I know, the breakup between Dow­nes and Payne happened somewhat unexpectedly, and not very politely: according to one version, Downes simply «dumped» Payne once he had perceived a serious chance for the original lineup to get together once again. As a result, the insulted Payne formed his own Asia («Featuring John Payne»), and the two bands currently co-exist — although, fortunately for us all, only one of them records new studio albums.

Anyway, somehow the stars aligned into a position that brought all four original band members back together in 2006 — and they have never been apart since, although most of them wisely al­ternate their duties between Asia and other projects (Howe with Yes, whom the reunited Asia ac­tually supported on their tours; Palmer with occasional reunions of ELP, etc.). To celebrate the rebirth, they started out «modestly»: with this 2-CD live set recorded in... well you know. And, although I am not reviewing Asia's entire live catalog due to its hugeness, this particular live re­cord certainly deserves a mention, at least as a historical event.

The setlist is telling: they play Asia in its entirety (not a single song missing!), plus only a hand­ful of hits from Alpha, and nothing whatsoever not only from the Payne era, which is understan­dable, but even from Astra as well. Instead, they occupy the remaining space with songs from their progressive past — each member gets to choose one track that will represent him. Howe chooses ʽRoundaboutʼ from Yes career; Palmer chooses ʽFanfare For The Common Manʼ; and Wetton, oddest of all, chooses ʽCourt Of The Crimson Kingʼ even though he was not a part of King Crimson in 1969, and, in fact, I do not think he has even performed the number in concert during any of his shows with Fripp and company. As for Downes, he gives us a new rendition of ʽVideo Killed The Radio Starʼ — what else? (Something from Drama could be imaginable, but the Yes hotspot is already occupied with ʽRoundaboutʼ).

All of this means that the reunited Asia tries hard to defend its «progressive honor» — implying that Asia was actually a serious prog effort, deserving to be mentioned on the same plane with the best of Yes and King Crimson, but also indirectly admitting that everything after it was a failure in terms of artistic integrity. We need not buy it (there is no abysmal gap whatsoever between the­ir debut and everything that followed), but it is an interesting, somewhat unexpected stance. And as the Asia songs themselves get expanded with various instrumental passages, occasionally rearranged and reinvented (ʽDon't Cryʼ, for instance, is redone as a weepy acoustic ballad), and mixed in with the old classics, the illusion almost works.

Concerning the way they sound, my only disappointment — but one that has to be dealt with — is the deterioration of Wetton's voice. It has not lost much in range, but it has lost a lot in sheer power and volume: an old man's voice that can no longer rise to the epic heights demanded by the material (never mind if these are «poor man's epic heights», they still need to be scaled). If you think of it from a different angle, the singing has become less pompous and more homely, but it's not as if it was a conscious choice or anything. Then again, he can still master the required grit and spite for such numbers as ʽCutting It Fineʼ and ʽThe Heat Goes Onʼ...

...and, furthermore, the band does everything in its power to ensure that it does not exclusively depend on superhero-style vocal hooks. The real star of the show is certainly not Wetton, nor is it the omnipresent Downes, but Howe — who, I would think, only agreed to join the band under the condition that they'd finally let him have his way. And they do; and this is the only reason, really, to own this album other than out of a sheerly documentary interest. Howe plays lots more guitar, and in a lot more prominent way, than on the original album — just listen to the wah-wah having a field day on ʽSole Survivorʼ, both for the solo and the lead flourishes between the verse lines, where formerly it used to be so reserved and shut out. He gets a brief acoustic solo spotlight all to himself (incorporating parts of ʽThe Clapʼ and something else, I think), and we also get to hear the ecstatic battle cries of the instrument during the climactic moments of ʽOnly Time Will Tellʼ that no other player was able to perfectly reproduce.

Thus, if the brand new Roger Dean cover is not worth the thumbs up all by itself, Howe's pre­sence nails it for me. The songs have not become any better (they do cut a fine ʽRoundaboutʼ, and Downes' Mellotron imitations on ʽCourt Of The Crimson Kingʼ come quite close to the real thing), but they are performed as close to «non-commercial mode» as possible. I have also heard com­plaints about sound quality that I do not quite understand — they do not have poor recording standards in Japan, and I, for one, can hear each of Howe's notes perfectly well, and that's pretty much all that matters here. Final judgement: «passable» for «passive» Asia fans, but a strict must-own for Steve fans. Like it or not, on those joint Asia/Yes tours he was equally committed to both projects. (And it's a pretty tough fare, to be playing both for the main and the opening act).

Check "Fantasia - Live In Tokyo" (CD) on Amazon
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Average White Band: Feel No Fret

AVERAGE WHITE BAND: FEEL NO FRET (1979)

1) When Will You Be Mine; 2) Please Don't Fall In Love; 3) Walk On By; 4) Feel No Fret; 5) Stop The Rain; 6) Atlantic Avenue; 7) Ace Of Hearts; 8) Too Late To Cry; 9) Fire Burning.

How can I «feel no fret», I wonder, when, without a warning, all of the advantages gained in 1978 are lost one year later? The Average White Band finally make their way through to disco, and it is not a pretty sight. Actually, it is no sight at all. The whole album just speeds by, and once it's gone, nothing remains but the sad echo of involuntary toe-tapping.

Let us begin with this: ʽWalk On Byʼ used to be a decent pop song, a highlight of the Dionne Warwick catalog and all. What was the reason for trying to reimagine it as a mid-tempo dance­floor standart sung in disco falsetto? It takes all the power out of the hooks without adding any extra groove strength. There is nothing wrong with trying to modernize classics as such, but there has gotta be a point. This particular rearrangement has none. And that is what's wrong with the whole album altogether: the band seems to have snapped out of their conservative formula — and found itself aimlessly adrift in musical space.

The central piece here is the title track. At six minutes and thirty seconds, it is supposed to de­mon­strate how firmly the AWB has now grasped the essence of disco. Sure enough, they repro­gram their rhythm section — hardly a monumental task — speed up the tempo, and provide the club-goers with an extra bit of dance fodder in case the club-goers run out of «average white dis­co» artists before dawn. But the groove as such is non-existent: the guitars are limited to beeps and bleeps, the brass section plays nothing but lazy, quiet flourishes, and the keyboards are limi­ted to «atmospheric» hissing synths. Basically, they just forgot to add some music to our day.

Unfortunately, I cannot locate any hidden gems, either. ʽWhen Will You Be Mineʼ is probably the strongest of the lot, opening with grumbly wah-wah and preserving a strong funky attitude throughout — it sounds like a second-rate outtake from Warmer Communications, and, for that reason, is quite a traitorous introduction to the album; once it's over, it's lazy balladry and limp, unsubstantial disco all the way to the end. ʽAtlantic Avenueʼ is occasionally extolled as a high­light as well, and it is a semi-notch above the rest due to its proud anthemic ambition, but the ly­rics are ultimately dumb ("So come on, down Atlantic Avenue / Let the samba take ahold of you" embodies the decade's hedonism without the slightest bit of irony — even the Bee Gees could do better than that), and the melody only really goes well together with a leisure suit.

In short, Feel No Fret simply reflects a complete loss of whatever individuality these guys had — and I have no idea how it is possible at all to enjoy this without first constructing a late 1970s dance club atmosphere framework in one's mind. (For that matter, I strongly believe that ʽPick Up The Piecesʼ or ʽSame Feeling, Different Songʼ will find their admirers any time, any day). But if, for some reason, you are in need of a concrete example of how «transition to disco ruins a solid funk band», a «paired» listen to Warmer Communications and Feel No Fret will do nice­ly, and a perfect thumbs down is guaranteed for all.

(PS: For some reason, the CD edition of the album not only added four extra tracks, but was even re­titled as Feel No Fret... And More — as if we should all be happy to get more of the same for the same money exactly when it comes to selling the worst album in the band's history so far. Marketing is a strange, strange art indeed).

Andrew Lloyd Webber: Tell Me On A Sunday

ANDREW LLOYD WEBBER: TELL ME ON A SUNDAY (1980)

1) Take That Look Off Your Face; 2) Let Me Finish; 3) It's Not The End Of The World (If I Lose Him); 4) Letter Home To England; 5) Sheldon Bloom; 6) Capped Teeth And Caesar Salad; 7) You Made Me Think You Were In Love; 8) It's Not The End Of The World (If He's Younger); 9) Second Letter Home; 10) Come Back With The Same Look In Your Eyes; 11) Let's Talk About You; 12) Take That Look Off Your Face (reprise); 13) Tell Me On A Sun­day; 14) It's Not The End Of The World (If He's Married); 15) I'm Very You, You're Very Me; 16) Nothing Like You've Ever Known; 17) Let Me Finish (reprise).

In between the giant successes of Evita and Cats lies this little platter, quite delicious in its own humble way. I omit a review of Variations, a rock/classical hybrid that Andrew concocted in col­laboration with his brother Julian (a classically trained cellist) — I have no skills that would al­low me to properly «review» Paganini, much less a set of 23 variations that A. L. W. composed for Caprice No. 24 In A Minor — but the odd trick is that, eventually, the Baron found a way to integrate both projects: the musical Song And Dance would be splicing together Tell Me On A Sunday, a relatively short song cycle performed in its entirety by one female vocalist, and Varia­tions, choreographed for a ballet performance.

I do not care much for the Song And Dance idea: merging these two completely different ventures within one concept was merely a pretentious gesture, whose real purpose must have been not to «lose sight» of all of Webber's latest creations. It did not actually last too long, and eventually Tell Me On A Sunday re-emerged on its own, expanded with several extra songs to boost the over­all length of the performance (the original album goes only slightly over 40 minutes). How­ever, to this day it still remains one of the lesser known Webber musicals, eclipsed by one too many biggies.

Which is a pity, because there is an element of subtle intrigue and freshness about this project that sets it apart. For one thing, it is all targeted towards one singer: the original album is usually lis­ted as part of the discography of the UK artist Marti Webb (selected by Webber based on her previous experience as Evita in the matinee performance), although most people have probably never even heard of any other Marti Webb albums (they do exist). For another thing, it is all on a relatively small scale: the whole story, with lyrics written by Don Black after Webber and Rice had a falling out, explores the confused personal relationships of one young girl that take her from New York to Los Angeles and back again. The subject is not particularly overwhelming and, when you come to think of it, everything is oh so very Seventies, but neither is it stupid or over­tly clichéd, and, with a subject like that, there is no risk of the attitude ever becoming overbearing.

Apart from a few brief plot-related links, the whole record does not really have the feel of a mu­sical — more like a typically 1970s soft-rock / folk-pop album, and only Marti Webb's musical-oriented vocals betray the final stage goals of the concept. They are appropriately sweet, though, and never over-the-top (as it always happens to Webber productions as they age — starting out with technically imperfect vocalists who compensate for imperfection by actually sounding like human beings, then eventually falling into the hands of «poor man opera singers» who squeeze all the humanistic content out of them by overacting like crazy). Webb lives up to the role — the character here is not as complex as Evita, but not as fairy-tale-ish, either, and her anger, irony, sentimentality, and sadness are all believable.

And then there is some good music, too. ʽTake That Look Off Your Faceʼ, the lead-in number where the heroine reacts to the first news of her boyfriend cheating on her, went all the way to No. 3 on the UK charts when released as a single — at the height of the disco/New Wave era, despite its defiantly tradionalist melodic structure and arrangement. Actually, it bridges the gap between folk-pop and ABBA-style Europop (without the corny synthesizers), and gives the world a fine, appetizing transition from the light ("take that look off your face, I can see through your smile...") to the dark (the "couldn't wait to bring all of that bad news to my door" employs delightfully thre­atening chords to show us a bit of the «unsettling» side of the protagonist).

Other memorable compositions range from sappy, but modestly and stylishly touching balladry (title track) to quirky combinations of old school vaudeville with a hillbilly shuffle attitude (ʽCap­ped Teeth And Caesar Saladʼ) to featherlight upbeat pop ditties (ʽI'm Very You, You're Very Meʼ) and only very occasionally, a bit of a harder punch to accentuate the bad mood spells of the pro­ta­gonist (ʽLet Me Finishʼ). As usual, almost each motive gets reprised at least two or three times, which may seem overkill given the album's short running length, but all of the compositions are fairly brisky themselves — this is all «small-scale» indeed, with none of Evita's sweeping orche­stral runs or church chorals. So there is really plenty of time to fit in everything fittable.

If you can stand a little sentimentality, I'd at least certainly recommend Tell Me On A Sunday over... well, my personal diagnosis is that I am incurably allergic to The Sound Of Music and eve­rything of its ilk, so, naturally, a light musical with a sentimental female protagonist, for me, is automatically stripped of any presumption of innocence there may be. Yet, in a way, this whole thing sounds more like a Carpenters album than a genuine Julie Andrews orato­rio, and a fairly well-written Carpenters album with an intelligent (if not all that intellectual) concept. A nice, healthy way for the composer to close out the decade — and that entire part of his career which need not, and, quite often, should not be described with the word «cloying».

Thumbs up — for this original version: I have not heard the more recent expanded revision of Tell Me On A Sun­day, but, through the powers of induction, can guess that it probably does not beat the Marti Webb show. Oh, by the way, Rod Argent, of the Zombies and Argent fame, is here on all the keyboards (he also played on the Variations album before that), and Jon Hiseman, of the jazz-rock pioneer band Colosseum fame, is on drums — one good reason for the rock music fan to seek this out (not that there is a lot of keyboard wizardry or thunderous drumming going on, but still, you never know how to please your subconscious).

The Beatles: Please Please Me

THE BEATLES: PLEASE PLEASE ME (1963)

1) I Saw Her Standing There; 2) Misery; 3) Anna (Go To Him); 4) Chains; 5) Boys; 6) Ask Me Why; 7) Please Please Me; 8) Love Me Do; 9) P.S. I Love You; 10) Baby It's You; 11) Do You Want To Know A Secret; 12) A Taste Of Honey; 13) There's A Place; 14) Twist And Shout.

We deserve a little bit of a preface here. This is, after all, the third time that I am writing about the same Beatles albums — the first one was from a generally fanboyish perspective, poorly wor­ded and quite uninformative, and the second one was written in a text-generating frenzy that pro­bably went over the top. Third time, hopefully, be the charm, or else it just was not meant to be.

It is amusing to look back on the old days — not even the early reviewing days, but the good old Iron Curtain days when music was scarce to come by, and each album received approximately the same span of attention that is today reserved to a large shelf crammed with CDs — and realize how the Beatles could be «everything and more» to somebody who had so little context to place them into. Many people knew the Beatles, but not their sources and influences — not Motown, not a lot of early rock'n'roll (Elvis, perhaps, but Buddy Holly? Carl Perkins?), certainly not skiffle or the late 1950s / early 1960s British pop music scene. Of their contemporaries, with whom they constantly traded ideas back and forth, also only select figures were known to the average Soviet listener — and, I dare say, many of the average non-Soviet listeners as well. No surprise, then, that many of the musically knowledgeable people like to think of — or, at least, talk of — the Beatles as phantom-like figureheads, a band whose achievements are vastly overrated just beca­use they happened to market stuff better than the people who actually invented it.

It would seem, then, that as we pick up more and more «context», the Beatles are more and more probable to turn into «just another band», a good one, maybe a great one, but hardly the ultimate benchmark for every musical adventure of the 1960s. Who would dare judge Frank Zappa by ap­plying the same criteria as one's mind sets out for the Beatles? Or The Grateful Dead? Or Carlos Santana? Surely the idea is laughable.

And yet... every time I have the occasion to put on a Beatles record (which I do not actually need to put on — after all these years, each single note on each single Beatles record is inextri­cably ingrai­n­ed in my head), I cannot help wondering how different it sounds. If the primary goal of music, after all, is to incite vibration in our emotional nerves, then different artists, throughout the history of music, have displayed various levels of skill in inciting this vibration — and the diffe­rence of the Beatles is that, in almost everything they did, no matter how «derivative», «imita­tive», or «tentative» it was, they seemed to work as if not making these nerves ring out at top vo­lume was not even an option. Where others would string together «nice-sounding» or «catchy» chords, the Beatles consistently — and I stress, consistently — strung together chord sequences that went somewhere goddamn deeper than they were supposed to. (The infamous discovery of «Aeolian cadences» by William Mann in Lennon's early ditty ʽNot A Second Timeʼ may sound funny, but there is a grain of seriousness beyond each such bit of fun: whatever there was, it must have hit The Times' resident musicologist real hard — unless, of course, he was bribed by Parlophone executives or Brian Epstein in person).

Let us take Please Please Me as our first test case. There can hardly be any disagreements here — it is literally the «weakest» Beatles album, if only because it was recorded in such a rush: 9 hours and 45 minutes of studio time altogether, from a young band with very little studio expe­rience. Already guided by George Martin as the wise studio guru, for sure, but, by February 1963, the band and their producer had not yet even gotten to know each other all that well. The band's original compositions were still few and far between: John Lennon still struggling as a songwriter, Paul McCartney feeling a little bit more self-confident, but stuck hands and feet in a simplistic teenage mindset, George Harrison not even beginning to look up to his «elders», and then there's always Ringo — or, rather, there was beginning to always be Ringo, having quite freshly repla­ced Pete Best and not yet «proven» as an integral part of the band.

In short, there is no need to prove to anyone that Please Please Me represents the tender infancy of the Beatles. For most bands, such «tender infancy» is, at best, giggly-cute, at worst, confusing and ugly, but in both cases, normally, there is no good reason to listen to this music for a second time other than research purposes. But Please Please Me still stands up — despite all the flaws, the silliness, the rampant naïveness, and ʽAsk Me Whyʼ, which may be the worst Beatles original ever composed (and is definitely the worst original Beatles song composed by John Lennon).

It all begins with ʽLove Me Doʼ. "Love, love me do / You know I love you". When the Ramones wrote lyrics like that twelve years later, they were taken as smart, ironic, streetwise minimalism. When the Beatles wrote them, they were dead serious, or, rather, they did not give a damn — the words never mattered anyway, except for the stipulated convention that it had to be something about «love». As an «artistic statement», ʽLove Me Doʼ has even fewer credentials than a Sesame Street composition (the latter ones have educational value at least). Big question, then: why does it stick so sorely in the head, much more so than the average Dave Clark Five or Billy J. Kramer & The Dakotas song? Melodically, it has very little going for it other than the main harmonica part, and the repetitive vocal melody that partially replicates it.

But there is this little matter of the Beatle-specific hook: the resolution of that melody during the extended "so plea-ee-ee-eeese..." bit — I'd bet my head on it that a hypothetical Billy J. Kramer would have been able to come up with everything in this melody but that particular resolution, which so admirably breaks up the monotonousness of the main part of the verse. Simply put, we start out «simple, stupid», then add a tense «longing» effect with the "please", then bring it all to a natural conclusion with an accappella moment of half-comic «spookiness». It might seem stu­pid, but there is a touch of suspense, maybe even some primitive mystique, in the song — which makes it stand out among dozens of technically similar compositions of 1962, and explains its ra­pid chart success (No. 17 on the UK charts at the time), achieved, by the way, without any serious marketing / promotional campaign.

There is no such element of mystique in the follow-up single, ʽPlease Please Meʼ, which, instead, concentrates on overwhelming joy, conveying it with as much effect as a standard four-piece band in 1963 could be capable of. Lennon's harmonica is triumphant rather than menacing this time, the joint vocal harmonies sound as if George Martin was pushing them in a «Beethoven for teens» direction, and, again, the Beatle-specific hook: the "come on come on..." crescendo that nobody else could think of delivering at the time. The Dave Clark Five would later shamelessly steal that technique for ʽAny Way You Want Itʼ — but even if they had enough talent to more or less convincingly replicate the mood, they still did not come up with the better song.

It is interesting that, for all of the band's Hamburg- and Cavern Club-acquired reputation as rough and tough onstage performers of genuine rock'n'roll, Please Please Me features only one genuine self-penned «rocker». I have always thought that, perhaps, had the Beatles started their recording career one or two years later, when mainstream fears towards «aggressive music» had already slightly diminished, they may not have had to endure the reputation of «softies» compared to the Stones' «tough guys» image; but then, on the other hand, had they started out later, they would not be so much in the lead — plus, there is no use in all these ifs and buts.

In any case — what a rocker. Paul's "one, two, three, FOUR!" countdown that opens the song was specially glued on to the final master tape from another take — a genius decision, giving the al­bum an energetic blast-off start, again, sounding like nothing before it. The idea behind the LP was to give the audiences a slight approximation of a Beatles live show; clearly, this was incom­patible with George Martin's perennial quest for sonic perfection, but the few «live» elements that they did incorporate still gave the record a huge advantage. To me, the main hero of ʽI Saw Her Standing Thereʼ, however, is the other George: it is his lead work, both in between the verse lines and on the solo, that gives the song its genuine tough edge. The vocals, harmonies, lyrics are all «teen fluff», but George's echo-laden licks, some of which seem to be imitating 1950s guitar gods such as Scottie Moore, are the true grit of the song. The transition into the instrumental section is one of the ass-kickiest moments in Beatle history.

Of the other originals, I have always thought of ʽMiseryʼ as tremendously underrated — not only does it have a fabulously catchy melody, but there is something deeply disturbing as well about how the bitter-tragic lyrics of the song clash with its overall merry mood: how is it possible to sing lines like "without her I will be in misery" when the singer is clearly having a hard time pre­venting himself from toppling over in spasms of laughter? (The truly disturbing realization about it is that the song might easily have reflected John's genuine feelings about his affairs). The rest is fluff, ranging from passable (ʽP.S. I Love Youʼ — Paul in his songwriting infancy stage) to quite awkward (the already mentioned ʽAsk Me Whyʼ: the most fake song John ever wrote, trying to convey an atmosphere of care and tenderness of which he quite obviously knew nothing at the time — the whole song is a mess of poorly strung together clichés that are really grating).

ʽThe­re's A Placeʼ is frequently found in comparisons with the Beach Boys' ʽIn My Roomʼ due to both of them exploring the topic of «loneliness» in the lyrics, but if we dig from there, there is no question that the Brian Wilson song is the better of the two — its slow, melancholic musical ba­cking fully matches the word, whereas the Lennon song is upbeat and optimistic (but not devoid of subtlety: its harmonica blasts are notably sterner and sadder than the ones on ʽPlease Please Meʼ). Still, the vocal modulations are beyond reproach.

Of the six covers, Arthur Alexander's ʽAnnaʼ is a fantastic achievement — on the instrumental plane, the band extracts and amplifies its main melodic hook in the form of a finely shaped, mys­teriously resonating guitar riff; and in the vocal department, John finds a good way to let go of the self-restraining «mannerisms» of traditional black R'n'B and actually convey a believable tragic atmosphere in the bridge section. Goffin and King's ʽChainsʼ is given to George, who does a fine job of transposing his natural slight tongue-tiedness onto the song's message of love confusion; and the Shirelles' ʽBaby It's Youʼ, like so many other songs the Beatles did, simply converts the original's excessive «roundedness» into sharper angles.

It is useless to speculate on whether Please Please Me already «sows the seeds» of the grand suc­cesses to come. The Beatles certainly do not come across as «enthusiastic revolutionaries» when you listen to Paul telling us how he'll be coming home again to you love, or even when John is screaming his head off throughout ʽTwist And Shoutʼ, trying to beat the Isley Brothers at their own game (and I think he did — except, of course, the Isley Brothers probably did not need to go home and nurse their voices with cough drops after the recording session). But it also never real­ly seems as if they «just» went into the studio to record some songs, knock off an LP and be done with it. All of the little things I have mentioned show ambition, and lots of it: a strong desire, right from the start, to be the very best at what they are doing, otherwise there's no point in doing it in the first place. And there is a clear understanding of the long-playing record as the proper medium to do it — a realization that it is a bit humiliating when your fourteen song-long col­lec­tion consists of two well-written hit singles surrounded by a sea of useless filler.

Which is why Please Please Me, after all these years, holds together quite fine as an album, un­like 99% of pop-oriented LPs from 1963. (Too bad for the Wilson brothers, who did not start pro­perly understanding the LP's potential until All Summer Long). It is slight, occasionally clumsy, lyrically trivial, not devoid of very strange decisions (such as saddling Ringo with ʽBoysʼ, a tune that was perfectly fine when the Shirelles did it, but predictably earned him a gay image with cer­tain audiences), yet it is unmistakably Beatles, and everything that is unmistakably Beatles deser­ves a thumbs up without any need for meditation on the subject. And anyone who tries to slight it too much should just try to remember the names of at least ten other pop LPs from 1963 with­out calling on the Internet for help. Might be a chore even for some of those who had already struck their teens back in the day.

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Blind Blake: Complete Recorded Works Vol. 1 (1926-1927)

BLIND BLAKE: COMPLETE RECORDED WORKS, VOL. 1 (1926-1927)

1) Dying Blues; 2) Ashley St. Blues; 3) Early Morning Blues; 4) West Coast Blues; 5) Early Morning Blues; 6) Too Tight; 7) Blake's Worried Blues; 8) Come On Boys Let's Do That Messin' Around; 9) Tampa Bound; 10) Skeedle Loo Doo Blues (take 1); 11) Skeedle Loo Doo Blues (take 2); 12) Stonewall Street Blues; 13) State Street Blues; 14) Down The Country; 15) Black Biting Bee Blues; 16) Wilson Dam; 17) Buck-Town Blues; 18) Black Dog Blues; 19) One Time Blues; 20) Bad Feelings Blues; 21) Dry Bone Shuffle (take 3); 22) That Will Never Happen No More; 23) Brownskin Mama Blues (take 2); 24) Hard Road Blues; 25) Hey Hey Daddy Blues; 26) Sea Board Stomp.

Arthur Phelps, a.k.a. Arthur Blake, a.k.a. «Blind» Blake (because, back in the day, what was a blind black boy to do but to play blindingly blisterous blues guitar?), only recorded for Para­mount for eight years (1926-1932), before the Depression drove him out on the road, where he either drank himself to death or got run over by a streetcar (accounts differ). I would be lying like a dirty dog, or a surprisingly exalted fanboy, if I told you that everything he recorded during those years deserves to be heard. Yet Blind Blake is still a tremendously important figure in the early growth of country blues; anyone interested in this type of music at all is obliged to have at least a one-disc collection (the 23-track long Best Of Blind Blake will do nicely).

The Document series did a good job of collecting all of the man's known output on four discs, though (with the usual reservation about sound quality: everything here is quite crackly-hissy, not as awful, perhaps, as on Charley Patton records, but still, reflecting the usual lack of quality con­trol for Paramount). The first volume goes heavy on filler, since on several of the tracks Blake is simply heard as a backing player for urban blues performer Leola Wilson — a Bessie Smith wan­nabe with a smaller set of lungs and an annoying nasal twang. And, honoring the contract, per­haps, Blake honestly does nothing but back up the singer — his playing on these slow numbers is utterly by the book, in fact, it almost seems as if he did not have any major liking for this type of music, simply playing for cash while he had the chance.

The first glimpse of Blake's greatness comes with ʽWest Coast Bluesʼ, jammed in between two takes of the much more straightforward 12-bar ʽEarly Morning Bluesʼ. It is the first example of his «ragtime blues», essentially a transferral of the genre's piano chord sequences to a guitar-based setting, which gives the music a decidedly rustic, rather than urban, flavor, but preserves all the toe-tappiness and playfulness. A «throwaway» instrumental dance number with a number of Blake's own spoken «directions» to the dancers, it shows a level of technicality that was quite rare even from jazz players at the time.

Then come the fully worded tunes — ʽCome On Boys, Let's Do That Messin' Aroundʼ, which, true to its name, already shows Blake «messin' around» with the chords as they go (showing his famous ability to «scatter» a musical line and then quickly pick it up together from the pieces for the next bar); and ʽSkeddle Loo Doo Bluesʼ, which does the same, but with an increase in tempo. With more and more confidence gained in the process, the man even starts to show off on others' records — ʽWilson Damʼ, on which he backs Leola Wilson again, already has the player eclip­sing the singer, as he changes keys in between verse lines and plays arrogant little flourishes even as Leola is singing, pulling away the attention.

Instrumental diversity is not the key here — one of the tracks features a lonesome kazoo accom­panying the guitar, and there are a couple of instances of «rattlebone» percussion — but every time Blake picks up speed, that ceases to be an issue. It all culminates in the last track on the disc, ʽSea Board Stompʼ, where the man pulls all the stops: sometimes slipping into one-bar long waltz tempos, sometimes spinning sentimental folksy phrasing, then effortlessly going back into rag­time mode, then showing a bit of sliding technique, then going into a brief bluesy interlude, then «scattering» the melody and picking it up again — basically, this is everything you need to know about Blind Blake rolled into one.

ʽSea Board Stompʼ alone would have earned this early collection a thumbs up; the fact that it is loaded with about a dozen not-too-interesting slow blues numbers (and even these tend to be «de­corated» by the end of the disc) should certainly be disregarded, since Blind Blake was a man of his times, and recorded what the people of his times wanted to hear — and the demand for gene­ric 12-bar blues was greater back then than it has been ever since. Well, maybe not «greater», but «holier» or something, if you get my drift.

Blitzen Trapper: Blitzen Trapper

BLITZEN TRAPPER: BLITZEN TRAPPER (2003)

1) The All-Girl Team; 2) Cunning Revolution; 3) Appletrees; 4) Reno; 5) Whiskey Kisser; 6) Triggafinga; 7) Ansel And Emily Desader; 8) Cracker Went Down; 9) Christmas Is Coming Soon; 10) Donkie Boy; 11) Texaco.

Blitzen Trapper did not really «blitzen» on the pop scene radar until 2007's Wild Mountain Na­ti­on; by that time, however, they were already active for more than five years on the local scene of Portland, Oregon, and had two self-recorded and self-distributed albums on an unknown indie label called «Lidkercow Ltd.» (which, I suspect, was run by the band themselves in a basement or something — no other releases but their own on it). Coincidentally, at least one of them, the self-titled debut, happens to be one of their very best albums, so, if you like Furr, it is your patriotic duty to locate Mr. Lidkercow, presumably living on Pirate Bay Avenue, and demand that he sur­render the goods, so that the glory of the state of Oregon may go undiminished.

The music of Blitzen Trapper is largely the product of bandleader Eric Earley, who also, not sur­prisingly, sings and plays guitar and the occasional keyboards. Initially, one might see Eric as a sort of wannabe Jeff Tweedy, and one might even be right: Blitzen Trapper has all the trade­marks of «intellectualized alt-country», although its debts to «alt-rock» are heavier than those of early Wilco records. However, Earley generally takes stuff less seriously than Tweedy — where even the earliest Wilco records already yield hints that these guys may wanna rule the world, Earley's creations are somewhat less accessible, somewhat more on the «obscurely hip» side.

The best news in town, however, is that Earley comes across as an accomplished songwriter. There is nothing particularly mind-blowing about these songs — but they are good songs with interesting melodies, whe­ther they are governed by tough riffage or moody slide guitars, and al­so regardless of whose territory the band intrudes upon: ʽThe All-Girl Teamʼ, opening the album, for instance, could easily be mistaken for a long-lost Blur song — it has all the required ingredients, apart from the lack of a clearly discernible Bri­tish accent: traditionally put together, but original riffs, catchy chorus, angry young man vocal delivery that occasionally spills into heart-warming poppy vocal modulations, and properly sarcastic lyrics ("I'm in charge of the all-girl team!").

But it isn't particularly typical of the album. Soon afterwards, it takes a sharp turn in a roots-ro­ck­ier direction; yet the songs are almost always positioned at some sort of genre crossroads. ʽCun­ning Revolutionʼ, for instance, alternates between mystically-oriented guitar jangle and a hard-rocking bluesier section. ʽAppletreesʼ, with its multi-tracked mind-warping vocals and melodic guitar phrasing loaded with special tones and effects, is dance-style psychedelia. ʽRenoʼ is an acou­­stic shuffle with some impressive slide guitar work that weaves a subtly dark-magical atmo­sphere. ʽWhiskey Kisserʼ is an uptempo «barroom rocker» with plenty of slide guitar as well, more in the «smart» department than in the «kick-ass» one, but still intriguing. And that's just the first five songs — there is definitely more.

Even if none of the melodies strike me personally as «phenomenal», to the point of wanting to take a particular riff or slide guitar flourish and frame it on the wall next to bits and pieces of To­ny Iommi or George Harrison, Earley and pals make the best they can of them. The album was recorded properly in a proper studio (which, according to their own accounts, nearly ruined them financially, but I'd say it was worth it), and the production is perfect — every note that needs to be accentuated is accentuated, every instrument that is supposed to play a larger role than the others gets to play that role. It is perfectly possible that, had a different band written and recorded the album, I would not be struck by the sweetness of the psychedelia of ʽAppletreesʼ, or by the brutality of the fuzz assault of ʽDonkey Boyʼ, or by the plaintive sentimental atmosphere of ʽAn­sel And Emily Desaderʼ (which, by the way, betrays a very strong Ray Davies influence).

I do not know, and cannot possibly know, the exact number of albums like this recorded over the last decades — there may be hundreds of them, really, with the level of their notoriety depending exclusively on the luck factor — but retro-oriented bands that do not stimulate their listeners into asking the question «why do I actually need to listen to this?» are few, and I would say that Eric Earley has enough talent to conveniently fall into that minority. Here be a nicely resonant, intel­lectually comfortable alt-hard-roots-psych-record for us all; thumbs up, no questions asked.

Archers Of Loaf: Icky Mettle

ARCHERS OF LOAF: ICKY METTLE (1993)

1) Web In Front; 2) Last Word; 3) Wrong; 4) You And Me; 5) Might; 6) Hate Paste; 7) Fat; 8) Plumb Line; 9) Learo, You're A Hole; 10) Sickfile; 11) Toast; 12) Backwash; 13) Slow Worm.

«What makes this sound so compelling is the way it explores the full spectrum of guitar-centric rock, pulling together the blunt and abrasive with the thoughtful in the musical equivalent of a shotgun wedding with the bride and groom doing everything in their power to hold it together while the family is watching in uneasy silence». -- Gregory Heaney, All-Music Guide.

Damn, I wish I could write that way — it takes so much time to realize how entirely devoid of sense this phrase is that no one will probably even bother, leaving the page in a dazed, confu­sed, and, perhaps, even mystified state of mind. On the other hand, I could not say that this band's lyrics — or even the title of their debut album — or even their own name, for that matter — do a good job of surpassing Mr. Heaney in terms of clarity. "All I ever wanted was to be your spine / Lost your friction and you slid for a mile" (ʽWeb In Frontʼ) is a fairly diagnostic couple of lines, and almost each song yields more of the same stuff.

Anyway, Archers Of Loaf stem from Chapel Hill, NC, and, in true indie-rock fashion, consist of 2 guitars, 1 bass, 1 set of drums, and 1 soulful, but rangeless vocal coupled with one of the guitars (Eric Bachmann, no relation to Randy Bachman whatsoever, not to mention the extra n). Since they formed in the year of Nevermind, there is some temptation to pigeonhole them as «grun­gers», which they are not if, by «grunge», we mean the narrow spectrum from Nirvana to Alice In Chains to Pearl Jam and the like. The three differences are in that Archers Of Loaf are:

— nowhere near as heavy: they like low notes and power chords as much as the next guy, but it is clear that Black Sabbath is not a big influence. Sonic Youth, perhaps, but not Sabbath;

— absolutely not «depressed» or «depressing». Most of the music is energetic and angry, but the­re is no suicidal or end-of-the-world-ish ring in Bachmann's voice at all. Only once does he at­tempt to descend into autistic melancholy (ʽYou And Meʼ), but, set against all the other songs, it almost feels like a theatrical gesture for diversity's sake. Spiritual darkness as an essential compo­nent of grunge is completely lacking here;

— simply put, a «post-modern» band: much like Pavement and the Pixies, they inject their tunes with absurdism, irony, and nihilism, although the music is never as experimental as that of Pave­ment, and the band is also affected by a near-complete lack of sense of humor, which makes their post-modernism very, very strange (since we usually sense po-mo the best through the artist's abi­lity to laugh off and ridicule all of the cultural conventions of the past).

All of this puts an individual spin on Icky Mettle, which is a great advantage, considering that the actual songs kinda suck. Well, not «suck», perhaps, but whoever claims that Bachmann and the other guitarist, Eric Johnson, are accomplished riffmeisters must be fairly new to this whole «rock» idea: fifty percent of the time at least, the chord sequences are generic indie fare that you can just as easily encounter on an Avril Lavigne record. The other fifty percent show a little bit more inventiveness: ʽWrongʼ, for instance, opens with a simple, but fresh «scratchy» pattern (for some reason, complemented by an odd «cuckoo» tone from the second guitar — absurdism on the prawl!); ʽLearo, You're A Holeʼ comes replete with a head-splitting overdub of several dro­ning parts that paint the air in aggressively psychedelic colours; and the beginning of ʽToastʼ is like a lo-fi take on the mysterious otherwordliness of The Cure, before the proceedings calm down to give us a nice contrast between a thin, friendly, fun-sounding riff and an all-out scream-fest ("There's something wrong with my toast!" — go figure).

Repeated listens bring out the small details that should, perhaps, be the Archers' major claim to fame. For instance, the main guitar line of ʽWeb In Frontʼ is loud, but totally uninteresting — just a standard «chugga-chugga» recorded for the millionth time. Listen closely and you will notice a thin, almost harp-like, «ethereal» guitar playing a much more complicated role in the adjacent speaker, growing a bit more audacious by the end of the song but still not competitive enough to properly grab your attention until you've listened to this for a second time... and a third one... and a fourth one... by then, the main riff will finally fade away and the nice ringing guitar-harp will be all over your ears. (Stupid question: why not get rid of the main riff altogether?).

ʽPlumb Lineʼ is the slyest of the lot, giving Bachmann enough microphone space to deliver the catch phrase "She's an indie rocker / And nothing's gonna stop her / Her fashion fits" loud and distinct, over a proverbial indie-rock melody if there ever was one — and thus, ensure the band a firm position on college radio and in certain critical minds. But the idea of Icky Mettle is not to glorify indie rock, or propagate teenage rebellion, or even vent one's frustration over failed re­la­tion­ships — there is a little bit of everything, which all melds together in one big fat nothing, and that is the idea of Icky Mettle: to make a modern rock album about nothing. Of course, it would have helped, if, like Seinfeld, these guys at least had a sense of humor to compensate. In its place, they put loudness, brawn, and elements of weirdness, still rather random on this record (but they would grow in numbers by the time they got around to the follow-up).

Today, in knowledgeable circles, Icky Mettle is deemed as sort of a minor classic of the decade. I am not sure if it will hold up as well as the best grunge, indie, and pop-rock records from its era, because the songwriting seems fairly mediocre to me, even if the songs gain a lot through extra touches and flourishes once they are realized on tape. (Same problems as with the Afghan Whigs — another band vastly overrated by connoisseurs and reasonably forgotten by the masses). But there is certainly an enigmatic aura about the album — after all, not every piece of music will prompt the reviewer to describe it with the sort of quotation that I used to preview my own text. Trying it out won't hurt, and, want it or not, these Chapel Hill fellas were an integral part of the indie movement back in the day — gotta know our history.

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Asia: Silent Nation

ASIA: SILENT NATION (2004)

1) What About Love; 2) Long Way From Home; 3) Midnight; 4) Blue Moon Monday; 5) Silent Nation; 6) Ghost In The Mirror; 7) Gone Too Far; 8) I Will Be There For You; 9) Darkness Day; 10) The Prophet.

If I were a musician, and if my career had started at any point after 1985, I would have thought thrice about writing a song called ʽWhat About Loveʼ. Not only does the title ring stupid as such (what about love?), but it had already undermined the coolness of one formerly good band — and I am pretty sure that, in 2004, there must have been quite a few people looking at the track list and going, «oh no!... covering a Heart power ballad now?.. what next, Diane Warren?»

On the other hand, accusing Asia, especially in its Payne/Downes configuration, of showing in­excusable lapses of taste is like accusing Gene Simmons that his tongue is an inch too long: he can't help it, and neither can these guys. Instead, let us look on the bright side of things and admit that Silent Nation represents a brave, and not entirely unsuccessful, attempt at «rebooting the en­tire franchise», as they say. Indeed: for the first time ever, a «proper» Asia album whose title does not consist of an A...A word, and whose album sleeve is not designed by Roger Dean. An album released with a more or less stabilized lineup, without a host of extra musicians cluttering the pro­ceedings with close-to-zero efficiency. And, most importantly, an album that, for once, tries to be denser, more complex, more musical, and more «progressive» than it ever used to be — at least, in the Payne era. You have to admit that all of this at least sounds curious.

The overall sound has definitely changed. The songs are bigger, with more numerous and length­ier instrumental passages; guitarist Guthrie Govan gets to have a bigger impact all over the place than even Steve Howe was ever allowed; and Downes himself generally plays a normal organ (or, sometimes, a normal piano) — so consistently that, when he eventually jumps over to a cold syn­thesizer on ʽDarkness Dayʼ, this may be greeted as a welcome sign of diversity. Clearly, clearly, the band is trying to push up its status, migrating from «arena synth-pop» to «classic prog-lite for the mas­ses». Should we welcome the transition?

I would, except there is still one thing that bugs me — Silent Nation takes itself way too serious­ly, perhaps even more so than on the average Asia album. Most of the songs are social anthems, with one or two love ballads mixed in for «balance», and, although they raise important subjects, they usually do so in trivial ways, further losing adequacy points for oversinging and «overact­ing» — Asia bombast is, of course, easier to take when it is delivered through old-school instru­mentation than through the usual Downes-synthesizers, but it is still Asia bombast.

ʽWhat About Loveʼ, unlike the Heart song, is not about a power chord celebration of amorous rela­tionships between two people, but is dedicated to the entire human race — built on a catchy, brawny pop melody, but delivered without any sort of finesse: the chorus barges in with as much brute force as in the Heart song, yet its anthemic aura, as interpreted by Payne, sounds reserved and insincere. (The benchmark for such choruses is always ʽLove Reign O'er Meʼ the way it was carried out by Daltrey — at the top of his capacities and perhaps even overstepping them, which made it fully believable. Payne always keeps himself in check).

The «epic», multi-part compositions, such as ʽMidnightʼ and ʽBlue Moon Mondayʼ, have their share of moodiness, but still end up sounding like «prog theater». Payne is one of the culprits, but it's all in the air — the way they overdub the choral harmonies, the way they still utilize these pop-metal Eighties-style riffs, the way they pair feather-light acoustic guitars with big bashing drums (ʽGhost In The Mirrorʼ)... this band just cannot be «good», no matter how much they try, and on Silent Nation they try very hard.

I still give the album a light thumbs up, partly out of the general feeling of surprise (as it was with Arena, when the Payne lineup first tried to shake things up), partly because... well, you have your catchy choruses, your occasionally pleasant guitar solo, your goofy impersonation of a modern-day Gregorian chant (ʽGone Too Farʼ) — although the album is stretched over an entire hour, it does not feel overlong because of all the different tricks they try, and that is worth some respect. As for longtime fans of the band who are used to appro­aching them from a different perspective, I am sure most of them will be delighted with Silent Nation — the finest of all the­oretically possible conclusions to the Payne period.

Check "Silent Nation" (CD) on Amazon
Check "Silent Nation" (MP3) on Amazon

Average White Band: Warmer Communications

AVERAGE WHITE BAND: WARMER COMMUNICATIONS (1978)

1) Your Love Is A Miracle; 2) Same Feeling, Different Song; 3) Daddy's All Gone; 4) Big City Lights; 5) She's A Dream; 6) Warmer Communications; 7) The Price Of The Dream; 8) Sweet & Sour; 9) One Look Over My Shoulder (Is This Really Goodbye?).

The jolt, transmitted by «Benny», was electrified enough to inspire the band for another fine ef­fort, arguably their best in four years. No changes in style whatsoever — not only disco, which the guys continue to solemnly ignore, but New Wave influences as well begin to pass them by. But the compositions go up one or two notches. The slower grooves gain in the «sexy / sleazy» respects, and the faster ones are pinned to generally more delicious, juicy melody lines.

The former category is best illustrated by ʽYour Love Is A Miracleʼ, which is probably the closest they ever came to capturing the musky smell of Funkadelic — «lite», yes, but all of the instru­ments, rhythms, and harmonies work cohesively towards a nasty, dirty big-boy sound that no mo­rally trained housewife would ever tolerate. The title track is equally fine, with their most memo­rable chorus in years — there may be nothing revolutionary about choosing the line "we gotta have warmer... we gotta have warmer... warmer communications" as a hook basis, but its unin­tentional sex mantra seems to work against all odds.

On the faster side, ʽSame Feeling Different Songʼ kicks in with the finest brass riff we have heard from the AWB since ʽPick Up The Piecesʼ, and they keep it strung up and tense for five minutes, regularly switching the focus from brass to the blubbering, «telegraphic» guitar and back again. And the instrumental ʽSweet & Sourʼ, straying slightly away into jazz-fusion territory, is built upon a dep-reaching, nagging, ascending guitar line that goes straight to the subconscious and does strange things with it, especially if you are listening in headphones.

If it weren't for the ballads, which, unfortunately, cannot be moved from the usual levels of bore­dom (the cover of James Taylor's ʽDaddy's All Goneʼ is particularly trite, although, technically, it «got soul» all right), War­mer Communications could easily rival their best efforts in terms of consistency; and the band's conservatism, at this point, becomes almost respectable — at a time when traditional R&B was starting to get restructured into its disco and post-disco forms, minimalizing, if not nullifying, the role of particular instrument players, they continue to tighten up their act and rely on complex time signatures and tricky chord changes, instead of watering it all down. It may have been re­corded in 1978 all right, but it sounds positively 1973-ish, and for this type of music, it is an en­ormous plus, well worth the usual tepid, but friendly thumbs up. And if four or five «warmer» funky grooves ain't enough to thrill you, how about that album co­ver? Those were the days...