The Black Crowes: Warpaint

THE BLACK CROWES: WARPAINT (2008)

1) Goodbye Daughters Of The Revolution; 2) Walk Believer Walk; 3) Oh Josephine; 4) Evergreen; 5) We Who See The Deep; 6) Locust Street; 7) Movin' On Down The Line; 8) Wounded Bird; 9) God's Got It; 10) There's Gold In Them Hills; 11) Whoa Mule.

The internal construction of the word warpaint seems to suggest that when you put on this kind of paint, you are expected to go to war. Consequently, when you begin to play an album called Warpaint, you might expect to hear something that could be associated with war-like emotions. You know — aggression, bravado, ferociousness, that sort of thing. And even if you are not a big fan of The Black Crowes, you just know that they are a band well capable of all those emotions. And, in fact, once every few years or so they are even capable of hanging them on a powerful hook, which is where they are at their very best. It's not much, but it's something.

Alas, we have some bad news, folks. Warpaint is not a war-like album — it ain't even a proper rock'n'roll album. Instead, it's a big ol' full-o'-soul album of «Americana» — a melting pot of blues, country, and various forms of hillbilly music, played Black Crowes-style, but without the arrogant cockiness of old. Yes, it's been seven years since their previous studio experience — and in that time, the Robinson brothers have Discovered Wisdom. Now, instead of churning out over­loud headbang fodder, they offer you golden bales of hay straight from the meadows and fields — lying in one of which, with not a care in the world and a pair of headphones around your head, would probably be the perfect setting for enjoying an album like Warpaint. That is, if there actually were anything to enjoy.

The band had suffered further lineup changes along the way, so that by the time they came around to recording this, the newest members were relatively young musicians — children of the Seventies, younger than the Robinson brothers by about a decade: Adam MacDougall on key­boards and Luther Dickinson (of the North Mississippi Allstars) on guitar. Obviously, both are professionals, and the Robinsons went out of their way to praise Dickinson's skills to high hea­vens; problem is, to my ears he just sounds like a faithful disciple of the old school, doing his country-western schtick honestly, but without an ounce of inventiveness. Considering that brother Rich is also no great genius when it comes to composing guitar melodies, it is no big surprise that a large chunk of this album... well, perhaps it does not exactly sound like Garth Brooks, but it feels every bit as tedious and worthless as your average country-pop album.

Every chord sequence tried out here is tired and old. Every vocal melody begs for the single question — why am I wasting time on this? Is there at least one new emotional touch generated here, at least one fresh feeling, rather than just fifty minutes of recycled cud? Neil Young, Little Feat, Lynyrd Skynyrd, The Allmans, Emmylou Harris, The Band, Gram Parsons — is Warpaint adding anything worthwhile to that legacy? Am I supposed to worship at the sight of Chris Ro­binson's beard just because he's aged a little bit, calmed down a bit, found his peace with the world and drowned in earthy sentimentality — or, perhaps, should that require a little more effort in the songwriting department?

I guess that, from a certain point of view, Warpaint could invite comparisons with Exile On Main St.: it seems to trigger the same half-lazy, right-to-the-ways-of-the-world atmosphere. But the difference is that the Stones were actually recording their album on the brink of self-destruc­tion, and its music is permeated with that feeling. Warpaint, in comparison, plays it completely safe and sound. The Black Crowes, as pictured on this record, are a generally happy, healthy, self-sufficient band of individuals who know just what it takes to make the «right» music. "Let's take it easy to avoid any snags", states the opening song, called ʽGoodbye Daughters Of The Re­volutionʼ, and in between that line, that title, and the fact that the rhythm and lead lines of the song are all great in tone and poor in expression, this tells you all you should really know about the album, unless you need your everyday fill of bland Americana like a high fiber diet.

If you are looking for something that «rocks», you won't find a proper choice until track 9, ʽGod's Got Itʼ, and even that one is a fairly repetitive «Christian blues-rock» number (with a touch of irony, I hope), riding on boring muffled rhythm crunch and conventional slide licks. (For that matter, I think that Paul Stacey's production style is at least partially responsible for sucking the life out of these tracks — a different mix, bringing Dickinson's slide guitar higher up, might have somewhat improved the impression). If you are looking for a real soulful, broken-voiced, salt-of-the-earth ballad, check out ʽThere's Gold In Them Hillsʼ. It does not touch my soul one bit, but who knows, it might touch yours. I think it's all a bunch of unimaginative clichés, and I don't think Chris Robinson sounds too convincing when complaining that "all I have left is this grey in my beard" (not that that ain't much — have you seen the size of that beard?), but wasting time on looking for scientific proof of that is not a good idea, so let's just assume I may be wrong.

Anyway, three listens into the album, and nothing ever stuck, which is why I suppose that the songs on Warpaint are fairly worthless unless they are your first exposition to the world of dusty, age-sanctified roots-rock. Then again, I also suppose this is predictable — if The Black Crowes as a young band were third-rate imitators of kick-ass Stones/Aerosmith/Led Zeppelin, then why should The Black Crowes as an old band be anything but third-rate imitators of their rootsy pre­decessors? It all fits. No big surprise here, and a friendly, light-hearted thumbs down all the way down Chris Robinson's beard. 

Björk: Biophilia

BJÖRK: BIOPHILIA (2011)

1) Moon; 2) Thunderbolt; 3) Crystalline; 4) Cosmogony; 5) Dark Matter; 6) Hollow; 7) Virus; 8) Sacrifice; 9) Mutual Core; 10) Solstice.

I think that the title of the album is somewhat misleading. Biophilia is a (relatively simple and, when you come to think of it, rather self-obvious) idea of life being attracted to life — a natural inborn empathy towards organic entities, which is why, by default, we happen to like kittens and hippos better than rocks. (Not sure if the theory also works on the Ebola virus, though). This project of Björk's, however, pursues an even loftier goal, professing love and metaphoric exploi­tation towards just about every corner of the universe, from sub-atomic particles to planet move­ment and natural electrical phenomena — so, for the sake of accuracy, she would probably have been more justified to call it Cosmophilia. Then again, she probably wants to treat everything in the universe as a living thing. How artistic-pantheistic of her, again.

One thing you really have to respect the lady for is how she is still managing to keep in touch with the modern world: relatively few artists manage to escape «fossilization» and condescending rejection of modern values by the time they hit 45 — yet Biophilia is, in every respect, a record that just screams «the 2010s are upon us!». Not only was most of the music, according to Björk's own statement, composed on a tablet computer, but the album itself is not just an album: it is a sprawling, arch-trendy multimedia project, accompanied with visuals, educational applications, specialized live performance, and, on the whole, first billed as a «3-D scientific musical» and then as the first ever «app album», so now it can compete with Lady Gaga and Angry Birds at the exact same time: how smart is that?

Very smart, but, I am afraid to say, not very engaging. Personally, I am not very much interested in «multimedia artistry», and I am definitely not interested in watching somebody who used to be a terrific musical artist try and make a transition to a state where music ceases to be the major attraction and becomes «just one side of the story». From a certain point of view, this falls under the definition of «sellout» — in order to fit in better with the times, you sacrifice some of your strengths in favor of «what the market demands». These days, the market demands dazzling interactive visuals, so we play a game of «construct your own universe from elementary particle scratch» or «build a drum machine from a combination enzymes» (no kidding, this is exactly what the app associated with ʽHollowʼ is supposed to do). Yay, nice and cute and a good way to kill time for scientifically-oriented kids who hate reading books, but there is a downside to that: the more effort you spend on these things, the less effort remains for music.

And the music on Biophilia is disappointing — in fact, it is so disappointing that it just does not work as a self-standing album at all. Where Volta, for a while, returned Björk to the world of «art-pop», Biophilia takes us back to the wild experimentalism of Medúlla, only using electronic textures in the place of that record's multiple vocal overdubs — and using them to paint almost completely static pictures, with very few hooks and no musical development whatsoever. The typical recipé for a Biophilia song is — set a programmed groove and let the singer rave and rant against it for three to five minutes. Considering that the grooves are not of jaw-dropping quality, and that the singer's raving and ranting is simply all too familiar, what's a poor boy to do but inescapably turn his attention to the accompanying apps? At least pushing some buttons and learning to be the Master of the Universe will keep you from getting bored.

Ironically, reading about the album shows that the particular songs on here contain the largest doses of meaningful musical symbolism so far present on any single Björk record. The musical cycles on ʽMoonʼ echo the shifting of lunar phases; the electronic arpeggios on ʽThunderboltʼ symbolize lightning; ʽSolsticeʼ relies on pendulums; the fussy chimes on ʽVirusʼ represent viral activities within the cell, and so on. Disentangling all these combinations of ideas is truly a nerd's paradise — and here, indeed, is a «math-rock» album where «getting» the actual math is a real possibility, rather than an exercise in frustration.

Oh, if only the record would have a small pinch of emotional content in it — but alas, neither within its «applicational» context nor without it can I assess it as anything other than a purely formal, rationalized, carefully crafted, but ultimately soulless piece of work. Yes, there are lyrical themes here that tap into the personal, and any major Björk fan will see that, if we restrict our­selves to the words, she is actually using all that «scientific» imagery as simple metaphors for relations and feelings — like ʽVirusʼ, for instance, is really just a plain love song: "Like a virus needs a body / As soft tissue feeds on blood / Someday I'll find you, the urge is here". But the music that she writes is not indicative of any of those feelings. The music is more in the vein of Autechre — technologically-oriented «nano-grooves» that are much better rationalized and intellectually admired than intuitively enjoyed. And this even concerns the acoustic tracks like ʽMoonʼ and ʽSolsticeʼ, where Björk's beloved harps replace the electronics, or ʽCrystallineʼ, for which she invents a new instrument, «gameleste», a cross between a gamelan and a celesta. It's a cool, «crystal» sound, for that matter, but the instrument is used for sheer symbolic atmospherics, not for any sort of breathtaking melody that you could cherish in your heart forever, like the more traditional, but oh so much better resonating strings of ʽBacheloretteʼ, for instance.

I respect the work that went into the album and all its surrounding hoopla, and I recommend hearing it — it was one of the major artistic events of 2011, after all — but I also give it a thumbs down, because, like Medúlla, I consider it a failed experiment that preserves the formal principles of a «Björk record» without offering any genuine substance. As an accompanying piece to some fancy-pants Apple or Microsoft or TED multi-media presentation (of the «what a wonderful world...!» variety), it will work great. As a worthy follow-up to the grandiose/subtle beauty and joy of Debut, Post, Homogenic, and Vespertine, Biophilia does not stand a single chance — not in my book, at least. Next to these triumphs, there is nothing too new here, nothing too memorable, nothing too heartbreaking or heartwarming; and, worst of all, it sort of seems like the cheap designer thrills of the 21st century have finally gotten the better of a formerly unique and independent artist. Then again, there's nothing too unpredictable about this, either. 

Black Sabbath: Cross Purposes

BLACK SABBATH: CROSS PURPOSES (1994)

1) I Witness; 2) Cross Of Thorns; 3) Psychophobia; 4) Virtual Death; 5) Immaculate Deception; 6) Dying For Love; 7) Back To Eden; 8) The Hand That Rocks The Cradle; 9) Cardinal Sin; 10) Evil Eye.

Well, at least it's an improvement over TZR. As Dio and Appice left once again to pursue their own destinies and Tony Martin with Geoff Nicholls are brought back to the family, you'd think the band would automatically sink back to the level of 1989-90. Fortunately, the experience of Dehumanizer was still fresh in the band's mind, and, very importantly, they still had Geezer with them — as long as at least half of the original line-up is in place, the Sabbath spirit is still there somewhere, and it takes more than a second-rate vocalist and a generic keyboard sound to suf­focate that spirit.

Perhaps some of the songs might have been leftovers from the Dehumanizer sessions, or, at the very least, Iommi just happened to like that doom-growl and tried to provide Martin with more of the same. In any case, there are some decent riffs here — ʽImmaculate Deceptionʼ, ʽPsychopho­biaʼ, ʽBack To Edenʼ and, most importantly, the downtuned album closer ʽEvil Eyeʼ are all quite on the level of the 1992 album. Again, the riffs usually sound like inferior variations on early classics, and each of these songs has a bunch of better prototypes (ʽEvil Eyeʼ, I think, is a sub­conscious attempt to echo ʽSabbath Bloody Sabbathʼ), but they are competently composed riff-rockers with their own melodies — and thank you very much, Mr. Iommi, for letting Mr. Butler step in with that little bass interlude in the middle of ʽEvil Eyeʼ, just to remind us one more time of how it used to be in the good old days.

Even better than ʽEvil Eyeʼ is the opening tune: ʽI Witnessʼ is not simply fast, it is riffaliciously fast, and I can only imagine how much better it may have sounded with Dio still at the wheel, adding deep growl to where Martin can only offer shallow, shrill screaming. Special mention must be made of drummer Bobby Rondinelli, who, coincidentally, was also originally from Rain­bow, but whose lighter, less mastodontic style of drumming actually suits Sabbath better than Cozy Powell's thud (remember that Sabbath never thrived on really heavy drumming — Bill Ward's parts always relied on expressiveness rather than brute force).

Alas, about half of the album still consists of boring atmospheric mysticism à la Headless Cross: in fact, usage of the word "cross" for these guys should probably be banned forever, because ʽCross Of Thornsʼ is one of the album's worst tracks, only surpassed in that category by the sentimental ballad ʽDying For Loveʼ (you wish), and the next in an endless series of ʽKashmirʼ / ʽStargazerʼ tributes called ʽCardinal Sinʼ. And I still remain undecided on the album's oddest track: ʽVirtual Deathʼ shows that somebody in the Sabbath camp was clearly keeping an eye open on the latest developments in the grunge camp — with its sludgy tempo, hyper-distorted guitars, and hushed multi-tracked vocals, it sounds as if it belonged on an Alice In Chains album rather than an Iommi-led one. Probably a bad Alice In Chains album, though, like one of those post-Staley reunion crapfests. Curious curiosity, but neither Iommi's riff nor Martin's vocals are able to convey a genuine impression of «virtual death» for the protagonist.

I seem to remember that Geezer was particularly unhappy with the final results, and quit the band once again right after the ensuing tour freed him of any further obligations. The disillusionment is easy to understand, but secretly I think that he just did not get along well with the lead singer. Indeed, time has changed little about Tony Martin, whose style is still lacking any sort of inte­resting perso­nality — he tries, he really does, but he is simply unable to come up with a special angle at which to deliver these lyrics. Remember, some of the songs here have real potential, they just had to be served under a different sauce (I would certainly pay something to see Dio try out ʽEvil Eyeʼ and ʽI Witnessʼ). If you are a major sucker for Iommi riffs, Cross Purposes will make the grade — if you only want A+ quality riffs, though, or if you think that Sabbath should never be reduced to just the riffs, stay away. You've been warned by Geezer.

Bo Hansson: Music Inspired By Watership Down

BO HANSSON: MUSIC INSPIRED BY WATERSHIP DOWN (1977)

1) Born Of The Gentle South; 2) Allegro For A Rescue; 3) Legend And Light; 4) Trial And Adversity; 5) The Twice-Victory; 6) The Kingdom Brightly Smiles; 7) Migration Suite.

Even after ʽRabbit Musicʼ, the furry bunnies from Richard Adams' novel still plagued Bo's mind so terribly that he had to dedicate his entire next album to the little guys, making this his second record completely «inspired by» a literary work. The original Swedish release was called El-Ahrairah, after the name given to one particular trickster rabbit in the book, but for the interna­tional market, it was apparently thought that a more explanatory title was in order — or perhaps  the record industry people thought the name sounded too Arabic for the eyes and ears of the Western public, and would trigger visions of hijacked planes and terrorist attacks.

Regardless, the album never charted even with a «safe» title, and its total lack of commercial suc­cess was one of the factors responsible for Bo's subsequent withdrawal from the music scene. Indeed, given that the age of prog rock's «coolness» was long gone, in 1977 you had to conform or combust, and it is quite evident from these tunes that Hansson had no wish whatsoever to set aside his personal muse and suck in any of the arena-rock, disco, or New Wave influences. In­stead, he just used up the last drops of credit he'd earned from the success of Lord Of The Rings to do the same thing as always — and then faded away.

The few tepid reviews I have seen of this album were mostly dismissive, with «nothing new» being the most often repeated motive. This is surprising, because, from a general point of view, ever since making his mark with the Tolkien tribute, Hansson had kept on making «nothing new» records on a steady basis, and if we are to maintain accuracy, El-Ahrairah actually sounds more different from Attic Thoughts than the latter does from Magician's Hat. For one thing, the com­positions tend to be a bit louder, angrier, and more relying on electric guitar playing than ever before — possibly to capture some of the dynamic spirit of the book, but possibly also because he wanted to brush away the illusion of creating «progressive elevator muzak», and put together some tunes that would force the listener to pay more attention.

Indeed, on the opening multi-part suite ʽBorn Of The Gentle Southʼ, the composer pulls all the stops — tempos, tonalities, moods shift constantly like the wind, going from slow soul-burning Floydisms to spinning polkas with psychedelic guitar solos to grand gospel passages to vicious blues-rock blasts to whatever else is imaginable. Whether all these ingredients are cohesive enough to form an impressive whole is up to you to decide; personally, I happen to feel that none of the ideas are given enough time and space to blossom properly, but then, I could probably say the same of quite a few classical concertos and symphonies, so let's just say that I find the suite easier to pay attention to (because of its dynamic jumps), but just as generally unmemorable as any average Hansson composition on the previous albums.

The best tracks, in my opinion, are ʽLegend And Lightʼ, where there is an interesting contrast between Bo's solo piano passages (merging music hall with avantgarde jazz) and the grand an­themic reso­lutions in the «chorus» parts, making the track a «teasing» experiment worthy of Zappa; and ʽThe Twice-Victoryʼ, whose main stately theme, slightly reminiscent of the spaghetti western style, is probably the most successful stab at grandiosity on the album — too bad it is never given enough time and space to bl... oh, okay, never mind.

Unfortunately, I am at the disadvantage of not actually having read the source novel (there's only so much fantasy that I can digest, which is not very much), so it is hard for me to understand how these musical themes truly relate to that entire rabbit business. Even more unfortunately, it is hard for me to visualise any concept to which this music, as a whole, would be applicable. There is Bo's usual strain of sorrow and melancholia stretching throughout the entire work (those are some fairly morose and somber rabbits indeed), but that is not nearly enough to blow one's mind — although I have to admit that out of all four albums, this is easily the one that tries to invoke the spirit of grand tragedy on the most regular basis. If only these invocations didn't usually end up sounding like «Pink Floyd lite», the album could have been 1977's dark masterpiece — as it is, it's more like 1977's dark coffee-table.

Bo Hansson did make one more record later on in his career: the Swedish-only Mitt I Livet came out in 1985, never got an international release, never came out on CD, and remains a little-heard ob­scurity (so I have no way of ascertaining whether it is in the same style or if he finally decided to make a transition to synth-pop). Twenty-five years later, he died, and to this day, he remains generally revered in a small circle of connoisseurs — a curious figure, capable of inspiring chi­valrous devotion and agonizing boredom, sometimes at the same time. Whatever be the case, he may not have written the best Tolkien soundtrack ever, but one thing is certain: he did manage to forever change my casual perception of rabbits.

Blue Öyster Cult: Some Enchanted Evening

BLUE ÖYSTER CULT: SOME ENCHANTED EVENING (1978)

1) R. U. Ready 2 Rock; 2) E.T.I. (Extra Terrestrial Intelligence); 3) Astronomy; 4) Kick Out The Jams; 5) Godzilla; 6) (Don't Fear) The Reaper; 7) We Gotta Get Out Of This Place.

At the moment, I only own the original short version of this album: in 2007, it was doubled in length with the addition of a whole bunch of extra performances, which might have doubled its value, I don't know — fact is, it was the original 36-minute long platter that managed, for some odd reason, to become the band's best-selling album ever. Maybe it was just the fact that here was a chance to get ʽReaperʼ and ʽGodzillaʼ on the same record, so people just mistook it for a best-of compilation — or maybe everybody and their grandma just wanted to own a pretty picture of The Reaper sitting atop a black horse with a rather stoned expression on his face.

Anyway, even more so than On Your Feet, and even despite the short running length, Some Enchanted Evening presents the band as a fire-breathing rock monster sent from rock hell to kick everybody's ass, even though the band's tongue remains firmly in the band's cheek, as they more often send this image up rather than across. To honor their rock'n'roll legacy, they perform a couple of covers — the MC5's ʽKick Out The Jamsʼ is significantly tightened up, its primal chaos converted into a more crowd-friendly blast of focused «social anger», and ʽWe Gotta Get Out Of This Placeʼ shows that they... well, understand how to play around with the obsessed, paranoid soul of that song, even though not one singer in this band is an Eric Burdon when it comes to «winding yourself up» during the performance.

Other than the hip classics, the track list (again, culled from several different venues — don't be fooled by the reference to Atlanta, Georgia in the ad-libbed section of ʽReady To Rockʼ, because that's just one of the songs) concentrates on their recent albums, going only as far back as Secret Treaties, with an extended version of ʽAstronomyʼ that downplays the original's prettiness (re­placing pretty pianos with ugly synths), but has many more passionate distorted guitar solos in store, all in line with the «kick-ass» attitude. Even ʽThe Reaperʼ trades «clean» jangle and subtle­ty for a rougher, coarser approach, robbing the song of some of its otherworldly magic — but probably making it easier for the fans to headbang non-stop.

The funniest thing about the record, I'd say, is the intro. "ATLANTA, GEORGIA! ARE YOU READY TO ROCK'N'ROLL?" So many millions of times we've heard about this sermon, but fact is, you don't hear the "ARE YOU READY TO ROCK?" mantra on actual live albums all too often, unless you regularly listen to really stupid bands — which makes it all the more hilarious to hear it done by one of the smartest bands (at the time). The only problem is, this album rocks nowhere near as hard as On Your Feet: for all their bravado, Blue Öyster Cult have already moved well into their second, «smoother» phase, and most of the hard rock on this album is either cumbersome and lumpy (ʽGodzillaʼ — meant to be cumbersome like its protagonist, but that don't make it biting, snappy rock'n'roll, and the «Japanese» ad-libbing actually pushes it close to comedy), or closer to the power-pop idiom (ʽE.T.I.ʼ, which in this setting sounds almost exactly like something you'd hear from Cheap Trick in their Budokan era — come to think of it, this was Cheap Trick's Budokan era, and the two bands could easily learn a few expensive tricks from each other).

Which should not be taken as a criticism — it's a fun album, except that I do not particularly feel any desperate need for its existence, other than simply to document the then-current BÖC at the top of their arena-rock popularity, and that popularity has always seemed a little weird to me. In other words, it still does not convince me of the greatness of this band in its live incarnation, more like, of its ability to successfully manipulate the audience, following in the footsteps of the decade's early glam heroes like Bowie or Bolan, and in all these cases, I tend to view the live avatar of the artist as perishable, contrary to the studio avatar. Subsequently, the record does deserve a thumbs up if we're not being too serious about it, but if we are being serious about it, just stick to their studio albums. 

Accept: Blind Rage

ACCEPT: BLIND RAGE (2014)

1) Stampede; 2) Dying Breed; 3) Dark Side Of My Heart; 4) Fall Of The Empire; 5) Trail Of Tears; 6) Wanna Be Free; 7) 200 Years; 8) Bloodbath Mastermind; 9) From The Ashes We Rise; 10) The Curse; 11) Final Journey; 12) Thrown To The Wolves.

Riding high on the national stereotype wave, I would say it is a little less surprising to see such stern, brutal discipline from our German metal friends than it is from Lemmy Kilmister and his unruly gang in Motörhead. But even so, it is a little hilarious to watch 21st century Accept settle into this unwavering mode of releasing, every two years, a new album that sounds exactly like its predecessor. I guess it also saves the reviewer extra work: all I really need to say about Blind Rage is that if you liked Blood Of The Nations, and then you liked Stalingrad without paying attention to the fact that it was the same record with minor variations, you are, without the slight­est doubt, going to like Blind Rage — and, as it is now made obvious, probably every next Accept record as long as Hoffmann keeps on pushing these riffs and Tornillo keeps up his best Dirkschneider impression.

I don't want to talk about good songs, I don't want to talk about bad songs, I just have to confirm that the band still sounds very much like the red bull on the album cover. The guitar tones have all the crunch, the lead vocalist has all the banshee credibility, the gang choruses are firmly in place, the drummer bashes his kit like Satan's page, and the band as a whole seems to have com­plete confidence in itself and whatever it is doing. This is all true, and yet, and yet, and yet I still happen to hold empty hope that perhaps, one day, we might yet see another ʽPrincess Of The Dawnʼ from these guys — you know, from the old days when they could not only kick ass, but throw in something genuinely creative and mind-blowing from time to time.

As it is, just brace yourself for one more hour of ball-crushing bullpower. When you see that the first song is called ʽStampedeʼ, you just know what it is going to be — fast, furious, aggressive, quickly building up towards the big gang chorus, which is, of course, "STAMPEDE!... STAM­PEDE!..." interspersed with Tornillo's one-liners, and culminating in a lengthy Hoffmann solo. Then the second track slows down a little, and becomes a lyrical celebration of heavy metal, with references to black sabbaths, purple hazes, silver mountains, screaming with vengeance, and phrases like "the zeppelin led its voyage thru skies of purple deep", which might fairly well offend both Jimmy Page and Ritchie Blackmore, but seems to represent a respectful tribute for these guys: "and we salute you — The Last of the Dying Breed!". Well, silly as it is, Accept themselves are the last of the dying breed: this vibe that they still brew so well belongs so utterly to the 20th century that it does sometimes amaze me how they have managed to carry it over so well into the 21st. Who cares if all the songs sound the same, really, or if they are completely incapable of coming up with another ʽBalls To The Wallʼ-level hook? It's all in the vibe, man.

Subsequent themes involve anti-imperialism, anti-militarism, prophecies of doom, bloodbaths, the fall of mankind, and the eternal struggle of good versus evil — you know the regular drift. Some choruses are catchier than others (ʽFrom The Ashes We Riseʼ is very singalong-able), some tempos are faster than others (ʽTrail Of Tearsʼ is probably the fastest song about the Indian plight ever written — I had no idea that the Cherokee pioneered speed metal to wreak vengeance on the white man), but writing about this in any sort of detail should be relegated to highly specialized Accept fan boards, or, at least, professional metal magazines.

So let me just conclude with this minor detail: it is actually worth seeking out the edition with the bonus track ʽThrown To The Wolvesʼ, since the song (an AC/DC-themed anthem of sexual hunger) begins with an overdriven, ultraloud riff that threatens to eat you alive more convincingly than any of the melodies on the «proper» album. Maybe they decided to leave it off the main body because of the theme — Blind Rage, is after all, more of a conceptual, «socially-relevant» album. But it's funny that the apex of their ferociousness is reached just as they leave behind the social topics and embark on a «fleshy» trip instead. Which just goes to show that the best heavy metal is, after all, just yer basic rock'n'roll — goes best with sex, rather than social protest.

Blackmore's Night: Ghost Of A Rose

BLACKMORE'S NIGHT: GHOST OF A ROSE (2003)

1) Way To Mandalay; 2) Three Black Crows; 3) Diamonds And Rust; 4) Cartouche; 5) Queen For A Day (part 1); 6) Queen For A Day (part 2); 7) Ivory Tower; 8) Nur Eine Minute; 9) Ghost Of A Rose; 10) Mr. Peagram's Morris And Sword; 11) Loreley; 12) Where Are We Going From Here; 13) Rainbow Blues; 14) All For One; 15) Dandelion Wine.

These are the wond'rous and enchanting surprises that await ye on the fourth studio album by Ritchard, Lord of Blackmore, and his Lady Candice of Hauppauge.

Number one: two of the tracks are credited solely to Lady Candice, which is a first in Black­more's Night history, and either reveals a drastic increase in self-confidence on the part of the lady, or a drastic increase in self-sacrifice on the part of the lord. Not that it makes any big dif­ference, because she used to write the lyrics anyway, and the melodies of both ʽThree Black Crowesʼ and ʽIvory Towerʼ are completely in the traditional ballpark — no serious compositional input here to speak of.

Number two: the album is being «modernized» by featuring cover versions that are, this time, credited not to old-time kings and baroque composers, but to Joan Baez (ʽDiamonds And Rustʼ) and Ian Anderson (ʽRainbow Bluesʼ). The former is a misstep, because it would take a bit more than Candice Night to outsing Joan Baez — and the original was so personal anyways that if we have to hear a cover version, it should rather be one of those wild wild stylistic reinventions, like the Judas Priest rendition. The latter is okay: ʽRainbow Bluesʼ was a minor folk-pop ditty for Jethro Tull in the Warchild era, and this straightforward interpretation with wailing electric leads might even trump the original in terms of energy.

Number three: ʽAll For Oneʼ is a tightened-up, watered-down English-language rendition of the traditional Breton drinking song ʽSon Ar Chistrʼ, which you can easily hear in a more authentic form, for instance, on the debut album of Alan Stivell (Reflêts). The shawms and electric solos help clear up some of the repetitiveness, and the tightened, «normalized» rhythmics helps make the song more catchy, although, of course, purists will want to drown the performers in their own vomit — but then again, what true purist would last long enough to still want to listen to Black­more's Night as late as 2003?

Number four: ʽWhere Are We Going From Hereʼ is a lonely, stately, plaintive ballad on which Lady Night asks the title question as if she wanted you to provide her with the answer. Funny thing: here we thought that the two protagonists had found their coveted happiness, by being financially and spiritually free to dress up as Robin Hood and Lady Marian and revel in their idealized reality, yet here they are complaining that "some things don't go as they're planned" and that "silence answers our cries". Unless this merely reflects a case of Blackmore's personal cobbler having messed up with the lord's favorite pair of boots, you could almost swear they were trying to make a serious social statement here.

Number five: the longest, grandest, and most pompous song here is ʽWay To Mandalayʼ, which was maybe inspired by Candice reading herself some Rudyard Kipling (I seriously doubt the option of Blackmore's Night ever touring in Burma), although these lyrics sure ain't no Kipling, and this melody sure don't seem particularly influenced by traditional Burmese music. Like everything else here, it is a very straightforward piece, and goes down best as inoffensive, quickly forgettable background music.

This just about concludes the list of possible things to say about Ghost Of A Rose. As for a ge­neral assessment, all I can say is that it is a very smooth and formulaic product — taking very few chances even compared with the previous albums. Each song is pinned to exactly one, sometimes two musical ideas; guitar solos are used sparingly, and repetition is no more simply the word of the day, but it is now quite aggressively the word of the day.

If Ritchie had himself a time machine and could transport back to the 16th century with all of his band and all of his amplifiers, he'd be a smash success in the little villages and the working suburbs with this stuff. As it is, «demanding» listeners will skip this «cheap­ness» in favor of sterner and more challenging folk exercises, and «simple» listeners won't give it a chance because it has no technobeats. (For some strange reason, the only place where the record charted higher than Fires At Midnight was Switzerland — even though, as far as I remember, there was no yodeling anywhere in sight. Perhaps it was just an accidental matter of a really hot night in Zurich or something.) 

The Black Crowes: Freak'n'Roll... Into The Fog

THE BLACK CROWES: FREAK 'N' ROLL... INTO THE FOG (2006)

1) (Only) Halfway To Everything; 2) Sting Me; 3) No Speak No Slave; 4) Soul Singing; 5) Welcome To The Good­times; 6) Jealous Again; 7) Space Captain; 8) My Morning Song; 9) Sunday Night Buttermilk Waltz; 10) Cursed Diamond; 11) She Talks To Angels; 12) Wiser Time; 13) Nonfiction; 14) Seeing Things; 15) Hard To Handle; 16) Let Me Share The Ride; 17) Mellow Down Easy; 18) Remedy; 19) The Night They Drove Ol' Dixie Down.

Two live albums in a row is usually either a sign of arrogant overkill or a sign of old age, but in this particular case the situation is different: the Crowes had pretty much fallen apart in 2001, with the Robinson brothers embarking on solo careers, and it took about half a decade for them to properly get back together, also bringing back Marc Ford on second guitar and founding member Steve Gorman on drums. To commemorate this most exciting reunion, a video and audio were released at the same time, capturing a complete performance from San Francisco's Fillmore audi­torium in 2005 — more than two hours of red-hot Crowes, and this is not actually counting several «official bootlegs» in the Instant Live series, also made available throughout 2005.

One thing I do have to say is that Freak'n'Roll is a significant improvement over Live in just about every aspect I can think of. First, stage banter is kept to a reasonable minimum, cutting down on both the platitudes and the lame jokes. Second, the setlist is more representative and less predictable, dragging out some forgotten highlights and including covers of classics such as ʽSpace Captainʼ and ʽThe Night They Drove Ol' Dixie Downʼ. Third, they bring in a brass section (The Left Coast Horns) to thicken the sound on some of the songs, and offer some rejuvenations and reincarnations — ʽCursed Diamondʼ, for instance, works a little better in an unplugged version than it used to (because the only thing worse than a slow, draggy, repetitive ballad is a slow, draggy, repetitive ballad drowned in sludge and distortion).

An obvious criticism of the performance would be the length of the songs — the average length of each track is around 7 minutes, with ʽMy Morning Songʼ taking the big prize (almost 14 minu­tes!) and ʽNonfictionʼ seconding it at the ten-minute mark. However, this extension is not com­pletely «empty»: the idea is indeed to add some «freakout» spirit to the proceedings, and so ʽNon­fictionʼ is transformed from a relatively simple country ballad into a trippy voyage, with psyche­delic guitars and keyboards leading the way and avantgarde jazz brass parts joining them halfway through. Maybe this is not as inspired as your average Grateful Dead show, but it is at least an attempt to capture a more elusive, less instantaneously obvious vibe, and it shows a new side to the comeback-Crowes that was not present (or, at least, not so evident) in their early career.

Other songs are extended mostly for the purpose of throwing in some extra solos and jamming around, but there is no crime in that. I cannot call the guitar duet between Rich and Marc at the end of ʽHard To Handleʼ particularly evocative or emotional, but yes, it is better than simply having them reproduce the original parts — they are trying to show that the Black Crowes can make history happen here and now, not simply repeat history, and even if that history is not all that exciting, I still applaud the decision to explore uncharted waters. ʽLet Me Share The Rideʼ extended with six extra minutes of jamming, as the Left Coast Horns add big-band jazz support to accompany the slide guitar madness? ʽSoul Singingʼ adorned with a huge wah-wah solo, turning its middle section into Hendrix-ey space-rock? None of that may be new for music listeners in 2006, but it is great to see a band as formerly limited as the Crowes to blindly push forward in all these directions, and sometimes, if not always, striking out the right sparks.

Even the cover versions fit the mood and are done with total understanding of the source material: of course, brother Chris could never outdo Joe Cocker with the "learning to live together..." bit from ʽSpace Captainʼ, but the song was most likely selected as a symbol of the band's reunion, and feels totally at home. The decision to put ʽOl' Dixieʼ at the end is a bit more questionable, since the song's anthemic nature and straightforward lyrics seems to pigeonhole the Crowes as generic «Southern Rock», but they totally nail its emotional complexity, and even Chris's vocal delivery is technically and spiritually every bit as good as Levon Helm's.

Keeping all this in mind, I believe the record deserves a respectful thumbs up, and would pro­bably recommend it as the best official introduction to the Crowes' live sound, or, more accurate­ly, to what the Crowes are capable of as a live band. Despite the two-hour-plus running length, despite the obligatory inclusion of bad hits like ʽShe Talks To Angelsʼ, despite the occasional loss of direction, the bottomline is that the five-year break actually did the guys some good — in this particular here and now, they sound looser and freer on stage than they ever did. 

Björk: Volta

BJÖRK: VOLTA (2007)

1) Earth Intruders; 2) Wanderlust; 3) The Dull Flame Of Desire; 4) Innocence; 5) I See Who You Are; 6) Vertebrae By Vertebrae; 7) Pneumonia; 8) Hope; 9) Declare Independence; 10) My Juvenile.

The higher you rise, the lower you get to fall — unless you happen to die young, this rule knows very few exceptions. Coming from a nobody, Volta would be a great success; coming from Björk, it is her first album to be known as a major disappointment, sometimes even for big fans, since it clearly shows signs of stagnation. Up until Vespertine, each new album was a leap forward in some respect; Medúlla took that leaping to near-absurd heights — and in the process of leaping, it seems as if the genius finally cracked her spine.

If you do come to terms with the fact that Volta reveals no new amazing details about the artistic world of Björk, the record will be easier to deal with. Stepping a few steps back from the wild, unbridled experimentalism of Medúlla, she returns to the world of musical instruments and pro­grammed beats, once again with the aid of her regular producer Mark Bell, but also enlisting hip-hop/R&B producer Timbaland to add some computerized African rhythmics to the songs. Vari­ous collaborations, such as with the pipa player Min Xiao-fen on ʽI See Who You Areʼ, or the two vocal duets with Antony Hegarty, add color and diversity, and then there's ʽDeclare Indepen­denceʼ, her first big venture into the world of musical politics, whose performance in China, dedicated to Tibet, helped stir up controversy and shit. So far, so good.

What is hopelessly, despairingly bad is that Volta just goes nowhere. On her previous albums, Björk had showed herself to be a master of catchy hooks and a master of atmospherics — you could hum these songs till your humming machine ran out of fuel, and you could be carried away into a parallel (or perpendicular) world by almost any of them. The melodies of Volta, however, retain the influence of the experimentalism of Medúlla — with maybe just a couple of exceptions, Björk is now only interested in continuing the same «free-form» approach of singing, delivering her lines as if they came from a Shostakovich opera (or, at least, anything post-Wagnerian, to broaden the scope of comparison). The vocal melodies continue to be carefully designed, not im­provised, but the endless dissonances and lack of resolutions eventually begin to irritate — not to mention that there is really nothing new or fresh about this approach.

As far as atmosphere is concerned, Volta is strikingly minimalistic. In a way, so were large parts of Vespertine, but there the minimalism was essential to the album's «cocoon» image; Volta has a well-defined extrovert character, and could benefit from some more of those grandiose, imagi­native orchestrations, as on Homogenic. Instead, you get beats, beats, and more beats — some­times just beats, sometimes beats mixed with a single lead instrument, usually an exotic one (the pipa on ʽI See Who You Areʼ, or Toumani Diabaté's kora on ʽHopeʼ). The beats are relatively complex, but hardly ever defying imagination — and the lead instruments are nice, but, as it so often happens with «world music», usually devoid of individual identity. That identity should be provided by the singer — and this is exactly what does not happen.

Of the two «rocking» tracks, ʽEarth Intrudersʼ is arguably the better one: with a singalong chorus and a bit of cosmic humor attached, it is as good an introduction to the album as could probably have been thought of. Still, compared to ʽHunterʼ, it ends up looking like a novelty number — kiddie carnival music, incapable of burrowing deep into your subconscience, because the electro­nic textures all concentrate on tribal beats rather than psychedelic synthesizer tapestries. As for ʽDeclare Independenceʼ, it is simply not the kind of approach I could ever associate with Björk: the song is about as naturally flowing as Paul McCartney's ʽFreedomʼ, and even if you happen to share those bluntly stated sentiments ("raise your flag! start your own currency!"), the song still sounds rather dumb. Just leave the big social statements to Bono, will ya?

The two duets with Hegarty are disappointing: I do share the required-acquired-taste to enjoy Antony and The Johnsons, but on ʽThe Dull Flame Of Desireʼ, Antony is used more like a con­venient lackey for Björk's own purposes, which are not far removed from those of Medúlla — create a multi-layered, dissonant, confusing vocal tapestry and see where that takes you. I find the results pretentious («get two highly idiosyncratic, uniquely expressive singers for the price of one!») and superfluous — the singers do not manage to find perfect balance (contrary to, say, the duet with Thom Yorke on ʽI've Seen It Allʼ, where there was actual dialog and mutual understan­ding between the protagonists), and, at worst, the song just spills over into ear-splitting disso­nance that cancels out their mutual strength. ʽMy Juvenileʼ is a little better, but, again, I could easily do with just Björk's "down the corridor I send warmth...", discarding Antony's "intentions were pure..." bit altogether.

Everything else just sort of blurs together into a chaotic, generally senseless mix of beats, pipas, and songs that seem like pale shadows of something bigger and better (ʽVertebrae By Vertebraeʼ, for instance, strives to convey the sense of constant search and struggle, but the musical backing is so bland and the main vocal melody so unmemorable that it simply has no reason to exist next to something like, say, ʽHyper-Balladʼ). This is just Björk on autopilot — relying on all too fami­liar Björkisms for lack of anything more interesting. And while the lack of radically new ideas, per se, should not bother me (not even the greatest genius can generate radically new ideas for unlimited amounts of time), the lack of memorable tracks and impressive atmospherics most de­finitely does. There is not a single song on here that managed to truly woo me over, and for that, the album gets a thumbs down. Oh, and the album cover is quite ridiculous, too. More fit for some J-pop record or something.

Black Sabbath: Dehumanizer

BLACK SABBATH: DEHUMANIZER (1992)

1) Computer God; 2) After All (The Dead); 3) T.V. Crimes; 4) Letter From Earth; 5) Master Of Insanity; 6) Time Machine; 7) Sins Of The Father; 8) Too Late; 9) I; 10) Buried Alive.

As the Nineties kicked in and heavy metal had pretty much exhausted its basic list of subgenres, Tony Iommi completely ceased to care about any sort of «strategy» for Black Sabbath. Having begun the decade with Tony Martin still at the wheel, the band went through a second Dio phase, a second Martin phase, and a second (third?) Ozzy phase in less than ten years (and I am not even mentioning their brief live stint with Judas Priest's Rob Halford at the mike) — clearly indica­ting that Iommi did not give much of a damn, and was simply happy to jam along with whoever and whatever came along.

Not that there's any use to complain, when the result is as good as Dehumanizer, unquestionably the best Sabbath album in at least ten years. The return of Dio and drummer Vinny Appice was encouraging, but even more encouraging was the return of Geezer — and with the Heaven And Hell lineup back in place, they could finally let go of Geoff Nicholls and his incessantly and in­creasingly annoying keyboard presence. And get down to some mean, lean, serious business.

Dehumanizer may not have the best riffs in the history of Iommi/Dio collaborations (alas, Tony's skills were so heavily damaged during the sessions for Headless Cross that repercussions would follow for ever after), but it has some of the best atmospherics. Instead of dungeons, dragons, cabbages, and kings, the album goes for a full-throttle «apocalyptic» mode — humanity doomed and destroyed by technology, media manipulation, and the seven deadly sins in general, that sort of thing, vividly illustrated by the front sleeve's imaginative reinvention of the trials of Luke Skywalker (I guess). This direction was certainly not new to Sabbath (they'd worked that way since the earliest Ozzy days), but this is the first time they really tried to go for a strictly concep­tual approach with Dio at the helm, and the results are... satisfactory.

Well-produced, well-arranged, full to the brim of traditionally heavy Tony riffage and with Dio, as usual, in top vocal form, Dehumanizer just couldn't possibly fail. It could have been a master­piece, had Tony been struck by inspirational lightning — instead, it sounds seriously «crafted», and it seems obvious that Tony spent a lot of time working out the details for those riffs, which is a better option than on Headless Cross, but still, a little bit of extra guitar genius couldn't hurt any of these songs, which have to rely upon Dio's vocal hooks instead.

Picking out individual high- or lowlights would be a waste of time: most of the numbers follow the same formula, except for the occasional speed rocker offering a welcome change of tempo (ʽT.V. Crimesʼ, grittier and snappier than ʽNeon Knightsʼ, but not necessarily more memorable), and the occasional unintentional drift into psychedelia (ʽSins Of The Fatherʼ opens with a lighter guitar tone and echoey vocals as if it were a bona fide cosmic rock jingle from 1967 — soon enough, Tony understands that they started off from the wrong foot and corrects the mode back to «metal», but the hilariousness cannot be erased).

More typically, this is just medium-quality Sabbath, but in a very, very angry mood, with Ronnie and Tony competing in who can get a «nastier» tone from his respective instrument, and this is the only thing on the album to warrant a little fascination. You just gotta love the cello-like in­strumental beginning of ʽAfter All (The Dead)ʼ and how it then spills over into Ronnie's "what do you say to the dead?..", slowly and venomously roared away in his finest killer-zombie tone. Maybe Ronnie's finest moment on the record comes with ʽIʼ, a song riding on double irony (the lyrics seem to ridicule extreme egotism, but then you remember just how much of an extreme egotist the late great Ronnie actually was, and it all shines in a different light) rather than on any particular interesting riff. But then again, maybe not — I am not seriously going to try and break that promise not to mention any highlights, as even as the record is.

Funny enough, the closest album to Dehumanizer in spirit that I could think of off the top of my head would probably be Alice Cooper's Brutal Planet — also heavy, also doom-laden, also about the fall of humanity and personal degradation, so that you could see this as some sort of dress rehearsal for the Coop's (much poppier) descent into doom metal territory. However, De­humanizer takes a much more serious tone (Black Sabbath could sometimes use irony, but very rarely pure humor or satire), and probably overestimates its own ambitions. In retrospect, it is difficult even to regard it as a «comeback», though technically, it most certainly was one. Still, it is impossible to disregard the vibe — and after Headless Cross and TZR, Dehumanizer sounds more like Revitalizer, if you ask me. The very possibility of blasting ʽT.V. Crimesʼ at full volume from your windows and terrorizing the neighbors alone should give ample grounds for a thumbs up. And you may laugh all the way to the bank at the clichéd anti-technological lyrics of ʽComputer Godʼ (writing about digital dreams and virtual reality takes a heavier toll on Ronnie's brain cells than writing about witches and demons), but hey, twenty years on down the road, they have only become more relevant, and personally, I love even the abstract idea of Ronnie the Witch-Hunter lending his talents to a song about the evil powers of computers. Whatever you might think of the album, it does have plenty of intrigue — and the last time we saw Black Sabbath mix with intrigue, I think, had to do with Ian Gillan and the absence of tequila.

Bo Hansson: Attic Thoughts

BO HANSSON: ATTIC THOUGHTS (1975)

1) Attic Thoughts; 2) Time And Space; 3) Waiting...; 4) Waltz For Interbeings; 5) Time For Great Achievements; 6) The Hybrills; 7) Rabbit Music; 8) Day And Night; 9) A Happy Prank.

For what it's worth, Attic Thoughts is little more than a second installation of Magician's Hat. Same variation of short tunes and lengthy multi-part epics, same freedom of thought and direc­tion, same unpredictability of influences — and the same quiet inobtrusiveness, making it excessively hard to remember what you have just heard, or to experience any particularly strong emotional responses. «Tastefully pretty» and «slightly moody» pretty much does it.

The album was recorded with more or less the same backing band as Hat, and this time around, released in the same year in Sweden (as Mellanväsen) and abroad. Bo's influences were again diverse and scattered, one of them being Watership Down, the weird novel about rabbits by Richard Adams — eventually, he'd devote an entire LP to this work, but for now, just one two-part suite (ʽRabbit Musicʼ) should be sufficient. However, the overall effect remains the same — that of a slightly weird, magical «other» world where, truth be told, nothing much ever happens, but then, why should anything happen? Your average magical world can be just as boring as your average non-magical one, and I suspect that this is exactly what Bo wanted to show us: a «realis­tic», «uneventful» musical universe, completely free of any pretense at «rocking».

As far as actual musical texture is concerned, of course, «uneventful» is pushing it. Many of the songs feature multiple key, tempo, and mood changes — ʽWaltz For Interbeingsʼ being the most impressive example, I suppose, where bits of genuine waltz are interspersed with fast fusion passages and something that I could only describe as Bo's futuristic preview of the lambada. All of it occupies the space of three and a half minutes; the longer compositions, like ʽRabbit Musicʼ and the title track, naturally feature even more changes. However, I would still assess them as fairly «uneventful» changes — they never radically shift the mood, or rev up the energy levels.

Nor is it all that easy to get overawed by Bo's omnivorous nature. Okay, so ʽTime For Great Achievementsʼ glues together a possible theme for a spaghetti-western with electronic psychede­lia and a little more jazz-rock, but what is the meaning of this fusion? All the individual compo­nents sound nice, and make for decent background muzak, but why is it exactly in this sequence that they should be listened to, and would the effect be diminished/spoiled if we changed it all around? I have no answer for these questions.

In the end, Attic Thoughts seems like it must have taken even more effort on Bo's part than Hat (more ideas, more movements, more influences), but the lack of focus stays the same, and once again, I am a little sad that he did not use any single piece as a chief influence — Lord Of The Rings, with its conceptual organization, made a little more sense than this disjointed, messy, tepid collection of «snippets», inoffensive as it is. Nevertheless, this is perfect «progressive elevator muzak», and I do not regret even one second of listening — I only wish I had something more meaningful to say about it, but I don't, and apparently, neither does anybody else (most of the reviews of this album that I'd browsed through made zero sense as well).

Blue Öyster Cult: Spectres

BLUE ÖYSTER CULT: SPECTRES (1977)

1) Godzilla; 2) Golden Age Of Leather; 3) Death Valley Nights; 4) Searchin' For Celine; 5) Fireworks; 6) R. U. Ready 2 Rock; 7) Celestial The Queen; 8) Going Through The Motions; 9) I Love The Night; 10) Nosferatu.

This is actually a very good album, but I see how it can be (and is) often viewed as a major dis­appointment, coming right off the heels of Agents Of Fortune. First of all, its lead-off track and best known song, ʽGodzillaʼ, is a straightforward novelty number — never yet had Blue Öyster Cult sounded as close to «parody» as on this song, whose thick, grumbly, but ultimately humo­rous riffs sort of mockingly imitate the tread of Japan's beloved monster, and whose braggard chorus announces ʽGodzilla!ʼ as if it were a bunch of male cheerleaders welcoming the world's latest heavyweight champion, stepping out of his limousine on the red carpet. Ironically, both of the band's biggest successes of the 1976-78 period are credited to Buck Dharma — but ʽGodzillaʼ couldn't be more different from ʽReaperʼ, and any fan who had previously admired ʽReaperʼ for subtlety and depth would only find crudeness and silliness in ʽGodzillaʼ. Which, however, does not make the song any less catchy or fun.

The rest of the album, however, remembers that the band's chief strength lies in putting meanings on top of other meanings, and not only in choosing bizarre subjects for their songs, but also in finding bizarre structures and sequences to present them in — and from that point of view, Spectres is still classic Blue Öyster Cult in very good form. If there is an overall complaint, it is that the record all but says goodbye to the pop vibe of Agents Of Fortune, but does not return to the lean, crunchy hard rock of earlier times. Instead, the band is now regularly going for an «arena» type of sound — taking its cues from Boston and Foreigner rather than Black Sabbath, with power chords, glossy, «clean» guitar melodies, lots of keyboards, and a rather grayish production tone plaguing good and bad songs alike.

Something like this could, of course, be guessed just by looking at one of the titles: ʽR. U. Ready To Rockʼ — amusingly, the song was recorded around the same time as Queen's ʽWe Will Rock Youʼ, and this is telling, considering that News Of The World was also the most «arena-rock» type release that Queen ever offered its audiences. Except that ʽWe Will Rock Youʼ, as cheaply populist as it was, at least fulfilled its promise, whereas the BÖC song, slow, meandering, and with a lazy riff, only shows that, while you may be ready to rock, the band has pretty much for­gotten how to do that effectively, even in a post-modernist manner.

Fortunately, the meat of the record lies not in its unconvincing appeals to rock'n'roll, but in some of its imaginative mini-world journeys. ʽGolden Age Of Leatherʼ is an ironic, multi-part saga about bikers — from folk chant to ballad to James Bond theme to catchy pop-rock (later to turn into ʽDemolition Manʼ by The Police), the tune has it all. Albert Bouchard's ʽFireworksʼ is a mystical story of romance and tragedy, one of those songs where the verse melody hits harder than the chorus (I love those rapidly descending "she, went, down, to-her-house, by-the-water..." sequences and the moody guitar lines that echo them, creating a sense of doom in a highly un­conventional manner). And the band's obsession with the occult/supernatural culminates in not one, but two songs about vampires closing out the album — ʽI Love The Nightʼ approaches the subject from a sentimental-romantic angle, while ʽNosferatuʼ is essentially a brief retelling of Bram Stoker's Dracula, done in properly Gothic fashion (echoey vocals, doom-laden pianos and Mellotrons, stately descending harmonies, whatever).

Synthesizers and thick, bulgy, arena-rock pop-metal riffs populate many of these songs, and do not always make up for fascinating listening, but the songs can grow on you over time, with hooks and meanings slowly arising from the somewhat murky turf: even something as dumb as ʽSearchin' For Celineʼ, one of the band's rare excursions into funk-pop, eventually makes its point as one of those obsessive, stalker-type songs, whose relentless exploitation of a single chord (or a couple of them) intentionally sets up a paranoid atmosphere. In the end, the only song to which I could not warm up was ʽDeath Valley Nightsʼ, a total musical disaster that rests on nothing but simplistic «bashing» power chords, and cannot be distinguished from a million billion overloud arena rockers en vogue at the time. On the other hand, ʽGoin' Through The Motionsʼ, which would later be even covered by Bonnie Tyler, is a good example of harnessing that production style by choosing an upbeat tempo, a catchy pop hook, a Farfisa organ (I think), and church bells to compensate for all the «gray». In the end, one or two bad songs aside, Spectres is nowhere near the awful letdown as it is sometimes proclaimed by those who actually fear the reaper, and deserves its stable thumbs up.

Benny Anderson & Björn Ulvaeus: Chess

BENNY ANDERSON/BJÖRN ULVAEUS: CHESS (1984)

1) Merano; 2) The Russian And Molokov/Where I Want To Be; 3) The Opening Ceremony; 4) Quartet (A Model Of Decorum And Tranquility); 5) The American And Florence/Nobody's Side; 6) Chess; 7) Mountain Duet; 8) Florence Quits; 9) Embassy Lament/Anthem; 10) Bangkok/One Night In Bangkok; 11) Heaven Help My Heart; 12) Argument / I Know Him So Well; 13) The Deal (No Deal)/Pity The Child; 14) Endgame; 15) Epilogue: You And I/The Story Of Chess.

In all honesty, I am quite fidgety about the musical as a form of art, and would make a fairly predictable and wretched musical reviewer («thumbs down» being the default and rarely over­turned decision). However, I am also all for overcoming the natural illness of «genrism», since a «musical», after all, need not necessarily be strapped down by conventions, such as having to be a heavily diluted, cheapened, saccharinized, and flashified cousin of classical opera. A musical can be anything you want it to be, and Chess is an excellent example of stretching the concept out to include just about anything.

First, the concept, libretto, and structure of the musical are quite daring for their time: too daring, in fact, to please the critics, who'd never waste the occasion to rip the boys an extra hole for the befuddling plotline, soap opera flavor, and shallow characterization — all of it justified, but mainly because lyricist Tim Rice (of Andrew Lloyd Webber fame!) took on the task of creating a story that would cover all the important bases, from political to personal. Formally, the musical is about Russian/American tensions in the Cold War as seen through the prism of chess competition (inspired by the Fischer/Spassky match of 1972), but it is just as much, or maybe even more, about personal issues — vanity, greed, obsession, jealousy, depression, loyalty, whatever. This does not leave too much time to explore every possible (or necessary) nook, but what it does is provide the composers, Benny and Björn, with a variety of twists that perfectly suit their own variegated tastes in music, and turn Chess into an almost bizarre musical mish-mash, whose in­fluences vary from baroque composers to the most modern strains of electropop.

I could not describe Chess as a collection of great individual songs or musical pieces (the review applies to the «Original Cast» recording from 1984, produced well before the actual show in order to help raise money for the staging, but I imagine the same judgement would probably apply to the later recordings as well, including the heavily revised Broadway version of 1988). Its biggest song in the UK was the compassionate duet ʽI Know Him So Wellʼ, sung with feeling by Elaine Page and Barbara Dickson, but, as a ballad, not even coming close to the perfectly engi­neered (in heart-tugging terms) hooks of classic ABBA ballads. In the US, the largest impact was made by ʽOne Night In Bangkokʼ, which could probably be best described as a cross between the electrofunk of Prince and the embarrassing electronic-prog of mid-Eighties Jethro Tull (or maybe it's just the addition of the flute that triggers this association): too serious for mindless dancing, too rhythm-driven for serious emotions.

But, as it sometimes happens (and should, in fact, happen) with concept albums, the sum of the parts of Chess is greater than its whole — or, to use a more appropriate analogy, it is no big deal to sacrifice a few pawns or even a couple of rooks to assure a guaranteed checkmate. Much more important is the feeling of dynamics, as the music switches between intimate, chamber-style pieces to ballroom grandeur to post-disco coolness in a smooth, nicely integrated manner (usually because subtle «modern» elements are always included in the more classical passages, and vice versa), with little risk of ever boring the listener.

As is usual with Benny and Björn, they thrive on soaking up classical influences and converting them into «easy-listening» mode, yet somehow still retaining a sense of taste by not limiting themselves to hollow pathos. The title track, a «grandiose» instrumental that reiterates several of the musical's themes, underture-style, begins like a lite requiem, goes on to become a grand quasi-Tchaikovsky ballroom piece, then tries to go for an almost Wagnerian crescendo — and ultimately succeeds as a whole, even if I have no idea why.

I couldn't even say that the singers of the original Chess have a serious hand in its success. The main male leads are Murray Head (ʽThe Americanʼ), whom I have never managed to see as a great vocalist (he was not a great Judas Iscariot, unlike Carl Anderson) and Tommy Körberg (ʽThe Russianʼ), who is not much known outside of this role and who comes across as a compe­tent, but not particularly unique musical singer. The title lead of Florence is given to Elaine Page, who sang ʽMemoryʼ in Cats — she actually gets into this complex character (well, you'd have to be pretty complex to be dating both the American and the Russian champion) very convincingly, but she doesn't get too many memorable parts.

So I guess that any cast will do, really, as long as the complexity and fullness of the score are retained — the real heroes of Chess are its librettist and its composers. Frankly, the record is puzzling and intriguing rather than an indisputable work of genius, but when we're talking musi­cals, puzzle and intrigue work better for me than genius, because anything to shake up and crack the formula is always welcome. As far as I'm concerned, Benny and Björn's first attempt at a mini-musical (ʽThe Girl With The Golden Hairʼ, a four-song cycle off ABBA's The Album) will always be their best (some of its musical moves, funny enough, seem to still echo throughout the themes of Chess as well), but Chess is where they'd really allowed themselves to run wild with the form, and it's fun to see them run.

I would have, of course, liked to see the whole thing in a more «pop» light — as long as Benny and Björn are indulging their chamber / symphonic appetites, no problem, but the sometimes way too overlong romantic duets (ʽYou And Iʼ, etc.) still tend to devolve into schmaltz, which is where I really miss the silly gut punch of ʽLay All Your Love On Meʼ. Still, all the flaws aside, this really is one musical that fully deserves a thumbs up — at the very least, it totally trumps Phantom Of The Opera, meaning that Tim Rice made the right decision, parting ways with the Londoner to team up with the Swedes.

Unfortunately, it was simply too dense for the audiences, used to associate the idea of the musical with a simple, easily summarized story rather than this Dostoyevsky-proportions psychological maze. So these days, as far as musicals are concerned, you are more likely to know all about Mamma Mia, the most putrid thing ever that could have happened to ABBA's legacy, and so, naturally, far more popular than Chess could ever hope to be. Of course, Mamma Mia has the seductive grace of con­sisting of original ABBA songs — but that's really cheating, you know.