Album Reviews

AMERICAN AMBULANCE
Streets of NYC
(Rustic)
New York's roots rocking American Ambulance is all about the song. Leader Pete Cenedella and his band of merry men love melody, lyrics and performance, and don't see any reason to cover these things up with fancy production tricks or elaborate arrangements. Streets of NYC has some keyboards and pedal steel here and there, but otherwise celebrates the virtues of two guitars, bass and drums. And that's as it should be—Cenedella ditties like the two-steppin' "First One of One-Too-Many Night," the gnarly mini-epic "Bad Moon Over Brooklyn" and the forthrightly rocking "Won't Be Home Tonight" demand a straightforward, no-bullshit presentation. American Ambulance has proven itself consistently excellent on its previous disks; Streets of NYC continues and improves the trend by being the band's best record yet. Michael Toland [buy it]

AMON DÜÜL 2
Almost Alive…
Only Human
Vortex
(InsideOut Revisited/SPV)
Amon Düül 2 was (is?) a German ensemble that was essential in blurring the lines between psychedelia, progressive rock and what is dubiously known as Krautrock. The band's classics Phallus Dei, Wolf City and Yeti have long been unavailable in the States. InsideOut has plans to rectify that situation, but in the meantime the company reissues this trio of AD records from the late 70s and early 80s. 1977's Almost Alive… and 1978's Only Human definitely sound of their time, combining smooth, mostly instrumental progressive rock with dance floor rhythms, like Happy the Man gone disco. It's hardly the radical sound the band is famous for, but German prog has always emphasized groove, and there are pleasures to had in stuff like "Kismet," "Feeling Uneasy" and "Spaniards & Spacemen." 1981's Vortex adds singer Renate Aschauer-Knaup on vocals and a less expansive musical approach, with a bit of then-contemporary New Wave spice. Pop is an approach the band hadn't explored before, but unfortunately it leads to some cuts ("Mona," "Holy West") that sound uncomfortably like the Alan Parsons Project. Vortex is easily skipped, but the other two, while hardly the cream of Amon Düül 2's output, should give American proggers a taste of delights to come. Michael Toland [buy it] [buy it] [buy it]

ATHLETE
Tourist
(Astralwerks)
Tourist, the second album from British quartet Athlete, isn't as brash as the band's delightful first platter Vehicles & Animals. The group keeps the melodies and arrangements subdued, adding tasteful strings to many tunes for a grander sweep. While the group is less cheeky here than it was on the debut, tunes like "Half Light," "Modern Mafia" and "I Love" retain just enough of the British archness to avoid being overly lush, sounding not unlike a U.K. version of the Eels. But Athlete drops the detachment much of the time, flaying its heart open on "Street Map" and "Yesterday Threw Everything at Me" and flatly singing "Just wanna be with you/My baby" over a gentle groove in the title track. Tourist may be a bit more ballad heavy than it should be, but Athlete's songwriting chops easily keep it out of too much trouble. Michael Toland [buy it]

ADRIAN BELEW
Side Two
(Sanctuary)
Side Two is guitarist Adrian Belew's second release in a proposed trilogy. Unlike Side One, which is heavy on power trio theatrics, this record is more sedate, concentrating on atmospheric, experimental pop tunes, often with a lot of electronic tinkering. What few lyrics found here come in almost haiku form, as much a part of the textures as Belew's treated guitar parts; there's a marked Residents feel to many of the tracks. The repetitive pulse of electronic percussion becomes wearing after a few songs, and the production has a hermetic feel he avoided on prior one-man-band solo records. But some of the tunes ("Quicksand," "Dead Dog on Asphalt") are compelling enough, at least for fans like me. Michael Toland [buy it]

THE BEVIS FROND
London Stone
(Rubric)
Originally released in 1991 as the follow-up to the amazing New River Head, London Stone has gone down in Bevis Frond lore as The Album That Killed The Frond's American Record Deal. Nothing is ever that straightforward, of course, and I won't go into the story, since you can read it for yourself in head Frond Nick Saloman's liner notes. Besides, the music is what matters the most, and the songs found on London Stone equal anything Saloman's ever done. It may be just a matter of the man's startling instrumental and compositional consistency, but the bright psych rock of "Coming Round," the gentle folk of "Lord of Nothing" and the lovely acid pop of "On a Liquid Wheel" rank right up there with any psychedelic classic you'd care to name, and the burly rocker "Well Out of It" continues to be a staple of live Frond shows. Some excellent outtakes ("Another Song About Dying," "Hail the Child Philosopher") and demos ("And Now She's Gone," "Coming Round") make appearances here as well. Frond fans who never visited London Stone can finally book their passage, and it's a trip well worth taking. Michael Toland [buy it]

MEREDITH BRAGG AND THE TERMINALS
Vol. I
(The Kora)
Sure, Meredith Bragg is derivative. You won't hear anything on Vol. 1 Elliott Smith hasn't done before. But so what? Smith is dead (rest his fragile soul) and Bragg's classicist acoustic pop has the emotional grounding to be more than mere derivation and the tunefulness to strike a chord with anyone who appreciates melancholy melody. Besides, his canny use of Elizabeth Olson's mournful cello drone gives tunes like "I Won't Let You Down," "Seventeen" and "My Only Enemy" a grandeur his predecessor hadn't explored. Bragg's going to endure charges of claim-jumping for a while, but he's got the talent and, more importantly, heart to rise above comparison into his own realm. Michael Toland [buy it]

THE CAMPBELL BROTHERS
Can You Feel It?
(Ropeadope)
John Medeski, who introduced the world to Robert Randolph, has worked his magic again—this time for the Campbell Brothers, a Rochester, New York gospel band. Can You Feel It is everything you want music to be. It's raw and energetic with incendiary guitar playing and passionate vocals (occasionally) from Denise Brown. Sacred steel music is as new a genre as we have, and the Campbell Brothers are writing the book on this style with every note. Steel guitars are the featured instrument in these arrangements and Chuck Campbell's playing leaves little room (or need) for anything else. This disc is mandatory for anyone with working ears and a foot capable of tapping. Lance Looper [buy it]

JOHNNY CASH
The Legend
(Columbia/Legacy)
Four disks. Hits, favorites, standards. Murder ballads, love songs, gospel tunes, folk songs, political statements (despite the presence of the anti-political "The One On the Right Is On the Left"), novelty tunes. There's little here from Johnny Cash's tenure at Mercury or American (the latter of which revitalized both his art and his career), but otherwise the breadth of this box set is staggering. Everything from "Folsom Prison Blues" to "Hey Porter" to "If I Were a Carpenter" to "Delia's Gone" to "Ballad of Teenage Queen" to "Luther Played the Boogie"…you get the idea. Four disks. Great songs. That Voice. One American music giant. Holy shit. Michael Toland [buy it]

JUNE CARTER CASH
Keep on the Sunny Side—Her Life in Music
(Columbia/Legacy)
Keep on the Sunny Side documents the career of June Carter Cash, who started singing when she was only ten. The record plays like a timeline of her long career, starting with a childish version of "Keep On the Sunny Side" which was recorded in San Antonio in 1939. The first disc continues along Cash's early years as a member of the popular Carter Family band. This is a fun disc, making me laugh out loud several times. Especially if you are a fan of the American roots scene, you should give this a listen. The Carter Family was maybe the genre's first big name, and June Carter shone the brightest. The second disc starts off with "Jackson," a duet with Johnny Cash. "If I Were a Carpenter" follows "Jackson" and is another duet with Johnny. This is my favorite song on the disc. Not only is it a great song, but their voices— Johnny's brooding versus June's chipper cragginess—contrast each other nicely. This collection ends the way it began, with June singing "Keep On the Sunny Side," a second version from her 2002 Grammy winning album Wildwood Flower. Lance Looper [buy it]

CHEESE
Enlarge Your Johnson
(Pink Hedgehog)
England spawns good pop bands like Brazoria County breeds mosquitos, and Cheese falls right in line. The Dorset quartet boasts the talents of Lucky Bishops members Rich Murphy and Alan Strawbridge, but the main thrust is frontperson Marco Rossi's excellent songs. The band's bittersweet, psych-dusted arrangements support great tunes like "The Trail's Gone Cold," "Zero and Counting You Down" and the witty "Why She's Not a Millionaire," not to mention the obligatory anthem "Fallen From the Sun." Don't be put off by the bland band name and the smutty title pun—Cheese makes superstrong, highly intelligent, inordinately catchy pop. Michael Toland [buy it]

CRIMSON SWEET
Eat the Night
(Shake It)
The latest album by Fun City quartet Crimson Sweet is much like its last one, and the one before that. Eat the Night cuts the crap and gets down to the business of delivering tuneful, to-the-point blasts of rock & roll fury. Leader Polly Watson puts her harsh voice and blunt hooks to the service of what's practically a song cycle of pain and lust. "Lady Linda on Fridays," "Boulevard" and "The Wrong Way" seethe and throb with frustrated desire and fresh heartbreak, doing the deed with a striking sense of melody and the heart of a dirty, bar-band rocker. Crimson Sweet loudly ensures that you'll Eat the Night and like it. Michael Toland [buy it]

MILES DAVIS
'Round About Midnight (Expanded Edition)
(Columbia/Legacy)
'Round About Midnight, first released in 1956, was the album which inaugurated a nearly three-decade relationship between Miles Davis and Columbia Records. Supported by his first great quartet (including saxophone god John Coltrane), Miles runs from hot to cool here, shining on sensitive balladry ("'Round Midnight"), tough bop ("Al-Leu-Cha") and pop standards ("Bye Bye Blackbird," "All of You"). Coltrane steps out on "Dear Old Stockholm," as the leader graciously lets him have his way with the tune. This two-disk edition includes not only a quartet of bonus tracks, but also a sharp live set by the same musicians, taken from impresario Gene Norman's concert series. If you're early to the Miles worship party, this is a good place to start. Michael Toland [buy it]

DIGGER & THE PUSSYCATS
Watch Yr Back
(Spooky)
If the White Stripes weren't so obsessed with media visibility, perhaps they'd sound more like Digger & the Pussycats. This Australian duo vaults a very similar blend of punky rock and crude Americana on Watch Yr Back, but avoids slickness of any kind. The fried rockabilly of "Catch Us If You Can," poignant country of "Why Won't She Marry Me?" and sneering satire of "Working at a Desk" and "Fashion Victim" leave little room for artifice. The pounding Stooges-like punk rock of "Coming to Get You," "No Vacancy" and "Where Did You Go?" have even lower bullshit factors, revolving around nothing but blunt emotional expression and primal riffs. Crank it up and stay out of the way. Michael Toland [buy it]

THE DOLEFUL LIONS
Shaded Lodge and Mausoleum
(Parasol)
On its fifth album Shaded Lodge and Mausoleum, the Doleful Lions (singer/songwriter Jonathan Scott and instrumentalist David Jackson) dial down one aspect of their personality and turn another way up. Specifically, Scott eases back on the sparkling pop melodies that turned heads in favor of a gentler, more overtly folky approach, while at the same time giving his obsession with Satanism, Lovecraftian horror and other occult themes full rein. Read the lyric sheet and you'll think you've stumbled onto a particularly poetic black metal album—indeed, Scott claims the LP is a tribute to an obscure black metal band called Von. But listen to lilting, often lovely tracks like "O Martyr Atlantis," "Strange Vibrations" and "Sham Magic in the Night Gallery," and it becomes clear that Scott uses his creepy lyrics as metaphor for his own inner struggles. The pretty folk song "Slip Inside This Gateway" gives full vent to the latter, as hope and despair battle it out for possession of Scott's soul. Of course, not everyone will be prepared to accept the contrast between the cheerful electropop and ghastly lyrics of the title track. Whether or not Shaded Lodge and Mausoleum is a work of acid folk genius or a travesty of disturbed self-indulgence (and you could make convincing arguments either way), it's a unique accomplishment that proves the Doleful Lions are still one of the most consistently interesting psychedelic artists in this mundane dimension. Michael Toland [buy it]

FEDERATION X
Rally Day
(Estrus)
In one way, Federation X fits into the same scene as the neo-new wave bands, with the stripped-down, angular arrangements and ants-in-the-pants rhythms. In another way, the bicoastal trio's two four-string guitars, fuzz-choked tones and bottom-heavy attack put it on the side of the more aggressive stoner rockers. When the new generation of bongloaded longhairs finds common ground with the spit-shined new wave wannabes, something different's going on. Lean and only slightly mean tunes like "In This Sad Room, In This Dark Gloom," "Pale Afternoon" and "Hydrogen Nitrogen & Bullshit" find the band squarely blazing its own trail. Scorched earth, ho! Michael Toland [buy it]

THE FUGS
Virgin Fugs
(ESP Disk)
What can be said about the Fugs that adequately describes the anarchy contained on Virgin Fugs? Led by poets/performances artists Ed Sanders and Tuli Kupferberg, the Fugs were the 60s' most notorious band, a collective who cared even less about the establishment than it did about musical values. The Fugs gleefully attacked the proper sensibilities of decent folk anywhere with loose musicality and casual profanity, over a decade before punk rock and over 20 years before gangsta rap. 1966's Virgin Fugs is a compilation of outtakes put together by ESP against the group's will (as ruefully recounted in label head Bernard Stollman's liner notes), and as such doesn't have much focus. But it's got hilarious/pathetic assaults on polite society like "Hallucination Horrors," "The Ten Commandments by God" and the infamously obscene "Coca-Cola Douche." Political statements like "C.I.A. Man" and "I Command the House of the Devil" also abound. The record ends with a sprightly folk rock version of Allen Ginsberg's "I Saw the Best Minds of My Generation Rot," putting the band's cultural position in perspective regarding the counterculture as well as the establishment. Due to the nature of the record's assembly, Virgin Fugs may not the best Fugs album. But it is a quick and dirty guide to what the Fugs were all about. Michael Toland [buy it]

RORY GALLAGHER
Big Guns: The Best of Rory Gallagher
(Capo/Sony/BMG)
The late Rory Gallagher was never more than a cult act in the States, though he was at least a mid-level star in Europe. But the Irish guitar slinger's career stretches from the late-60s to the mid-90s, when he died an unfortunately early death due to complications from liver transplant surgery. Big Guns covers as much of the length and breadth of that career as two disks will allow. Gallagher's main claim to fame is as a guitarist, and most of the tracks here are solid-to-great blues rock. Hard-charging cuts like "Sinnerboy," "Born on the Wrong Side of Time" and "Bad Penny" burn like Eric Clapton if he still had fire in his belly. The Clapton comparison is fairly apt, actually, as Gallagher has a similar voice and obviously took a lot of inspiration from Cream. But Gallagher is more than just a guitar flash, and more sedate, acoustic-flavored tunes like "I'm Not Awake Yet," "Tattoo'd Lady" and a killer cover of Leadbelly's "Out on the Western Plain" display his taste and songwriting facility nicely. Gallagher was a hardworking, no-bullshit artist, more interested in playing his music than cultivating stardom, and Big Guns is a fine summary of a man few outside of guitar circles remember. Michael Toland [buy it]

AL GREEN
Back Up Train
(Arista/Bell/Legacy)
Before he hooked up with Willie Mitchell and Hi Records in Memphis and became the Eros of the 70s, Al Green cut an album in the late 60s in New York. Known variously as Al Green and Back Up Train (after its lead single), the record is squarely in the tradition of 60s R&B, working mostly in a Stax Southern soul vibe, but adopting some Motown polish as well. Tunes like "Stop and Check Myself," "I'm Reachin' Out" and "That's All It Takes (Lady)" aren't as bewitching as what Green would come up with just a few years later, but they're still rock-solid, instantly enjoyable slices of good old-fashioned soul. And that voice is, of course, unmistakable. Michael Toland [buy it]

THE HOLD STEADY
Separation Sunday
(Frenchkiss)
The Hold Steady has become as infamous for leader Craig Finn's obnoxious rants as for its rockin' and rollin' music. But so what? On its second album Separation Sunday, the Brooklyn quintet reminds us that obnoxiousness can be a virtue in rock & roll. Finn seems to be often at odds with everybody, as if confrontation and antagonism are the only ways he can interact with the world. "Your Little Hoodrat Friend" and "Stevie Nix" sneer haughtily and rock heartily. "At least in dying you don't have to deal with new wave for a second time," Finn sardonically notes in "Multitude of Casualties." But the vocalist has more compassion than he's given credit for, as in tunes like "Crucifixion Cruise" ("Lord what would you prescribe?/To a real nice girl who's having real hard times?") and "How a Resurrection Really Feels." Besides, even if you don't pick up on the words, you can still enjoy the Steady's kickass hooks and driving energy, which put the band in the same rock & roll renaissance area as fellow NYC bands Tiger Mountain and the Izzys. The Hold Steady nicely lives up to the hype on Separation Sunday. Michael Toland [buy it]