Category: Album Reviews

Posted in Album Reviews

The Rolling Stones – 12 X 5 (1964)

Posted on by Michael

Just like their counterparts in The Beatles, The Rolling Stones early US records were a bit of a mix bag. Following up their first US album, England’s Newest Hit Makers, their second release was 12 X 5.  Named after the band’s 5 x 5 UK EP, this release takes those five songs and adds seven more including cover songs and three credited to Mick Jagger/Keith Richards.

The band gets the joint rocking with a cover of Chuck Berry’s “Around and Around”, includes some great piano playing from Ian Stewart and the sweet honey vocals of Jagger. The band’s first US top ten hit appears in the cover “Time Is On My Side” based on the Irma Thomas rendition. The version that appears here is a bit more raw than the version that they would later record and include on compilations over and over again. 

Of the three tracks credited the iconic duo, “Good Times, Band Times” is the pick.  A slower, bluesy R+B number does the band good basing it on the music they have been covering. Their first UK #1 closes out side one with their version of “It’s All Over Now”.  A bit of a country and western twang with some terrific bass playing courtesy of Bill Wyman and pained vocals of Jagger. Good stuff.

The second side starts with an instrumental band jam “2120 South Michigan Avenue” credited to their moniker, Nanker Phelge. The side also has a couple of cover versions of popular songs including “Under The Boardwalk” released in the same year as The Drifters’ classic version and “Susie Q” that is a rough and ready version with handclaps thrown in for good measure. 12 X 5 does a solid job of  featuring some classic Rolling Stones songs and a few other great turns but with a few others that that are better left to the originals.

9/10

Posted in Album Reviews

Kim Deal – Nobody Loves You More (2024)

Posted on by Michael

It’s remarkable that in her nearly 40 year recording career, Kim Deal is just now releasing her first official solo album. Having worked in main bands The Pixies and The Breeders, on this album the spotlight is solely on her. Nobody Loves You More sounds like it could have come out in the mid 90s after her breakthrough with The Breeders, Last Splash.  Indie rock, surf guitar, and orchestral strings co-mingle throughout this album that Deal produced with several tracks having been recorded by Steve Albini before his untimely death in 2024.

The title track has a 70s soundtrack feel to it, it’s a bit hazy, like a yellowing photography with a just a subtle drumbeat. A country twang on the softer sounds of “Are You Mine?” told from the perspective of an Alzheimer patient.  One of the highlights of the album is “Wish I Was”. The laid back surf guitar underpinned with a throbbing bass where Deal sings of really liking/loving someone but with the line, “Coming around is easy/coming down is rough”.

The album still fits in plenty of scuzzy rock songs.  “Crystal Breath” comes to life when the drumbeat kicks in. Similarly, “Big Ben Beat” kicks up the distortion with some great guitar lines while “Disobedience” is just a cool, upbeat indie rock song that Deal has been writing all her life. The album closes with the last song that Albini recorded, “A Good Time Pushed”.  Fittingly it sees Deal sing, “We’re having a good time… I’ll see you around”.  A really great album, hopefully we don’t have to wait 35+ years for the next solo album.

8.5/10

Posted in Album Reviews

Bob Dylan – Blood On The Tracks (1975)

Posted on by Michael

Blood On The Tracks is one of Bob Dylan’s best loved albums. Released in early 1975, the album went through quite the process to get recorded. Working with Phil Ramone, Dylan recorded the tracks in New York before being persuaded by his brother David Zimmerman to re-record back in his home state of Minnesota a few months later. The released version is a mix of tracks recorded in both locations.

Clocking in at just under 9 minutes with 15 verses, “Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts” is the only typical Dylan song here. The epic country hoedown spins a cast of characters taking up residence in a boozy saloon. With his first marriage disintegrating, most of the rest of the songs are in one way another about love and relationships.  Reading about the songs 50 years later, it’s almost like reading about the last Taylor Swift album as reviewers try to figure out little clues in the songs on what was happening in his life.  Dylan denies most of it and insists that the album was lyrically inspired by Anton Chekov.  Tortured poets society indeed.

A beautiful track, “Simple Twist of Fate” goes from the third to first person as Dylan sings, “To know and feel too much within/I still believe she was my twin/but I lost the ring”.  On “You’re a Big Girl Now” he then sings of “A pain that stops and starts/like a corkscrew to my heart/ever since we’ve been apart” before a flash of anger appears at the end of side one on “Idiot Wind”.  Far more scathing than anything else on the record, here he sings of “idiot wind/blowing every time you move your mouth”.

The last three songs of the album touch on the complexities of relationships including the touching, “If You See Her, Say Hello” – looking back on a past partner and wishing them well regardless of how things ended. Lyrically more complex, “Shelter From The Storm” tells of a relationship where one is welcomed in from pain and turmoil before it all goes wrong. The album ends with the more lighthearted “Buckets Of Rain”.  Like several tracks, the last two just have Dylan on guitar and the excellent bass playing accompaniment of Tony Brown.

The most well known track is the first song and only single, “Tangled Up In Blue”.  At seven verses and no chorus, on paper this works as an older style Dylan song but this one sounds shot through the pop world and back through the other side. The drumming of Bill Berg give the track some oomph as Dylan turns in a staggering vocal performance.  Both the song and album are highlights of the Dylan catalogue.  Blood On The Tracks still gets mentioned in pop culture and is widely regarded as one of the best albums ever recorded.  A truly classic album.

10/10

Posted in Album Reviews

Air – Moon Safari (25th Anniversary Deluxe Edition) (2024)

Posted on by Michael

For a brief moment in the mid 90s, electronica was being touted as the next big sound. Both The Prodigy and The Chemical Brothers scored big hits with their alternative rock take on the sound that resonated with US audiences.  Soon to be eclipsed by Nu Metal and boy bands, it was into this environment that the French duo Air released Moon Safari in 1998. The album was a modern sounding retro take on the downtempo sound, mixing 60s lounge pop with 70s prog and funk.

Nicolaus Godin and Jean-Benoit Dunckel welcome the listener in with “La Femme D’Argent” and it’s warm bath of synthesized sounds.  At seven minutes, it’s the longest song here that picks up gentle steam at the end that incorporates handclaps for a light beat. Two songs feature Beth Hirsch on vocals adding acoustic guitar onto the tracks folktronica sound while “Ce Matin La” is the sound of a sunrise, the come down after a night at the club complete with a trombone.

The album had two big singles. “Sexy Boy” includes a more typical pop structure but with French sung verses and an English chorus. The robust beat and squiggly synths made it dancefloor ready as it went top 20 in the UK.  Reportedly about Jaclyn Smith’s character from Charlie’s Angels,  “Kelly Watch The Stars” is like a celestial dream with a funk groove and easy listening piano lines, the hook being the repeated vocals of “Kelly watch the stars”.  The track is a mesmerizing standout on one of the truly great albums of the 90s.

The extras on this 25th anniversary edition include an extra disc of rarities and remixes.  Particular highlights include the three demos.  “Dirty Hiroshima” pushes the beat to the forefront while “New Star” and “Ce Matin” include elements of their album versions but enough differences to make them unique songs.  “Sexy Boy” and “Kelly Watch The Stars” appear from a BBC live performance with the latter getting the full rock treatment with electric guitars. Also included is the tour documentary by filmmaker Mike Mills – Eating Sleeping Waiting & Playing.  The black and white film follows the band around on several tour stops showing the banal moments of touring – hotel rooms, backstage, awkward interviews, etc. 

Moon Safari – 10/10

Extras – 8/10

Posted in Album Reviews

David Bowie – Re:Call 2 (2016)

Posted on by Michael

The second David Bowie boxset in his career spanning set released in 2016, Who Can I Be Now? (1974-1976) came with Re:Call 2, a disc that mops up single edits, B-sides, and other stray tracks. The glam rock/punk style on the classic “Rebel Rebel” appears twice in slightly different mixes. “Rock ‘n’ Roll with Me” slows things down in a bit on a live version before a great run of singles appears.

The title track to his 1975 album, Young Americans was a shift in style as he incorporated funk horns and mega talented background singers to elevate the single.  John Lennon appears on Bowie’s first US #1 hit “Fame” before this soul period culminates with the staggering “Golden Years” where Bowie really makes his version of the Philadelphia sound his own thing.

Several songs from the Station to Station album appear including “Word On A Wing (Single Edit)”. Over those handful of years, Bowie had gone from character to character but on this he really bares out his soul on the moving track. This period that Re:Call 2 covers captures several classic Bowie singles.  That this all happened in two years is quite remarkable, most other artists would be proud to call this a career summation.

9/10