Bat For Lashes: Two Suns

BAT FOR LASHES: TWO SUNS (2009)

1) Glass; 2) Sleep Alone; 3) Moon And Moon; 4) Daniel; 5) Peace Of Mind; 6) Siren Song; 7) Pearl's Dream; 8) Good Love; 9) Two Planets; 10) Travelling Woman; 11) The Big Sleep.

Fur And Gold was one of those curious debuts that make any attempts at further predictions to­tally futile. It had its moments of beauty mixed with its moments of cringe, and, all over the place, there seemed to be potential waiting to be tapped into. Lyrics too silly? People don't get born as lyricists, they mature. Melodies too simplistic? But it's not the complexity that counts, it's the spi­ritual power. What mattered most was that Fur And Gold was clearly the creation of an easily influenced, but essentially free-wandering spirit. Meaning that Natasha Khan's next move could be just about anything. For all we know, she could start playing minimalistic reworkings of Or­nette Coleman's material, arranged as duets for sitar and washboard.

Alas, Two Suns finds her concentrating on her weakest skill: Artsiness. Almost completely ban­ning tight pop frameworks from sight, she is almost exclusively writing in the «moody» vein now, turning into what some have already christened a «poor man's Björk» — without insinuating that she actually uses the real Björk as a working model, but she aims her ball at more or less the same lane, while scoring — quite predictably — ten times less.

The press release for the album has been quoted by almost every reviewer, because who could stay away from lines like «Two Suns addresses the philosophy of the self and duality, examining the need for both chaos and balance, for both love and pain, in addition to touching on meta­phy­sical ideas concerning the connections between all existence»? There were even some people who took that seriously — the lucky few who survived the reading process — and started discussing the important changes of perspective that aspiring young philosopher Natasha Khan brought into our common understanding of the metaphysical structure of the universe. (Roll over, Kierkegaard, tell Heidegger the news).

The trouble is, we could all just close our eyes on this pseudo-neo-romantic bullshit and enjoy the music — if it weren't for the fact that Bat For Lashes takes it more than just seriously: with each of these songs, she deliberately wedges her hollow messages into your head. Two Suns still shows signs of true talent, but it is betrayed every step of the way, as she hangs it out to dry, neg­lecting music in favour of ridiculously overblown brainwashing.

Crowning it all with her «inven­tion» of an «alter ego» called «Pearl», which the press release describes as «a destructive, self-absorbed, blonde, femme fatale of a persona who acts as a direct foil to Khan's more mystical, desert-born spiritual self». I particularly like that they did not forget to use the word «desert-born» in this context. Doesn't it sound fantastic? Overwhelming? Desert-born! (Then again, I guess if Denmark can be a prison, London — in which she was born — can certainly be a desert).

If you make a really strong effort and manage to completely ignore the lyrics (including the wret­ched press release), some of these tracks may eventually redeem themselves. Unfortunately, this almost never concerns the brooding rhythmless ballads, whose boring piano non-hooks, near-per­manent echoey hoo-hoos and aah-aahs, and occasionally varying background instrumentation never really gel into anything special. But once she drags out the bass, things sometimes change for the better: 'Sleep Alone' is a pretty little nightmare on the border of Middle East muzak and dark disco, the lead single 'Daniel' is no Elton John, but still tolerable, and 'Pearl's Dream' has the catchiest, if a bit annoying, chorus on the entire record.

The jackpot is hit on the last tune, when, out of the shadows, the one and only Scott Walker sud­denly arises to duet with the pretty dualistic girl on 'The Big Sleep'... for about thirty seconds in total, before falling back into slumber (as she says herself, "Not even out of my dress and already my voice is fading"). How on Earth she managed to lure the man, a well-known recluse, into the studio, I don't know and I'm not sure I do want to know, but he does manage, during these thirty seconds, to turn the tables completely and provide the record with a non-fitting conclusion that is, in itself, more or less worth the entire remaining length of Two Suns. But who wants to listen to fourty minutes of bad music for one single magical "How can it be..."?

In short, this is very, very lame. Amazon.com warns you (or, if it doesn't, it should) that if you love this album, you probably enjoy reading Castaneda and Coelho, dressing up as Xena (regard­less of gender), and jumping off twelve-storey buildings during your lunch breaks. If, however, you just love good music, buy this lady a ticket to a Pipettes concert for a cure. Confucius did warn us, after all, that «Thought without learning is perilous», and so is this album — I may res­pect the effort, but if the effort is wasted like that, what can I do? Thumbs down.

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The Apples In Stereo: Velocity Of Sound

THE APPLES IN STEREO: VELOCITY OF SOUND (2002)

1) Please; 2) Rainfall; 3) That's Something I Do; 4) Do You Understand; 5) Where We Meet; 6) Yore Days; 7) Bet­ter Days; 8) I Want; 9) Mystery; 10) Baroque; 11*) She's Telling Lies.

Uh-oh. Things do not bode well here. All of a sudden, Schneider has decided to dropkick psyche­delia in favour of lots and lots of fat distorted guitars. Perhaps he just secretly envied the success of the Strokes, but the trouble is, with his rose-coloured vision of the world, the final result of toughening up his sound could only have sounded like Weezer. And, what do you know — it does sound like Weezer. And there is no good reason to completely dismiss Weezer, but who ne­eds two Weezers when we could have one Weezer and one Apples In Stereo instead?

The pain really kicks in when it starts dawning on you that some of these songs are well-written pop numbers, and that in terms of melodies and hooks they are easily on the level of World In­side The Moone. 'Baroque', for instance, is a tenderly gorgeous Brit-pop anthem that should be encapsulated and flung backwards in time to be recorded by the Kinks circa 1966-67. How on Earth did they decide that, to reach perfection, it needed to be drenched in a dirty, deafening wall of garage-rock sound? Did they think it gave them extra «artistic credibility», or some other crap like that? Mind you, we are actually talking here about a band that, eight years before, surprised the world by renouncing heavy guitar arrangements as an obligatory way of acquiring intellectual respect. Now, out of the blue, they are bringing them back for seemingly no other purpose than to «fit in», with whom or what — I'm not exactly sure.

As on almost every Apples album, lucky findings are heavily interspersed here with passable fil­ler: Sidney's 'Rainfall' is a charming, romantic, fast-moving pop rocker for which they invented a catchy guitar line, while 'Where We Meet' is another uninspired, languid attempt at imitating the spirit of Lennon's 'Rain', but both are given the exact same crackling, grumbling coat, and it is technically easier to just dismiss both before giving them each a fair chance.

Five or six listens in­to the record, I can safely say that I also like 'Better Days' (that galloping pace is one of the best things to come out of 1960s Britain, and the more songs are done like that, the better) and the fun chorus to 'That's Something I Do', where Schneider tells us that "your fri­ends hate my guts... 'cause I don't have a pedigree" — nice acting, sir, but you don't really fool us, your pedigree is better than most — and then, perhaps, something else might come up once I de­clog my ears from all the sludge. But for the moment, despite individual hooks, the album deser­ves a strict thumbs down. If, for some reason, you get extra kicks looking at an old Flemish mas­terpiece after it's been heavily sprinkled with sulfuric acid — for instance, under the pretext that it leaves more space for imagination — then Velocity Of Sound is for you. Me, I'd rather wait un­til they eventually release the demo versions.

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Adolescents: Brats In Battalions

ADOLESCENTS: BRATS IN BATTALIONS (1987)

1) Brats In Battalions; 2) I Love You; 3) The Liar; 4) Things Start Moving; 5) Do The Freddy; 6) Losing Battle; 7) House Of The Rising Sun; 8) Peasant Song; 9) Skate Babylon; 10) Welcome To Reality; 11) Marching With The Reich; 12) I Got A Right; 13) She Wolf.

No surprise when I say that nobody really needs to hear anything by the Adolescents other than Adolescents, for the safe, simple, predictable reason that when the Adolescents started recording their second album — a whoppin' six years, sixty member changes, and six hundred personal ca­taclysms after their first — they were no longer adolescents, and what use can one make of an Adolescents album in name but not an Adolescents album in nature?

Even though, somehow, for these 1986-87 sessions the band managed to get most of its original, and best, lineup, back in place (except for Frank Agnew, replaced by his no less Agnew, but much less talented brother Alfie), Brats In Battalions suffers from punk's commonest disease: the inflammatory conflict between the acute desire to grow and the gross inability of growing. By embracing various substyles and experimenting from different angles, Cadena, the Agnews and the rest of the band are clearly trying to say something. But oh how better it was back when the only thing they were trying to say was that they couldn't really say anything.

The whole album is summarized fairly well by their misguided cover of 'House Of The Rising Sun', which they start out as a «regular» dirty folk-blues number and then, after a couple verses, transform into hardcore. The question is — why? It doesn't sound like a meaningful reinvention; it sounds like lame self-parody, neither angry, nor funny, just dumb. And one big, dumb joke like that can actually be enough to soil the whole experience.

There is still enough decent material here to compensate, and it is interesting to watch the band's guitarists diversify and complicate the rhythm work, taking lessons from the thrash and speed metal scenes while still retaining a completely punkish attitude — the title track is a prime exam­p­le of that approach; if only the entire album managed to uphold the same spirit, but, alas, trouble starts seeping in already on the third track. 'The Liar' is a slab of anti-Reaganist propaganda, so crude it makes the Dead Kennedys sound like Jean-Paul Sartre in comparison ("Reagan plays the liar, power's his desire, there's nothing in the world we can do!" — how about calling on Super­man?), and only matched for embarrassment by 'Marching With The Reich', whose first chords recall Blondie's 'One Way Or Another' and whose spirit is about as frivolous as Blondie's, too, even though the message is supposed to be serious.

Honestly, things could have perhaps worked out better if the band just dropped the «hardcore» pretense completely and became a Black Sabbath tribute ensemble, because the best thing they could do at that point was hammer out metallic riffs, e. g. the 'Spirit Of The Universe' look-alike in 'She Wolf' (should have dropped the odd psychedelic interludes, though) and the Stooges kind of darkness-filled 'Things Start Moving'. Instead, they are caught somewhere in the middle be­twe­en becoming a real band of musicians and an amplified social manifesto, but not working hard enough to become the former and too lenient and embarrassing to justify the latter. Despite the few good songs, this is a rather obvious thumbs down.

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Alan Stivell: Renaissance De La Harpe Celtique

ALAN STIVELL: RENAISSANCE DE LA HARPE CELTIQUE (1971)

1) Ys; 2) Marv Pontkalleg; 3) Ap Huw / Penllyn; 4) Eliz Iza; 5) Gaeltacht.

No less an authority than Bruce Eder, writing for the All-Music Guide, once called this «one of the most beautiful and haunting records ever made by anybody». Truth be told, I believe that this statement has more to do with basically falling in love with the overall sound of a well-played Ce­ltic harp than with Alan Stivell's personal-individual artistic contribution to the world of musi­cal ideas. These days, with Celtic revivalism going stronger than ever before, whole battalions of twenty first century minstrels are doing the same thing all over the world.

But it must not be forgotten that most of them are doing it exactly because, in 1971, Stivell relea­sed this key record in his career that launched the «Celtic hardcore» movement. Before Harpe Celtique, most of these motives had either been tapped in various folk-rock syntheses, or sculp­ted into relatively simplistic LPs with immediate popular appeal. Few, if anyone, actually dared to explore that sound in more complex, demanding ways.

The album is completely instrumental, a fourty-minute sequence of brief compositions (some au­thored by Stivell himself, some recreated from various traditional sources) sometimes formally merged into longer units — 'Gaeltacht' takes up an entire side, but is really a set of five or six en­tirely different tunes. The harp is, of course, the leading instrument, but it is almost never comple­tely alone, with either a cello or a fiddle or an organ or a guitar or, in a few spots, some drums — at one po­int, even tablas! — providing the accompaniment. More disconcerting for the average listener might be the fact that very few of the tracks include tight, «danceable» rhythmic struc­tures: if what you're after in Celtic music is jigs-a-plenty, you're probably much better off sticking to The Pogues. This is the sitting man's sound, not the moving one's.

Adequately reviewing Harpe Celtique is akin to reviewing a lengthy chamber music piece: since no «pop ho­oks» are surmised, no words are spoken, and no radical mood changes are involved, you can either get all technical on this (if you're qualified, which I am not) or just sit back and let the music do all the talking. The only question one might pose is whether one is supposed to en­joy Stivell's unquestionably beautiful playing from an «ambient» perspective — heavenly sounds with a background-embellishing function — or a «classical» one: fleshed-out, meaningful com­po­sitions that should be listened to over and over again until they finally sink in properly.

For my ear, most of these pieces sound way too «samey» to justify spending significant time on them so as to learn to know the difference. (Obviously, I am talking about the basic musical ske­leton: the fact that 'Eliz Iza', for instance, boasts a much fuller sound through the addition of cello, bagpipes, drums, and choral vocals does not in essence make it seriously different from the radi­cally minimalist 'Marv Pontkalleg'). After all, this is an attempt at faithfully recreating sounds that represent either «folk» or «medieval court» music, emotional and spiritual but also confor­ming to an intentionally limited formula. Best way to assimilate it is pretend you're King of Wales and this Stivell guy is standing to your left while you're enjoying your banquet — works great for the digestive system.

Trivia buffs will want to learn that 'Ys' is dedicated to the legend of the God-cursed, ocean-swal­lowed Bretonic city of Ys (hence all the ocean waves in the background); that 'Marv Pontkalleg' ('The Death of Pontcallec') is an old Breton ballad about a failed conspiracy in the 18th century; that Penllyn is in Wales, meaning that track number 3 takes us from Bretonic tradition to the closely related Welsh one; and that 'Gaeltacht' refers to Irish-speaking regions, meaning we now jump to the next island. Not that it is all that easy to distinguish between Irish, Welsh, and Breto­nic music, mind you, but as far as the various sub-styles of Celtic playing are concerned, Harpe Celtique is fairly diverse.

I have no idea how overtly sincere are those who, like Bruce Eder, declare this to be one of the most haunting records ever made, but one thing is for certain: I would be very pleased if this kind of music were ever able to really haunt me. Ambient or not, it requires additional listening, and if you are already a major fan of the likes of Fairport Convention or Steeleye Span, this is the next logical stop — but even in this case, you might find it somewhat of a challenge. Better still, start learning how to play the harp, and, if possible, forget any Marx Bros. movies you've seen, at least, for the time period it takes to get used to this. A reverential thumbs up.

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The Allman Brothers Band: Shades Of Two Worlds

THE ALLMAN BROTHERS BAND: SHADES OF TWO WORLDS (1991)

1) End Of The Line; 2) Bad Rain; 3) Nobody Knows; 4) Desert Blues; 5) Get On With Your Life; 6) Midnight Man; 7) Kind Of Bird; 8) Come On In My Kitchen.

Compared to the regular 1990s standard for aging rockers, the time gap between Seven Turns and its follow-up was practically non-existent, and this could only mean one thing: the revamped Allmans were in tremendously high spirits and knew how to use 'em. Shades Of Two Worlds is, unquestionably, a rather rushed sequel: only eight songs, one of them a cover and one an exten­ded jam the likes of which they'd usually reserve for the stage. But it does preserve the momen­tum, and shows that, even on autopilot, the new-look Allmans remained unbeatable.

In fact, in some respects Shades even improves on its predecessor. Most of the material is still written by Betts, either solo or in tandem with Haynes, but this time, he wisely avoids the softer, country-rock/pop side of the business and opts instead for all-out crunch. So, either they're doing slow, tormented, wailing blues, or rocking the roof off the building — none of that sentimental "seven turns on the highway, seven rivers to cross..." sappiness. Most of the album crackles in bright red colours, like the burning sunset on the album sleeve, all the way down to the closing Robert Johnson cover, which lands the ship softly in acoustic blues mood.

The decision to turn 'Nobody Knows' from a rhythmically tricky folk-blues rocker into a monster jam is questionable, but respectable; the whole experience sounds like a nostalgic nod to the old days of Duane and Dickey battling it out in semi-free-form mid-tempo mode on 'Whipping Post', and here, the Betts/Haynes duo really only loses to the way it used to be in terms of freshness — but the spirit and the technical mastery remain the same. Still, perhaps they should have saved it all for the upcoming live album, where this length would seem more natural.

On the other hand, the obligatory instrumental is an unassailable blast — 'Kind Of Bird' must be a reference to Charlie Parker, and there is a lot of jazz here indeed, as they substitute the idea of dreamy / psychedelic wordless music for one that involves less planning and calculating, more ab­solute freedom of expression. It could fail, as it so often does on jazz records, but, due to the band's determination and experience, it works. The opening part is all fast, furious, bop-influen­ced headbanging, the middle part defies genre classification, and the third part is free-form chaos à la 'Brers In A Minor' — most of the ingredients, in some form or other, they'd already shown us on earlier records, but this particular synthesis is brand new for the Allmans.

The individual songs are all written in strict accordance with formula; in the hands of a band of lesser caliber than the Allmans, much of this material, including all of Betts' rockers, could have sounded ugly, perhaps even moronically flatulent (imagine "I'm your midnight man, guranteed to love you like nobody can" in the hands of Foreigner!), but it is not the melodies, it is the tightness and the intelligent force of this big sound, and the clever interplay between Betts and Haynes, that car­ries most of them through. Gregg's 'Get On With Your Life', for instance, would be nothing if not for Haynes' lengthy Clapton-esque solo, slowly, predictably, and still admirably winding its way up, up, up, until it's joined by Betts' companion guitar and the two crash down in ecstasy. Another first is the guitarists' acoustic duel on 'Come On In My Kitchen' — the number finishes the record off on the same note as 'Pony Boy' put the final stop to Brothers And Sisters, but this time, we have a fun dialog going on, instead of Betts' mono spectacle.

For some reason, Shades Of Two Worlds, unlike Seven Turns, went out of print fairly quickly and is now hard to find in legal form (except for ultra-expensive import versions); this is hardly a ma­jor tragedy, but certainly a minor travesty that needs to be remedied. Thumbs up, in the vain hope that this might eventually help people treasure this part of the Allmans' legacy with all the respect it deserves.