Reviews, September 2012

Red Hot Chili Peppers – ‘Magpies on Fire’, ‘Victorian Machinery’, ‘Strange Man’ and ‘Long Progression’

By Tim Greenwood, published on 12 September 2012 03:57 pm

Fresh off the back of their 2011 album I’m With You, Red Hot Chili Peppers have now announced a string of singles in quick succession, beginning with this pair of double A-sides. The main problem that arises is how to perceive these 18 new tracks – collectively as an album, or one by one as they arrive? Their purpose is equally confused: should they be seen as a bridge to the next album, or (more likely) tunes that didn’t make the cut forI’m With You? Or, indeed, simply an attempt to continue milking the cash cow of a band who are less and less relevant on the grand musical scale? It’s hard not to be cynical when faced with such a move, until you remember that the Chili Peppers used to spend up to five years preparing new releases, mainly as a result of frequent conflicts withing the group. With this new development, perhaps fans could dare to hope for a more prolific band in future.

In any case, they present us here with four tight, neatly-written but ultimately unexciting songs. ‘Victorian Machinery’ begins with a promising clanking percussion line giving way to churning guitar in the kind of time signature that would make the best of drummers feel faint. Yet all too soon it drops into the mellow, jangling guitar-and-vocals sound that have typified pretty much every song on their last three releases. ‘Strange Man’ is more atmospheric but basically reverses the pattern, with a poppier verse followed by a soft chorus. ‘Long Progression’ contains a number of well-structured vocal harmonies but really could be any other song written by the foursome in the past 13 years. ‘Magpies on Fire’, then, stands out from the crowd as the most coherent and soulful tune, with new recruit Josh Klinghoffer‘s chiming guitar sound blending with Michael ‘Flea’ Balzary‘s crawling bassline, almost making up for the departure of John Frusciante. All in all, these are four nice enough tracks, but that’s the problem – at their prime, Red Hot Chili Peppers were, quite simply, the best, combining one of the all-time great rhythm sections with passionate songwriting and hyperactive inventiveness. Sure, they’ve done a lot of growing up since the early 1990s, but at the same time their sound has lost the sense of fun that defined them as a group.

So while these new releases certainly aren’t bad songs, they’re not all that special either; borne of undeniable musical talent but lacking in any real excitement. They carry the band’s trademark sound but do not make any forward progress with it, instead falling back on what has gone before.  It’s a painfully obvious pun to make, but the Red Hot Chili Peppers have definitely lost some of their heat.

6/10

@TimGreenwood2

Slipknot – Antennas to Hell

By Tim Greenwood, published on 18 August 2012 09:47 am

For a band of nameless, faceless Iowans sporting nightmarish masks straight out of a horror film,Slipknot have experienced a surprising level of mainstream success over the course of their career. Notorious for their brutal sound and manic live performances, the group have courted with their fair share of controversy, with lyrics being linked to a fatal school shooting in 2003, to a grave robbing in 2006, and then again to a murder in South Africa in 2008. For their part, the band maintained that their music carried a favourable message, a beacon of hope for disillusioned, isolated youths in the uncaring and unsupporting western world. Antennas to Hell compiles the best of that music, and throughout the progression of its 19 tracks, it is hard to see the positivity supposedly inherent in the music or lyrics. What does become evident, however, is just how revolutionary the group have been over the past decade.

Antennas to Hell encapsulates the evolution of Slipknot – beginning with a collection of sparse, frantic thrash numbers from their self-titled debut, progressing through more coherent metal, and concluding with the songs that made them famous. ‘Duality’, ‘Vermillion’, ‘Psychosocial’ and ‘Before I Forget’ are all present and correct, a string of chart hits that sealed the band’s position among the greats of modern metal. More interesting, however, are the earlier tracks. From the opening ‘(sic)’ to a live recording of ‘The Heretic Anthem’, these tunes provide a voracious bedrock of sound; channelling all the rage and pain that made Slipknot so accessible to millions of moody, repressed teenagers in small-town America. Listening to the desperate howls of vocalist Corey Taylor and the furious drumming of Joey Jordison mixing with Jim Roots‘ twisted guitar riffs, it becomes startlingly clear why a whole generation decided to tap into that sound as a release from the real-world problems that hounded them. It’s tight, it’s fast and it’s fierce: contention over the lyrics aside, Slipknot were an unarguably talented band and while their influence can be heard all over the modern metal scene, it is true that no one else sounds quite like them. Easy listening it isn’t, but that was never the point.

If you are new to Slipknot, or 21st-century metal in general, this greatest hits album is the place to start. If you are a long-time fan of the group, the special edition is worth considering for a live recording of their 2009 Download Festival performance and DVD containing their music video back catalogue.

8/10

Album Review: Noisettes - Contact

by Tim Greenwood
at University of Warwick17th September 2012 12:08:39

  

3/5

It has been three years since the Noisettes stuck gold with hit single Don't Upset the Rhythm. They return with new album, Contact, minus a member and attempting to build on their success with a wider musical palette and the same sense of adventure that has maintained them thus far.

The Noisettes are a classic example of the 'I liked them before they sold out for fame' band. It doesn't seem to be widely known, but their debut came not in 2009 but rather in 2007 with the garage punk album What's the Time Mr. Wolf? It was a magnificent first effort, filled with frantic, thrashing rock tunes and the feral howling of singer Shingai Shoniwa standing out in particular. And no one paid it much attention.

Undeterred, the group attempted a foray into the mainstream two years on and it worked -Don't Upset the Rhythm was so far removed from their earlier work that it sounded like a different band entirely. But the new formula was a success: the single reached number two in the UK chart and the subsequent album Wild Young Hearts itself entered the top 10. Ultimately, though, it felt as though the trio had simply dumbed down their original sounds in favour of something more radio-friendly: Wild Young Hearts was not a particularly strong album.

Their latest release, however, is somewhat better. Having dropped drummer Jamie Morrisson, they are no longer really a band, but rather a songwriting duo who rely more on orchestral arrangements and backing musicians than their own individual skills. This is no bad thing - Contact kicks off with a introduction straight out of a film score before segueing into the '70s disco stomp of I Want You Back, which contains an undeniably catchy, singalong chorus.

From there, we are presented with a veritable collage of sounds, stretching beyond the realm of pop music, seemingly into as many genres as the pair can conceive. This happens often within the same song: Travelling Light begins as a piano ballad and ends with a soft dubstep beat, while Let the Music Play is glittering pop with a motown interlude.

Yet for all their experimentation, the Noisettes sound at their best when being truly coherent. That Girl is a genuinely well-written song that would not have sounded out of place in the 1950s, and the folksy Ragtop Car is perhaps the album's prettiest moment. Which presents a paradox: most of the album's appeal is in its experimental side, but this is in conflict with the duo's attempts to craft smooth, well-rounded pieces of music. The result is unfortunate - too many of the tracks descend into repetitve, mid-tempo disco beats, and it feels as though the work has run its course before its conclusion.

While there are indeed positives here - Shoniwa's voice, in particular, has lost none of its flair - Contact feels like a missed opportunity. If the Noisettes could only ignore mainstream expectations, they have the potential to create some of the most original music of recent times. As it stands, they have offered up a competent but uninspiring work that in the end is a victim of its own self-consciousness.

Album Review: Dan le Sac - Space Between the Words

by Tim Greenwood
at University of Warwick17th August 2012 12:05:44

  

4/5
Space Between the Words is not a cheerful album. From the opening bars of the terse Long Night of Life, as folk singer Merz calls out "life gets tired of living/devoid of light," it is clear that the Essex-based producer is aiming somewhere between the bleak sound of '80s indie and dingy urban electronica.
And to his credit, the mix is just about right. The beats grind away in the background but never quite overpower the sparse, ethereal instrumentation. The largely obscure guest vocalists, including Sarah Williams White, Joshua Idehen and Pete Hefferan, each add their own style to their respective tracks, leading to a vague narrative structure as they reappear at various points.
Musically, Space Between the Words is more accessible than Dan le Sac's previous work, his abrasive keyboard bleeps of former albums replaced by a more fluid sound in the mould of liquid dubstep. Think Magnetic Man, only slightly more introverted.
This, then, is not a dance album for the clubs, but rather one that is intended to be appreciated on a more cerebral level, to be played in full without interruption or distraction and preferably on a well-specced sound system. It's grimy, intense music - not catchy in the slightest, and not at all ashamed of it. For those who enjoy the album, this will its main appeal - it does not fall back on what has gone before, but rather moves on, drawing on its influences and then updating and expanding them.
Highlights include the minimalist Breathing Underwater, an electro-folk dirge featuring Fraser Rowan and a surging string arrangement; Good Time Gang War, a B.Dolan grime collaboration that threatens a dubstep drop but instead teases the listener with lurching house beats; and the glorious closer Cherubs, the standout track on the album, perfectly pitched between late Radiohead and Morrissey's sombre ballads.
Ultimately, while Space Between the Words may lack the brilliantly poetic and philosophical lyrics of Dan le Sac's work with Scroobius Pip, it does make up for this with a subtler musical approach and more polished production values. It's unlikely to be the soundtrack to your summer, but instead will endure as a slick, brooding work of modern electronica.

Life in Das Vaterland

After 10 years of foreign language study, the time has come for me to live the dream - to put my skills to their best possible use and head off to a faraway, exotic land free from the rain, traffic, moaning, rain, economic crisis and rain of the UK. With that in mind, I seem to have landed in a place closer to my front door than Scotland, and with almost identical weather patterns and industry. Even the names match - from Bedford to Bedburg. Oh, and I'll be teaching English. No matter, the fact is I'm now in Germany and ready to make the most of

a) actually earning money in exchange for not having to study for a while 

and

b) making the most of 9 months on the continent, seeing new places, meeting new people and experiencing all that the Federal Republic has to offer!

The trip began at the end of August as I departed from Stansted with my dad to look for a place to live in Cologne, a Rhine city that, despite huge residential areas, offered up nothing. Next stop was Bergheim to pursue an internet offer that also came to nothing. Faced with this adversity, I determinedly gave up looking and emailed the teacher who would be in charge of me to ask if there was anything going in Bedburg. Luckily there was, so on September 1st I headed to Bedburg to see the school's presentation day and meet the family whose loft I would be inhabiting for at least a while.

From there it was onward to Altenberg, the former monastery that hosted a training week for all language assistants in Nordrhein-Westfalen, Niedersachen, Bremen and the Saarland. It presented a chance to get to know the fellow students who would be in my proximity for the next year, so predictably the 20 or so of us from Warwick all stuck together from the beginning.

That said, the course itself was surprisingly enjoyable, providing us with a basis in how to lead a class, what German students could expect from us and giving advice in how to survive out here. On the 3rd day we gave a sample lesson on extreme sports and I was told that despite my tendency to fiddle with a pen while talking, I managed well. Aside from that I sampled various varieties of German beer (at €1.50 a pint, how could I not?), inhaled enough 2nd-hand smoke that I would probably have been better off smoking, put in a reasonable juggling performance in the last-night talent show, and exchanged cultural ideas with a group of Canadians on how "Canadian football is like, totally better than American football, eh?!"

Fig. 1: one of the sports.

Fig. 2: the other one.

Altenberg was fun, then, but all too soon it was time to face reality and head to the school where I would be working. And so, on a grey Thursday morning, on the back of 5 hours' sleep and no shower, I was greeted at Bedburg station by Frau Bielert and thrown straight into a meeting with the headmaster. It was here that German efficiency came into play, as he processed the mountains of paperwork concerning me in a matter of minutes, before sending me to the Anmeldeamt to register as a citizen and then Sparkasse bank to set up an account. 

The next day I was in again at 7.50 AM to experience a working day at the school, sitting in on lessons in German, Religious Studies and History, where the origin of World War I was taught with the kind of neutrality I would expect from a country that is never afraid to acknowledge their past.

But this wasn't really why I was here, so on Tuesday I got my first taste of Oberstufe English, the highest level in German schools. No problem, I told myself, an introduction followed by some conversation work and oh dear God they're doing Shakespeare. In English. Not at all modernised or watered down. So, it seems the A-level in English Lit-Lang will have to be brought into play over the coming weeks as rather than correcting grammar or pronunciation mistakes I will instead have to explain the difference between a metaphor and an analogy to an 18-year-old German whose technical knowledge of English is probably better than my own.

Not to worry though, because it has been for the most part fun. I'd honestly forgotten the atmosphere of a sixth-form classroom, a place where for the first time people come together as a group who actually care about what they're learning, and where teachers stop being disciplinarians and start coming into their own. It's a sense of anticipation, of excitement for what lies ahead. Listening to this lot enthusiastically acting out Romeo and Juliet, I was reminded of myself as a fresh-faced languages student halfway through Year 12, the moment when I realised that carrying it on to university might actually work for me. And work it has - thanks to the fact I chose to learn languages, I have, in two weeks abroad, begun my international football career alongside a group of teachers, spent two hours eating piles of food off a barbecue on a Saturday afternoon, agreed to become a gym buddy once my salary turns up and eaten bratwurst with potatoes and sauerkraut, and it was actually pretty good.

The food of kings.

All in all, it makes for an impressively long blog post. And this is only the beginning...

TJGreenwood.