Cd - Round The Dial Magazine

11. “Mersey Paradise” (Demo)
12. “Where Angels Play” (Demo)
13. “Something's Burning” (Demo)
14. “One Love” (Demo)
15. “Pearl Bastard” (Demo; previously
unreleased track)
The B-sides
1. “Elephant Stone”
2. “Full Fathom Five”
3. “The Hardest Thing”
4. “Going Down”
5. “Guernica”
6. “Mersey Paradise”
7. “Standing Here”
8. “Simone”
9. “Fools Gold”
10. “What the World Is Waiting For”
11. “One Love”
12. “Something's Burning”
13. “Where Angels Play”
Music videos DVD
1. “Waterfall” (Video)
2. “Fools Gold” (Video)
3. “I Wanna Be Adored” (Video)
4. “One Love” (Video)
5. “She Bangs the Drums” (Video)
6. “Standing Here” (Video)
Re-release albums in general, and
anniversary re-releases in particular, have
certain kind of baggage to deal with that
albums proper never do. Why is this
worth revisiting? What has changed
between now and then? And perhaps most
importantly: Why should I buy this album
all over again?
As if to speak directly to that last question,
the 20th Anniversary re-issue of The
Stone Roses self-titled debut packs on the
extras until it’s almost distracting. Almost.
There’s the main event, the album itself
that seems perfectly dated, cemented in
time. Trouble is, it’s almost impossible to
tell in which time it’s stuck. Late-80s guitar
rock? Early-90s alternative? Late-60s
psychadelia? The songs and the sounds
have a strikingly present quality even
today, but with the sheen of something
you found in your dad’s record collection.
Lush, multi-part harmonies adorn freeflowing
ballads like “Waterfall” and powerful
anthems like “This is the One,”
while focused guitar riffs push “She
Bangs the Drums” so far in your head
you’ll remember them in the past. The
trippy quota is fulfilled here, too, in
“Don’t Stop,” the orchestration from
“Waterfall” is recycled, backwards. It’s
certainly more surprising than it ought to
be that a perfectly catchy pop song can be
exactly as good the other way around.
That kind of disdain for front-to-back
song structure essentially typifies the rest
of the collection. A ten minute version of
“Fool’s Gold” adds nothing but more of
the same, which is essentially fine. The
longer jams never seem to outstay their
welcome, building a place in the music
where the listener can just hang out.
Tracks from early versions as well as
unreleased songs play like a string of
counterexamples, to prove that the album
as it stands is perfect. Why isn’t Ian
Brown’s voice higher in the mix? Because
they tried it in the “I Am The
Resurrection,” and it didn’t sound right.
Rounding out the collection is a barebones
DVD of music videos and live performances,
which are excellent, if not
entirely revelatory.
With so much coverage, the re-issue of
The Stone Roses plays more like a retrospective
on an entire band, which is a
pretty canny marketing move. Passing up
this collection basically amounts to turning
your back on their entire career.
— Jonny Grubb
Stress Position
A man a plan a canal panama
Aggressive Records
2009
BAND MEMBERS: Vince Glaval /Damon
Gardner/Matt Lind/Andy Bergan
(Stress Position does not list “who plays
what” on this release, only the descriptions
as, respectively, “thought” “word”
“action” and “character..” -Ed.)
TRACK LISTING: “washout”/ “the captain”/”ewe”/
“smile and shake
hands”/”rabbits foot”/ “tanning bed
sun”/ “ape”
Stress Position’s a man a plan a canal
panama opens on something of a fake-out.
“washout” is a distilled form of hardcore
rock. A two-chord riff, transposed once,
over highly effected screaming. This is
going to be a record made entirely out of
nitroglycerine and sparks, right? Boring
for fans of melody, but necessary for fans
of hardcore. But as soon as the next track,
all that changes.
While the energy is there for the whole
of the album, it gets somewhat restrained
as it goes on. More inspired by jazz than
by metal, Stress Position plays like The
Dead Milkmen if those guys had ever gotten
serious. Deliberate, metered guitar
noodling sets the stage for only-barelymelodic
singing with intermittent breaks
for passionate screaming. A restrained
energy, yes, but one that seems desperate
to break out, always ready to explode.
In a lot of ways, a man a plan a canal
panama works better as an invitation.
While the album itself is perfectly good, it
sounds like it was meant to come from a
band on a stage. Nowhere is this more
obvious than the last few seconds of
“smile and shake hands.” A chorus of
male voices chants, “we smile and shake
hands / while we are stepped on.” Surely
only a room full of dudes with fists
upheld could do this line justice.
— Jonny Grubb
The Minus 5
Killingsworth
YepRoc
2009
BAND MEMBERS: Scott McCaugheyvocals,
guitars/Peter Buck- guitars/John
Moen- drums/The Shee Bee Geesvocals/Ken
Stringfellow- vocals
TRACK LISTING: Dark Hand Of
Contagion/The Long Hall/The
Disembowelers/The Lurking Barrister/It
Won't Do You Any Good/Vintage
Violet/Scott Walker's Fault/Big Beat Up
Moon/I Would Rather Sacrifice You/Gash
In The Cocoon/Smoke On, Jerry/Your
Favorite Mess/Tonight You're Buying Me
A Drink, Bub
Scott McCaughey is a depraved workhorse.
He's been wringing the bitter whiskey out
of that old ticker with a young man's regularity
and a wiser man's wit for some time
now. The Young Fresh Fellows, The
Baseball Project and his association with
some band called R.E.M have all born The
Dark Hand of McCaughey’s Contagion,
but for my drink tickets, it's his work in
The Minus 5 that has always seemed the
most personal and affective. Although originally
conceived in 1993 as a resting place
for songs that flowed over the rim of The
Young Fresh Fellows' rhinestone stein, The
Minus 5 has outgrown its intended role,
morphing into a pop collective that has featured
members of Wilco, The Decemberists
and The Pogues, but which nearly always
centers around R.E.M's Peter Buck and
McCaughey's stunningly consistent sadpop
craftsmanship and an obsession with
drink, death, and the shadowy sound of a
weeping pedal-steel.
McCaughey's persona in The Minus 5 is
that of a drunk, a bit of an asshole maybe,
but with those same wet-eyed late night
fears and feelings that we all indulge in,
alcoholically lubricated or not. The love
songs in McCaughey's world sound like
apologies, and the drinking songs are
unapologetic, as in the contrast between
closing tracks “Your Favourite Mess” and
“Tonight You're Buying Me A Drink, Bub.”
Elsewhere the focus is on death and loneliness,
continuing the theme of his previous
full-length, The Minus 5 (known to fans as
“The Gun Album” for its unnerving cover
art, a black background with a single handgun,
sans explanation). The perfectly-drawn
characters in “Big Beat-Up Moon,” for
example, experience their quotidian sadnesses
without ever intersecting, causing the
bittersweet waltz to ponder, simply, “How
can there be / so many people / stacked up
in rooms / And still feel all alone?”
The album is beautifully crafted from one
end to the other, with “Dark Hand of
Contagion” leading off with a solid hit,
while the middle of the lineup, “Vintage
Violet” and “Scott Walker's Fault” announce
this collection's arrival as being right in line
with the fantastic string of music
McCaughey has released recently, from
Down With Wilco to In Rock to The Minus
5, and including the EP At The Organ. He's
discovered a singular skill for writing great
pop music, and has been a remarkably sure
bet for over a decade now. The lyrics are
incredibly verbose and evocative, with the
ability to be wry or sad as hell in the same
breath. It's the kind of album you want to
have a drink with, as if the album itself
could sit down at the bar next to you, talk
your ear off and outdrink you before walking
out the door to that cold beat-up moon,
sticking you, of course, with the tab.
— Jesse Sawyer
Joe Henry
Blood From Stars
Anti Records
2009
“This is a beautiful war, to be sure.”
Joe Henry's bag is full. Songwriter, producer,
recording artist, Madonna's brotherin-law...
Busy, busy, busy. Fresh off of
taking the production reigns for Ramblin'
Jack Elliott's A Stranger Here and Allen
Toussaint's The Bright Mississippi, he still
had the time to grind out his recent
release, Blood From Stars, arguably his
darkest spawn of songs to date.
There really ought to be a word to
describe the feeling evoked when Henry's
music assaults the ear as simple and resonant
as “yummy” is to characterize the
sense of taste.
Delicious aural waftings notwithstanding,
Henry's gone deeper into the jazzy under-
pinnings that have been a signature of his
previous quartet of releases and fused it to
the blues, while waxing esoteric here to
show us that we're all stardust or, more
appropriately, the blood spilled from the
violence in the history of the stellar universe,
and turned it back inward to the
microcosm that is our lives, our challenges,
our choices. And, through it all, he displays
why we all have the ability to extract the
light from all that darkness. There's a
redemptive power in these songs that speaks
to the inner-Sisyphus and urges the soul to
challenge everything, fear nothing, take it's
licks, keep going and tell whoever and
whatever's oppressor that, “Yeah, ya know,
fuck you, I'm still better than you.”
He tells us from the beginning to
embrace the darkness with the sparse
instrumental, “Prelude: Light No Lamp
When The Sun Comes Down,” then moves
seamlessly into a lecture on protecting the
feral nature of the id with, “The Man I
Keep Hid,” a slow-rumblin' train of a song
chuggin' along with horn-heavy interludes.
Speaking of horns, keep your ears
pinned down for the saxophone, too, as it
comes courtesy of Henry's 17-year-old son,
Levon. Says Henry of his son's burgeoning
musicianship and his presence on BFS, “It
wasn't a matter of me thinking it would be
cute to put him on a record. He was just
the musician I most wanted to hear in that
chair.” Like father, like son, it would
appear, and another to keep an eye on..
“Channel” is as eerie and airy as the picture
that adorns the album cover. It's a fiveminute
orchestral blitzkrieg that employs a
dead-on, chilling lyrical “pause” technique
that imbues the song with tension and suspense,
no doubt meticulously plotted by
Henry to make you feel like what comes
next could be anything from a murmur to a
shattering, tormenting torrent.
“There's a song we used to know/A
kind of weary blues/Some broken tune
from long ago/Some of us still like to
use/It hangs up high in the rafters/Like
smoke, it has no form/Keep it all hid like
laughter and sing out: Death, death to the
storm,” Henry urgently and strenuously
wails amid the soft rolling drums and
tink-tink tin tap of high ivory on “Death
To The Storm,” the kind of song playing
while you're nestled in a windowed
alcove, watching the rain stream down
before you and cursing nature's rage.
On “Progress Of Love,” Henry takes a
moment to make a pretty lady smile and
remind us why we love love, serenading
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