The Cars: Heartbeat City

THE CARS: HEARTBEAT CITY (1984)

1) Hello Again; 2) Looking For Love; 3) Magic; 4) Drive; 5) Stranger Eyes; 6) You Might Think; 7) It's Not The Night; 8) Why Can't I Have You; 9) I Refuse; 10) Heartbeat City.

I must say, it still feels good to be so completely free of Eighties nostalgia that it is possible to openly state — Heartbeat City sucks from start to finish, despite being such an immaculately crafted product. I can enjoy some of the individual songs, and I can sometimes find things of deeper value behind the superficial pop gloss, but on a general, simplified scale Heartbeat City is a musical disaster. All of the Cars' records have «dated» to a certain extent, but none of them more so than this collection of bright, shiny mid-Eighties pop nuggets, fashioned so exclusively for the sake of commercial success and nothing else.

The band took a lengthy break after Shake It Up, during which Ocasek and Hawkes released their first solo albums and also had themselves plenty of free time to take a good look at the world's trending directions. Two trends that seemed obvious were: (a) «guitar bands are on their way out» with synth-pop and digital technology on the rise; (b) MTV power. Consequently, once they finally got together for the next effort in mid-1983, enlisting Robert "Mutt" Lange to pro­duce the album (you can't go wrong with a producer who was able to cover even AC/DC and Def Leppard in gold!) and relocating to London for the sessions (European flavor!), the two most important things were — get rid of most of the guitars in favor of synthesizers and electronic drums; and produce as many videos as possible, most of which, it has to be admitted, were far more innovative and fun than the songs they were supposed to accompany.

Oh sure, Heartbeat City has plenty of hooks — cold, mechanical, robotic ones; not cold enough to be Kraftwerk-icy and haunting, though, but simply cold enough to feel as plastic and lifeless as the opening ghostly vocals that greet you with their "hello... hello again". The entire track is a mix of several different, but equally simplistic synth parts (the main eight-note synth riff sounds like two robots vomiting in sync), toughened up with power metal guitar chords in the chorus, and no amount of tragedy in Ocasek's voice can salvage the garbage melody (which is garbage not because it is synth-pop, but because it is bad synth-pop: where Depeche Mode could tune their electronics to convey sadness, disillusionment, or even horror, ʽHello Againʼ and its ilk just sound like repetitive beeps and bleeps).

Uptempo pop songs like ʽLooking For Loveʼ and ʽYou Might Thinkʼ simply sound awful, and I would never accept arguments like «well, The Cars sounded like everybody sounded back in 1978, and now they just sound like everybody sounded in 1984 — what's the big deal?», because not everybody sounded like this in 1984, but only everybody obsessed with capitalizing on the latest trends, and the latest trends were «more synthesizers, less intelligence»: ʽYou Might Thinkʼ rides almost entirely on one five-note keyboard sequence (once you've heard the first two seconds of the song, believe me, you've heard pretty much everything), and relates to ʽGood Times Rollʼ in about the same way in which a Britney Spears «pop» song would relate to a Beatles one. Why the heck did it chart? Simple — because of the video, which was one of the first videos to use computer graphics, and combined computer effects with sleaziness to perfection. And don't even get me started on ʽMagicʼ, with its three-chord power riff and arena-rock chorus that sounds like very bad Boston. Was it really that hard to invest just a little more time and energy in such a thing as composing?

Ultimately, I count two out of ten songs that still have a magic touch to them after all these years. I should be hating ʽDriveʼ as a synth-heavy adult contemporary ballad, deeply derivative from 10cc's ʽI'm Not In Loveʼ; truth is, I have always been enchanted by Orr's vocal part — and the synth textures and ethereal overdubbed harmonies agree with it very well. Unlike most of every­thing else here, this track actually has soul, and plenty of psychologism: somehow, it just captures that «late night depression» vibe to perfection, and if you're ever in need of a little seance of self-pity, locked all alone in your room and stuff, ʽDriveʼ should be among the first tracks on that mixtape. Alas, Orr never replicates that success — already on his second ballad, ʽWhy Can't I Have Youʼ, he sounds plastic, manneristic, and theatrical in comparison.

The only other track that redeems the record is ʽHeartbeat Cityʼ itself (a.k.a. ʽJackiʼ on the ori­ginal US edition of the album). Uptempo and electronic like everything else, it is actually a deep­ly melancholic ballad that takes the «fun side» of the album and turns it on its head — the lyrics are somewhat enigmatic (nobody really knows who Jacki actually is, and why is it that every­thing depends on her presence or absence), but the feeling is quite unambiguous: one of being trapped, without hope of escape or change, in «Heartbeat City». You can just think of it as a song of lost love, or, like I like to do, you can expand it to include a bit of that old Roxy Music-influenced melancholic decadence — looking for true feeling and passion in a hedonistic-materialistic world ("there's a place for everyone under Heartbeat City's golden sun", etc.). In any case, this is the only track on the entire record where the looped synth pattern actually conveys emotion and per­fectly agrees with Ocasek's sorrowful vocal part.

It would be useless to give the album a thumbs down — it has pretty much passed on to legend, and it will take yet another wave of general disgust (this time, retrospective, which is much harder) for generic Eighties production and commercialism to give it a proper spanking, which a single negative rating could hardly hope to trigger. More importantly, I find it hard to condemn an album which still contains occasional flashes of inspiration and even genius: ʽDriveʼ and ʽHeartbeat Cityʼ are unimpeachable, and show that The Cars certainly did not «run out of talent» by 1983 — they just let themselves be sidetracked with the temptation of getting back on that elusive cutting edge. But «great album»? Come on now, it's a frickin' sellout — look the word up in encyclopaedias, and eventually you'll find a certain Peter Phillips art piece illustrating it.

Carole King: Tapestry

CAROLE KING: TAPESTRY (1971)

1) I Feel The Earth Move; 2) So Far Away; 3) It's Too Late; 4) Home Again; 5) Beautiful; 6) Way Over Yonder; 7) You've Got A Friend; 8) Where You Lead; 9) Will You Love Me Tomorrow; 10) Smackwater Jack; 11) Tapestry; 12) (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman.

I think that ʽI Feel The Earth Moveʼ is probably the single greatest Carole King song in existence. Inarguably, it is her most rocking tune — for all the softness of the arrangement, it rocks really, really hard: the syncopated piano/bass rhythm creates unbelievably strong tension, usually re­served for songs that tell stories about how bad it all goes, rather than declarations of sincere passion. It's one of those "love is a drug and I need to score" moments, even if Carole herself might not necessarily mean it that way, but from the opening chords and through all the instru­mental breaks it sounds like she's crying for help — "I just lose control, down to my very soul" should at the very least be addressed to a psychiatrist, if not a police officer. The only «tender» part of the song is the "oh darling, when you're near me..." bridge, but it offers merely a few brief moments of relaxed tenderness before the shivers start again. (There's a somewhat similar func­tion of the bridge section in ʽWhile My Guitar Gently Weepsʼ, I think). The similarity between the wobbling rhythm and an actual earthquake has been commented upon plenty — but what is really thrilling is this equation of loving feeling with a panic attack, always a refreshing way to revisit the age-old subject.

And that is just the first song on what is unquestionably Carole King's masterpiece — like I said, reducing all of Carole King to Tapestry is humiliating, yet there is no question that this record and no other has (a) the highest concentration of unbeatable pop hooks and (b) some of the grit­tiest, least cliched-sentimental moments in C. K. history. Every song here is at least good, most of them are great, and the lady really shows those mushy singer-songwriters the gold standard, al­though few of them ever came close — James Taylor and Carly Simon only wish they could have even one LP as consistent as Tapestry. In part, this is due to Carole still milking her backlog (ʽNatural Womanʼ, ʽWill You Love Me Tomorrowʼ), but this time, more than half of the songs are newly written, and they still show the songwriter at the top of her game.

At least James Taylor is said to have been the reason for ʽIt's Too Lateʼ, written after Carole's breakup with the fellow (she still got a friend, but something inside has died anyway). The song eventually overtook ʽI Feel The Earth Moveʼ in radio popularity, possibly because its emotional scope is simpler and more easily understandable, but «simpler», in this case, means «even more sincere»: it's a good example of the Big Breakup Song that, instead of blowing the sad aspects of what's happened up to ridiculously disproportional heights, simply puts an equation sign between the tragic and the mundane. The verses are quiet, introspective Latin jazz with one small drop of melancholia — the chorus is uptempo pop that says it like it is ("something inside has died" is de­livered as if the "something inside" were a dead gerbil), but leaves the melancholia droplet in the chord change on the "I can't hide and I just can't fake it" bit. It's a quiet, dignified farewell where the protagonist bares just a tiny spot of emotion, and your imagination does the rest.

The album is not «conceptual» as such, but its title, and the first line of the title track — "my life has been a tapestry of rich and royal hue" — is quite telling, because it has such a wide emotional spectrum. Optimism here, pessimism there, love confession on the right, breakup lament on the left — selfless sacrificial devotion of ʽWhere You Leadʼ replaced with the tormenting self-doubt of ʽWill You Love Me Tomorrowʼ, anguish and desperation of ʽHome Againʼ adjacent to the martial optimism of ʽBeautifulʼ; and in the middle of it all, just so you don't end up bored with all the love songs, comes an Elton John-ian (think Tumbleweed Connection) joke-pop-epic ʽSmack­water Jackʼ that advocates for gun control, justice, and lynch mobs in the most upbeat manner possible (Carole King was never much about American history or politics, which is probably why I find it so fun when she writes a song on one of these subjects). Anyway, the best thing about all these changing moods is how it all rings true — the melodies, the arrangements (heavy on piano and guitars, very moderate on strings), and especially the voice, technically flawed in any genre but capable of expression in any of them, be it folk, pop, gospel, or rock.

At the end of it all, the little woman experiences such a leap of confidence that she even sets out to reclaim ʽ(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Womanʼ from the clutches of Aretha — and in a way, she is better suited to sing the song than Aretha ever was: Aretha sang it like a powerhouse, which was somewhat at odds with the decidedly «anti-feminist» nature of the song — Carole sings it the way she originally intended, a song of... well, let's be kind and say of gratitude (not of submission, much as any militant feminist would probably like to condemn lines like "if I make you happy I don't need to do more"), and it also fits in well with the similar message of ʽWhere You Leadʼ. Both takes are classic, but the readings are very different, and my personal preferen­ces lie with Carole's (the same way I usually prefer Dylan's originals over covers that are more elaborate technically, but may easily miss all the ambiguous subtleties).

It's all a kind of sonic magic, of course — if I ever saw "you got to get up every morning with a smile on your face and show the world all the love in your heart" linked to in a Facebook post, I'd be hit­ting the Unfollow option faster than you could share, but when I hear it sung at the begin­ning of ʽBeautifulʼ, I can't actually help smiling: I mean, I might be doomed forever already, but here's a person that clearly believes what she sings, and even if she does not precisely practice what she preaches, the strong determination in this song — coming from such an obviously weak body — is admirable. As is, well, just about everything about this record, including even its front cover: fat tabby cats (especially when they're called Telemachus, adding either a Homeric or a Joycian note to the proceedings, you choose) agree very nicely with sweaters, bare feet, self-stitched tapestries, and showing the world all the love in your heart. Thumbs up.

Canned Heat: Boogie With Canned Heat

CANNED HEAT: BOOGIE WITH CANNED HEAT (1968)

1) Evil Woman; 2) My Crime; 3) On The Road Again; 4) World In A Jug; 5) Turpentine Moan; 6) Whiskey Headed Woman No. 2; 7) Amphetamine Annie; 8) An Owl Song; 9) Marie Laveau; 10) Fried Hockey Boogie.

Unlike Ten Years After or Fleetwood Mac, or even their American predecessors, the Butterfield Blues Band, Canned Heat were unable — or unwilling — to properly cross the line from imita­tion to originality. But at least they got tougher, and, second time around, the music has enough power, menace, and mystique to hold the listener's attention. Songwriting is pretty much non-existent — just about anything that is not properly credited to somebody else is still based on classic blues patterns. Thus, ʽMy Crimeʼ is really ʽHoochie Coochie Manʼ; ʽAmphetamine Annieʼ is ʽThe Hunterʼ; and ʽTurpentine Moanʼ is something by Elmore James that is not quite ʽDust My Broomʼ, but close. These things do not bother the big boys one bit, as they diligently supply their own lyrics, and by doing that, loyally imitate the behaviour of their own Afro-American idols, so to hell with anachronistic copyright prejudices.

The good news: the sound gets real fat. Thick, distorted basslines, gritty distorted guitars, and an uneasy premonition in the air — this is the coalesced Canned Heat, and they're ready to do it right this time. Actually, they are so smart now they don't even need to get all that heavy to generate uneasy premonition — cue the band's first big hit, ʽOn The Road Againʼ, where they take the standard John Lee Hooker ʽBoogie Chillenʼ line and use it as the foundation for a truly hypnotic groove — there's something about that combination of monotonous bass, trebly E/G/A guitar riff, soft, «lulling» harmonica, Wilson's trembling, childish falsetto, and buzzing tambura in the back­ground for extra psychedelic effect. Each single ingredient is simple as heck, but together they create a truly sinister sonic mix, as if old man Hooker were caught up in a real bad trip.

That said, normally the band goes for a heavier sound, and if you really want to catch them at the peak of their game, head straight for the last two tracks — the instrumental 12-bar blues ʽMarie Laveauʼ, five minutes of grinning distorted soloing from Vestine with Dr. John lending a major hand on the piano and throwing on some New Orleanian brass for support; and then the lengthy jam ʽFried Hockey Boogieʼ, which gives you even more of the ʽBoogie Chillenʼ riff, this time under a real heavy sauce, and then goes on to showcase the individual talents of the players with funny introductions from The Bear. Nothing too special, no, but there's something untangibly tasteful about the way they kick your ass all over the place with this stuff.

Surprisingly, I find myself enamored with the band's lengthy jams more than I find myself appre­ciating their shorter songs. With the exception of the haunting trance of ʽOn The Road Againʼ, and the acceptable humor of ʽAmphetamine Annieʼ ("this is a song with a MESSAGE!", The Bear announces at the beginning, and yes, the message is that "SPEED KILLS!", says lead singer in a band where two principal members would die from overdosing, including himself), every other non-jam tune is just okay: Larry Weiss' ʽEvil Womanʼ, for instance, would be very soon available in a ripping monster version from Spooky Tooth that would completely obliterate the Canned Heat cover, and then there's a bunch of other blues-rock tunes that come around, sound nice, and go away without regrets.

But the jams — oh boy, the jams, and it's all about the combinations: Vestine's sizzling guitar tone works delightfully well together with Dr. John's piano on ʽMarie Laveauʼ, and before there ever was ZZ Top, Larry Taylor and Alan Wilson were doing the ʽBoogie Chillen / La Grangeʼ groove with as much passion and verve as any Texan for miles around. They just seem to find that perfect balance between «letting their hair down», not being afraid of feedback, volume, and (occasionally) primal chaos, but at the same time also caring about sheer professionalism and musicality — this makes their jams more rock-'n'-roll-style-exciting than those of their psyche­delic contemporaries, but also more intelligent and restrained than the Blue Cheer / Vanilla Fudge / Cactus-style heavy bands. Only thing I can say is that having John Lee Hooker among your top influences really helps with the vibe (and I'm sure Billy Gibbons would agree as well) — oh yes, and even despite its more boring moments, the album still gets an enthusiastic thumbs up.

Cher: Cher

CHER: CHER (1966)

1) Sunny; 2) The Twelfth Of Never; 3) You Don't Have To Say You Love Me; 4) I Feel Something In The Air; 5) Will You Love Me Tomorrow; 6) Until It's Time For You To Go; 7) The Cruel War; 8) Catch The Wind; 9) Pied Piper; 10) Homeward Bound; 11) I Want You; 12) Alfie.

Same mistake again: Cher seems just about as interested in delivering most of this material as her passionate, emotion-torn, devastating facial expression on the front cover might suggest (I decode it if not as a "who am I?" sort of expression, then at least as a "what am I doing here?" variety). Instead of making her cover ʽSatisfactionʼ or ʽPositively 4th Streetʼ or at least the Stones' ʽStupid Girlʼ re-written as ʽStupid Boyʼ — songs that would have put her deep, aggressive vocals at an advantage — Sonny keeps saddling her with sentimental ballads that were never that good in the first place (although I must say that ʽYou Don't Have To Say You Love Meʼ makes me fondly re-appreciate the Dusty Springfield version), or with cleverly written, subtle folk-rock tunes whose magic is turned to mindless brawn (ʽHomeward Boundʼ).

I can only hope that the cover of ʽSunnyʼ here was not meant to read ʽSonnyʼ — considering the circumstances under which Bobby Hebb wrote the song, and its general atmosphere, you'd think it mighty strange for Cher to sing of Sonny Bono as a dead man 32 years before she put him on a radio-controlled pair of skis and drove him into a tree to mercifully spare him the agony of enduring the success of ʽBe­lieveʼ for the rest of his life. Actually, she gives a fairly convincing reading — ʽSunnyʼ works well as a strong statement of faith and power, rather than lyrical senti­mentality, and that's one thing that Cher can give; in this particular case, I'd certainly rather have her cover the song than Paul Simon, Donovan, or Dylan. (Not that anyone could ever beat the Boney M version, but oh well. Disco days weren't quite there yet back in 1966).

Weird choice of the day: ʽI Want Youʼ as the Dylan choice, with Cher forgetting the lyrics ("I wait for them to read your looks, while drinking from my broken cup" — geez, lady, that doesn't even rhyme!) and nobody giving a damn about it. Sonny reference of the day: "The cruel war is raging / Sonny has to fight" instead of "Johnny has to fight" in Peter, Paul & Mary's ʽCruel Warʼ. As far as I know, Sonny was never drafted, so we should be taking this as a metaphor, but I'm pretty sure quite a few of Sonny's friends must have given him some anxious calls about the mat­ter. The "Much Ado About Nothing" reference of the day: ʽAlfieʼ, the title track to the famous movie that made a star out of Michael Caine and whose hit status was disputed between Cilla Black, Cher, and Dionne Warwick — as far as I'm concerned, it's just another saccharine pill from Burt Bacharach, and the song sucks in any version.

The most «interesting» song of the lot is arguably ʽI Feel Something In The Airʼ, Sonny's only original composition here that is more intriguing because of its lyrics that deal with accidental pregnancy than the actual music (although it does feature a bold triple change of time signature, briefly becoming a waltz and a Motown girl group tune in the bridge section). Unfortunately, the tune did not manage to properly conquer the American charts — not because of the lyrics, but be­cause of the lack of an instantly gripping hook — and the album in general became a commercial disappointment, heralding the establishment of The Great Cher Sinusoid, wobbling between success and failure with almost befuddling regularity. Well, actually, the regularity becomes less befuddling when you realize it simply took time for her to catch up, and in late '66, she had problems with that. I mean, even Donovan was already way beyond pallid Dylan imitations like ʽCatch The Windʼ in late 1966, so come on already. Thumbs down.

Charles Mingus: The Black Saint And The Sinner Lady (IAS #28)

More jazz for you today - provided this should qualify as jazz:

Charles Mingus: The Black Saint And The Sinner Lady

Blackmore's Night: All Our Yesterdays

BLACKMORE'S NIGHT: ALL OUR YESTERDAYS (2015)

1) All Our Yesterdays; 2) Allan Yn N Fan; 3) Darker Shade Of Black; 4) Long Long Time; 5) Moonlight Shadow; 6) I Got You Babe; 7) The Other Side; 8) Queen's Lament; 9) Where Are We Going From Here; 10) Will O' The Wisp; 11) Earth Wind And Sky; 12) Coming Home.

One thing you cannot take away from these guys — they sure are tenacious. Ritchie is pushing 70, and even Lady Candice is way past 45 now, making it a bit harder to impersonate The Bonnie Lass O'Fyvie, yet still they plough on at a steady pace, and without even the slightest inkling to step away from the formula. Most of their fans have probably already been hanged for poaching by the Sheriff's men, but still they have enough left to tickle the lower ranges of the pop charts (this one barely scraped the Top 100 in the UK), and you just got to admire that unbending will to keep Sherwood Forest green for as long as they live.

As for the music... who really cares? Once again, we have some odd cover choices: a sterile version of Mike Oldfield's ʽMoonlight Shadowʼ (Blackmore's flourish-heavy solo is nice, but no match for Mike's shrill aggression on the original, and is it worth commenting on whether it would be Candice Night or Maggie Reilly to win in a head-on competition?), and a thoroughly misguided take on Sonny & Cher's ʽI Got You Babeʼ — at least, if handled properly, this would give us a nice chance to finally hear The Man sing, but somehow the quirky detail that the song only truly makes sense as a duet passed them by (Candice is double-tracked on the chorus, or maybe there's some other lady singing harmony, but in any case it ain't quite the same thing).

Somehow they also seem to have run out of suitable Rainbow and Deep Purple songs to cover, so now they're doing the next best thing — covering... Blackmore's Night! Yes, there is an upbeat, dance-pop cover of ʽWhere Are We Going From Hereʼ from Ghost Of A Rose. No more slow country waltzing, we're rushing forward on the wings of synth loops now. No, it doesn't sound that awful (violins and Ritchie's usual baroque bits of electric guitar soloing rule the song more than elements of trendy production), but «pathetic» is probably a good word to use.

As for the new material, the only thing that caught my attention was the title of the instrumental ʽDarker Shade Of Blackʼ — the reference to ʽWhiter Shade Of Paleʼ being way too obvious to miss, and, indeed, this is a slow, stately tune with a prominent organ part that bears a passing re­semblance to the Procol Harum song without copying it directly. Not too memorable, impressive, or stylistically unusual, but at least a brief deviation from the usual fare — unlike everything else, with its standard yawny mix of Russian folk dancing (ʽAll Our Yesterdaysʼ), Celtic jigs (ʽAllan Yn N Fanʼ), acoustic ballads (ʽLong Long Timeʼ), and more of the same later on. As there's virtually nothing I could add to what has already been said about Dancer And The Moon, the only thing left to do is give the record the same rating — thumbs down. But do keep on rockin', you guys, on and on and on, till the night is gone and all that.

Caribou: Andorra

CARIBOU: ANDORRA (2007)

1) Melody Day; 2) Sandy; 3) After Hours; 4) She's The One; 5) Desiree; 6) Eli; 7) Sundialing; 8) Irene; 9) Niobe.

I suppose that some time in the distant future, when man's memory will be sufficiently enhanced to enlarge the artistic pantheon to astronomic sizes, this album will go down as Snaith's master­piece. On the other hand, if at the same time man's capacity for emotional abstractionism also happens to be increased, so that the halls of MoMA and Beaubourg begin to resonate with sincerely shed tears of joy and wonder, Andorra's status might be challenged — because in 2007, it was the most «retro-sounding» and «sonically conservative» album that the man had produced to date. It was probably bound to happen, eventually, as artistic growth and evolution stimulated Caribou to embrace them good old values of late Sixties' / early Seventies' art-pop and symph-prog — without forgetting to integrate them with modern electronic technologies and production values, of course, but make no mistake about it: at the core of Andorra you find melodic content with a collective stamp of approval from Brian Wilson, Arthur Lee, Rod Argent, and even Jon Anderson (I hope they don't mind me speaking for them in this case).

The man pulls no punches whatsoever with this shift of style: without any atmospheric build-ups or warm-ups, ʽMelody Dayʼ opens the album crash-boom-bang style, with a driving rhythm, a bass-guitar-keyboard baroque-pop melody, and dreamy melodic vocals whose only purpose seems to be to recreate the tender idealism of 1967-68 right here and now. It's bouncy, it's taste­ful (watch out for them flutes and quasi-Mellotrons!), it's melancholic, it's well performed and produced, it's catchy — yes, it's a ghola of a song instead of the real thing, but you wouldn't even know that if you took it out of its context. In any case, it reflects perfect craftsmanship that Dan's previous output only hinted at, and it would be very impolite to state or even suspect that his heart was not properly in it.

The amazing thing is how he manages to crush the wall of biased scepticism — just as you think, «okay, he made this one good song and put it in the beginning to stun us, the rest will probably be boring soulless facsimiles, haven't we seen enough of these retro-freaks who honestly love old time music but lack the talent to properly recreate it?», he strolls on with ʽSandyʼ, a slower, but equally pretty upbeat love ballad that does not simply mimick the atmosphere of some Zombies masterpiece, but cares about intricacies and subtleties of vocal modulation: just listen to the way lines like "you can't believe me... like all of the others who leave me..." aim for your attention with a delirious falsetto flourish delivered in one heavenly swoop. Damn, that's seductive!

There's no way that the "and you and I will follow down the street" opening line of ʽAfter Hoursʼ is not a subtle reference to "and you and I climb over the sea to the valley", either, even if the song itself is too drone-based to properly sound like classic Yes — but no matter, the overall psychedelic-idealistic vision of some perfect world beyond regular human experience remains the same. If there's one thing that genuinely separates this music from its faraway ancestors, it is that little bit of shoegazing quasi-ambience that Snaith adds to many of the songs — like the chorus to ʽShe's The Oneʼ, jolting on one chord and one repetitive vocal phrase, something that both the Zombies and Yes would have probably found too tedious — but then again, if you are amalga­mating the Zombies and Yes in one package, you might as well throw in some Cocteau Twins and some Slowdive, why not?

If there's a possible problem to be found, one could look for it in the general similarity of the tone and the arrangement details on most of the tracks — not that the same problem cannot be con­jured for Pet Sounds or anything — but even that is somehow taken care of in the last track: the 8-minute «epic» ʽNiobeʼ is based on a soft techno groove, with Snaith's electronic arsenal finally unleashed on us in all its might, and just about every synth tone at his disposal partaking in the melee. It's not the best track on the album, but it is the most experimental, and although I fail to see what exactly this bunch of stylistically diverse synthesized sonic comets whooshing past the main body of the groove has to do with Niobe (do they represent her 14 dead children, or Apollo's and Artemis' arrows, or what?), I cannot deny the buzzing psychedelic effect, especially when you play this real loud in headphones. And even then, the vocals ("I fall so far, I fall so far...") are still old school art-pop to some extent.

Actually, it is not the instrumental monotonousness that worries me but the emotional mono­tonousness — all of the tracks being dominated by the same flavor of «optimistic sadness», like a never ending goodbye with faint hopes of saying hello once more in the distant future. To Dan's honor, he is able to escape the common trap of optimistically sad indie-pop sung by bearded men in furry hats — simply by being a better composer and arranger than most. But you do have to accept that he will be communicating pretty much the same mood, differing by the subtlest of subtle nuances, over and over and over; the fact that, for me at least, upon the third listen this ceased to be boring only goes to show how much real talent he has. I do hope the record was a big hit in Andorra, because there's hardly any reason to be called that unless the man wanted to conquer an additional 85,000 head strong market — but even though I'm no citizen of Andorra myself, I am glad to throw in my thumbs up as well, for extra international endorsement.

The Cars: Shake It Up

THE CARS: SHAKE IT UP (1981)

1) Since You're Gone; 2) Shake It Up; 3) I'm Not The One; 4) Victim Of Love; 5) Cruiser; 6) A Dream Away; 7) This Could Be Love; 8) Think It Over; 9) Maybe Baby.

Back to basics — after the somewhat exaggerated gloominess of Panorama, The Cars return with arguably their most lightweight and unpretentious release to that point. If The Cars were all about a smooth, symbolic transition from the age of «classic rock» into the modern era, Candy-O was all about how to handle girl problems in that modern era, and Panorama was about finding a good balance between hooks and atmosphere, then Shake It Up is just a collection of pop hooks, period. The album has almost no personality whatsoever, as Ocasek and Orr either deliver the lyrics without any particular vocal expression or, for some reason, borrow elements of alien vocal styles (on ʽSince You're Goneʼ, Ocasek seems to be giving us a Dylan impersonation — with all that rising pitch on the shouted parts), not to mention how the vocals are regularly obscured in the mix, starting a tendency that would eventually reach its peak on Heartbeat City.

With albums like these, writing reviews is no fun because it all ultimately comes down to the overall number of hooks per song — these tunes are catchy all right, but so slight that it's easier to come up with useful insights about a jar of mayonnaise. The title track, which was also chosen for the album's first single, truly does nothing except incite you to "shake it up" (or, if you need more detail, "dance all night, play all day, don't let nothin' get in the way"), with a fun guitar melody and an appropriate set of woo-hoos to carry the day; its B-side, ʽCruiserʼ, is much better, parti­cularly its odd two-part riff that begins with brawny arena-rock power chords and ends with a lighter bluesy flourish (people usually prefer the reverse order), but there's little else to the song: it does somehow manage to convey the grimy atmosphere of nighttime cruising through the seedy parts of the big city, but that is hardly enough for a great song — decent, nothing more.

As far as sonic evolution is concerned, Shake It Up clearly pushes forward into the electronic age, although in 1981 mainstream production standards had not yet propelled bands high up in the air: electronically enhanced drums, with elements of drum machine programming, and syn­thesized dance-pop loops reflect the possible influence of Prince (something like ʽThink It Overʼ could, in fact, very easily have fit in on Controversy), but the sound is still very much «in your face», with a high quotient of pure fun. On the other hand, it does hurt with the occasional ballad like ʽI'm Not The Oneʼ, where Easton's melodic lead guitar lines are almost wasted on a bleepy melody that seems more suitable for a soundtrack to some early Japanese hentai game than for your respectable speakers — meaning that the then-fresh, now-ridiculous sonic textures of the decade are already beginning to corrode the musicianship.

In the middle of it all comes ʽA Dream Awayʼ, a tune that is seriously out of place on the album: a grim, slightly industrialized soundscape, with Ocasek's voice run through some serious effects and now somewhat similar to Lou Reed's in its gloomy commentary on a world that cannot satisfy the protagonist, because "the good life is just a dream away". The song is almost like an outtake from Panorama, and although thematically it is not too far away from the many other pessimistic statements on this record, musically it is far darker than the title track or ʽVictim Of Loveʼ ­— showing that, once the initial impression is over, there's at least a little more to the album than just the hook-stuffed singles.

But still, not enough to shake off the feeling that Shake It Up is about as lightweight a record as its cover suggests — as The Cars return to the old tried-and-true practice of putting glitzy super­models on their slightly decadent album sleeves (and this time armed with a cocktail shaker at that). A nice listen if you like simple and direct early Eighties pop, and a well-earned thumbs up all the way, but the fact that the title track actually earned them their first Top 10 hit on the Billboard charts (ʽGood Times Rollʼ only hit No. 41, in comparison) is hardly a positive testimony in the face of humanity.

Carole King: Writer

CAROLE KING: WRITER (1970)

1) Spaceship Races; 2) No Easy Way Down; 3) Child Of Mine; 4) Goin' Back; 5) To Love; 6) What Have You Got To Lose; 7) Eventually; 8) Raspberry Jam; 9) Can't You Be Real; 10) I Can't Hear You No More; 11) Sweet Sweet­heart; 12) Up On The Roof.

Popular perception of Carole King: Nice lady composer, wrote some cool hits for (mostly) Afro-American singers in the Sixties, then sang most of them herself in 1971 on her only album Tapestry, spent the rest of her time living somewhere in California raising a family and stuff. It was so nice of the President, too, to get her out for the Kennedy Center Awards in 2015, where she spent most of the time smiling at Afro-American performers singing Tapestry almost in its entirety. Oh yes, and she's besties with James Taylor, too. They sing ʽYou've Got A Friendʼ to­gether and all that. Was he there at the ceremony as well? He must have been.

There is little reason to doubt, of course, that Tapestry is King's highest point, just out of sheer consistency, but somehow the popularity of that record has eclipsed everything else — most im­portantly, that for a short, but significant period in the early 1970s, Carole King was one of the leading figures in America's «singer-songwriter» movement. In the 1960s, she had neither the self-confidence nor the proper opportunity to emerge as a self-sufficient artist in her own rights: her voice was considered weak, her looks were way too unglamorous, and her «stage image» was non-existent. But as standards began to shatter and shift, and as a small, but stable market de­mand was formed for «sincerity» and «integrity», Carole finally took the opportunity to go public — an opportunity made easier by her divorce from husband-lyricist Gerry Goffin and subsequent relo­cation to California — and, after an unsuccessful attempt at working within the framework of an actual band («The City», whose only album will be taken care of in an appendix), finally emerged as a solo recording artist in 1970.

On Writer, she is backed by the same musicians who formed «The City» (Charles Larkey on bass and Danny Kortchmar on guitars), with the addition of a couple keyboardists, drummer Joel O'Brien, and some backing vocalists. With two exceptions, no new songs were written for the record — almost everything is credited to Goffin/King, as the lady is struggling to take back possession of all the hits, semi-hits, and non-hits that she earlier wrote for other people; only a very few of these tunes come from the vaults, like the album opener ʽSpaceship Racesʼ, which I do not think was covered by anybody prior to this release (although one year later it was success­fully covered by folk-rocker Tom Northcott). However, it's not as if we could or should blame her for this decision — imagine, say, a Bob Dylan prevented from releasing his greatest songs under his own name for more than half a decade, and having to watch helplessly as The Byrds and Manfred Mann reap all the glory!..

Anyway, most people's reaction to Writer will probably depend on what they value most about art — deep feeling and sincerity or immaculate professionalism. When you listen to ʽUp On The Roofʼ as performed by The Drifters, and then compare it to this version, the difference is striking: the 1962 recording is bouncier, the brass and string overdubs perfectly emphasize all the vocal hooks, and although lead vocalist Rudy Lewis was no Clyde McPhatter or Ben E. King, his tech­nical abilities were still way above Carole's weak, trembling nasal delivery. But on the other hand, for The Drifters singing the song was just business — the 1962 tune had one overriding purpose, to make a shiny optimistic statement to brighten the record buyer's day, and everything there, including the fantastic string solo, is focused on that statement. For Carole, though, the song is much more than that — it is a psychological tour-de-force, a confession of shyness, lonerism, and humility where "there's room enough for two", but there most definitely wouldn't be enough room for three or more (which is why entrusting the song to a vocal band was an odd decision in the first place, ensuring that its full potential could never be realized). And in this context, her vocals are a perfect match for her personality as expressed in the song — as long as she does not hit any bum notes or anything, the «weakness» of the voice emerges as the strength of the song, and I'll take King's version over The Drifters without blinking an eye.

On the whole, there isn't a single true clunker on Writer, because of the awesomeness of Carole's backlog — and there's another point, too, which speaks very much in its favor: compared to later, post-Tapestry albums, which would lean too far in the direction of corny sentimentality and mushy MOR arrangements, Writer has a bit of a rock bite to it. After all, ʽSpaceship Racesʼ does open with a distorted electric guitar lick and is ruled over by an intense, almost hard-rocking bass line — not to mention a sarcastic, almost sneering vocal delivery as the singer jabs her imaginary boyfriend for "spinning around in a Busby swirl" and "living off dreams stored up in film cans": it's almost like a feminist reversal of some typical Rolling Stones misogynist slam, and we get to see a cool rational angle of somebody who, not so long ago, was "made to feel like a natural woman", probably by the exact same guy who she now wants to "take to the Spaceship Races".

Another forgotten, but totally real highlight is ʽRaspberry Jamʼ, one of the two compositions that were specially made for the album with the lyrical participation of Toni Stern. It is not so much a pop song as it is a jazzy waltz whose title is a pun — the mid-section is a jam, with brief guitar and keyboard improvisations; certainly not a masterpiece of jazz-pop, but a very nice, moody, soothing piece of music all the same, and I am very glad it's there, because it introduces an ele­ment of complete spontaneity — breaking away from the image of Carole King as a calculated, smoothly running hit machine. She would rarely, if ever, allow anything like that on her records again (probably because she rightfully felt improvisational music would not be playing to her major strengths), but there's nothing like a little extra freedom of flight for somebody who is only just beginning to secure one's position as an independent artist.

Elsewhere, she bravely recaptures her own subtlety from The Byrds (ʽGoin' Backʼ) and Bobby Vee (ʽSweet Sweetheartʼ, one of her catchiest upbeat pop-rockers); shows great depth of feeling on the ultra-slow soul ballad ʽNo Easy Way Downʼ; and flashes a bit of idealistic political creed on the equally slow folk ballad  ʽEventuallyʼ, all of which, as far as I'm concerned, are every bit as poignant and memorable as almost anything on Tapestry. Top prize, however, goes to ʽChild Of Mineʼ, a McCartney-style piano ballad (or would it rather be accurate to call all McCartney piano ballads Carole King-style? he did take quite a few songwriting lessons from the lady in his youth, you know) that extols the joys of motherhood with endearing and totally disarming sim­plicity — and just a small, barely noticeable, drop of melancholy and lonerism in the "oh yes, sweet darling, so glad you are a child of mine" refrain, a drop that is still enough to wrench the song out of the generic corny ballpark and put it in the realm of true artistry (although we could certainly live without the tune being appropriated by hundreds of people on YouTube who just want to use it as a background for photos of their toddlers).

All in all, there may not be enough «cumulative hit power» on Writer to match the impact of Tapestry, but in all honesty, owning a copy of the latter without complementing it with a copy of the former should be considered a gross violation of the ethical code (on RateYourMusic, for in­stance, Tapestry currently features 168 user reviews, while Writer is graced with a measly four: imagine the same proportion for, say, Revolver vs. Rubber Soul, and share my indignation). As far as singer-songwriter albums from 1970 are concerned, this is one of the strongest, and it does have the distinction of positioning Carole King as an independent, self-sufficient solo artist in her own right, taking back what's hers and, even more importantly, bridging the gap between com­mercial pop of the corporate Brill Building variety and introspective musical artistry (whereas with Tapestry, you could say she actually took a few steps back towards the Brill Building as such). In any case, my verdict is a very, very strong thumbs up — and if we all really respected woman artists as much as we claim to do, I'm sure somebody would have the guts to play a 15-minute version of ʽRaspberry Jamʼ for President Obama at the Kennedy Center ceremony.

Canned Heat: Canned Heat

CANNED HEAT: CANNED HEAT (1967)

1) Rollin' And Tumblin'; 2) Bullfrog Blues; 3) Evil Is Going On; 4) Goin' Down Slow; 5) Catfish Blues; 6) Dust My Broom; 7) Help Me; 8) Big Road Blues; 9) The Story Of My Life; 10) The Road Song; 11) Rich Woman.

It is interesting that, despite all the creativity going on in late '66 / early '67, it was precisely that time that also saw the last big wave of «blues purists» before Electric Blues Revival finally gave way to Semi-Original Blues Rock once and for all. In the UK, this period brought about such big figures as Ten Years After and Fleetwood Mac; and on the other side of the Atlantic, arguably the biggest figure to appear on the scene were Canned Heat, the proud Topanga Canyon follow-up to Chicago's Paul Butterfield Blues Band — a bunch of young white amateurs and blues collectors, who'd spent the early Sixties soaking up influences and eventually grew up into admiring imitators, rather organically at that.

The band's first recordings were produced (by Johnny Otis) already in 1966, but they didn't get to release a proper album until they'd met their lucky star at the Monterey Pop Festival and were hailed by some critics as one of the finest blues-based performers of the entire event. Sticking to their guns, they went into the studio to record (or re-record) much of their current repertoire — all covers of blues classics, sometimes reshuffled and spliced together from different ones in the good old folk-blues tradition. A few of the tracks were credited to Canned Heat, but do not be­lieve that for a second — every bit of lyrics and/or melody here is pilfered from them black guys (most of them dead, so they won't need the cash anyway; the ones that were still alive, like Willie Dixon, are properly credited — then again, take pity on starving white kids, too, as they obviously needed themselves some pocket money).

Anyway, Canned Heat's debut is a pretty decent collection of electric blues tunes, but hardly amazing even for the still not-too-demanding standards of early '67. The biggest flaw, which would be diminished, but not eliminated on subsequent albums, is a painful lack of personality: all the members of the band are competent, yet they lack that particular single spark that could set them aside from all the rest. The greatest blues purists of the time had star figures as frontmen or sidemen, people who made it clear that their interpretation carried more significance than the source material itself — Mike Bloomfield in the Butterfield Blues Band, Alvin Lee in Ten Years After, Peter Green in Fleetwood Mac — but Canned Heat, at least in their earliest days, were a pure blues democracy with everyone sitting at the same trench level.

Thus, the band's primary vocalist Bob Hite ("The Bear"), the proud owner of a rough, rowdy voice and a «300 pounds of joy»-type body, is a competent blueswailer, but his limited range and inability to come up with a fresh style of singing leaves no chance for «competence» to cross over into the realm of «awesomeness». Rhythm guitar player Alan Wilson ("The Owl") has not yet begun to mature as a songwriter, and his main talent on this album lies in his harmonica playing: he blows a very mean, dry, creaky harp on ʽGoin' Down Slowʼ and a few other tunes — also, his oddly childish, high and shaky singing (ʽHelp Meʼ) makes a nice contrast with Hite's far more powerful, but far less subtle vocalizing. And lead guitarist Henry Vestine can play some sharp solos every now and then, understanding the value of a good juicy guitar tone and all, but, well, he ain't no (insert the name of your favorite mid-Sixties blues guitarist here, like Clapton or Bloomfield): I really like the things he's doing on ʽThe Story Of My Lifeʼ, but Freddie King could do all of that with his eyes closed — and with even more power.

Because of all that, Canned Heat's self-titled debut is more of a historical curio, just so that you could see how it all started, and check out the many ways in which it is possible to recombine Elmore James, Muddy Waters, Sonny Boy Williamson, Howlin' Wolf, and a half-dozen other blues greats and adapt them for... one's pleasure, really: there's no silly talk here about «making black Chicago blues accessible for white auditories», because those particular auditories for whom Canned Heat were playing were perfectly capable of accessing the original stuff them­selves. No, it's all just for the fun of it — and also for the improved mix and production, because, at the very least, Canned Heat has a far more «modern» sound.

Although Canned Heat were already positioning themselves as a jam band at the time, the debut album is quite cautious in that respect: only ʽCatfish Bluesʼ is stretched out to nearly seven minutes — a mistaken decision, I'd say, because they entrust the entire instrumental section to Vestine, and he delivers a rather disjointed, absent-minded solo without any interesting build-ups or climactic peaks (not to mention that Hite's overdoing his Muddy impersonation). Everything else is thankfully kept in the 3-4 minute ballpark, and I by far prefer the brief, tasteful, polished bottleneck solos on ʽRollin' And Tumblin'ʼ and ʽDust My Broomʼ than the meandering dryness and distortion of the ʽCatfish Bluesʼ jam.

One thing I do not quite understand is the intentional mix-up: for instance, ʽRich Womanʼ, originally credited to Canned Heat and then later re-credited to Dorothy LaBostrie and McKinley Millet, is really ʽI Wish You Wouldʼ by Billy Boy Arnold; and ʽThe Road Songʼ, also credited Canned Heat and then later re-credited to Floyd Jones, is really ʽSmokestack Lightningʼ. Either there must have been some mix-up at the record plant, or they were generously trying to feed some unjustly forgotten blues heroes at the expense of those who'd already gotten their dues. In any case, the titles of these two songs are quite strangely matched to their contents (Side A, on the contrary, seems fixed up fairly well).

Anyway, on the whole I have about as much use for this album as I do for Fleetwood Mac's self-titled debut — maybe even a little less, because Peter Green at least tried from the very begin­ning to use the classic blues idiom to placate his own demons, whereas Canned Heat just sounds like a simple blues party thrown on at a moment's notice by sincere blues aficionados. If they had not gone on to slightly more ambitious projects, the record would probably have sunk beyond any possibility of redeem or recovery.

Cher: The Sonny Side Of Cher

CHER: THE SONNY SIDE OF CHER (1966)

1) Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down); 2) A Young Girl (Une Enfante); 3) Where Do You Go; 4) Our Day Will Come; 5) Elusive Butterfly; 6) Like A Rolling Stone; 7) Old Man River; 8) Come To Your Window; 9) The Girl From Ipanema; 10) It's Not Unusual; 11) Time; 12) Milord.

You'd think that with a title like this, all the songs on this album should have been written by Sonny, but just like on their duet records, he only contributes a few — in this case, ʽWhere Do You Goʼ, a slow folk waltz oriented at the «frustrated teen market» ("where do you go when you're too young?", asks the 20-year old Armenian diva who seems to have already figured that out for herself), and ʽBang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)ʼ, a slow Latin groove oriented at Nancy Sinatra, who later recorded her own version that was later made famous by Kill Bill, from which we draw the obvious conclusion that back in early 1966, Sonny Bono was the happy owner of a time machine (maybe that's why he decided to go into politics as well).

Anyway, both of these songs aren't too bad, and ʽBang Bangʼ is, in fact, melodically and lyrically quite awesome — the problem with both being the singer, who is simply incapable of delicately handling this sort of material. In fact, out of 12 songs on here, there's only one that fully appeals to her immanent vocal style: the English-language cover of Edith Piaf's ʽMilordʼ, where her deep, dark, sneering voice creates the perfect cynical atmosphere. This is where you realize that if the woman was born with the idea to sing anything at all, then the anything in question would just have to be the nonchalant-hedonistic cabaret style — French, German, English, whatever, as long as she's portraying the strong-hip-cynical female with, perhaps, a slight overdose of mas­culine hormones. You'd think she might extend that credibility to Dylan's ʽLike A Rolling Stoneʼ (after all, has there ever been a song more cynical than that one?), but unfortunately, it does not seem like she's properly understanding what the song is about, so no.

Everything else is a disaster — tender French, British, and American pop standards of the time, all of them given the same type of baroque-folk arrangement and all of them sung in exactly the same style. ʽThe Girl From Ipanemaʼ, supposed to be one of the lightest, springliest pop tunes in existence, an emblem of the happy flight attitude of the early Sixties, simply sinks under the weight of her voice — more like "the girl from Ipanema goes stomping", if you ask me. Good songs like ʽOl' Man Riverʼ and Bob Lind's ʽElusive Butterflyʼ get a Vegasy treatment in terms of vocals, and then there's fairly hokey songs like Michael Merchant's ʽTimeʼ (at least, it sounds hokey: I've never heard the original, if there ever was one).

Overall, there are two problems which you simply cannot work around: (a) weak source material, drifting way too far into the corny direction of mainstream pop rather than guitar-based pop-rock or folk-rock; and (b) inappropriate source material for Cher's one-trick voice, where attempts at diversity actually fail — be it Dylan, Tom Jones, Charles Aznavour, or Antonio Carlos Jobim, they all end up Cher-ified. The good news is — if she can only sing in one style, this means it's her natural style and she's being sincere about it. The bad news is, why do we even have to endure this in the first place? Bang bang, my baby gave thumbs down. 

Television: Marquee Moon (IAS #27)

A real tough nut to crack this week:

Television: Marquee Moon

Black Mountain: IV

BLACK MOUNTAIN: IV (2016)

1) Mothers Of The Sun; 2) Florian Saucer Attack; 3) Defector; 4) You Can Dream; 5) Constellations; 6) Line Them All Up; 7) Cemetery Breeding; 8) (Over And Over) The Chain; 9) Crucify Me; 10) Space To Bakersfield.

A six-year period from 2010 to 2016 actually seems shorter these days than, say, a three-month period from July to September 1969 — therefore, do not get mad at Black Mountain just because they have been twiddling their thumbs all this time. (Technically, they did not: for instance, Amber Webber and Joshua Wells, who'd already released two «synth-folk» or «indietronica» albums as Lightning Dust in the 2000s, used the interval to make a third one — but do not rush to check them out, unless you are very much in love with Amber's wobbly voice and Joshua's antiquated electronic keyboards). At least this gave them a chance to scrape together some moments of real inspiration — I mean, let's face it, a musician only really should work when he or she feels like it, and if they only feel like it every six years or so, well, this kind of looks like a plus in the modern world.

Anyway, no title this time, just a small, barely visible Roman number, which might lead one to suspect they are taking their cue from Led Zeppelin here, and indirectly claim that this album will go down in history as containing their most immortal classics. In reality, this is just another Black Mountain album that offers no significant deviations from the old sound. They did have one membership change — Arjan Miranda replaces Matthew Camirand on bass — but other than that, they're still the same gloomy-idealistic neo-hippie band with a love for crushing Seventies' riffs, psychedelic haze, and messages in bottles reaching your 21st century shores from a past so distant, you'd have to spend your entire evening wondering just exactly in what way is this kind of sound and attitude supposed to be relevant. Then, out of sheer frustration, you'd just have to leave it be and simply enjoy the album for what it is rather than for what it could do to you.

The best news is that you can still rely upon them to bring out a decent (if thoroughly derivative) riff out of non-existence, or to put together some thick distorted guitar, some muscular drums, and a retro-futuristic synth pattern and make it all sound cool and credible. McBean and Webber distribute most of the lead vocals between themselves, like they usually do, and Webber once again takes the cake — for more than ten years now, she has sounded like a banshee apprentice that can never make it past the first grade, but now that we've got used to that, came to realize that she will probably stay in that mold forever, and dropped all further expectations... well, «peren­nial banshee apprentice» doesn't sound too bad, really.

She does a damn good job on the Hawkwind-ish rocker ʽFlorian Saucer Attackʼ, actually, where her usually shaky voice makes a huge effort to break through the thick wall of speedy metal rif­fage and wild Moogs, and, for once, she almost sounds like an overhyped Amazon princess; and the same combination of a quasi-military attitude with doom-and-gloom is heard on ʽConstella­tionsʼ, where she easily outsings McBean and adds proper attitude and feeling to the song's somewhat simplistic and silly-sounding  four-note riff (which seems like a deconstructed version of Led Zeppelin's ʽDancing Daysʼ or some other song like that). Out of McBean's shorter num­bers, ʽDefectorʼ is a good one, though, again, it will probably draw inevitable comparisons — this time, to Pink Floyd's ʽYoung Lustʼ, with which it shares a general «nasty» attitude and the chorus ("and now I wanna be a defector" sort of sounds like "ooh I need a dirty woman", doesn't it?), except that Black Mountain's music is almost totally devoid of sexuality (not that Floyd's wasn't, either — ʽYoung Lustʼ was a sarcastic parody).

However, the record in general rests on three 8-minute long pivots — everything else feels un­substantial in comparison to the «epic» numbers. ʽMothers Of The Sunʼ combines a monster Sabbath riff with Webber's organ-accompanied doomsday prayer, and is almost surprisingly efficient: as hard as it is for me these days to fall under the «doomsday spell» coming from any of the new bands, Black Mountain have by now soaked themselves so thoroughly in the spirits of their ancestors that sometimes they seem to be possessed by these spirits, and that might just be the only proper way to get a convincing doomsday attitude today. Compared to this, ʽ(Over And Over) The Chainʼ is a bit of a disappointment, a track closer in spirit to the Gothic cathedral of The Cure — but with a long long long keyboard intro that evokes memories of ʽShine On You Crazy Diamondʼ. Yet it is neither as sublimely textured as the Floyd epic, nor as perfectly over­laid with waves of depressed guitars and tortured vocals as the best stuff by the Cure, and seems way overlong. Well, in terms of build-up and bring-down it needs the length, but they are not as good at generating atmosphere with vast soundscapes as they are with concise riffage.

On the other hand, maybe they are when they really put their minds to it: ʽSpace To Bakersfieldʼ is quite a haunting conclusion, ending the album on as much of a high note as ʽMothers Of The Sunʼ started it. This time, it's like a joint tribute to ʽSpace Oddityʼ, with its haunting allegory of absolute loneliness, and ʽComfortably Numbʼ, with its musical marriage of celestial bliss and psychological terror. Here, the tune unwraps slowly and patiently, lulling you with velvety synth tapestries (Schmidt uses ABBA's ʽEagleʼ synth tone to put you high up in the sky), soft vocal harmonies, and minimalistic guitar effects for about five minutes, after which McBean slowly starts to unveil his best guitar solo on the record and maybe the best of his entire career — a choking, wobbly wah-wah wail the likes of which I remember previously hearing mostly on those drug-soaked Bardo Pond records. It might not be a particularly great guitar solo per se, but it feels supercool emerging out of the «celestial» part of the song and burying it underneath its acid fire for a couple minutes.

Overall, six years of waiting have not resulted in a major masterpiece, but they have resulted in Black Mountain managing to sound conservative and fresh at the same time, and that's the only thing that matters — personally, I'm pleased as heck to award them their fourth thumbs up in a row just for managing to stay so consistent. Not all the songs are equally nice (a few acoustic clunkers like ʽCrucify Meʼ are neither atmospheric nor hooky enough), and you could probably trim some fat off the 56-minute running length quite easily, but as far as imaginative trips down memory lane are concerned, IV is among the best ones I've heard in the last few years — not that it would do a lot of difference to anyone, since it sort of feels like Black Mountain have pretty much squandered away their entire fanbase in these six years. (Heck, as of July 2016, there's still no one around to even get this record its own Wikipedia page!).

Caribou: The Milk Of Human Kindness

CARIBOU: THE MILK OF HUMAN KINDNESS (2005)

1) Yeti; 2) Subotnick; 3) A Final Warning; 4) Lord Leopard; 5) Bees; 6) Hands First; 7) Hello Hammerheads; 8) Brahminy Kite; 9) Drumheller; 10) Pelican Narrows; 11) Barnowl.

This is Snaith's first album recorded under the name of «Caribou», but the name change was triggered by the threat of a legal suit rather than any artistic reasons — Snaith's musical essence stays precisely the same. Well, not precisely: third time around, there's even more vocals, and it kind of becomes obvious that the man is trying to gradually shape his imaginative textures into pop hooks, moving from amorphous abstractionism into discrete abstractionism. This is kind of like a kids' room in MoMA now — happy colors, odd shapes, friendly disposition, psychological manipulation. You sure feel safe and warm in a world like this, but you don't even begin to truly understand it, because... well, just because.

The very first track is called ʽYetiʼ, but it neither features Tibetan musical influences nor is in any way related to the dark psychedelic jamming of Amon Düül II. Instead, it is a very lightweight soft techno-pop number, dominated by a shiny electronic riff and overdubbed with various silly sound effects. If it is indeed supposed to be a musical portrait of a yeti, it is quite a politically correct one — in quasi-real life, an actual yeti would hardly seem to be the ideal playing companion on the Sesame Street playground, but this one is almost cuddly. Later on, the sudden infatuation with East Asia reoccurs on ʽBrahminy Kiteʼ, another techno romp, very drum-heavy this time, but still very similar in atmosphere — "descending all the time, pretending all the time, pretending to be free" is Snaith's way of describing the bird, but the slightly cynical lyrics are not even one bit reflected in the feather-thin, electronic-baroque melodies.

Occasionally, stuff gets louder and crazier, like on the multi-part ʽFinal Warningʼ, a speedy, monotonous groove sprouting various bits of samples, backward tape recordings, distorted word­less vocals and every once in a while erupting in walls of noise, but they are friendly walls of noise, too, like large waves that periodically reach the electronic surfer and provide an incentive for fun rather than fear. ʽBeesʼ starts out very unusually, with a blues-rock-style twin guitar inter­play that even sounds somewhat snappy in the overall context of the record, but very soon, the guitars are complemented with Dan's mellow vocals (half-Beach Boys, half-Nick Drake), a folksy acoustic guitar part, then a pastoral flute part, and eventually, one more friendly noisy climax that hardly seems to mean any harm.

I do not care much for the brief instrumental links that join the tunes, but I do care that the man is also demonstrating some major folk-pop talent — for instance, ʽHello Hammerheadsʼ is a bit of a folk-pop gem with a smooth-as-butter merge between Dan's ideally delivered vocal lines and the two-part acoustic guitar overdubs. That's just one song, but it is of essential importance to the record because it provides some insight into the personality of this «Caribou» guy (at least, his artistic alter ego), confirming our suspicions that he likes to posit himself as a melancholic, but idealistic loner, taking after Brian Wilson and Nick Drake to the best of his 21st century man abilities. But for what he lacks in depth compared to those guys, he makes up with scope: the repetitive blues-rock of ʽBarnowlʼ takes its cue from Krautrock à la Neu! and even Can, with all that metronomic repetitiveness and all those psychedelic guitar tones. Only, once again, it's all nowhere near as disturbing or frightening as classic Can could be in their prime — because we don't want to scare off them kids.

Overall, as long as Snaith continues to make cautious progress, he's okay by me, and on this re­cord he's at least made progress by shedding some of his artistic anonymity and showing a trifle of personality — and it's a nice, intelligent, and creative personality alright, so thumbs up once again.

The Cars: Panorama

THE CARS: PANORAMA (1980)

1) Panorama; 2) Touch And Go; 3) Gimme Some Slack; 4) Don't Tell Me No; 5) Getting Through; 6) Misfit Kid; 7) Down Boys; 8) You Wear Those Eyes; 9) Running To You; 10) Up And Down.

Perhaps Ocasek and Orr, too, had a suspicion that the magic did not work as efficiently with Candy-O as it did with The Cars — that the album gave too much of an impression that they were trying consciously and somewhat artificially to recreate what used to come so naturally and effortlessly. Either that, that is, or someone in the record business just slapped them around and said, «So you think you're some hot New Wave stuff? I'll tell you who's really New Wave — Gary Numan is! He's not even using any guitars now, that stuff's so on its way out!» And thus, as the Eighties rolled in, it was decided that the sound had to modernize.

Do not be misled, however, by the frequent descriptions of Panorama as a dark, experimental, less accessible album than the usual Carfare — sure it is somewhat darker, mainly because it relies more on bass-happy keyboards than colorful power-pop guitars, but there's nothing parti­cularly «experimental» about it compared to the general post-punk boom of 1980, and as for less accessible, well, The Cars were always oriented at the pop market, and even at their most deviant they had to look for instrumental earworms and catchy singalong choruses. And they were never a bunch of shiny happy people anyway — feeling miserable, if not on the surface, then deep down in the core at least, was always an obligatory component of even their biggest hits.

Anyway, I do not support the school of thought according to which, in basic quality terms, The Cars took a huge dip down with Panorama, and later had to go through a period of convales­cence and atonement with the more traditional Shake It Up. At least in the overall context of their career, Panorama introduces some fresh change — and, for what it's worth, the general quantity and quality of the hooks is hardly below the same parameters for Candy-O. I can certainly live with the relative lack of guitar (relative — it is still an integral part of the sound, and most of the solos are guitar-based), and I can understand the sometimes questionable stretch­ing out of song lengths: the band is getting a little bit artsier, and that means requiring a little more time for the build-up or for the groove to achieve the proper hypnotizing effect.

For some reason, I used to really dislike the title track — probably because the nearly six-minute length got to me in the wrong way, but I eventually grew accustomed to its paranoid groove, not to mention that, finally, we have a proper album opener for a band named The Cars, as its tempo and atmosphere are so perfectly compatible with a nighttime drive on a lonely highway. At the heart of what begins as a sort of proto-Depeche Mode synth-pop runner really lies a desperately frantic classic rocker, and it's worth waiting for the climactic moment at about 3:55 into the song when Easton finally breaks through with a crazy-aggressive rock solo, unfortunately, spliced into several small bits rather than allowing the guitarist to stretch out and spill it all in one mega-burst. It is their only attempt at properly doing that «bitter-fast post-punk wail song» that everybody else was doing at the time, and there's enough atmospheric tension and individual guitar / synth hooks here to stand the competition.

The three singles from the album weren't too bad, either: ʽTouch And Goʼ is melodically astute, going from a tricky polymeter structure in the verse (that creates quite a confusing feel) to a «relieving», bouncy ska-like chorus resolution; ʽDon't Tell Me Noʼ is the album's most robotic number, with a dark (generic, though) arena-rock riff and a mechanically soulless keyboard part that agree perfectly with Orr's half-human, half-machine vocals dropping lyrical lines that eerily resemble a modern chatbot ("It's my party. You can come. Don't tell me no"); and only ʽGimme Some Slackʼ seems somewhat silly in comparison, probably because the chorus is based on a really dumb-sounding hook (bad synth tone, too), but it's still catchy.

The non-singles, largely stuck on the second side, range from ironically catchy declarations of insecurity (ʽMisfit Kidʼ) to pissed-off rockers with increased guitar presence (ʽDown Boysʼ may have Easton's angriest guitar riff ever on a Cars song) to slow, smoky ballads stuck somewhere between old-school psychedelia and new-school adult contemporary (ʽYou Wear Those Eyesʼ: not a great song, but that's one great wobbly guitar tone Easton is using for the lead parts). Not everything is equally memorable, but, really, not a single song is openly bad — the craft and light experimentation that went into every one of them seems obvious to me.

It's not as if I were heavily recommending Panorama over Candy-O, even if my tone for the previous review may seem distinctly bluer than for this one. In Spartan terms of melody and hooks, the two are quite on the same level — the only difference is that here, they are trying to construct a different atmosphere, in which they sometimes succeed and sometimes fail, but at least it provides a feeling of artistic growth, and that's good enough for me. It wasn't good enough for the public, who weren't amused and pretty much humiliated ʽTouch And Goʼ in the charts (none of that depressed shit for the US of A in the happy summer of 1980 — not at a time when we have Olivia Newton-John singing ʽMagicʼ, at least!). But it's good enough for me to confirm another thumbs up and insist that, even if one hates it, one has at least to admit that Panorama proved that The Cars were not merely a well-oiled, perfectly programmed, finalized, and locked hit-writing machine operating on one single algorithm.