blackleatherbookshelf: (Flames)
Breakdown, Make Up
2 Out Of 5 Stars

Released as a companion piece to the already abrasive "Broken," Nine Inch Nails' "Fixed" is almost as caustic. Six songs (five remixes) are given a Cuisinart of studio trickery and often pair little resemblance to their sources. For instance, the remix of "Gave Up" tears apart the vocal track into some sort pastiche and stutters most of of the song into disconcerting fragments. "Throw This Away" is a remix of both "Suck" and "Last" that manages to not sound anything like their origins. "Fist F***" is one of two mixes given to "Wish," just with a nastier title and a lot more guitar and no actual use of the actual title.

One of Reznor's best (and most vitriolic) songs, "Happiness In Slavery" is also given a double dose, fist with a semi-standardized remix like you might have expected given the multiple remixes he released from "Pretty Hate Machine." It's almost a dub remix with more industrial sounds. The second, "Screaming Slave," is just what its title would reveal it to be. A total sandblaster musically, with a ton of agonized screams punctuating towards the end. Probably the least interesting track on "Fixed."

"Broken" is obviously the better of the two EP's as it represents Reznor's original vision of the songs, but "Fixed" makes an interesting curio. Reznot would tread this road again, soon after "The Downward Spiral" was released, a near full length LP of remixes called "Further Down The Spiral" would appear. I'd call "Fixed" an EP for completists only.


   
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The World's Forgotten Boy
4 Out Of 5 Stars

Loud, Rude and crude, "Raw Power" was Iggy and The Stooges at their aggressive best. If any album could be called the birth of punk rock, this is one of the finalists for that decree. Pushed into the maximum volume in this remix by Iggy himself, everything pummels like a series of body blows. It also includes the Stooges' classics "Gimme Danger" and "Search and Destroy." David Bowie had made it his personal mission to save the band (they were without a record deal at the time and were having personnel problems), so he carted the entire crew over to England to record "Raw Power."

The title is apt. The Stooges flail away at hard rockers like "Your Pretty Face is Going to Hell" and "Search and Destroy" while finessing the psychedelic songs like "Penetration" or the mix-up of "Gimme Danger." The real hero is Iggy himself, wailing away like a man possessed. Yet at the same time, he bellows under control of his yowling and howling, bringing "Raw Power" controlled chaos that the other Stooges albums lacked. Not for the faint of heart or folks who run away from distorted guitars turned up to 11, "Raw Power" is the most explosive of The Stooges' original trio of albums.

Note: The album has been re-issued with the David Bowie mixes.


     


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Back to the Hive
4 Out Of 5 Stars


The Hives made a long shot album when they issued "The Black and White Album," expanding their sonic palette and forcing some funk, all while still sounding like no-one else but The Hives. Well, forget all that. "Lex Hives" ditches the experimentation and cranks the amps on 30 minutes of basic garage/punk crunch. Howlin' Pete and the boys deliver their fifth full length like they didn't miss a day from "Veni Vidi Vicious." If you were suspect in any way, the sonic dirtbomb of "Come On," which is basically a Ramones-slinging "Come on everybody, come on" repeated for about 90 seconds, drives that message home.

"Lex Hives" brings back the noise. The lessons of TB&WA that remain are the fact that polish wasn't completely lost on the band; this may be the cleanest loud album you've heard since "Rocket to Russia" and the best swipe on the Electric Light Orchestra (when "Go Right Ahead" takes its hood from "Don't Bring Me Down") since Randy Newman's "Story of a Rock and Roll Band." Also, like so many garage pros, The Hives are modern blues at supersonic speeds. "Without The Money" drops the speed (but not the volume) for some hardcore wailing. Is your life missing some big dance racket? "Lex Hives" is the law, the cure and the disco all rolled up in one shiny CD.


     

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Rush, Steampunk and Candide
4 Out Of 5 Stars

The Rush of 2112 is back, the band of Moving Pictures, the conceptual maestros of concept albums; their 20th studio album and they sound as ferocious and powerful as ever. "Clockwork Angels" is Neil Peart's musing on faith and hope in the time of tragedy (and is allegedly inspired by the work of 17th century French philosopher Voltaire's Candide). Having lost his wife and daughter, then his drum mentor, Peart took a journey into the wilderness and came back with the seeds of what is this album. As he intones on the opener, "I can't stop thinking big."

That alone should tell you you're in for a near classic Rush CD. The band (or at least the central character in the upcoming novelization of the album) is traveling through time and making sense of the chaos surrounding him. He meets up with "The Anarchist," in a seven minute all-the-stunts prog-rocker and the "Carnies," who pound the drums between the 'flint and steel and games of chance." The bass-work here alone will melt your lasers.

Then there are the songs that are trademark rush, like the opening "Caravan" that starts our journey and "Headlong Flight," which propel you through the plot with reckless efficiency. "I wish I could live it all again" screams Geddy Lee (in fine voice), as he defies the clockmaker to make him downtrodden about the curves life has thrown his way and the rest of the band is pulsing with muscle right in their behind him. Or the eff-off of "Wish Them Well," as Lee tells us to ignore the cynics and make peace with what life has for you.

"Clockwork Angels" is a dense and powerful album, and given the long-in-toothiness of the band, Rush are still staking out territory few contemporaries can even dip their toes in. Maybe Peart measures out a life that goes "from bad to worse" (BU2B), but he is still optimally a heartbeat in a band that plays by its own set of rules and seems to find ways to make time stand still for their fans, and for their own sense of optimism.




      


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All Aboard The Blunderbuss
5 Out of 5 Stars

Well, no one can claim that Jack White was hoarding his best material for the Dead Weather or Raconteurs albums. "Blunderbuss," his first official solo album, is top heavy with raucous guitars, southern-fried blues, big, liquid guitar fuzz-bomb solos, and White's odd view of the world. When your first song is about a woman who - literally - takes pieces of you with her, you know you're not in for your typical guitar hero album.

"Blunderbuss" tackles the radical sides of love almost as viciously as Marilyn Manson did on his new album. On the big noise of "Sixteen Saltines," White sings about the femme fatale whose "spiked heels put a hole in the lifeboat." Or "Love Interruption," the acoustic-ish number where White wants her so bad that he wants to turn "His friends into enemies." He's got it bad, and for us, that's good. Or the title track, where he moans that "doing what two people need is never on the menu."

Along with the great guitar, While pulls out an oldie to play about with (and would have fit in just as nicely on his production of Wanda Jackson), "I'm Shakin'." Originally by bluesman Little Willie John (and well covered in the 80's by The Blasters), White gets playful, again about another questionable lady who'll make him 'noivous' or get his locks clipped ala Samson and Delilah. While I certainly can't psychoanalyze the guy's "Blunderbuss" obsession with threatening women, I do hear the grooves in the album that he's inspired to make. His guitar is doing the bulk of the talking, the songs are all killer. This is on my shortlist for favorite album of 2012.



   

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The Metal Gods Arise
5 Out Of 5 Stars

The Judas Priest buildup from Stained Class to Hellbent for Leather to British Steel marked a rise in the band that they'd maintain for several years to come. "British Steel" marked a couple big changes in the group; first, the songs began to utilize pop hooks, and second, Halford hit his peak as a vocalist. Thom Allom was also near his peak as a metal producer, and he brought Priest crashing into the mainstream. After all, what party wouldn't start rocking if you put on "Living After Midnight" or "Breaking The Law"?

Not that Priest were becoming The Partridge Family. "Rapid Fire" kicks in with the double bass drum pound Priest became known for, and there's no way that "Metal Gods" wasn't meant as self-fulfilling prophecy. The pop-hooks of "Midnight" are offset by the menace of "The Rage" or "United's" message of metal fan unity. Hard to believe that "British Steel" arrived before there was an MTV Headbangers Ball or the glut of Metal Showcases prevalent today, so credit must be given to Judas Priest for taking "British Steel" to a level that helped make the scene possible, and laying down a playing field for it.

A point made even more fully by the DVD bonus disc. Recorded on the 2009 tour, Priest plays the album from start to finish in its entirety, showing no signs of it's 30 years. Halford and company look like they're having the time of their lives spreading the gospel to this day of an album that took them over the brink, and the fans are lapping it up. Frankly, you can live without the DVD if you already have the 2001 Remaster, but if not, it's just a couple extra bucks and worth a spin on the telly.



   





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Wasting Light
There is Nothing Left to Waste
4 Out of 5 Stars

The Foo Fighters have always been an enigma to me; One of America's finest rock bands, featuring one of the world's best rock drummers (and allegedly one of the nicest guys in rock and roll), but plagued by inconsistent writing and often albums to similar to each other to really stand out. Their last studio album, "Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace" seemed to address the issue by tweaking things texturally, but I think Dave Grohl may have gotten a shot in the arm after hanging out with Them Crooked Vultures and Queens of The Stone Age. "Wasting Light" sounds like a bandwide epiphany, a Foo Fighters album that rocks and rocks hard, along with their most fully consistent set of songs since the breakout "The Colour and The Shape."

"Wasting Light" is a big guitar album, be it the jittery start (Beastie Boys' "Sabotage," anyone?) on "Bridge Burning" or the stuttering echo of the initial single, "Rope." And despite opening the album with a song titled "Bridge Burning," much of "Wasting Light" sounds like that's exactly like what the Foos are doing. It's a stunner to hear Grohl sing in a world weary voice (on "These Days") lyrics about trying to get over past pains, then suddenly breaking into a roar of protest.

"Easy for you to say!
Your heart has never been broken,
your pride has never been stolen.
Not yet, not yet!"

Elsewhere, old friends are kicking in. Pat Smear comes back for the first time since TC&TS, Husker Du and soulmate Bob Mould adds a convincing snarl on "Dear Rosemary," and even old Nirvana band-buddy Krist Novoselic brings his bass out of retirement for "I Should Have Known." That particular song just happens to be the most contemplative number on "Wasting Light," as if Grohl and Krist were saving their collective empathy for all this time. The same is not true for "White Limo," a screaming, distorted punker. Even with all the guest shots and shifting sounds, "Wasting Light" sounds like a band in full-cohesion. If you don't get the chills from listening to "Walk," where the band tears through a personal rebuilding process that hits a climax with Grohl repeatedly shouting "I Never Wanna Die!" before concluding "I'm learning to walk again, I believe I've waited long enough."

"Wasting Light" is loaded with that kind of rock and roll redemptive spirit. Easily one of 2011's best, if not the best rocking album of the year.




Greatest Hits  Colour & The Shape (Exp) Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace Foo Fighters  There Is Nothing Left to Lose One by One
 

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