The Black Crowes: Three Snakes And One Charm

THE BLACK CROWES: THREE SNAKES AND ONE CHARM (1996)

1) Under A Mountain; 2) Good Friday; 3) Nebakanezer; 4) One Mirror Too Many; 5) Blackberry; 6) Girl From A Pawnshop; 7) (Only) Halfway To Everywhere; 8) Bring On, Bring On; 9) How Much For Your Wings?; 10) Let Me Share The Ride; 11) Better When You're Not Alone; 12) Evil Eye.

Hey, hey, it is only natural that the first album on which The Black Crowes start showing the first signs of getting into a real focused groove and — horrors! — learning how to shape their chord-picking into vaguely memorable forms, should get the cold shoulder from fans and critics. A sur­prisingly large number of them seem to love the first two albums, be sympathetic or ecstatic towards Amorica, and treat Three Snakes And One Charm as «the beginning of the decline». Decline? Where? In order to «decline», you actually have to shift your position — I mean, it's not as if the Crowes went techno here, or doom metal, or drum and bass (much as I'd love to see them try out any of these things). Or you could start writing worse songs, but from that point of view, it doesn't get much worse than Amorica, really.

Honestly, the first song, ʽUnder A Mountainʼ, is such a traditional mess of power chords, slide guitars, and lumpy mid-tempo drum pummelling, that I was expecting the album to be a carbon copy of its predecessor. But lo and behold, there are some signs of life, beginning circa track three: ʽNebakanezerʼ (what is this, a specifically Southern realization of Nebuchadnezzar?) sub­jects itself to the implantation of a distinct, important riff (even though its authorship hardly be­longs to the Crowes — it's a rather common chord sequence for roots-rockers), and, at the very least, becomes nicely fleshed out as a heavy country-rock song with a poppy chorus.

Maybe this is exactly what the fans are holding against the band — that it is trying to «sell out» by writing songs that one can, you know, whistle, as opposed to simply «dig that sound». Fortu­nately for the fans, the band is only succeeding at this task part-time: about half of the album con­sists of the usual drab mush. But ʽOne Mirror Too Manyʼ, ʽLet Me Share The Rideʼ, ʽEvil Eyeʼ, and particularly my favorite — ʽBlackberryʼ, these are songs that are, like... songs. Well, maybe not all of them. Maybe some. Maybe just one or two. Still, that's, like, progress.

They are even trying to be weird on occasion: ʽHalfway To Everywhereʼ, opening with a nice wah-wah lead, tries to bridge the gap between funk and boogie and has the Robinson brothers mess around with their vocals, making funny noises that I hope is not their take on scat singing, but is just a way of monkeying around to break up the pattern of endless boredom. It's not much, but it's much more than it ever used to be.

That said, my money is still riding on that silly cock rock anthem ʽBlackberryʼ (of course, these days it would rather be perceived as an anthem to a wireless handheld device, making the line "Hey Blackberry, look at my bumblebee" somewhat incomprehensible). It is short, tight, crunchy, safely pinned to a distinct riff, makes good use of stop-and-starts, employs the organ as a «tease» device, and does not begin to overload our ears until the proper climactic part, so it's even got some development to it. Formerly, some of the songs could have one or two of these elements, but not all of them at once.

All in all, I'd say that the somewhat cooler ratings and reviews for the album were triggered by the world's getting tired of the Crowes — the slight change in sound may have been used as a pretext, when in reality they were only trying to get away from the «vibe-based» approach to the «hook-based» approach, if only occasionally so. The usual problems all remain, including the bland vocals of brother Chris and the total lack of genuine inspiration on softer numbers (ʽGirl From A Pawnshopʼ is a Van Morrison-worthy title, but the song wouldn't have been saved even if they got Van to sing on it — it's simply one more big fat nothing). But the good news is that, regardless of whether they keep on loving their mush or not (and I guess they do), they are not content to stay soaking in it forever, and every attempt at modifying and diversifying the formula on the part of these guys is okay with me in advance.

Björk: Homogenic

BJÖRK: HOMOGENIC (1997)

1) Hunter; 2) Jóga; 3) Unravel; 4) Bachelorette; 5) All Neon Like; 6) 5 Years; 7) Immature; 8) Alarm Call; 9) Pluto; 10) All Is Full Of Love.

Doctor, we're losing her. If you want to call Homogenic the pinnacle / zenith / Olympus of all things Björk-related, you can make a great case for this, but even you will have to admit that the lady is getting a little... distant, perhaps? The cunning little sprite of Debut and Post has matured into a full-blown Lady of the Mountain, who no longer wishes to be playful and innocent, or is no longer capable of it. These songs are still gorgeous, and, to some extent, still accessible, but the production, the lyrics, the singing style, everything has evolved to the state that you are not sup­posed to «enjoy» these songs — you're supposed to kowtow. I mean, how is it even possible to look at that Alexander McQueen-designed sleeve photo and not kowtow? That sure ain't no frickin' Cio-Cio San staring you down from the front cover.

Still, I guess it had to be done, because no other album in the world sounds quite like Homogenic — and besides, if we're talking pretentiousness justified by atmosphere, I'd rate this over OK Computer in a jiffy, my usual predilection towards guitar music over electronic music notwith­standing. It is usually said that the album was mostly a tribute from Björk to her native Iceland, but it certainly goes well beyond that, and not just because of the extra Japanese motifs on the album sleeve. The soundscapes throughout are «icy» indeed, but due to the constant pressure of electronic texture, this «iciness» is more of a sci-fi, astral nature, so when you take your first listen to ʽHunterʼ, you might get a glimpse of the singer zipping through space, or, rather, as it happens, freezing space and time all around her so that it might be easier for her to go out hunting. There is a local reference in there as well ("I thought I could organize freedom / How Scandina­vian of me"), but it is of no crucial importance, nor are the lyrics in general of any crucial impor­tance — if you try and go for a more or less literal interpretation (transformation into a hunter = gaining of personal independence and self-sufficiency), it becomes way too boring.

What is not boring at all is admiring all the overlays — the overdriven martial pummelling of the programmed drums, the silky psychedelic cobwebs of the electronics, the strings adding a mid-Eastern vibe, the ghostly harmonies — this is a soundtrack to something completely different, the invention of an alternate world with alternate musical (and God knows what other) values, over which Björk has crowned herself freedom-organizing queen. You probably don't want to live there unless you're seriously deranged — too cold, too spooky, too unpredictable — but you are given the option to take a look from afar, and that's plenty already.

The Amazing Exploding Percussion on ʽJógaʼ (don't forget the accent sign, since the song has nothing to do with yoga, being named after one of Björk's personal friends) is said to be a tribute to Icelandic volcanic activity, but, once again, nobody is forcing anybody to narrow down the vision: she is singing about "emotional landscapes", after all, not "geographical" ones, and the famous chorus — "state of emergency, is where I want to be" — can hardly be related to Iceland, a country where people are said to be rather rarely found in a state of emergency (unless one of the volcanoes does erupt, I guess). What matters is the cathartic height of that voice, the soaring strings, and the electronic base all combining in an anthemic chorus that speaks this bizarre language, combining familiar sounds in such unusual ways. «Strange beauty» indeed, a fitting spiritual anthem for the era of the quark and the quantum.

The epicness reaches its peak on ʽBacheloretteʼ, a song that begs for you to envision Björk on the top of a tall, narrow cliff rising into the epicenter of a snow storm, but maybe that imagery was deemed too pretentious to be incorporated in the accompanying video. It is a damn risky song, taking so many chances that it teeters on the brink of crashing under its own weight, and, in fact, every time I see Björk doing it live, I can't get rid of a funny thought like "what's a little girl like this doing, singing a huge song like that?" But it works — it chooses all the right notes, tones, and overlays to show that the ʽIsobelʼ of Post has finally transformed from some po­tentially dange­rous, but rather amusing and cuddly entity into a demonic, tragic, and presumably lethal creature — or, at least, inaccessible. Who'd want to connect or relate to "a fountain of blood in the shape of a girl", or a "path of cinders burning under your feet"? The strings wail with such desperation, and the bass keys rumble with such a sense of doom that there are only two ways to go — hate this crap as an overblown theatrical put-on, or kowtow. For now, I'm kowtowing.

These three big singles are probably the pivots around which we launch the smaller satellites, but the album is definitely consistent. Some of the more personal, intimate moments are to be found within its folds — ʽUnravelʼ is a song of longing and yearning, an emotional state so tailor-made for Björk's voice that one wonders why it is not generated more often; ʽ5 Yearsʼ boards us back on the train of «I hate indecision and indecisive people!», with arguably the best bit of roaring on the entire record (at least, roaring that is not electronically enhanced, as it is on ʽPlutoʼ); ʽImma­tureʼ is a self-reprisal for a moment of weakness in which — fancy that! — the protagonist makes the awful mistake of relying upon somebody else, with a masterful vocalization on the chorus, each syllable of it getting its own flourish (no melismata, though, thank God).

But the coda, calming us and smoothly bringing it all back home after the wild sonic ravage of ʽPlutoʼ, is still an anthem — the Beatles had ʽAll You Need Is Loveʼ, implying a certain shortage of the stuff, and Björk has ʽAll Is Full Of Loveʼ, implying, in a rather pantheistic twist, that one only has to know where to look. The problem is, she is not being very convincing, because so far, she's given us everything except for the understanding of whether she actually has a clue about what love really is. Is there at all a thing like a «Björk love song»? Whatever be the case, her idea of «love» and how to express it in music is so far from conventional, you'd think it wasn't really love she was talking about. The music of ʽAll Is Full Of Loveʼ is meditative, soothing, and hypno­tizing, but putting the listener in a transcendental state is not quite the same as conveying a sense of pleasure or interpersonal affection. Then again, you wouldn't really expect Ms. Isobel-Bachelorette to share the average person's layman interpretation of love, would you? All I am saying is that ʽAll Is Full Of Loveʼ will probably not leave you feeling warm and cuddly all over, but it might manipulate you into realizing that all is full of Björk (or, if you are of the cynical persuasion, that Björk is full of... never mind).

A great, epic album, but also a tragic one, since it is always sad to see a human being cease being a human being and begin being an alien entity of questionable organic constitution — the album title being a good indication of this: Homogenic, not Human. From here on, Björk's further career can almost be predicted, with all of its highs and lows, as her conscience set out on a journey all its own, rarely crossing paths with basic human nature. But in the long run, it was worth it — anybody can choose a cut-off point in following any particular artist, and even if one were to argue that Homogenic destroyed Björk (which is not quite true, but looks good on paper), it would still be one of the awesomest self-destructions in the history of popular music. You are basically witnessing the nirvanization of a person, as she melts into little streaks of particles and vibrations right before your eyes on the ʽAll Is Full Of Loveʼ finale. When she returns back from the other side, she'll never be the same again. A thumbs up rating does not even begin to do this weird pantheistic record proper justice.

Black Sabbath: Seventh Star

BLACK SABBATH: SEVENTH STAR (1986)

1) In For The Kill; 2) No Stranger To Love; 3) Turn To Stone; 4) Sphinx (The Guardian); 5) Seventh Star; 6) Danger Zone; 7) Heart Like A Wheel; 8) Angry Heart; 9) In Memory.

We should not really take as an excuse that bit of historical trivia which says that Seventh Star was not supposed to be a «Black Sabbath» album, and that the decision to present it as such was thrust upon Tony by his management, in a publicity move that was even more dishonest than with Born Again (at least Born Again featured three original members of Black Sabbath — Seventh Star features one) and introduced a new brand of linguistic euphemism into the world: «Band X featuring artist Y» = «Artist Y who used to be in band X».

We should not take it as an excuse, not because somebody had the gall to discredit and dishonor a sacred brand, but simply because «that which we call a turd by any other name would smell as sweet». Wait, did I say «turd»? I meant to say Seventh Star, an album that introduces formerly great musical guy Tony Iommi to the pleasures of generic mid-Eighties pop metal and, along with Alice Cooper's Constrictor, has to count as one of the year's hugest disappointments, and a good reminder to all of us how those years used to bring out all the worst in rock dinosaurs, as the softer ones embraced adult contemporary and the harder ones were swallowed up in hair metal.

Yes, after the eventual and inevitable implosion of the Gillan-fronted version of Black Sabbath, whereupon, for a few years, it was thought that the band had finally been done in for good, Tony did really want to make a solo album, and Don Arden did persuade him that sales would be higher if it were billed as a «Black Sabbath» release. In any case, Black Sabbath did already go through three different incarnations, where Tony and Geezer were the only constant links, and with the advent of Dio and Gillan as full-time lyricists Geezer's role in the band was steadily diminishing away, so it could be said that in 1986 Tony Iommi was Black Sabbath, de-facto. And is Seventh Star really so different? If albums like Paranoid, Heaven And Hell, and Born Again are all Black Sabbath — despite sporting such different musical ideologies — why not Seventh Star? It's a heavy metal album, after all, little doubt about that.

A horrible one, though. Iommi's riffs, already quite questionable for the past decade, are not getting any better, whereas the production and commercial orientation are getting much worse. The Dio and Gillan-era records still had some «shock value» to them: doom-laden and snarling with Ronnie, as Mephistopheles went on the prowl, «drunk-evil» with Ian, as Mephistopheles settled down in a pub with a black eye, whining about how life's tough and all. These songs, how­ever, with a few minor exceptions, are completely user-friendly: singalong arena-rockers and power ballads that owe as much to Journey and Bob Seger as they do to classic Sabbath, if not more. Yes, I guess Tony wanted to try something new for a change, but I just have to wonder how the heck a guy whose art was formerly in such stark opposition to «user-friendliness» could allow himself to be duped into adopting this stylistics? Not that he was the only one, and it is also true that, with heavy metal gradually gaining mainstream acceptance, the values were being com­promised regardless of one's intent, but still, ʽNo Stranger To Loveʼ? Gimme a break.

The other cause for running and hiding is the backing band. The drummer, Eric Singer, was from Lita Ford's band (later on, he would join KISS and become really famous). The bassist, Dave Spitz, looked like a spitz, was nicknamed ʽThe Beastʼ, and went on to join Great White. The key­board player was Geoff Nicholls, who had originally played on the Dio-era albums and was brought back for his ability to master the synthesizer (so he is responsible for all the stuffy, plastic-soulful overdubs on the record). And the singer — oh God! — was Glenn Hughes.

Now since we are on the subject, let me make this remark: there seems to be a very important, very crucial difference between «power metal» singers like Dio (or Iron Maiden's Bruce Dickin­son, for instance) and Glenn Hughes (or David Coverdale, both of which were known to converge upon and destroy Deep Purple in the mid-1970s). From a certain point of view, they do more or less the same things — present the closest possible approximation to an «opera singer» in a heavy rock context; but since they are not actually «opera singers», the effect is corny and laughable unless they compensate by making their voice echo the brutality of the music. Dio and Dickinson do that all right, but Glenn Hughes just sounds like a pompous windbag, and now that the pomp is laid right over the lifeless Eighties production, the effect is unbearable.

A few of these songs could have been okay in a different world — ʽIn For The Killʼ, despite the unimaginative title that Budgie had already exploited in a much better way, has a hell-raising machine-gun hard riff; the 12-bar blues ʽHeart Like A Wheelʼ is surprisingly effective for a band that almost never does 12-bar blues (similar to the manneristic, over-expressive, and sometimes uunintentionally parodic style of Gary Moore, but with Tony's dark metal preferences redeeming the atmosphere a bit); and ʽTurn To Stoneʼ is at least fast, breaking up the mind-numbing depres­sion of crap metal ballads like ʽNo Stranger To Loveʼ and the title track (oh, actually, the title track tries to be some sort of stately mystical anthem à la ʽKashmirʼ, but with that production and Geoff Nicholls' rather pathetic attempt at incorporating a mid-Eastern flavor, it doesn't have much in the way of competition).

But ultimately, there is no sense trying to rescue and remedy any of these tracks in your imagina­tion, unless one day somebody actually does that in real life. So there are only two further re­marks to accompany the unfortunate thumbs down: (a) apparently, there is a 2-CD deluxe edition of this bunch of crap (actually, the second disc is just a recording of a 1986 live show, with Ray Gillen replacing Hughes; but still, the word «deluxe» shouldn't be caught dead near the title of this album); (b) the oh-so-1986 video for ʽNo Stranger To Loveʼ is notorious for featuring a slightly younger Tasha Yar from Star Trek TNG — naturally, with the requisite big hair, so if you're a fan of Star Trek (or a fan of big hair), you should probably check it out. Actually, they all have big hair in the video. It's a good thing Tony's was always a bit curly by itself — he's the only guy in the band to mostly keep his own.

Bloodrock: Passage

BLOODROCK: PASSAGE (1972)

1) Help Is On The Way; 2) Scottsman; 3) Juice; 4) The Power; 5) Life Blood; 6) Days And Nights; 7) Lost Fame; 8) Thank You Daniel Ellsberg; 9) Fantasy.

More accurately, I think the album's real title is Bloodrock Passage, since what we see on the cover is the image of a ship passing between what might look like two bloody rocks. In that case, the name of the band is either Zero, which happens to coincide with the number of positive emo­tions I get from listening to the album, or Led Zeppelin. In any case, this band is definitely not Bloodrock, an early 1970s Texan rock outfit that produced such grumbly monsters as Bloodrock, Bloodrock 2, Bloodrock 3, Bloodrock USA, Bloodrock Live, and that great lost masterpiece, Bloodrock Play The Entire Engelbert Humperdinck Catalog Just To Prove That Nobody Ever Pigeonholes A Real Texan.

What this new band is, having just lost Jim Rutledge and Lee Pickens, i.e. the only half-decent reasons one ever listens to a Bloodrock album, is a progressive rock band with a fixation on folk, classical, and jazz influences. The new singer guy... well, imagine the Rolling Stones losing both Mick Jagger and Keith Richards and replacing them with, say, Woolly Wolstenholme from Barclay James Harvest, because, I mean, who else do you turn to when you are really in such a desperate need to salvage the Rolling Stones brand? Except you have to downscale the volume a bit: Warren Ham is really no Woolly when it comes to talent. He is a competent singer, as well as saxophone and flute player, but all he really knew at that point was how to listen to others — Jethro Tull, King Crimson, ELP — and imitate them. Granted, this was better than what followed: in the early 1980s, Ham would be touring with Kansas, then he would go on to join Kerry Liv­gren's new Christian rock band AD as lead singer, and, finally, become a Christian rock solo per­former in his own limited right.

Of course, condemning an album like Passage just because «it ain't real Bloodrock» is silly. Passage is a very bad record not because it dares to replace the heavy riffs, gloomy lyrics, and scorching solos of classic Bloodrock with more formally complex progressive rock escapades, flute solos, and synthesizer-led jams, but simply because all of this music happens to be very, very boring. The songs, mostly co-written with Ham and the band's old keyboard player Stephen Hill, all seem like pale, limp shadows of their betters, without a shred of individual vision and nowhere near close to their general energy level. In fact, I'd rather have preferred them to be awfully distasteful and primitive, like Uriah Heep — as such, they are not even any use as a pun­ching bag. Just your basic bland, instantly forgettable crap.

Just a couple of quick examples will suffice. ʽScottsmanʼ milks the same territory as Jethro Tull's Elizabethan marches — in fact, its main flute part echoes the "I've come down from the upper class..." part of the freshly released ʽThick As A Brickʼ, which could hardly be a coincidence. But there is no sharp Martin Barre guitar accompaniment to give it teeth, nor does Ham's attempt at «heroic» singing (for which his voice is too weak anyway) have any stun power — second-hand copying at its most blatant. Further on down the line, ʽDays And Nightsʼ is stretched to eight minutes in order to incorporate a lengthy jam section, a large part of which is driven by a brass riff expressly taken from King Crimson's ʽ21st Century Schizoid Manʼ. Take it, but don't waste it — all it does is just hang there while the keyboard player noodles for several minutes around it with one of about eighty billion organ solos that were recorded in 1972 and all sounded the same (imitating either Emerson or Wakeman).

It gets worse, because Ham, Hill, and the rest of Hoodrock insist on being diverse and matching their progressive rock «skills» with time-honored Americana, so they also massacre funk (the one minute long introduction to ʽLost Fameʼ, after which it becomes an anthem to the power of the Mighty Moog), blues (ʽThank You, Daniel Ellsbergʼ, which has to be one of the lamest fusions of B. B. King with contemporary American politics that I've ever heard), and swamp rock (ʽThe Powerʼ). In conjunction with the original stiffness and lumpiness of the band's rhythm section, Ham's march-on-Christian-soldiers vocalizing and Hill's somnambulant keyboard tinkering re­duce each and every one of these genres to the nightmarish question of «does humanity actually need to listen to music, anyway?»

It is all so mind-numbing that I wouldn't even want to recommend the album to fans of Kansas — as much as I hate the band, at least it had its own silly schtick sort of worked out from the very beginning; Passage is just a meandering mess with no reason whatsoever to exist. Amazingly, the album almost managed to grope its way into the Top 100 — not so wonderous, perhaps, given the fact that Thick As A Brick had made it all the way to the top that very year, but at least, not too many people were tricked into a "hey, it's got flute on it, it's just like those groovy Jethro Tull guys!" mindset, so that's okay, and there is no need to accompany the thumbs down with any extra hatred. They pretty much got what they deserved, right on the spot.

Blue Öyster Cult: Tyranny And Mutation

BLUE ÖYSTER CULT: TYRANNY AND MUTATION (1973)

1) The Red & The Black; 2) O.D.'d On Life Itself; 3) Hot Rails To Hell; 4) 7 Screaming Diz-Busters; 5) Baby Ice Dog; 6) Wings Wetted Down; 7) Teen Archer; 8) Mistress Of The Salmon Salt.

It is still a little puzzling why the band decided to re-write ʽI'm On The Lamb But I Ain't No Sheepʼ from the first album as ʽThe Red & The Blackʼ, opening the second one, but at least the rewrite helps immediately tag the significant difference in style between Blue Öyster Cult and Tyranny And Mutation — beginning here and continuing throughout. Unfortunately, it is not a difference that would, from my point of view, seriously benefit the second album.

Although the basic ingredients (band line-up; the Pearlman/Meltzer connection, to which is now linked an additional connection with the still little-known underground personage Patti Smith; emphasis on hard rock values, mixed with a post-modern attitude) remain the same, Tyranny And Mutation is notoriously more «rock and roll» than the «mysterious heavy rock» of its pre­decessor. The production is clearer and much more in your face, as the guitar sound now brutally lashes you across it, rather than emerges from some distant dark enchanted forest. Eric Bloom and the rest of the singers rely more on the snarling, sneering «glam» posturing vocal attitudes on the day than the eerie, hushed, voodoo-drenched deliveries. The tempos are faster, the riffage is briskier and, on the whole, more generic (ʽO.D.'d On Life Itselfʼ starts out with one of the most common barroom rock patterns in existence). In short, most of this album will probably be more palatable for fans of the Faces or, say, Billion Dollar Babies-era Alice Cooper, than Black Sab­bath or Led Zeppelin. Sort of.

Which is not to say, of course, that the album is just «boring»: the band has simply switched to a type of music where it takes a little more effort to keep things enticing, and since they are still fresh and enthusiastic, they do manage to keep up with the challenge more often than they do not. The only condition is that one must learn to employ both gut feeling and intellectual reasoning at the same time to get the best out of tunes like ʽ7 Screaming Diz-Bustersʼ: the pure rock'n'roll punch of this seven-minute epic is incomparable with anything a band like AC/DC might have to offer, but its structure, switching back and forth between a maniacal «rock'n'roll rondeau» and a whole slew of different time signatures, compensates for this in an experimental manner. The «diz-busters» in question have not been identified, but, judging by the urgency and unstoppability of that main «choo-ka-choom, choo-ka-choom» riff, they are the modern world projection of the «four horsemen», presenting their own deconstructed strategy for the end of the world.

Other songs worthy of extra comment include ʽHot Rails To Hellʼ, which is a little more fast and a little more lyrically obscure than ʽHighway To Hellʼ, but essentially deals with the same pro­blem — and, for what it's worth, has a better fundamental riff, not to mention a far more imagi­native coda, in which the other riff of the song almost literally «gets fried» as you descend into "the heat from below" that "can burn your eyes out"; the Patti Smith-cowritten ʽBaby Ice Dogʼ (always refreshing to hear a female-penned lyrical piece begin with the line "I had this bitch you see..."), with one of the most minimalistic and saddest guitar solos ever committed to tape; and ʽMistress Of The Salmon Saltʼ, which starts out with the same chord punch that we all know from the far more famous ʽSpace Truckin'ʼ but then goes on to make a completely different point (not that I know what point, exactly, but at least it's a catchy one).

On the whole, though, the album tends to drag a little, especially everywhere where the band tries to be moody without being heavy — there isn't a single song on here, for instance, which would match the soulful tension of ʽLast Days Of Mayʼ or the spookiness of ʽScreamsʼ: something like ʽWings Wetted Downʼ, whose tales of black horsemen and echoes of empires also suggest apo­calyptic predictions, does not manage to infiltrate my mind on any serious level, sounding more like one of those second-rate late-Sixties psycho-art songs usually done by British people but sometimes copied by Americans as well, and they are not giving it any special flavor.

A thumbs up rating is still guaranteed in the end (wings wetted down, it all turns around), yet, in a way, one could easily build up a case against the band stating that «it all went downhill from here» — actually, it did not, but such an easy, almost casual dropping of some of their most intriguing properties shows how it could. On the other hand, if you prefer worshipping your blue oyster cult with less psychedelic smoke and fog, and more kick-ass rock'n'roll, your feelings will be reversed in comparison, so, naturally, this disappointment should not be taken as an absolute. Besides, this seems to be the very first appearance of a Patti Smith poem in the context of a rock and roll record, which sort of makes it a collectible by itself, I gather.

Agnetha Fältskog: My Colouring Book

AGNETHA FÄLTSKOG: MY COLOURING BOOK (2004)

1) My Colouring Book; 2) When You Walk In The Room; 3) If I Thought You'd Ever Change Your Mind; 4) Sealed With A Kiss; 5) Love Me With All Your Heart; 6) Fly Me To The Moon; 7) Past, Present And Future; 8) A Fool Am I; 9) I Can't Reach Your Heart; 10) Sometimes When I'm Dreaming; 11) The End Of The World; 12) Remember Me; 13) What Now My Love.

Maybe Agnetha's decision to break the seal and come out of her retirement was somehow con­nected to the big «ABBA revival», culminating in the stylistically atrocious, but commercially successful Mamma Mia! musical, along with other things. Maybe it wasn't, and she just felt like singing. In any case, nobody's expectations should be expected to run too high for a 21st century Agnetha album — but I also think that, to some extent, an album like this could be predictable: a nostalgia trip back to the singer's roots, consisting exclusively of covers of 1960s pop songs. And when I say «pop», I mean pop: Barbra Streisand, Jackie DeShannon, Cilla Black, Shirley Bassey, that sort of thing. «Girl stuff». Sappy sentimental ballads. Just the kind of stuff you'd obviously expect a teenage girl to be growing up with in the early 1960s.

Except for ʽWhen You Walk In The Roomʼ, which was always a great, upbeat, catchy pop song, regardless of who was doing it, I have little love for most of these tunes in their original incarna­tions — a «genrist bias» I have never really felt the need to be ashamed of: too much mush, not enough backbone (something that ABBA themselves used to remedy very well, which is why I'll always hold their music over, let's say, The Carpenters). However, a «pop standard», if it is estab­lished well enough, may shift its substance over time, and on albums like these, they are treated like cherished institutions: My Colouring Book is not really a record about sap and sentiment, but rather a gallant display of reverence towards the people and the sounds that influenced the current artist. From that point of view, I am actually more thrilled (if you could call it that) to hear Agnetha cover Cilla Black's ʽIf I Thought You'd Ever Change Your Mindʼ than listen to Cilla Black's original — after all, Cilla Black just wanted to be a star and have a hit, but Agnetha, with this cover, wants to thank Cilla Black for brightening up her day in 1969, and that, to me, seems like a way cooler type of emotion.

Of course, you could technically say that any time about any artist covering any other artist, but the advantage of My Colouring Book is that Agnetha really loves this stuff, and is very clearly doing this not for the money or because «somebody asked her to». She was never a great singer (in terms of individuality, at least), but she approaches this material in just the right way: re­strained, but tremendously expressive within the limits of that restraint, and considering that her vocal power has remained amazingly well preserved (at 54, her voice has deepened only slightly, retaining most of its range and power), it is safe to say that this is one of the best-performed re­cords in her career.

Production-wise, this is «retro» through and through: lots of strings, and mostly acoustic backing all the rest of the way (guitars, pianos, brass, drumming — there is a loud electric guitar part on ʽWhen You Walk In The Roomʼ, which is required, but strings and pianos normally dominate); again, compared with the average standard of 2004 this is almost «stylish», and, in any case, a much better proposition than getting her to «modernize» things, which might have turned into a much bigger disaster than the production on I Stand Alone.

Because of the «setlist», I cannot properly afford a thumbs up rating for this album: there is only so much shallow, overblown orchestrated sentimentality I can take per one sitting, and even if I somewhat admire the purpose of the record, it is not likely that I will ever listen to it again, nor can I actively recommend it to anybody who is not as much of a «lush pop buff» as Agnetha is. But one thing, however, I can say: all those people complaining about how those ABBA girls «had no soul» on those ABBA albums, and were merely technically going through the motions, unable to express or convey genuine emotion with their plastic deliveries, can take a hike — or, rather, should be forced to listen to My Colouring Book, lie through their teeth about it, and then take a hike. In particular, no «plastic soul person» should probably have picked out the Shangri-Las' ʽPast, Present And Futureʼ as one of her choices — a song that wasn't even a big hit, but was probably the coolest exploitation of Beethoven ever to express basic teenage emotion, and must have struck Agnetha senseless even way back when.

Black Box Recorder: Passionoia

BLACK BOX RECORDER: PASSIONOIA (2003)

1) The School Song; 2) GSOH Q.E.D.; 3) British Racing Green; 4) Being Number One; 5) The New Diana; 6) These Are The Things; 7) Andrew Ridgley; 8) When Britain Refused To Sing; 9) Girls Guide For The Modern Diva; 10) I Ran All The Way Home.

Apparently, this was never meant to be the final BBR LP — the band members were just sup­posed to take a break in order to pursue solo ventures, from which, however, they never truly re­covered. Sad, because out of their three «proper» LPs, Passionoia is clearly the weakest one. It is not at all bad — in fact, it's intriguing as hell, and not any less intelligent and biting, and I'm all for having it and savoring it, it's just that it would look much better sitting in the middle of their discography rather than playing the part of an accidental swan song.

The thing is, on Passionoia Haines and Co. decided that it was time to frame their satire and maddening ambiguity in an «electro-pop» setting, highly derivative of Eighties' synthpop and, in some way, quietly heralding the soon-to-come trend of rock bands embracing vintage synthe­sizers and hopping into the 21st century on the shoulders of that weird, tech-crazed, decade's electronic wizards. But Luke Haines really plays nobody's game but his own, and, as usual, it is not easy to tell whether he actually likes these dance rhythms or if he just uses them to lure in the unsuspecting listener — dance, dance, dance, before you know what really hit you.

What I do know is that the pounding electropop beats disturb and confuse the subtlety, so im­portant for the total success of any given Black Box Recorder song. You can't beat those lyrics, or those pop hooks, or the usual deadly loveliness of Sarah Nixey's voice, but you can corrode them a little if you go too far, and contaminate the atmosphere. Certainly songs like ʽGSOH Q.E.D.ʼ or ʽAndrew Ridgeleyʼ (a veritable tongue-in-cheek ode to synthpop, choosing Wham! as its symbo­lic start-off point) should not be used as a natural introduction to the world of Black Box Recor­der: we wouldn't want anybody to think of them as a «dance band», even if you have to be really stupid to take ʽAndrew Ridgeleyʼ at face value.

That said, in the overall context of BBR's career, the point is taken: Passionoia is not so much this band's lesson in nostalgia as it is a lesson in history. Haines and Moore, using Sarah as their instrument of choice, go back to their childhood days (actually, one could say they go back to her childhood days, since Sarah is the youngest member of the three and it is only her teens that were properly soaked in the Eighties) and, basically, ruminate on what it was that made Black Box Recorder what it is today. Of all three records, Passionoia is the most extraverted one — there are endless references to Britain, British history, British culture, British celebrities, British edu­cation, and even though all of them are still made from within the safe frozen confines of BBR's glass house, this time around, BBR's beady eye is staring out, not in.

As usual, the songs are mostly great, despite the fact that this transition to electronic rhythms way too often prompts Nixey to trade in her nuanced singing for ice-cold spoken parts or robotic choruses (which she still delivers seductively). ʽThe School Songʼ takes ye olde tradition of lam­basting the cold and cruel educational practices of The System and makes Black Box Recorder a «proud» part of it — whoever takes the time to listen to this anthem to the end, gets "a grade A from the Black Box Recorder School of Song"; along the way, Sarah successfully plays the part of the monster teacher (although, frankly speaking, I wouldn't mind getting a double detention from the likes of her!) and instructs you to "destroy your record collection, it's for your own pro­tection", which is fairly sound advice, I'd say.

The major highlight and, not coincidentally, the least dance-oriented tune on the album is ʽBri­tish Racing Greenʼ, probably one of the creepiest pieces in the BBR catalog: the lovelier the tone in which Sarah is describing our conservative ideal ("a little cottage by the sea, a glass of gin, a box of chocolate"), the more disturbing is that post-chorus distorted guitar riff, and the very idea of "British racing green", ending each chorus with gravity and suspense, is used as a threatening symbol of... isolation? containment? self-sufficiency? whatever. Where a Ray Davies would have probably turned the same song into a hypnotic ad for his country, Black Box Recorder have this perfect balance between paradise and nightmare — just like on the album cover, where blissful poolside relaxation is contrasted with some poor slob floating face downwards in the same pool (a visual metaphor that is almost too blatant by BBR's own standards).

The same song also introduces the band's big problem with Lady Di ("Now I'm living in a chat­room with the Diana fan club / They sent a virus to my dream"), more fully explored in the vicious electronic-acoustic ballad ʽNew Dianaʼ — so vicious, in fact, that it would automatically preclude Black Box Recorder from turning into the nation's favorite band, had they ever nurtured such a thought. Although, frankly speaking, it is not a very good song: musically simplistic and vocally relying on a single repetitive hook ("I want to be the new Diana!"), it has less replay value than the similarly-themed, but not name-dropping ʽGirls Guide For The Modern Divaʼ, with a trickier vocal arrangement.

The sarcastic mask stays on the face all through the album, until the very last number: ʽI Ran All The Way Homeʼ, nearly free of any electronic coatings, states that "The novelty has worn off / We are not amused any more / If you really love me / You'll let me go home". Go home where, exactly? It does feel like an escapist anthem, but the way Haines, Moore, and Nixey built up their philosophy, it does not exactly leave them any particular room for escape. Then again, probably what they are talking about is still that same "home" of ʽIdeal Homeʼ, the cocoon-capsule, the «black box» that shelters the protagonist from the perversities of unprotected life — the whole song is just one more metaphor for a panicky existence in the real world, into which they'd briefly ventured out with their dance rhythms and pulsating synthesizers, and which they now abhor even more completely than before. At least, that's one possible hell of an interpretation.

Despite its particular and general flaws, there is still no way that Passionoia could be deprived of a thumbs up, and if you were taken in by the first two records, it will, at worst, let you down only slightly (at best, if you are a synthpop / techno lover, its computerized tissue will only be a further stimulus). As I said, the only reason for sadness is that with this record, Black Box Recorder bid us all fare­well without anyone knowing it. They did come together several years later, with two more songs written and released as a single circa 2009, but no album followed, and the band officially split in 2010. Of course, it may simply have been that they felt there was nothing more to say, and I get them: pursuing the same musical and ideological agenda, album after album, must be tedious for Luke Haines, and as great as the Black Box Recorder project has been, it has been really a «one-trick pony» type of project — I mean, Sarah Nixey is a perfect type of singer for this attitude, but she is rather one-dimensional, like so many femme fatales (Nico etc.), and if Black Box Recorder carried on for too long, they would have run the risk of stepping into the realm of self-parody. The only thing we can hope for now is that these three records do not fade away into total obscurity — they may be closely linked to a particular time and a particular place, but that time and that place are really so symbolic and so extendable to other situations that they will always find a grateful audience, like so many other «dated» arte­facts of quintessentially British culture.

The Black Crowes: Amorica

THE BLACK CROWES: AMORICA (1994)

1) Gone; 2) A Conspiracy; 3) High Head Blues; 4) Cursed Diamond; 5) Nonfiction; 6) She Gave Good Sunflower; 7) P. 25 London; 8) Ballad In Urgency; 9) Wiser Time; 10) Downtown Money Waster; 11) Descending.

The front sleeve photo, taken from a 1976 issue of Hustler, would honestly have been a better fit for one of those late-period Aerosmith albums, or some particularly sleazy hair metal band — The Black Crowes probably have nothing against pussy or patriotism, but their music pretends to be much more about «soul» than about «flesh»: the only exception here is ʽShe Gave Good Sun­flowerʼ, brimming with lyrics like "I feel warm in your blizzard / And your flood I crave", but even those are delivered in a ballad-like context. The Robinson brothers are chivalrous Southern gentlemen, see, and they would rather sing and play their hearts out to the ladies than grope for those panties straight away.

If only they knew how to sing and play their hearts out in the context of a well-written song, though, Amorica could have been one hell of an album, because the band has accumulated con­fidence, experience, and is now expanding its stylistic horizons by learning how to be funky and add some life-loving swing to their day. All it'd take would be one gentle push in the proper direc­tion of making these grooves more interesting — but, unfortunately, their new producer, Jack Joseph Puig, whose credentials have since then also included No Doubt, Vanessa Carlton, John Mayer, and The Pussycat Dolls (that should give you some idea) was not the right guy to administer that push.

Again, let us just take a couple of songs and try and see what's so wrong about them. ʽGoneʼ, opening with some cowbells and Latin percussion in the style of Steely Dan's ʽDo It Againʼ, quickly develops a decent groove in the style of The James Gang's ʽFunk #49ʼ. But «decent» does not mean «breathtaking»: really, almost anybody can master those scratch guitar patterns, and what is really needed here is development — which is thoroughly lacking, as the band just jams around a single chord, getting some lumpy volume up for the chorus and leaving it at that. For five minutes, their funky jet attempts to get off the ground, but never manages to do much except waste fuel. The sound is thick and dense, with several low-pitched guitar parts drowning each other out, and the drummer really tries to bash his drum kit into the ground, meticulously and monotonously, but that might just be where the root of the problem lies — they are trying to be very funky and quite heavy at the same time, like a... lead zeppelin? Well, unlike the first one, which somehow managed the trick, these ones are definitely going down.

A song like ʽP. 25 Londonʼ, with its blues-rock chords neatly arranged in a pop hook, faintly hints that the Crowes could be proper hookmeisters had they really put their hearts to it, but in general, each new song steadfastly demonstrates, over and over again, that they are perfectly happy to stick to their usual guns as long as the public is content to love them for their style. The biggest hit from the album was ʽA Conspiracyʼ, a song whose verse melody is one of the lamest exercises in syncopation I've ever heard and whose chorus melody is practically non-existent — so how the heck did it ever manage to slide up the charts without a half-inch of grease? ʽWiser Timeʼ, the other single, sounds like contemporary Lynyrd Skynyrd — meandering slide-based country-rock with faux dramatics — and only ʽHigh Head Bluesʼ, the third single, features any­thing resembling a memorable riff, but, as usual, wastes it in a sea of sludge.

Once again, reading all the positive reviews and fan paeans for this album, I have to shake my head and ask myself — what exactly about this record am I not getting, when I so sincerely like most of its influences, even the Southern rock ones, everything from the Allmans to early classic Skynyrd? Why does it all seem so much like a lifeless, electrocuted corpse of genuine rock'n'roll music, which so many people are so eagerly ready to accept for a living body? Is it just because these guys emerged in the early 1990s, rather than in the 1970s, and this automatically makes me prejudiced? No, I don't really believe that. More likely, a record like Amorica will appeal to a «genrist» person — such as a blues-rock aficionado, content to admire anything as long as it com­petently satisfies the basic rules of the genre — or to somebody who caught the Crowes bug while in his teens, without prior exposure to the musical fathers of Americana. Either that, or I am really not getting something about this seemingly bland, turgid vibe.

Come to think of it, judging by a reader comment on Mark Prindle's site about how "P. 25 Lon­don is universally regarded as the suckiest song on this album" (I personally find it at least the most memorable song here, which might as well mean «best»), me and the world really wouldn't see eye to eye on these guys. I give Amorica a thumbs down just like its predecessor, and, with a sigh of temporary relief, unlock this tedious ball and chain from my leg for a while — that is, till the next album.

Björk: Telegram

BJÖRK: TELEGRAM (1996)

1) Possibly Maybe (Lucy mix); 2) Hyperballad (Brodsky Quartet version); 3) Enjoy (Further Over The Edge mix); 4) My Spine; 5) I Miss You (Dobie Rub Part One, Sunshine mix); 6) Isobel (Deodato mix); 7) You've Been Flirting Again (Flirt Is A Promise mix); 8) Cover Me (Dillinja mix); 9) Army Of Me (Masseymix); 10) Headphones (Ø Remix).

Remixing is a special type of artistic expression — unless we're simply talking body-oriented stuff («special dance mix» that goes on for 12 minutes until you're ready to smash your head against a brick wall, etc.), formal symbolism usually matters more than any emotional reaction: you just take a song and have your own imaginative way with it, playing the part of a crooked mirror. It must be tremendous fun for the remixer, but it should rarely be much more than a curio for the listener. Nevertheless, Björk has always had a special thing for remixes: in fact, back in 1994 she'd already given the green light to an EP of remixes from Debut, with Black Dog, Sabres Of Paradise, and other artists contributing, and now, in 1996, along comes Telegram — a full-length follow-up to Post containing remixes of all but two songs from that album.

To be accurate, Björk herself has stated that it is not so much a «remix» album as an experiment in «deconstruction», pulling the songs apart, extracting the «core» and exaggerating it to an al­most absurdist effect. A fair enough description, but it does not work for everything. It certainly covers something like the Graham Massey «remix» of ʽArmy Of Meʼ, which essentially drops out everything except for the grumbly bassline, then samples a tiny bit of the vocals, grinds them down in a Vocoder-like environment, and mixes the results in an electronic jungle generator. But it does not work, for instance, in the case of ʽHyperballadʼ, where the original electronic instru­mentation is replaced by an entirely new modern classical arrangement, provided by The Brodsky Quartet — not a «deconstruction», not a «remix», but rather just an entirely new vision for the song, with lots of classical dissonance that might actually be a better sonic fit for Björk's heroical-hysterical delivery of the tune.

These two extremes demonstrate the major virtue of Telegram — diversity and unpredictability. Naturally, the «remixes» lean towards dance-oriented or trance-oriented electronic rhythms, but the remixers have been carefully selected to reflect a variety of musical styles and atmospheric approaches, and the «Björk seal of approval» is certainly not given out at random: everything has to combine in a way that would deepen and sharpen the «Björk enigma», make those Post songs that were never all that trivial in the first place pose far more questions than there could be an­swers. Of course, when you ask more questions than you give answers, you run the risk of ma­king it all seem like one grand put-on. Why do LFO think that the vocals in ʽPossibly Maybeʼ have to sound like the female equivalent of Stephen Hawking? Why is ʽEnjoyʼ being put in hard­core industrial mode, with factory machine noises as the only counterpart to the vocals? Why does ʽCover Meʼ get a fussy drum and bass arrangement, not to mention being three times as long as the original? Why do we have to listen to all this as an official Björk LP release?..

All these questions can have from one to infinity answers, so I am not even going to bother. In­stead, let me just mention that the only totally new track here is ʽMy Spineʼ, originally the B-side to ʽIt's Oh So Quietʼ, featuring fabled Scottish virtuoso deaf percussionist Dame Evelyn Glennie on a magnificent vibraphone part (where each bar, apparently, is symbolic of one of the vertebrae in Björk's vertebral column). It's a beautiful duet whose exclusion from Post was regrettable, but at least it has not disappeared into thin air completely.

Ultimately, is Telegram a Björk album at all? Seeing as how she is not responsible for all the ar­rangement ideas on the original Post anyway, and that all of the songs are hers, composition-wise, and the vocals are hers, and the track selection is hers, it probably should be. «Those songs can work this way, too», she tells us, and we have the right to respect or to trash that artistic decision, whichever way we feel. Personally, I've always felt intrigued and even a little thrilled by these remixes, even though I've never been able to say that I «get» them, or the concept of the album in general. That said, Telegram is supposed to work faster than Post, so this means we probably shouldn't tarry too much on the issue. It's just a speedy curio, here today, gone tomorrow. But it does work, sort of, as an album, so do not make the mistake of ignoring it if you're really into Björk at all; have my slightly puzzled thumbs up as an extra endorsement, if need be.

Black Sabbath: Born Again

BLACK SABBATH: BORN AGAIN (1983)

1) Trashed; 2) Stonehenge; 3) Disturbing The Priest; 4) The Dark; 5) Zero The Hero; 6) Digital Bitch; 7) Born Again; 8) Hot Line; 9) Keep It Warm.

Tony Iommi certainly knows a great singer when he hears one, but the flipside is that Tony Iommi never really knows when the singer in question is thoroughly incompatible with the basic idea of «Black Sabbath». At least when they got Ronnie, they got themselves dungeons, dragons, kings, and queens, which was not that far removed from taking Lucifer's hand or playing the role of a repenting megalomaniac. But when, on manager Don Arden's suggestion, after the Live Evil fiasco they invited Ian Gillan, the result was... comical.

No, really, Born Again is, in fact, the most unintentionally funny Black Sabbath album ever re­leased. Tony, honest and hardworking guy as he was, came up with the usual dark, hellish melo­dies, but you couldn't find a less dark, hellish lead singer than Ian Gillan unless you went directly to the Sha Na Na training grounds. So he used to be the frontman for that «heavy metal» band, Deep Purple, but all those years he was just a reckless rock'n'roll singer, not even close to a prophet of doom or something like that. And now here he was, writing lyrics and contributing vocal melodies for Satan's household band! If you think this sounds ludicrous on paper, just wait until you hear the album.

This mismatching is so hilarious that it pushes the «camp» value of the album sky high. Never even mind the surrounding paraphernalia — such as the snarling red baby on the front sleeve, or the grotesquely massive, miscalculated Stonehenge stage sets that the band took on tour along with dwarves and mushrooms (inspiring one of the most famous bits in Spinal Tap) — the record is grotesquely campy all by itself, although some context knowledge is probably necessary to assess and savor that campiness in full.

A good example is the opening number, ʽTrashedʼ. Formally, it is just a fast rocker commemora­ting a special event in Ian's life with the band (getting drunk and trashing his car). But there is no way you could listen to it without associating the song with the melodically similar ʽHighway Starʼ, one of Deep Purple's biggest hits. Similar, but different: where ʽHighway Starʼ exuberantly celebrated the art of dominating the road, becoming one of its generation's most arrogant rock'n'roll anthems (hooray to the power of youth, brute force, ambition, and desire), the hero of ʽTrashedʼ is the victim of the ʽHighway Starʼ lifestyle a decade later. Older, balder, sleazier, whinier, far more miserable, and sort of down on his luck — the most memorable line in the song is the twice-repeated "...but there was no tequi-i-i-i-ila!..", as if that was the most tragic aspect of the situation. Needless to say, it is also one hell of an anti-climactic opener after the Dio-era blitz­kriegs of ʽNeon Knightsʼ and ʽTurn Up The Nightʼ, especially if you throw in the argument that Gillan's voice had already begun to deteriorate by that point, getting higher and whinier.

Ironically, Iommi seems anything but spent. It is clear that he did listen to some Deep Purple, as an homage to Ian (in fact, he was even gallant enough to add ʽSmoke On The Waterʼ to the set­list), but he must have also been intently listening to the New Wave of heavy metal, and perhaps even to some first offshoots of the emerging thrash metal scene, although there is certainly much more Judas Priest in the air here than Metallica. As long as it's heavy and doomy, there is quite a bit of melodic diversity in the songs — not that it always helps the particular melody, but the man was still searching, that's for sure. Abysmal production, though: the guitars frequently sound as if coming from the bottom of a medieval well, and Gillan's vocals are mixed in from a different well a couple dozen yards away. If you are going to play like Judas Priest (ʽHot Lineʼ), couldn't you at least produce your records like Judas Priest?

Still, the album produced at least one classic metal tune: ʽZero The Heroʼ is an atmospheric mas­terpiece, and possibly Iommi's highest point of the decade — after the spooky, screechy introduc­tion (with guitars that sound like a cross between whining red babies and a beehive gone mad), comes a simplistic, terrific riff, totally on par with anything on Sabbath Bloody Sabbath and not at all spoilable even with the song's rather dumb-sounding chorus or the fact that Ian prefers to rap rather than sing through the verses. Tony's extended soloing is also a highlight — in fact, the song might have worked even better as an instrumental, but, on the other hand, the song's social message (essen­tially, it's all about the power of brainwashing) agrees with the scorched-earth onslaught of the main riff as being symbolic of the dehumanization process, and Ian likes these songs that stir up righteous anger emotions, so let us forgive him the lack of a strong chorus.

I wish I could tip my hat in a similar manner to any of the other songs, but this just does not seem possible. A few are messy beyond repair, such as ʽDisturbing The Priestʼ, with idiotic fits of «evil» laughter; vague, scattered metal chords that never come together in a meaningful riff; and a lot of vocal posturing without any particular reason (allegedly, the words were written by Ian after some local priests had complained of the band's rehearsals disturbing their peace, and it does seem like the truth). The title track is a slow, draggy power ballad — a direct precursor to the disaster of Seventh Star lying ahead; boring, murkily flanged guitar sound and a lead singer who once used to sing effortlessly with tons of soul, but now has to basically kill himself in the studio to achieve the same effect, and still the effect is not achieved. And songs like ʽDigital Bitchʼ are just gross ("keep away from the digital bitch, she's so rich, the digital bitch" is the kind of a chorus where even Ozzy would have ended up with a facepalm).

A total critical disaster upon release, Born Again has been reevaluated over the last couple of decades — with the original shock at the Gillan/Iommi mismatch overcome, people have begun praising some of the music, recognizing at least the fact that this is far from Iommi's worst half hour as a composer. Indeed, the novelty value alone should earn the album some points, but other than ʽZero The Heroʼ, the songs just do not seem to have any replay value. The singer is not only mismatched, but his voice is shot as well, most of the time. The production is gray and murky (and even though Bill Ward has been restored to the drum seat, I wouldn't ever know by myself, because his skins now have a glossy electronic coating that was all the rage back then, and ended up reducing most of the drummers' individualities to a uniform pulp). And the melodies, diverse as they are, seem way too lazy way too often, as if Tony were content to adopt one or another style without taking any time to bother about the substance.

All in all, even though I no longer hate the album like I used to, but rather just feel amused about it, this is not enough to shift the final thumbs down evaluation — a curious failure, this one. Not that the band was too tight-assed to admit it: Gillan himself has since then acknowledged that he was probably the worst singer Black Sabbath ever had (even though he had a great time with the band); I'd say he is doing a huge favor to Tony Martin (not to mention Glenn Hughes), but some­times self-criticism is not merely a form of humility, you know.

Bloodrock: Bloodrock Live

BLOODROCK: BLOODROCK LIVE (1972)

1) Intro; 2) Castle Of Thoughts; 3) Breach Of Lease; 4) Lucky In The Morning; 5) Kool Aid Kids; 6) DOA; 7) You Gotta Roll; 8) Cheater; 9) Jessica; 10) Gotta Find A Way.

Quite superfluous, really. When it comes to hard-rocking bands playing live, you generally expect them to pull all the stops that haven't already been pulled in the studio, but this particular live album shows there was fairly little left to pull. So little, in fact, that Jim Rutledge even went all the way to dishonor the band by including two studio tracks, slightly remixed and overlaid with fake applause (ʽYou Gotta Rollʼ and ʽCheaterʼ), because, apparently, there was not enough material for a proper double live album. Considering that the final recording still only lasts for barely over an hour, they could have easily gone with a single long LP instead of two short-run­ning ones instead — but double (and triple) live albums being all the rage circa 1972, Bloodrock preferred a different shade of shame. Come to think of it, maybe they thought that by mid-1972, nobody would remember how the old tunes went anyway.

The actual live recordings cover the band's first three albums (U.S.A. is not included at all, pro­bably because the live shows were played before its release) and, for the most part, are under­whelming. The mix is good enough, and the band gels together fairly well, but the songs are played in rather strict accordance with the studio originals, small minutiae notwithstanding, and even if the setlist is consistently strong (with the possible exception of ʽLucky In The Morningʼ, although that song, with its arena flavor and hymnal pretense, is clearly a natural candidate for a live highlight), the band does virtually nothing to expand on the songs' potential.

The only exception is an extended version of ʽGotta Find A Wayʼ, mainly through the addition of some unimpressive jamming and organ soloing and a very shaky, faux-energetic bit of audience participation (which, among other things, comprises Jim Rutledge trying to scat in between the collective clamoring — not a very harmonious activity). In the end, that makes the song worse than it used to be, while everything else is just about the same. And you know there's something deeply not right with a hard rock band if it simply replicates its hard rock sound on stage.

I mean, even AC/DC tried to rip it up harder than in the studio — not an easy task, but occasionally, they did manage. Bloodrock, on the contrary, do not even try. Maybe it is because they thought of themselves as an «art» band rather than just rock'n'rollers, but, well, they thought wrong: these songs need to be crispy and crunchy — simply reproducing all the lumpy slowness of ʽBreach Of Leaseʼ and ʽD.O.A.ʼ the way it used to be does not work. I cannot give the album a thumbs down, since the setlist saves it fairly well — in fact, feel free to use it as an introduction to the basic Bloodrock sound if you wish — but, unfortunately, it will not let you know anything (good) about Bloodrock that you did not already know otherwise, even though it should have.

Blue Öyster Cult: Blue Öyster Cult

BLUE ÖYSTER CULT: BLUE ÖYSTER CULT (1972)

1) Transmaniacon MC; 2) I'm On The Lamb But I Ain't No Sheep; 3) Then Came The Last Days Of May; 4) Stairway To The Stars; 5) Before The Kiss, A Redcap; 6) Screams; 7) She's As Beautiful As A Foot; 8) Cities On Flame With Rock And Roll; 9) Workshop Of The Telescopes; 10) Redeemed.

Heavy metal does not really need to be stereotyped. While there is no escaping the fact that dis­torted heavy riffage will inescapably be associated with «the forces of evil» in one way or another, there is really a lot of different opportunities, and dungeons, dragons, Mordor, Satan, wars, gore, guts, nuclear apocalypse, and the Four Horsemen are only a subsection of these. By the early 1970s, though, Led Zeppelin sort of epitomized the magical-mystical-medieval aspect of the heavy metal business, Black Sabbath prioritized intimate relationships with The Horned One, and that, kinda sorta, was it.

Two bands, emerging more or less at the same time, showed, however, that heavy metal (or heavy rock, at least — without getting bogged down in terminology) could be made to sound quirky, ironic, and tongue-in-cheek. The lesser one of the two was Budgie, and the bigger one was Blue Öyster Cult. In fact, that umlaut over the O pretty much says it all: a humorous quasi-«Ger­manization» of the band name, suggesting some sort of terrifying Teutonic brutality, but at the same time so self-consciously silly that not even the dumbest fan of this band would probably be tempted to check the proper spelling of the word «oyster». Come to think of it, it is even hard for me to imagine how this band could have had any dumb fans in the first place — certainly not in their earliest and finest period.

What can one say, really, about a band that was managed and directed not by one, but by two art critics and intellectuals? Sandy Pearlman «manufactured» the band way back in 1967, when they were still called «Soft White Underbelly», in order for them to write music to his lyrics, and later on, Richard Meltzer, his fellow student and author of The Aesthetics Of Rock, also joined in the fun. Blue Öyster Cult were their «experimental Monkees», in a way, although all of the band members participated in the songwriting process from the very beginning (on the debut album, five of the songs are co-credited to Pearlman, two to Meltzer, and three were written without any inteference from the literary gurus).

Interestingly enough, the band's earliest opera sucked plenty: several of their recordings from 1969, when they were engaging in some sort of comical bluegrass-rock, are appended as bonus tracks to some of this album's CD editions, and they are uniformly boring and instantaneously forgettable, regardless of the lyrics. It all changed overnight, with the release of Black Sabbath's first album — suddenly, the band had a point: they were to become the «intellectual equivalent» of the Sabs, playing comparably heavy, but less predictable music, set to first-grade rock lyrics that would clearly expose Geezer Butler for the lazy schoolboy that he was.

Under different circumstances, the album may have been an epic failure — the band could have turned out to be too smart for its own good, and from a commercial angle, they certainly were: Blue Öyster Cult only barely scraped the charts, probably allowing the band to make about as much money as would be enough to cover Ozzy's 24-hour coke supply. Hip New York critics loved them, though, with Lester Bangs himself issuing a glowing review in Rolling Stone, and they had their point: Blue Öyster Cult were weird and unpredictable, but they also rocked. At their best, these songs can be wild snarling beasts, or they can be sizzling pots of voodoo gumbo, or they can be loaded with heavy soul — these guys, hired by Pearlman and pointed in the right direction by Meltzer, turned out to be classy, evocative musicians.

The music is not really as heavy as Sabbath or Zeppelin: there is only a small bunch of monster riffs on the album, and it is just as strongly influenced by basic boogie-rock or moody pop-rock in the style of The Doors as it is by the metal masters. Lead vocals, alternately shared by four out of five band members, are efficient, but nothing to write home about. Technically, that is: when it comes to delivering the basic storyline, Eric Bloom is an effective actor, as are most of his col­leagues, who all like getting into character, be it the sad, moralistic storyteller in ʽThen Came The Last Days Of Mayʼ, nobly and epicly narrated by Buck Dharma, or the arrogant hellraiser in ʽCities On Flame With Rock And Rollʼ, wailed and growled out by drummer Albert Bouchard. Melodies, arrangement tricks, vocal flourishes — most of the time they compensate for the (relative!) lack of brute power.

This is not exactly «thinking man's heavy metal», because, fairly speaking, many of the lyrics are absurd or parodical, with Pearlman and Meltzer having more fun assembling and blowing up rock clichés rather than genuinely engaging the thinking man's thinking mechanisms; and the music is quite openly derivative, sometimes almost mockingly deconstructive (as when they suddenly launch into the melody of ʽMemphis, Tennesseeʼ in the middle of ʽBefore The Kiss, A Redcapʼ), and certainly not «progressive» in any possible sense of the word (and how could it be, with the music produced under the supervision of the author of The Aesthetics Of Rock?). None of which prevents the songs from being cool, classy, and kick-ass quality.

Being a sucker for a good heavy metal riff, I will not deny that ʽCities On Flame With Rock And Rollʼ, one of the tunes not having to do anything with the Pearlman/Meltzer agenda, has always been my instantaneous favorite on the album. The riff in question is derived from Black Sabbath's ʽThe Wizardʼ, but packs more suspense and condensed evil: this is really one of the best songs in existence that drives the idea of rock'n'roll exuberation through a filter of hellflames, Sodom and Gomorrah — the transition from the relatively merry chords of "let the girl, let the girl rock and roll" to the macabre "cities on flame now, with rock and roll" resolution is totally thrilling.

Other than that, I could not name any particularly outstanding highlights, but this is a good thing, because the album is amazingly consistent, and each song presents its own intrigue. ʽTrans­maniacon MCʼ announces the band's entrance as a scary eruption of the forces of evil, with re­ferences to Altamont, terror, pain, steel, "a plot of knives", and a nasty lead guitar part that bursts out in sneering laughter after each chorus — the band's own take on ʽSympathy For The Devilʼ, if you wish. ʽI'm On The Lamb But I Ain't No Sheepʼ further raises the stakes on tension and para­noia, its fast and nervous tempo matching the lyrics about a pursued fugitive (and the additionally sped-up, super-paranoid coda is pure genius). ʽStairway To The Stairsʼ uses brutal, bludgeoning chords and mutilated vocals that are reminiscent of ZZ Top's Texan rock (except ZZ Top them­selves had not yet quite mastered that style by 1972), and Meltzer's lyrics that poke fun at the newly emerged rock star image are right on the money.

The subtle-and-subdued vibe also agrees with these guys: ʽLast Days Of Mayʼ almost makes you want to shed tears for the poor drug dealer suckers betrayed and murdered by their own colleague in crime — roots-rock of the Eagles variety (Desperado was not yet released, though) turned on its head: Buck Dharma's show all the way, as he writes the song, sings it in a mournful, soulful manner with spiritual echo all around, and euphonizes the poor dead guys with the most ecstatic leads on the album. ʽShe's As Beautiful As A Footʼ is consciously absurdist ("didn't believe it when he bit into her face / it tasted just like a fallen arch"?), musically structured like a parody on the classic Doors sound, with Krieger-esque melodic leads, but endowed with a mystery aura of its own. And most chilling of all — the way ʽScreamsʼ opens with that ghoulish phased vocal track ("screams in the night, sirens delight...") right out of Hell's own lush antechamber.

Special kudos for ending the album with ʽRedeemedʼ, a song contributed to the band by outside friend Harry Farcas, utterly nonsensical and Bonzo Dog Band-ish in nature (apparently, ʽSir Rastus Bearʼ was the name of Harry's pet dog, but that doesn't help matters much), but it has the word "redeemed" in the title and in the chorus, so you get to think it is some sort of grand gospel folk anthem to logically wind things up, and it does sound uplifting and optimistic next to every­thing else on the album — another pop cliché, carefully extracted, bottled, processed, and muta­ted for public enjoyment.

In short, even if this is not Blue Öyster Cult's highest point (but it might be), this is definitely their atmospheric masterpiece — an album so tightly stuffed with mystery, intrigue, suspense, irony, and implicit intelligence that in many ways, topping it would be impossible, certainly not if they wanted to achieve commercial success. Not only that, but it is also a certain landmark in the story of «rock music taking an introspective look at itself», chiefly due to the Pearlman/Meltzer contributions, but then neither Pearlman nor Meltzer wrote or performed the actual music, so we have to assume the band members were totally in on the masterplan. «Black Sabbath meets Frank Zappa» — wouldn't be a totally legit comparison, of course, since there's a lot more other influ­ences here, and only a few of the Sabbath or Zappa features would be implied, but it could work for starters, especially if you need a tempting stimulus to get the record. Thumbs up from all possible perspectives: a record that is as intellectually stimulating as it is emotionally enjoyable.