The Cardigans: Super Extra Gravity

THE CARDIGANS: SUPER EXTRA GRAVITY (2005)

1) Losing A Friend; 2) Drip Drop Teardrop; 3) Overload; 4) I Need Some Fine Wine And You, You Need To Be Nicer; 5) Don't Blame Your Daughter; 6) Little Black Cloud; 7) In The Round; 8) Holy Love; 9) Good Morning Joan; 10) And Then You Kissed Me II.

I may be the only person left to like this album, but even I have a hard time defending it — it's quite similar to the previous one, but even slower, drearier, and (at least superficially) duller. At least Long Gone Before Daylight reinvented the band, for better or for worse; but Super Extra Gravity merely persists in that image, with yet another series of dark personal broodings over not particularly impressive pop melodies.

By this time, as we can already see from the Roxy Music-influenced album cover, it's really all about Nina — if her charm still works on you, you might forgive the uninventive arrangements and recycled chord sequences; if it does not, Super Extra Gravity will simply crush you to the ground, like it's supposed to, and bore you to death with its depressive formula. Personally, I am a believer, and I am still willing to take at least some of these songs at face value and see them as deeply personal and, occasionally, even unique artistic statements. But that's just me.

At the very least, ʻLosing A Friendʼ is a beautiful tune, and it's all Nina, meticulously building up passion from the quiet, pensive first verse to the tempestuous coda — she is a rare singer who can package anger and desperation in one go, and that final "oh no, oh  no, I'm losing you... oh look at you look what you're wasting" is a perfect example of that double package. Instrumentally, the tune is just nice — pretty guitars and keyboards, rough electric guitar solo, everything tasteful but nothing too special. The voice part, however, is something else.

The problem is that it's just one song, and although Persson is consistently energetic and involved in these tunes, she rarely gives us that much «character development», if I may be allowed to use a stock banality. ʻI Need Some Fine Wineʼ, the first single from the album, once again sounds like any other alt-pop guitar-based song ever written, and I do love the lady's sarcastic aggression and all, but it is not enough to make the song really stick — unless the "good dog, bad dog" meta­phor somehow seems impressive to you, it's just one more attempt to say something meaningful on the issue of complicated personal relations between two ex-lovers. The second single, ʻDon't Blame Your Daughterʼ, was even slower and preachier, and its accusatory spirit is wasted on me; in fact, it sounds whiny, and that's never a good thing.

In fact, the worst thing with this record is that I simply have no wish to discuss any of the indivi­dual tunes. I still like how it all sounds (a very nice balance between acoustic and electric guitars, atmospheric electronics, natural percussion, etc.), I like to hear the sound of Persson's voice, always so reliable and so deep-reaching, and I can understand how they would want to put «soul» and «depth» before experimentation and unique personality, but the songs are simply not good enough to merit discussion.

To the best of my knowledge, the album was not intended as a swansong, and, in fact, after a long break the Cardigans eventually came back together in 2012, even if they have yet to write or re­cord anything new. But maybe they needn't, because Super Extra Gravity does work well as a swan song — in fact, that is probably the only capacity in which it works well, by letting us under­stand that the band has nothing left to say (there's even a song called ʻAnd Then You Kissed Me IIʼ!), even if it still has enough strength to say it with grace and dignity. It was a jolly good ride, though — through at least three different stages of existence, all of which had their own charms, with not a single genuine stinker in the lot. Then again, I guess 10-12 years is close to the optimal limit for a good band before it stagnates or goes artistically bankrupt, so here's hoping that these clever Swedes take their cue from their ABBA compatriots, and won't ruin it with their latter-day equivalent of something like Sur La Mer.

Cactus: Cactus V

CACTUS: CACTUS V (2006)

1) Doin' Time; 2) Muscle & Soul; 3) Cactus Music; 4) The Groover; 5) High In The City; 6) Day For Night; 7) Living For Today; 8) Shine; 9) Electric Blue; 10) Your Brother's Keeper; 11) Blues For Mr. Day; 12) Part Of The Game; 13) Gone Train Gone; 14) Jazzed.

Look who's back. Seeing as how the 2000s are so totally open to everything, and how there were plenty of youngster bands around playing heavy Seventies-style music, Bogert, Appice, and Jim McCarty came back together — not just for some nostalgic touring, but to record new music as well, with the same old swagger as if the thirty years in between never happened. Of course, the original vocalist was murdered in the interim (Rusty Day was shot to death in 1982 by some drug dealers), but they hire a new one, Jimmy Hunes, who sounds almost exactly like Rusty — and the band plays on precisely the same way that it used to.

Of course, it also sucks precisely the same way that it used to: the fourteen songs recorded here all share the same classic aesthetics — loud, bulgy, brawny, perfect for a dinner party that also involves some mudwrestling and some TV-tossing. The old boys in the rhythm section have not lost a bit of that old power, the guitarist tosses out the same old derivative leaden blues-rock riffs and screechy blueswailin' solos, and the vocalist... well, I do believe he got the contract only under the condition that he'd exclusively do the things that Rusty used to do. Oh, and they also have an additional member on harmonica — Randy Pratt, usually playing with the New-York based Lizards, another one of «those» bands that I mentioned in the last paragraph.

Amusingly, I do not feel nearly as bored by this record as I was by all the other Cactus records (except maybe for the first one). There's a humorous side to some of the tunes, including a rather tongue-in-cheek fast boogie anthem to themselves (ʻCactus Musicʼ); a couple of the songs, like ʻYour Brother's Keeperʼ, are pleasantly funky, mildly reminiscent of classic Aerosmith  (who themselves owed a certain debt to Cactus originally); the last track almost borders on artistic-ex­perimental (the instrumental ʻJazzedʼ, which does not have much to do with jazz, but is an inven­tive synthesis of metal and funk, with a whole bunch of riffs from both genres spliced together, sometimes to cool effect); and a few of the vocal melodies are even catchy in a way — ʻMuscle And Soulʼ makes me want to sing along, as does ʻDoin' Timeʼ.

The biggest flaw of the record is its length — sure it's been a long time, but no time is long enough to make anybody want to sit through a whole sixty minutes of «Cactus music», especially when it includes one too many superslow blues tunes (ʻDay For Nightʼ — why don't you leave this kind of stuff to Buddy Guy?) or power-chord based anthemic screechers (ʻShineʼ). The tiny acoustic tribute to the late Rusty Day is a nice gesture, but unless you are well acquainted with the situation, it's just an extra minute and a half of generic blues plucking. And did they really have to bring back the ʻHow Many More Yearsʼ groove for yet another faceless try (ʻThe Groo­verʼ)? All these numbers are completely expendable.

Okay, so the entire album is expendable, but at least if you really loved the old Cactus, there is no reason for you to stay away from the new (old) Cactus — in terms of consistency and stubborn­ness, the record gets an A++, easy. I do thank them, however, for staying away from the studio ever since, even if as a touring outfit they seemed to be active at least as late as 2012. 

Buddy Guy: Skin Deep

BUDDY GUY: SKIN DEEP (2008)

1) Best Damn Fool; 2) Too Many Tears; 3) Lyin' Like A Dog; 4) Show Me The Money; 5) Every Time I Sing The Blues; 6) Out In The Woods; 7) Hammer And A Nail; 8) That's My Home; 9) Skin Deep; 10) Who's Gonna Fill Those Shoes; 11) Smell The Funk; 12) I Found Happiness.

Okay, this time, believe it or not, the guests make a good difference. There's Clapton on one of the tracks, singing and playing a little, but much more important is the presence of the Derek Trucks / Susan Tedeschi pair — not just because of the extra playing and singing, but because of a virtual «quality boost» that Derek's presence in the studio usually gives to his peers and even his elders. With a guy like that, you either have to give it your all, or step back — and since Derek's work aesthetics rejects «flash» and «showmanship» completely, your response has to be adequate. No monkeying around — just get to the point.

Maybe this is why the album opener, ʻBest Damn Foolʼ, despite not even featuring Derek, and despite being essentially based upon the age-old ʻBorn Under A Bad Signʼ groove, once again sounds sharper and livelier than anything on Buddy's last two records — not quite up to the level of Sweet Tea, because everything except Buddy's guitar is fairly routine, but up to Buddy's own personal highest standards, as he delivers barrages of shrill, simple, glass-cutting licks that have a whiff of «garage» attitude to them (and, in some ways, remind me of John Fogerty's classic soloing style — the way he could get the best out of the blues idiom with minimal means on stuff like ʻPenthouse Paperʼ or ʻNinety-Nine And A Halfʼ). Basically, the song just kicks ass.

Most of the material here is «original» (as usual, in Buddy's case this normally means setting old blues tunes to new lyrics), sometimes co-written with Tedeschi's producer Tom Hambridge (and occasionally just written by Hambridge on his own), but the topics remain the same — either bitchin' about the ten billionth woman in his imaginary life, or reminiscing about his real, but long gone life in the swamps of Louisiana (ʻOut In The Woodsʼ, ʻThat's My Homeʼ). At least once he hits upon a sensitive theme — ʻWho's Gonna Fill Those Shoesʼ namechecks a boatload of deceased bluesmen and leaves the question unanswered. Of course, it is hardly a coincidence that the song was contributed by Susan Tedeschi's associate, and that the young and promising Mr. Trucks was hovering somewhere in the neighborhood, but still there are no direct hints here that Mr. Trucks is in any way worthy of filling the shoes of Son House and Muddy Waters, so we might as well suppose that Buddy answers this to himself in the negative (Buddy himself, be­longing to the same old breed, does not count, of course — and he was a whoppin' 72 years old when this platter was recorded, for that matter; but then again, for a 72-year old he really swings that axe on the track, acknowledging his guitar as an equal partner in the righteous indignation over the fact that the shoes are not gonna be filled by just anyone).

Stuff like ʻToo Many Tearsʼ, on which the old man duets with Tedeschi, is the kind of unexciting contemporary smooth-blues-rock fodder that usually goes in one ear and out the other — and, honestly, Susan Tedeschi is a very nice lady and a respectable promoter of the blues, but she is very, very ordinary and unexciting (sort of like a sandpapered Bonnie Raitt). Her husband, how­ever, is a different matter, and his trademark slide wailings make a great counterpoint for Buddy's style — too bad that they don't really get to properly «spar» on any of these songs; in fact, every time Derek is in, Buddy slyly (coyly?) steps back as a player and concentrates on the singing.

It doesn't nearly manage to save the title track, though, which is just too preachy and weepy: yes, most of us know that "underneath we're all the same", and okay, some of us should probably be reminded of that from time to time, but just a little more complexity couldn't hurt, and besides, Buddy Guy is not a friggin' soul singer — he does not quite have the voice or the phrasing right for this. But fortunately, ʻSkin Deepʼ is just one such track here, probably designed to boost sales a little bit as middle-class sentimentalists battle racism by shedding tears over how we should "treat everybody just the way you want them to treat you" (Confucius™). The other songs do not exactly supercede ʻSkin Deepʼ in terms of non-banality, but they tend to kick ass, and you usually tend to forget about how banal something is when it kicks your ass on a relentless basis.

Anyway, more highlights: ʻOut In The Woodsʼ has a great swampy solo, with Buddy impersona­ting a hungry alligator from his childhood nightmares; ʻLyin' Like A Dogʼ is seven and a half minutes of slow angry ʻFive Long Yearsʼ-style blues, perfectly played and produced (not sure what else to say); ʻShow Me The Moneyʼ and ʻHammer And Nailʼ display Buddy's sense of humour, and ʻSmell The Funkʼ displays his, um, well... pretty strong vibe there for a 72-year old, maybe even a little too strong. Sure puts some of these youngsters to shame — ah, who's gonna fill those shoes?

Do not get me wrong: Skin Deep is fairly generic and conventional, there's not a single thread of exploration here as there seemed to be on Sweet Tea. But it is a good kind of generic, brought on by people who just want to make a little difference by throwing in a little bit of sheer spirit. This, at least according to my cherished gut feeling, is not just a record made out of the need to make another record — and for that, given that the key player is Buddy and the supporting force is Derek, it automatically deserves a thumbs up. Just sort of ignore the title track. There are much more efficient ways in which you can fight racism, believe me.

King Crimson: In The Court Of The Crimson King (IAS #006)

Back to the world of truly great music with today's IAS review:

King Crimson: In The Court Of The Crimson King

Cabaret Voltaire: 2x45

CABARET VOLTAIRE: 2x45 (1982)

1) Breathe Deep; 2) Yashar; 3) Protection; 4) War Of Nerves (T.E.S.); 5) Wait And Shuffle; 6) Get Out Of My Face.

Actually, this, rather than Red Mecca, may be the band's most interesting contribution to the musical scene of the early Eighties. On this splice of two recording sessions, which was also the last CB album to feature Chris Watson as a member, the band shifts the balance over from the industrial / experimental shadings to the dance beats — this is a very club-oriented recording — without, however, toning down the overall gray weirdness of it all. The result is a return to their «shamanistic ritual» schtick, but in a more accessible and grappling way than ever before: six lengthy «art-dance» grooves which throw everything into the melting pot (funk, jazz, drone, Eastern influences, post-punk, industrial, you name it), and sort of get away with it.

Like Red Mecca, this here is the sound of a self-assured band that has, by and large, already found what it was looking for — and is now trying to prove to us that the search has not been in artistic vain. ʻBreathe Deepʼ has the skeleton of a modern electrofunk groove, but the shrill, dis­sonant wail of electronically treated guitars and wind instruments (not just saxes, but even a cla­rinet part!) is inherited from the band's avantgarde past and does a good job of creating an atmo­sphere of insane hustle-bustle: think Panic At The Factory or something like that. Totally dan­ceable, but sonically ugly and depressing, even if the band's traditional weaknesses still show through (namely, any of these tracks would have had much more impact if they tried building up these atmospheres rather than spilling everything out at once).

There is a substantial element of diversity, too: after ʻBreathe Deepʼ, ʻYasharʼ crosses the Cabaret Voltaire aesthetics with Near Eastern rhythmic and melodic elements, then ʻProtectionʼ goes into a happier sort of dance music where funk-pop guitar riffs are being offset by mad sax wailings, then ʻWar Of Nervesʼ slows things down to allow for some fairly poisonous avantgarde-guitar pyrotechnics, and eventually it all culminates in the 13-minute long ʻGet Out Of My Faceʼ, the loudest and most brash part of the ritual, sort of this band's equivalent of the Velvets' ʻSister Rayʼ, only with a larger pool of equipment and a little more compassion for people's ears. All of these tracks are united by a single aesthetic style, but they have different sub-atmospheres, and this helps make the record cooler, though, honestly, it is still hard to get truly wowed by the expe­rience. But at least with all these blaring saxes and guitar/synth interplay, you can't really argue that they are doing something that has since been rendered obsolete — 2x45 is a fairly unique mash-up of electronics, drone, and (not-so)-avantgarde jazz that is not afraid to cross genre bor­ders without properly belonging to any of them.

Honestly, I believe it's difficult not to be at least somewhat impressed by the results achieved here. As dance music, 2x45 can only be of interest nowadays for retro-futuristic, steampunkish parties; but I think it still has a bit of «mind-opening» potential, particularly in the way it mixes live in­struments with tape manipulation. And this is the first time, I believe, where I would actually grant a thumbs up rating to a Cabaret Voltaire album — not because I was emotionally and in­tellectually rewarded for making an effort, but rather because I didn't have to make too much of an effort to not be emotionally and intellectually rewarded, if you get my meaning here.

Budgie: Nightflight

BUDGIE: NIGHTFLIGHT (1981)

1) I Turned To Stone; 2) Keeping A Rendezvous; 3) Reapers Of The Glory; 4) She Used Me Up; 5) Don't Lay Down And Die; 6) Apparatus; 7) Superstar; 8) Change Your Ways; 9) Untitled Lullaby.

I cannot really make up my mind whether I should feel more empathy towards Power Supply-era Budgie or Nightflight-era Budgie. What's the difference, you might ask? Well, there is some — basically, their second album with Thomas is a step back from the «hardcore» new-wave-metal­lism of the 1980 offering, as they try to sweeten and mollify Power Supply's dry brutality with some poppy and even «retro-progressive» (is that even a word?) elements. Probably, this means that Nightflight will have a little more appeal for fans of classic Budgie — yet on the other hand, it is also clear that the classic days will never come back, and it does not make a whole lot of sense trying to force them back.

I am talking about ʻI Turned To Stoneʼ, of course, the six-minute «folk-metal» anthem that opens the record on a very different note from ʻForearm Smashʼ. We get those melancholic minor chord acoustic melodies, powerful build-ups and slide-downs, and the metal-soulfulness which these guys could master well earlier on (ʻParentsʼ, etc.). Ultimately, however, the guitar tones are too much «early hair metal», the main riff of the chorus sounds like «under-chugged» Sabbath-lite, and although John Thomas unleashes some nice furious soloing in the sped-up gallop coda, it is hardly enough to redeem the song on the whole. Nice try, though.

Curiously, the tone of the record gets much lighter after that, and some of the tunes could, in fact, qualify as «lightly metallized» power-pop — ʻKeeping A Rendezvousʼ, ʻShe Used Me Upʼ, ʻChange Your Waysʼ are toe-tappy sing-along pop-rockers with a fairly light mood. However, they wobble on the edge of MOR blandness, and sometimes go right over that edge: ʻApparatusʼ is a faceless power ballad that could be Foreigner, Foghat, Styx, or whatever you wanted it to be in the late Seventies.

Arguably the most memorable — in a rather stupid way — tune here is ʻSuperstarʼ, a song that must have very clearly been influenced by AC/DC's ʻGirl's Got Rhythmʼ, which would have been perfectly fine if Shelley were able to demonstrate a better sense of humor; instead, for some rea­son, he intends to transform this funny, harmless little pop chugger into a serious social statement on superstar hypocrisy, for which he has neither the charisma nor the power of conviction. The variation on the ʻGirl's Got Rhythmʼ riff is a nifty one, though, I'll admit that much.

Overall, I guess it's just different from Power Supply — not for better or worse. At this time, «better» and «worse» aren't even valid options for Budgie: Shelley seems lost in space, unable to bring back the aesthetics of old and not quite getting the new realities, either. Not that this was a good time for power trios: heavy metal was all about creative guitar duos, of the Judas Priest type or the Iron Maiden type, or, if you only had one guitarist, you had to make sure it was a Van Halen type. John Thomas is a nice guy, but he doesn't experiment much, and he hasn't quite got the flashy technique of even one of the Iron Maiden guitarists, not to mention a Van Halen. So they try to get by, and I've heard much worse albums than this, but I do not think there'll come a time in anybody's life when ʻI Turned To Stoneʼ is exactly the kind of soul-crushing epic one is in dire need of at any particular moment. Unless you're so much a child of the Eighties that your ears only perk up at the sound of those thick, overproduced heavy guitar tones.

The Byrds: Ballad Of Easy Rider

THE BYRDS: BALLAD OF EASY RIDER (1969)

1) Ballad Of Easy Rider; 2) Fido; 3) Oil In My Lamp; 4) Tulsa County; 5) Jack Tarr The Sailor; 6) Jesus Is Just Alright; 7) It's All Over Now, Baby Blue; 8) There Must Be Someone; 9) Gunga Din; 10) Deportee (Plane Wreck At Los Gatos); 11) Armstrong, Aldrin And Collins.

Almost everybody will tell you that Ballad Of Easy Rider was a huge advance over Dr. Byrds, even if, paradoxically, it is far less ambitious and creative. For starters, the heavy-rocking com­ponent has pretty much been chucked out the window — a few distorted guitar solos crop up every now and then, but nothing even remotely approaching the thunder of ʻWheel's On Fireʼ; here, the Byrds settle for a far calmer, softer roots-rock sound, somewhat of an amalgamation of the early folk-based sound and the Sweetheart country-soaked approach.

Second and more important, there is only one song here written by Roger McGuinn; everything else is either contributed by other members of the band or comes completely from outside. This is not meant to sound as an insult to his general songwriting skills, but the material written for Dr. Byrds, although experimental, was clearly weak, and getting rid of that whole «space cowboy» baggage was probably necessary to avoid further embarrassment. Actually, there is one track here that is more space-cowboyish than ever — ʻArmstrong, Aldrin And Collinsʼ merges NASA voiceovers with a little acoustic ditty about the latest American heroes, written by country guy Zeke Manners; but it is just a short amusing epilogue that does not aspire or amount to much.

At the heart of the record are tracks like the title one or ʻGunga Dinʼ — haste-less, regal, slightly transcendental in their unnerving acoustic bliss, well comparable to the Byrds' classic legacy and, for that matter, completely absent on Dr. Byrds. Dylan, who originally began work on the title track as the theme of Easy Rider, pretty much stopped after writing "the river flows, it flows to the sea" and telling the contractors to pass it on to McGuinn — and sure enough, McGuinn put it to a melody that would probably evoke visions of a river flowing to the sea without a single word. The idea to orchestrate the song belonged to producer Terry Melcher, who seeked to emulate the effect of Nilsson's ʻEverybody's Talkingʼ, and they do emulate that effect, except that ʻBallad Of Easy Riderʼ has no tragic overtones and is essentially a static, beautiful soundscape — perfect as the movie theme (it is, after all, about /the impossibility of/ finding paradise on Earth), perfect as a Byrds song, one of McGuinn's tenderest and sincerest vocal performances.

Interestingly, new drummer Gene Parsons almost has Roger beat, or at least, matched, by contri­buting ʻGunga Dinʼ, a song about personal tribulations and discriminations set to an equally becalming arpeggiated melody — no orchestration this time, and the multi-tracked vocals are not as moving as Roger's solo parts, but chorus harmonies are cute (it's quite endearing how in the final "I know that it's a sin... Gunga Din" the title is delivered almost with a «sigh» of some sorts, in the «life is tough, but we'll get over it» kind of sense). His is clearly the best contribution of all the new band members — John Yorke's ʻFidoʼ is amusing, but first, it is another song about a dog (as if ʻOld Blueʼ was not enough; and they would return yet again with ʻBuglerʼ), which is discriminating towards cat lovers, and second, its melody is pretty much a complete rip-off of Manfred Mann's cover of Dylan's ʻQuinn The Eskimoʼ, differing only by the inclusion of a rather gratuitous drum solo. Probably they should have just gone ahead and covered the song instead. With some certified Inuit drumming for an interlude.

The covers are largely selected from the traditional folk/blues/country pool, although Bob gets his share — finally, they come out with an official release of ʻIt's All Over Now Baby Blueʼ, recor­ded at an ultra-slow tempo with triple repetition of "it's all over now", which may not be such a good idea (does the message really need rubbing in?). There's an alternately funny and disturbing reinvention of ʻJesus Is Just Alrightʼ as a semi-progressive rocker with «alarmed» vocal harmo­nies, sounding as if the band were performing an exorcism or a general ward-off-evil ritual with the song; an empathetic cover of Woody Guthrie's ʻDeporteeʼ, which would have made a good in­clusion on Sweetheart at the expense of, say, ʻChristian Lifeʼ; and some gorgeous vocal harmo­nies on the old anthem ʻOil In My Lampʼ. None of these songs are masterpieces of the human spirit, but they're nice, listenable, and reliable, and the new Byrds do them full justice.

In all, the goodness of Ballad lies precisely in its new-found humility — it's short, quiet, friendly, and almost completely free of ambitions and presumptions. It's as if the Byrds are no longer in­terested at all in the big race, but just want to share with us their love for the weather-worn American spirit, and not even in a «defying» way, as it was with Sweetheart, without locking themselves into one single narrow formula to which some of us furthermore might be alergic. If Dr. Byrds showed the world that the band could no longer be «relevant» even if it tried, Easy Rider shows that they no longer care about being relevant — and, in the process, are rewarded by the good fairy with a record that, almost haf a century later, sounds timeless, rather than time-bound. Naturally, this deserves a thumbs up.

The Cardigans: Long Gone Before Daylight

THE CARDIGANS: LONG GONE BEFORE DAYLIGHT (2003)

1) Communication; 2) You're The Storm; 3) A Good Horse; 4) And Then You Kissed Me; 5) Couldn't Care Less; 6) Please Sister; 7) For What It's Worth; 8) Lead Me Into The Night; 9) Live And Learn; 10) Feathers And Down; 11) 03.45: No Sleep.

Five years between albums may not make such a long time now as they did thirty years ago, but in the case of the Cardigans, they were crucial — Long Gone Before Daylight gives us an en­tire­ly different band, with that dreadfully punched-up word «maturation» flashing blue, red, or green, whichever you prefer. No more jazzy Black Sabbath covers, no more cheerful Beatlesque pop, and not even any more trip-hoppy or disco dance numbers. With Svensson now providing all of the music and Nina all of the lyrics, this is a slow, unexciting, introspective record that comes as close to generic «adult contemporary» as they ever did. It's not as if they are getting more psychological on your ass than before — it's just that your ass gets the gist of it far more sharply when it's sitting in your chair than when it's being distracted by all those chuggy-funky or giggly-pastoral dance rhythms of yesterday.

Of course, this still comes on as somewhat of a shock — unlike the classic «young» stage of the band, the songs no longer jump out at you with the same immediacy, and, in fact, the album would most probably sink on a purely instrumental level, because music-wise, it seems to be riding on a fairly straightforward alt-rock and alt-country foundation. Where it eventually catches up with you (me) is on the vocal level. A few listens into the whole sucker, it emerges as an ex­treme­ly intelligent and sentient record on the love-and-hate issue — the real thing, that is. It has all these subtle connections to the past (ʻAnd Then You Kissed Meʼ hearkens back not to one, but to two of The Crys­tals' hits, because there is a reference to ʻHe Hit Meʼ as well; ʻFor What It's Worthʼ does not accidentally coincide with the title of the Buffalo Springfield classic — although it actually includes the song title in the lyrics, un­like its predecessor), but it is an utterly modern record at heart, and the best thing about it, it is modern, clever, emotional, convincing, and it does all of that on a very humble, unassuming, unprovocative level. Which means, of course, that it did not seriously chart anywhere but in Sweden.

It is very easy to write the record as too long, too slow, too boring, and too clichéd, but... do me a favor and don't do this, okay? Instead, give Nina a chance, and she'll eventually turn this into a masterful soulful show for you. ʻCommunicationʼ starts off with the most ABBA-esque song on here, and the verse-chorus build-up is a perfect mix of tender sentimentality with quiet despera­tion (is the Swedish way, after all) — one might quibble that it is not very inventive to follow the call of "I don't know how to connect" with the response of "so I disconnect", but she's got such a... disconnecting way of saying that last word, it's pretty hard to think of a better ending.

The second song, ʻYou're The Stormʼ, amuses me to no end, because stylistically, it is precisely the kind of material that would soon win Taylor Swift her fame and fortune — sort of a neo-country rocker, starts out soft and slow, becomes loud and anthemic in the chorus, and even the lyrics, all based around a somewhat crude geopolitical love metaphor ("and if you want me, I'm your country"), kind of fit the bill. Except that ʻYou're The Stormʼ actually has an enthralling chorus, where modulation matters much more than loudness — the pitch change from "I like the sweet life and the silence" to "but it's the storm that I believe in" is true pop brilliance. It is true that lyrical lines like "come raise your flag upon me" or "come and conquer and drop your bombs" sound a little crude (not to mention that the song's timing, coming out right at the start of the Iraqi War, couldn't have been worse), but it's no hard crime to get a little carried away with a metaphor, and, after all, we don't cherish The Cardigans because of their lyrics (even if, word-wise, they are typically several notches above the ABBA level).

Everything after that comes on a take-it-or-leave-it basis, but the more I listen, the more I'm ready to take. Here's just a few moments: the plaintive vibe of "my heart can't carry much more" (ʻCouldn't Care Lessʼ); the quiet razor-sharpness of the "help me, I'm not feeling... okay" chorus conclusion (ʻPlease Sisterʼ); the way "for what it's worth I love you, and what is worse, I really do" moves up an octave from first chorus to last; the believable stubbornness in the "I live and I learn, yes I live and I learn" mantra; the sarcastic-tragic finale of "come to me, let's drown... come baby, let's drown in feathers and down" — it's all touching, inventive, and meaningful.

Nothing remains, really, except to reiterate the old fact about no musical genre being good or bad on its own, but everything depending upon the personalities behind it. Singer-songwriters come fairly cheap these days, and far more often than necessary, but Persson would probably make an excellent one (in fact, Long Gone Before Daylight is far more of a «singer-songwriter» record, genre-wise, than a «pop» record); and this is precisely the kind of album that manages to avoid both the «cheap thrill» pitfalls of fluffy country-pop à la Taylor Swift and the «musical bore­dom» pitfalls of, say, an Ani DiFranco. Yes, our acquaintance started out on a sour note, but in the end I'm perfectly happy to award it a strong thumbs up — and all you reviewers who panned it when it came out, well, you probably didn't even respect the three-listen rule.

Cactus: 'Ot 'N' Sweaty

CACTUS: 'OT 'N' SWEATY (1972)

1) Swim; 2) Bad Mother Boogie; 3) Our Lil Rock'n'Roll Thing; 4) Bad Stuff; 5) Bringing Me Down; 6) Bedroom Mazurka; 7) Telling You; 8) Underneath The Arches.

If you thought this could not get any worse, you were wrong. By 1972, all that remained of the former spiny glory of Cactus was the Bogert-Appice rhythm section, yet somehow this did not deflate their ambitions — and the «band» plowed on, recruiting new guitarist Werner Fritz­schings (I'm sure everybody must have called him Wiener Schnitzel out of desperation, but who'd ever acknowledge that?), an extra keyboardist (Duane Hitchings) and a new vocalist called Peter French, who'd apparently done a short stint in Atomic Rooster before that, but was largely hired because it's kinda hard to distinguish his bawl from Rusty Day's bawl.

The new lineup persisted well into 1972, eventually releasing this album, a total mess whose only appeal is in how many things go wrong at once (sometimes intentionally). The first side was taken from a live show in Puerto Rico, either because the band did not have enough new studio material or, more probably, because it was high time to demonstrate the Live Power of the Migh­ty Cactus — which, next to a Live At Leeds or a Made In Japan, honestly gives the impression of a deeply drunk Little John with a quarterstaff against a pack of knights in full armor. Not that you wouldn't shed a tear at the fate of the kind fellow with his good motives and all, but a no-win situation is a no-win situation, especially considering that Cactus do not try to do anything except demonstrate sheer brutal boogie power. They cover ʻLet Me Swimʼ from their first record, and then they do two half-improvisatory pieces of boogie, and it hardly matters where they stop and where they start; all that matters is the lumpy dinosaurish swagger, for 17 minutes.

On the second side, they get off to a decent start with ʻBad Stuffʼ, a riff-based blues-rocker with a bit of real bite provided by the scrunchy guitar/bass tones — and if Skynyrd's ʻI Ain't The Oneʼ was not influenced by ʻLet Me Swimʼ after all, then it couldn't have been not influenced by this one at least — the verse melodies are practically identical. But even if we agree that ʻBad Stuffʼ is a bit of a good influence, then ʻBringing Me Downʼ is this band's totally non-sequitur take on rootsy soulfulness, with sentimental keyboards, gospel harmonies, and ecstatic lead vocals, as if the ghost of Leon Russell suddenly visited them in their sleep, or maybe they were inspired by one of Joe Cocker's Mad Dogs & Englishmen shows or something. I cannot even honestly state that this is a bad song — it is simply hard to take seriously, sitting there all alone among their drunken antics. The next two songs safely bring us back to more familiar, less shocking, but quickly forgettable territory, although at least ʻBedroom Mazurkaʼ is kind of a special song title (no musical references to Chopin, though — imagine that).

The best thing I can say about the album, and the band in particular, is that the All-Music Guide describes the style of the record as «rambunctious», «rowdy», «celebratory», «boisterous», «freewheeling», «brash», «rousing», «aggressive», «rollicking», «confident», «raucous», and «energetic», and every word of it is absolutely true, so if these are your core values in listening to music, 'Ot 'N' Sweaty should be a pre-defined masterpiece. Maybe with just an extra pinch of melodic invention, subtlety, or individuality, it could even have been a half-decent record. As it is, I think I'll just stick to my Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out — the Stones may not have been so loud and «boisterous» on stage as these guys, but they went out there to play actual songs, rather than simply demonstrate how good they were at generating «rambunctiousness». Thumbs down.

Buddy Guy: Bring 'Em In

BUDDY GUY: BRING 'EM IN (2005)

1) Now You're Gone; 2) Ninety Nine And One Half; 3) What Kind Of Woman Is This; 4) Somebody's Sleeping In My Bed; 5) I Put A Spell On You; 6) On A Saturday Night; 7) Ain't No Sunshine; 8) I've Got Dreams To Remember; 9) Lay Lady Lay; 10) Cheaper To Keep Her/Blues In The Night; 11) Cut You Loose; 12) The Price You Gotta Pay; 13) Do Your Thing.

Despite the revealing title, not all of these songs, as could have been thought (and easily been done), feature outside guest stars; in fact, more than half of the album is just Buddy and his regu­lar band, whatever it was at the time. However, guest-studded sessions, no matter how much time is actually being spent with the guests, tend not to work too well for Buddy: there's too much emphasis on having collective fun and not enough emphasis on giving the listener a real good musical reason to buy the album. And in that respect, Bring 'Em In is no exception — once again, here is a «merely okay» record that never shows that one extra spark to bring it over the top, like Sweet Tea or even Slippin' In.

The collaborations themselves at least merit some discussion. ʽI Put A Spell On Youʼ is set to a Latin, Santana-esque rhythm, and sure enough, Carlos is here in person, forming quite an incendi­ary duet with Mr. Guy; perhaps they could have chosen some less obvious material to cover, but they do bring out the best (or, perhaps, simply the most buoyant and arrogant) in each other, and there are a couple moments here when their thunder-and-lightning soloing styles cross paths and you seem caught up in a one-of-a-kind Chicago-Mexican blizzard. Next to this, a duet with John Mayer could seem a total disaster; fortunately, they avoid it, instead making Mayer add some relatively inoffensive and quiet lead lines to Buddy's cover of Otis Redding's ʽI've Got Dreams To Rememberʼ (which is like any other Buddy cover of any classic soul number: technically com­petent, but completely expendable in the long run).

Elsewhere, Robert Randolph adds a pleasant pedal steel part to ʽLay Lady Layʼ, but that song tends to always sound cheesy and sleazy in anybody's hands but its author's, and this version is no exception — Buddy's duet with Anthony Hamilton just ends up being generic soul fodder. Finally, there's a weakly advertised Keith Richards on Keb' Mo's ʽThe Price You Gotta Payʼ, but he neither sings nor plays lead guitar. Actually, both of these may be good things, but there ain't a Keith-worthy riff here, either, so ultimately, I guess, the point of having him here was merely for the most advanced of Stones fanatics to buy the record (I suppose that there are more people out there, anyway, vowing to own every recording Keef has ever played on, than there are people out there ready to go out and regularly buy up every new Buddy Guy release).

Of the other tracks, with a little effort, I'd single out Curtis Mayfield's ʽNow You're Goneʼ, which Buddy tries to sing like a true falsetto crooner (not too bad) and crowns with some cool wah-wah work; his own ʽWhat Kind Of Woman Is Thisʼ, a rare case of a riff-based Buddy original that's sharp and swaggerish at the same time; and the lengthy epic ʽCut You Looseʼ, musically based on the old ʽCatfish Blues / Rollin' Stoneʼ groove and gradually putting itself in guitar overdrive — along the lines of Hendrix's ʽVoodoo Chileʼ, which must have been Buddy's main inspiration for this stuff. None of these songs have the unique aura of a ʽBaby Please Don't Leave Meʼ, though: they are simply more powerful and decisive than everything else.

For the record, the reason why John Mayer is here is probably because the album was produced by Steve Jordan, who was at the time a member of the John Mayer Trio (and who earlier drum­med for Keith Richards' X-Pensive Winos, so here's anouther connection); the backing band in­cludes Danny Kortchmar on guitar and Bernie Worrell on keyboards, all well-known professional musicians, but without too much rapport between each other, if you know what I mean. All in all, a classic case of "let's make working conditions so cozy and polished for our superstar that he suffocates in them", sort of.

Radiohead: Kid A (IAS #005)

Today's IAS review is:

Radiohead: Kid A

Be warned, though. Not for the faint-hearted. Abandon hope and all that.

Cabaret Voltaire: Red Mecca

CABARET VOLTAIRE: RED MECCA (1981)

1) A Touch Of Evil; 2) Sly Doubt; 3) Landslide; 4) A Thousand Ways; 5) Red Mask; 6) Split Second; 7) Black Mask; 8) Spread The Virus; 9) A Touch Of Evil (reprise).

Prior to Red Mecca, the band had released an EP called Three Mantras — a musical representa­tion of their views on religious fundamentalism, Christian and Islamic, by means of a ʽWestern Mantraʼ and an ʽEastern Mantraʼ respectively (the liner notes jokingly apologized for the lack of the promised third mantra and explained that the record was underpriced to make up for that). However, even though each of the tracks ran for twenty minutes, they felt this wasn't nearly enough, and eventually followed it up with a longer, more «comprehensive» album, aptly called Red Mecca so they could offend everybody. Frickin' hatemongers.

This is often seen as one of the highest points in the band's career — probably because it is the first Cabaret Voltaire album which feels like a self-assured statement, rather than just another incoherent bunch of some-of-it-works-and-some-of-it-oh-me-oh-my experiments. It also feels better produced than before, even though they were using the same studio in Sheffield as always (maybe they got better insulation on the windows or fixed some of the wiring, I have no idea). Other than that, though, it's just another Cabaret Voltaire album, meaning that its sounds, at best, are interesting and curious rather than «grappling».

The record symbolically opens with an industrial/avantgarde reworking of Henry Mancini's opening theme for Orson Welles' Touch Of Evil — a movie that did not deal with religious issues as such, if I remember it correctly, but did dabble around in various sick corners of the human nature; and it is good to have that hint, because the band's drab, morose soundscapes aren't exactly reminiscent of «evil caused by mankind» on their own. If I knew nothing about the sour­ces of the recording, I would have regarded it... well, I still regard it as essentially the musical equivalent of taking a slow, uncomfortable, stuffy ride on some creaky underground train through a long row of caves, tunnels, grottoes, and mines populated by freaks, mutant dwarves, and methadone-addled incorporeal ghosts of Nazi criminals.

The «danceability» is faithfully preserved and even enhanced by a more musical than ever before use of brass instruments, but this still is no music to dance to: ten and a half minutes of ʽA Thou­sand Waysʼ ultimately sound more like an incessant, nerve-numbing «musical flagellation», with the percussive whips making as much damage to your body as the incomprehensible vocal exhor­tations do to your soul, than something to dance to (and besides, it's pretty hard to dance while being whipped). The bass groove of ʽSly Doubtʼ is as funky as anything, but when it is coupled with a synthesizer «lead melody» that resembles airplanes flying over your head, your sense of rhythm will be confused and shattered anyway. Same thing with the antithetical pairing of ʽRed Maskʼ and ʽBlack Maskʼ, except that guitars and keyboards on the former sound like malfunctio­ning electric drills, and on the latter like the soundtrack to an arcade space shooter.

Unfortunately, in one respect Red Mecca remains undistinguishable from any other Cabaret Voltaire release: it is hard to get seriously excited over any of these tracks, even if they sound cleaner, tighter, and imbued with sharper symbolical purpose. Memorable musical (or even «quasi-musical») themes are absent (the shrill, whining riff of ʽLandslideʼ is probably the closest they get, but even that one is nothing compared to what a Joy Division or a Cure could do with such an idea), «energy level» is not even a viable parameter, and there is almost no development — ʽA Thousand Waysʼ, after ten minutes (years) of that flagellation, leaves us exactly where it found us, and so do most of the shorter tracks as well.

This is why, in the end, I cannot permit myself to give out a thumbs up rating here: important as this album could be upon release, it does not seem to have properly stood the test of time. Even its symbolism has to be properly decoded with the aid of additional sources, and even if you do decode it, it is hardly a guarantee that from then on you'll be wanting to stick the CD under your pillow every night. It's interesting — but it's also boring. Which is a very basic characteristics of the band as a whole, of course, but since Red Mecca is often highlighted as «the place to start» with these guys, be warned: it's not too different from everything else they've done, and unless you've heard no experimental electronic music whatsoever post-1981, it's not highly likely to provoke a revelation. For historical reasons, though, it's worth getting to know.

Budgie: Power Supply

BUDGIE: POWER SUPPLY (1980)

1) Forearm Smash; 2) Hellbender; 3) Heavy Revolution; 4) Gunslinger; 5) Power Supply; 6) Secrets In My Head; 7) Time To Remember; 8) Crime Against The World.

I used to be excessively harsh on this album, and, in truth, it is hard not to be harsh on an album that sounds like an unimaginative cross between Judas Priest and AC/DC. But then it might also be a little silly to accuse Budgie jumping on the early Eighties metal bandwagon, if only because Budgie had always been professional wagon-jumpers, ever since ʽGutsʼ so openly nicked off the Sabbath sound ten years before. So how could we call it a crime when, upon Bourge's departure from the band, Shelley instigated a transition into more «modern» territory?

If there's a problem here, it is with Shelley's personality. One thing that early Eighties metal de­manded was brutal, sweaty, swaggering frontmen that could match the sweat, brutality, and swag­ger of that new guitar sound — and Burke Shelley, with his lean lanky nerdy figure, whiny vocals, and encumbering bass, could hardly qualify. His voice is high-pitched enough, for sure, and he can raise it to a proper scream when necessary (see the chorus to ʽHeavy Revolutionʼ), but it has none of the steel overtones of a Brian Johnson or a Bruce Dickinson, and that scream can never turn to roar; just not the same level of aggression, sorry. Just like it's hard to imagine Geddy Lee doing a credible cover of ʽHell's Bellsʼ, or something like that.

New guitarist John Thomas is quite competent, though, I'll give them that. He can come up with riffs that are almost as good as K. K. Downing's, and he can play insane-delirious solos just like Angus Young — both these skills are immediately evident on the opening number, ʽForearm Smashʼ, where in the mid-section they nearly pull off a ʽWhole Lotta Rosieʼ. ʽHellbenderʼ and ʽHeavy Revolutionʼ are also not half-bad, riff-wise, with all those nasty tones and clever use of stock metal licks. Nothing too special, but the instrumental sections of these songs are seriously enjoyable — provided you like the not-too-experimental, ass-kick-oriented style of early Eighties metal in general, I don't see how it is possible not to toe-tap or play at least a little air guitar to these songs. They're fun.

If you try to subject them to a little closer analysis... well, don't. You might stumble upon the lyrics to ʽHeavy Revolutionʼ, which seem to be a sincere appraisal of the arena-rock image: "Our heads jumping up and down / Heavy rock bands are back in town", without a single noticeable shred of irony — quite embarrassing to see them associated with Mr. Shelley and his nerdy looks (it's a good thing that no video footage of the band from that era has been preserved). Essentially, all of Budgie's «cleverness», including those nutty song titles which used to relate them to Blue Öyster Cult, seems to have evaporated, replaced with far more explicit and provocative imagery. Not that Budgie lyrics have ever mattered much — and the words do go well with the music, they just don't go all too well with the singer.

There's exactly one power ballad in the mix (ʽTime To Rememberʼ), mediocre, but not awful (depending on whether you think the echo on Shelley's vocals — "time... time... time... to remember" — is an impressive or a stupid idea). There's exactly one song with an acoustic intro­duction (ʽGunslingerʼ) that dutifully segues into an epic rock guitar battle of life against death. There's exactly one slow rocker (ʽCrime Against The Worldʼ) that concludes the album on an almost relaxed note compared to most everything else. And most everything else taps their not-so-large «power supply» to the max. So at least they're going for it hardcore-style — no «sissy keyboards», not too much overblown sentimentality. Certainly could be worse, had they hired a less competent guitarist. But do remember that this is «Budgie 2.0», a completely different thing from what it used to be, and even if you loved Impeckable, you have to have yourself a ʽHeavy Revolutionʼ to love Power Supply.

The Byrds: Dr. Byrds & Mr. Hyde

THE BYRDS: DR. BYRDS & MR. HYDE (1969)

1) This Wheel's On Fire; 2) Old Blue; 3) Your Gentle Way Of Loving Me; 4) Child Of The Universe; 5) Nashville West; 6) Drug Store Truck Drivin' Man; 7) King Apathy III; 8) Candy; 9) Bad Night At The Whiskey; 10) Medley: My Back Pages / B. J. Blues / Baby What You Want Me To Do.

Finally, we move on to the very last chapter of the transformational history of The Byrds. With Chris Hillman and Gram Parsons departing to form The Flying Burrito Brothers, the only sur­viving member is Roger McGuinn, and his new team includes Gene Parsons (no relation to Gram) on drums, John Yorke on bass, and Clarence White on guitar (Clarence had previously sat in with the band on some of the 1968 sessions, and had already joined the band as a replacement for Gram Parsons in the brief interim when Hillman still remained an active member). But even though the new musicians are all quite decent, it took some time before the whole thing clicked, and Dr. Byrds & Mr. Hyde shows a certain lack of direction.

Actually, my biggest problem with this record is that there are way too many McGuinn originals, and most of them — nay, all of them — are deeply problematic. ʽChild Of The Universeʼ? Lots of lyrical pretentiousness, a touch of grand pathos provided by the booming percussion fills and Spanish guitar lead fills, but the melodic drone is just too monotonous and the transitions between verse and chorus too un-dynamic to make you go wow — and let's face it, if a song called ʽChild Of The Universeʼ does not make you go wow, too bad for the song, not the universe.

ʽKing Apathy IIIʼ is an even stranger and clumsier experiment that sews together a fast blues-rock verse with a slow country-western bridge — the song has a very clear lyrical message, in which Mc­Guinn renounces the "middle class suburban children" who "blindly follow recent pipers" and states that "I'm leavin' for the country, to try and rest my head", and it's his choice and all, but illustrating it with a poorly joined-at-the-hip mix of generic bluesy psychedelia with generic country waltz is at best boring symbolism, and at worst an embarrassment in both genres (let alone all the condescending remarks about "liberal reactionaries" who are busy "slowing down their B. B. King" — not quite on the level of Lennon's "fuckin' peasants" yet, but slowly getting there, although at least Lennon could sound real passionate about the issue).

Hilariously, McGuinn manages to offend both the progressive liberals and the hillbilly conserva­tives on the album: ʽKing Apathy IIIʼ is the immediate follow-up to ʽDrug Store Truck Drivin' Manʼ, a remainder of the McGuinn/Parsons collaboration that rhymed the song title with "the head of the Ku Klux Klan", was inspired by a clash with the obnoxious Nashville DJ Ralph Emery, and must have probably been a sweet, sweet joy to perform during the band's tour of the Bible Belt (just joking — actually, they preferred California, but whether they dared perform ʽKing Apathy IIIʼ there, I have no idea; then again, most of the hippies would probably be way too stoned to notice the words). Not that it's a particularly good song, either, but at least it sort of evens the odds for representatives of both parties. See, Roger McGuinn doesn't really like anyone, so what's the big surprise about the album selling more poorly than ever before?

In the light of these and other, not much better, failures at decent songwriting, the best thing about Dr. Byrds are its covers — starting with the hard rock of ʽThis Wheel's On Fireʼ, for which Clarence recorded a heavily distorted, brutally angry guitar part that suits the song's lightly apo­calyptic mood very well (the CD reissue adds an alternate take with a much lighter guitar arran­gement if you insist that hard rock and Byrds should never mix, but I don't think we need be so strictly prejudiced). Contextually, that track is pretty deceptive — the sequencing contrast be­tween its angry roar and the following sentimental country tweeting of ʽOld Blueʼ may be the single sharpest contrast in Byrds history — but I suppose it made some sense, to try and demolish the perception that from now on, the Byrds are a «country band», period. However, most of the other covers are country, with songs like ʽYour Gentle Way Of Loving Meʼ and the speedy in­strumental ʽNashville Westʼ totally belonging on Sweetheart and, in fact, being better than most of the stuff on Sweetheart (ʽNashville Westʼ has some pretty pleasing guitar interplay).

Still, by the time they get to the odd closing medley that puts Bob Dylan and Jimmy Reed on the same stage (how do ʽMy Back Pagesʼ, a song that the real Byrds already had recorded, belong together with ʽBaby What Do You Want Me To Doʼ? Nohow is the answer), by the time they do this, the overall impression of Dr. Byrds is that of a total mess. There are enough talented people here to guarantee that it works in bits and pieces, but they don't know where to go. They know where they don't want to go, all right — they don't want to engage in drugged-out hippie psyche­delia, and they don't want to fit in with the Nashville crowds, but they are unable to work out a true new musical genre that would take the best from both worlds, filter out the excesses, and still manage to sound intelligent and emotionally exciting. And although they'd have some time to sort it out later on, this is a problem that would haunt the McGuinn/White era of The Byrds for their entire three-year period of trying to fit in in a thoroughly changed musical world post-Woodstock and post-Abbey Road.

The Cardigans: Gran Turismo

THE CARDIGANS: GRAN TURISMO (1998)

1) Paralyzed; 2) Erase/Rewind; 3) Explode; 4) Starter; 5) Hanging Around; 6) Higher; 7) Marvel Hill; 8) My Favou­rite Game; 9) Do You Believe; 10) Junk Of The Hearts; 11) Nil.

Well, things change. Although the band's fourth record was made in the same Stockholm studio and produced by the same Tore Johansson, the sound has definitely... evolved. There is a clear drive here to make it more modern, by shifting a lot of emphasis over to electronics, drum machi­nes, and trendy trip-hoppy rhythms — forget the lounge jazz and retro-pop of yesterday, here we are trying to peep through the window of tomorrow. Does the music suffer? Hell yes, it does, al­though it also has to do with the overall mood in the studio: it's as if they all spent way too much time listening to Portishead, and now all they can think of are these slow, smoky, electronically enhanced grooves where atmosphere counts more than melodic hooks. (Not that Portishead did not have their fair share of melodic hooks — but if you are influenced by someone like that, first thing you're gonna try to emulate is the texture, not the chord progressions).

Anyway, upon overcoming the initial disappointment, once the bitter fog has cleared, it was quite a consolation to understand that on the whole, the melodic skills of Svensson and Svenigsson did not truly deteriorate (although, curiously, Svenigsson is credited only on two of the tracks; most everything else is co-written by Svensson with Nina), and that Nina's potential for seduction may be fully realized in an electronic setting just as well. Maybe that unique Cardigans magic is really no more, but this is still high quality pop music. I think most of the attention in 1998 was diverted to the controversial music video for ʽMy Favourite Gameʼ (ooh, road violence! blood! car crashes! censorship! real scary!); however, 1998 is long past us and we are now free again to just enjoy the music without the outdated MTV perspective.

ʽMy Favourite Gameʼ is actually a good song that does not forget to incorporate a strong hook, in the form of a nagging, «whimpering» three-note guitar riff that agrees beautifully with Nina's melancholic vocals — although behind that generall melancholy, there are few secrets to discover. The second single, ʽErase/Rewindʼ, with a funkier, more danceable groove and an intentionally more robotic vocal performance, was a slightly bigger hit in the UK, but it's actually less impres­sive because it's so monotonous.

Actually, the best songs here tend to be the slowest ones: they also take the most time to grow on you, but it is worth the wait. ʽExplodeʼ, for instance — what a fabulous vocal part, where each accented syllable is drawn out with so much eroticism, even if the lyrics do not formally have much to do with sexual tension (more like "explode or implode" is a metaphor for a drug ad­dic­tion, though the lyrics are deliberately ambiguous). Not much else by way of melody, but the somber organ and the jangly guitar (or is that a harpsichord part? hard to tell with those produc­tion technologies) provide a nice sonic blanket for the vocals. ʽHigherʼ is formally classifiable as adult contemporary — but that's a really soulful, sensitive adult contemporary chorus out there. It takes a special talent to sing a line like "we'll make it out of here" so that it combines both the op­timistic hope of getting out of here and the firm knowledge that we will never get out of here at the same time, and Nina Persson does have it.

Electronics and adult contemporary aside, they even managed to sneak a song here that would later attract the attention of the Deftones — ʽDo You Believeʼ is not exactly nu-metal, but it rocks harder than anything else on here, with industrial-style distortion of the riff and a «brutal» coda where the soft-psychedelic echoing of the chorus contrasts with the riff put on endless repetition. The lyrical message is the simplest on the album — "do you really think that love is gonna save the world? well, I don't think so" — and, as if in self-acknowledgement of the fact, it is also re­peated twice: yes, this whole record is about tragic endings, disappointments, and disillusion­ments, and sometimes they are going to shove it in your face quite openly. It's not very original, but it's honest, and as long as they still got musical ideas to back it up, it's okay with me.

So yes, Gran Turismo might essentially be qualified as Portishead-lite, but even if «lite» rhymes with «shite», this does not mean they're identical. The downfall of The Cardigans as a band with its own voice probably starts here, and as they add ʽErase/Rewindʼ to their hit collection, the number of people who know them for being providers of catchy, but faceless dance tracks begins to outnumber the number of people who know them for being wonderful musicians. But album-wise, in 1998 they were still playing a respectable game, so here is another thumbs up. And as far as combinations of guitars and electronica in pop music are concerned, this is still a lighter (and better) experience than, say, Madonna's Ray Of Light.

Cactus: Restrictions

CACTUS: RESTRICTIONS (1971)

1) Restrictions; 2) Token Chokin'; 3) Guiltless Glider; 4) Evil; 5) Alaska; 6) Sweet Sixteen; 7) Bag Drag; 8) Mean Night In Cleveland.

If the idea of the album title is that Cactus really knows no restrictions, I am sorry to say that they do, and that they are the exact same restrictions that made their first two albums look idiotic even in their most listenable moments. There are no attempts to change the formula here: we are pre­sented with a third platter of stiff, lumpy, leaden hard rock where thickness of guitar tone, fero­ciousness of percussion attacks, and loudness of lead vocalist matter much more than memorable melodies or, God help us, spiritual depth.

When the experience is over, you will probably want to ask yourself two questions: "Whatever made them rearrange Howlin' Wolf's ʽEvilʼ as a Led Zeppelin II-style rocker with a time signa­ture that makes a confused mess out of the vocals?", and "Is the idea of setting the lyrics of ʽSweet Little Sixteenʼ to the melody of ʽRollin' And Tumblin'ʼ supposed to mean something, or were they just randomly pulling out song titles out of a hat for a fortuitous mash-up?" Not that it's important to know the answers, of course: ever since the days of Vanilla Fudge, Bogert and Appice were the indisputable champions of the «50,000 Ways To Ruin A Good Song» game, so why should Restrictions be an exception?

As for the original songs, there is not a single one here that would be too memorable. The title track and the never-ending ʽGuiltless Gliderʼ, taking up most of Side A, are the obvious candi­dates for top pick, but ʽRestrictionsʼ refuses to come up with a decent riff, and ʽGliderʼ is just too busy riding one rhythm chord for most of its duration (interrupted by a drum solo, which is hardly a consolation). ʽAlaskaʼ quiets down a bit for a jazzier take on the blues, some harmonica solos, and lyrics like "I hear six months a year you get night time all day / I had to practice my harp to keep the polar bears away", and it still sounds silly rather than funny; and the final two minutes, called ʽMean Night In Clevelandʼ, are just slow, simple acoustic blues.

The only thing that could redeem the whole experience is the overall sound: the Bogert/Appice rhythm section is impeccable, so much so that I would probably enjoy this record much more if all the guitars and especially the vocals were deleted. Truly, this is one of those moments when you start lamenting over the absence of corporate songwriting — where the hell was Desmond Child when these guys needed him so much? He probably could have helped them out even while still in high school. Thumbs down.

Buddy Guy: Blues Singer

BUDDY GUY: BLUES SINGER (2003)

1) Hard Time Killing Floor; 2) Crawlin' Kingsnake; 3) Lucy Mae Blues; 4) Can't See Baby; 5) I Love The Life I Live; 6) Louise McGhee; 7) Moanin' And Groanin'; 8) Black Cat Blues; 9) Bad Life Blues; 10) Sally Mae; 11) Anna Lee; 12) Lonesome Home Blues.

Okay, so apparently «Sweet Tea» is the name of the recording studio in Oxford, Mississippi, where Buddy made that album — and also its follow-up two years later: an «other-side-of-me» companion piece, all quiet and acoustic as opposed to Sweet Tea's ferociously electric thunder­storms. On paper, this sounds like a promising idea that could work: in fact, it does seem like a much better proposition to replace the older sequence of «one kick-ass hard-rocking album, one boring commercial album» with a more basic «one electric, one acoustic» approach. Reality, however, turns out to be disappointing.

The thing is, Buddy Guy is not a great acoustic guitar player — much like his late buddy Hendrix, his «native» sphere is the electric guitar, where he experiments with tones, effects, feedback, and dissonance. Switching to acoustic, he just plays it: plays the blues, that is, like any averagely com­petent blues guitarist does (okay, make it «more than average», but still, there's literally hun­dreds of guys who have the same kind of acoustic technique and versatility as Buddy). Granted, the album is named Blues Singer, not Blues Player; but that hardly resolves the problem, since as a singer, Mr. Guy is also competent and convincing, yet not exceptional.

And even that is not the worst problem here. No, the worst is that for this record, Buddy chooses a varied selection of old classics typically associated with specific idols of the past — Skip James (ʽHard Time Killing Floorʼ), John Lee Hooker (ʽCrawling King Snakeʼ), Frankie Lee Sims (ʽLucy Mae Bluesʼ), Muddy Waters (ʽI Love The Life I Liveʼ), Son House (ʽLouise McGheeʼ), Lightnin' Hopkins (ʽBlack Cat Bluesʼ), and a few other, somewhat lesser names; and instead of offering the «Buddy Guy perspective» on all these guys, he pretty much tries to emulate every one of them. Excuse me, but this is just stupid — as if he were some kind of Shang Tsung-like sorcerer, having devoured all of their souls and exploiting them one at a time. He'd committed such errors before, plenty of times, but never, as of yet, had any of his records sounded like One Huge Error, stretched across fifty minutes' worth of wasted time.

It almost goes without saying that outside of context — that is, if you are not familiar with any of the originals — Blues Singer sounds quite nice. It's not as if Buddy showed no understanding of these tunes, or wasn't able to get a good grip on the melodies. It's even got a few enticing bonuses, like both B. B. King and Clapton offering guest solos on ʽCrawling King Snakeʼ (and it's not every day that you get to hear B. B. play acoustic guitar, either, though you can probably under­stand why upon witnessing his performance here). But why on Earth should one settle for an imitation of the real thing rather than the real thing itself? Unless your ears are completely insen­sitive for old mono production, crackles and pops, or unless you have made a vow never to listen to music that is more than 10 years old (in which case, as of 2016, this album is already obsolete as well), Skip James still does a better ʽHard Time Killing Floorʼ, because Skip James singing like Skip James... well, I dunno, sounds a little more authentic, for some reason, than Buddy Guy singing like Skip James.

The only reason why I do not think the album deserves a «thumbs down» in the end is that, on the whole, it shows good vibes and good will. Propagating the old classics is always worthwhile, and properly crediting the songs to their creators (or, at least, their classic interpreters) is a sign of honesty. Besides, an album that is competently performed, well produced, and consists of mostly good songs should not be called «bad» just because it is so utterly superfluous; and, after all, Buddy is one of the last surviving «original carriers» of the tradition, so at least it makes much more sense than if somebody like John Mayer came out with a record like this. However, it is also a sign that «being an original carrier» never guarantees top quality; and that being an old black bluesman from Louisiana does not automatically place you on the same level of spirituality and sensitivity as any other old black (dead) bluesman from Louisiana.