album review - my morning jacket 'evil urges'

god-fearing, reverb-loving hirsute rubes my morning jacket are about to release their fifth studio album, evil urges. will it be this year's thing that everybody reckons is pretty good and worth talking about? GMS investigates.

i thought their last effort, Z, which incorporated new elements such as cod-reggae and christian pop into their howling country-rock sound, was a bit of a miss-step. i think that puts me in the minority, but i'm all for minorities. i hope they win as many rights as they can handle.

on the strength of its cover art, which recalls mansun's prog bombshell six, the outlook for evil urges is not so good. but wait! let's listen to the record.

1. evil urges

a high-pitched beck-does-prince vocal, over a loose, ringing, led zep-style guitar hook. the two work against each other, but it seems to hang together in spite of itself.

2. touch me i'm going to scream

a hazy, neil young type of thing, which would sit comfortably on it still moves. but with a juddering drum pattern, an 80s bassline and a monotone chorus. as if to say, this wouldn't sit comfortably on it still moves.

3. highly suspicious

more prince - 'kiss', in particular. the rest of the band pretend to be robots. sexy robots? i'll be the judge of that.

4. i'm amazed

back to the older sound, this is like a looser credence clearwater revival. a bit repetitive. surprisingly, so far, the 80s are winning.

5. thank you too

playing it straight down the middle, this sounds like a late 70s eagles record, which might appeal but probably won't. lyrically, it's their most straightforwardly earnest work since 'gideon'.

6.sec walking

"left leg, right leg, one leg at a time, i keep on walking". i think this might be a cover of that randy newman song from family guy, except they seem to mean it. the tune is pretty good, though - woozy slide guitar, nasally lead vocal, 70s soul backing singers. conway twitty?

7. two halves

very direct, almost like teenage fanclub or the lemonheads soundtracking a john hughes movie. i quite like that sort of thing, but my girlfriend came in to complain. no john motson, incidentally. how's about a picture to break things up?



8.librarian

spare, fingerpicked, with a vocal that highlights the lyrics a bit too much. as far as songs about sexy librarians go, not half as good as 'the librarian' by hefner. intriguing references to "karen of the carpenters" and "god".

9. look at you

nice but dull. circa 1973.

10. aluminum park

that's "aluminium", if you please. this has a tightly-wound guitar riff, plenty of piano, and a catchy chorus. it's a lot like dennis wilson's solo records, with a bit of cheap trick thrown in. probably the most obvious single, unless they're going to sell the record on the strength of their impressions of morris day and the time.

11. remnants

the jacket get an "A from moe dee for sticking to themes" - this also sounds like cheap trick. but from one of their rubbishy 80s albums.

12. smokin' from shootin'

a nice, reflective ante-penultimate excursion, slightly undermined by clunky lyrics. builds to a jarring chorus pretty well, though.

13.touch me i'm going to scream part 2

the traditional epic closer. not as good as 'strangulation!' or 'one in the same', but very good. starts with NES-style keyboard bloops, and builds steadily, without ever quite letting go. if they ever manage to play a gig in the uk without half the band quitting and the show being cancelled, i'd let them do this one.

14. good intentions

six second blast of nonsense.

in toto

not as good as their first three, but one of the better albums of the year so far. z saw the band experimenting with new styles without much conviction or success, but evil urges shows more commitment and range, making it a far more interesting album. if people decide it's their masterpiece, expect a lot of comparisons to ok computer - both are complicated, packed with jarring elements that nonetheless hang together, and possibly 'say' something or other. it's released in june, by which time i'll either think it's genius or nonsense. probably the former.

my morning jacket - 'evil urges'

some sandy denny

sandy denny, who died thirty years ago today, was born twenty-seven days after me mam. she was also a damn sight better at singing. sorry, ma.

fairport convention - 'percy's song' (bob dylan cover, from unhalfbricking)


sandy denny - 'john the gun' (from north star grassman and the ravens)


cat power - 'who knows where the time goes' (sandy denny cover, live at bonnaroo 2006)

judas priest - 'nostradamus'

it has arrived, and it doesn't disappoint:




in case you require proof that "judas priest is number one in metal", head to the heavy metal parking lot:

hanging on the francophone: cross-channel perspectives and the nature of pop

comment allez-vous?

last week an emeute erupted in france, when it was announced that this year's entry to the eurovision song contest would be in anglais. just like lordi. the news caused jean-paul marat to turn over in his bath. just like jim morrison. the song itself is by sebastian tellier, who i think i've heard of. sacre-bleu!


as a rosbif, you might expect me to revel in this news. after all, GMS is well aware that the Oxford English Dictionary is five times as long as its french equivalent, and is full of rock terminology.

mais non! pourquoi, you may ask? well, i thoroughly approve of english pop bands employing someone to ramble on in french in the background of their songs du pop. don't believe me? ecoutez:

tindersticks - 'mistakes' (from tindersticks ii)


blur - 'to the end' (featuring francoise hardy) (buy some blur and francoise hardy)

here's the video for the original version of 'to the end'. it's an homage to l'annee derniere a marienbad, by french auteur alain resnais. to be honest, i found the film itself to be a bit of a pain in the arse.



more fun:

GMS reviews the new tindersticks album

song by toad addresses the issue

GMS muxtape vol. 1 - talking to god

"at night i talk to god, but he don't say nothing back
i know he's protecting me, but still i stay with my hat"

hello there. here's the new, first, inaugural galactic mystery solvers muxtape. haven't heard of muxtape? it's a thing on the internet. give it a go.

the inaugural GMS muxtape isn't about hats, though. that was just to get your attention. a future one might be about hats. i'm keeping that under my hat.

this one's about talking to god. or jesus. whichever, as the unitarians used to say. singers have been talking to god since they were monks, back in the day. they're still doing it, as far as i can tell. in your face, richard dawkins!

GMS muxtape vol. 1 - talking to god

1. blind willie mctell - 'lord, send me an angel'
2. lift to experience - 'waiting to hit'
3. karen o - 'highway 61 revisited'
4. million dollar quartet - 'just a little talk with jesus'
5. segarini & bishop - 'dear jesus god'
6. sebadoh - 'god told me'
7. flaming lips - 'plastic jesus'
8. iggy pop - 'turn blue'
9. kitty wells - 'will your lawyer talk to god?'
10. highwaymen - 'why me, lord?'
11. mavis staples - 'jesus is on the main line'
12. spiritualized - 'lord, can you hear me?'

bonus video: shellac - 'a prayer to god'

being snoop dogg

i'm a reasonable man, but on a slow day i like to imagine that i'm snoop dogg.

most of the time i'll just zone out and marvel at my 7ft frame and my freakishly large hands. sometimes i'll imagine i'm starring in my own hollywood movie, where i have to pretend to be a 1970s pimp. on the set, i have good times with my pal, big-nosed blonde male owen wilson.


my imagination is kind of limited, and there are lots of snoop dogg things i've never done, even in my head: rolling in my 6-4, for instance, or picking a fight in a UK airport. i've certainly never smoked a pound of herb, hit the studio with the bloke out of house of pain, and recorded a twang-heavy tribute to johnny cash. but i think it's a great thing to do. listen and see if you agree:

snoop dogg - 'my medicine' (from ego trippin')

GMS presents: Seven Deadly Sins - The New Vatican Mixtape

the vatican is a city in the middle of rome responsible for popes, small football teams, oddly-dressed soldiers, pretty ceilings and raekwon mixtapes.

it's 2008, and the vatican has stepped its game up. it last published a list of seven deadly sins in the sixth century. since then, biggie and 2pac have passed away, australia has had an olympics, and akon has taken over the airwaves. hence versace-sporting classy-freddie-blassie-lookalike pope cardinal ratzinger has issued seven new sins to get all worked up about. some funny, some tragic. i'm not sure whether this was issued in the form of a 'papal bull', but i sure hope so.

whether you're indulging in sin, avoiding it at all costs, or inspired by an missionary urge to rid the world of it, you'll need some fine tunes to keep your head nodding while you go about your business. GMS hereby issues an accompanying mixtape - sing when you're sinning! or not sinning. enjoy!

1. "bioethical" violations such as birth control

company flow - 'population control' (from funcrusher plus)

2. "morally dubious" experiments such as stem cell research

sean price - 'frankenstein' (featuring buckshot & tek) (from master p)

3. drug abuse

gram parsons - 'green, green grass of home' (from sleepless nights)

4. polluting the environment

fu manchu - 'king of the road' (from king of the road)

5. contributing to widening divide between rich and poor

common sense - 'chapter 13 (rich man vs poor man)' (from resurrection)

6. excessive wealth

fairport convention - 'million dollar bash' (from unhalfbricking)

7. creating poverty

taj mahal - 'stealin' (live, 1974) (buy)

Album reviews - Gutter Twins, Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan

who's better - men or women? my girlfriend reckons it's women, but she would say that - after all, she's dead clever. me? i've got an open mind, though the balance of male-to-female in my record collection suggests i might be a bit of a sexist.

one of my favourite men in the whole world is gravel-voiced drug-surviving grunge-crooner mark lanegan. mark has put this men-women idea to the test, by releasing two collaborative albums back-to-back. the first, under the name of the 'gutter twins', pairs him with soul-loving alcohol-surviving grunge-lothario greg dulli (a man). the second, sunday at devil dirt, is his second collaboration with breathy-voiced former belle & sebastian member isobel campbell (a lady, no less). lanegan did another collaboration last year, with a group called soulsavers. i don't know if any of them were hermaphrodites, though.

together, solo, and as part of the screaming trees, queens of the stone age, afghan whigs, twilight singers and belle & sebastian, this trio has made countless albums (well, more than twenty), many of them great, none of them at all bad. in that respect, both of these albums are winners. gutter twins' 'saturnalia' is a dense, dark mess of psychedelic blues riffs and howling, yearning vocals that sounds like a cross between exile on main st. and QOTSA's songs for the deaf. campbell and lanegan's devil dirt is a lighter affair, reprising the countrified sound and the nancy-and-lee dynamics of their debut, ballad of the broken seas. allusive lyrics and the tension between campbell's whispered vocals and lanegan's marlboro-man growl create an undercurrent of danger and mystery that prevents the record slipping into the winsome mode of campbell's solo work and her contributions to B&S' records.

on balance, saturnalia pips it. perhaps this was inevitable - as a male man i prefer noisy guitars and greg dulli hollering "whooarrghhh i'm gonna do sex" to pretty tunes and isobel campbell mumbling on. also, campbell can't quite sing, while dulli really can. but there is also a problem with sunday at devil dirt - it's precisely the same as ballad of the broken seas, without the cracking hank williams cover and the tidy title track that elevated the latter ('the flame that burns' is a half-decent williams pastiche). it attempts to incorporate some of the sparse folk of lanegan's excellent solo covers record, i'll take care of you - but rarely with much conviction. were it presented as a broken seas outtakes collection - like rufus wainwright's patchy want two - it might have worked. in its own right, devil dirt is a pale re-tread. saturnalia, on the other hand, arrives with such high expectations that it could have been a disaster or a disappointment. instead, while it doesn't quite rival lanegan and dulli's finest work - screaming trees' dust or afghan whigs' black love, for instance - it's an inspired pairing that will hopefully yield more records.

i don't know how much this proves, or whether the battle of the sexes has advanced at all as a result. my instinct is that it hasn't. but the accompanying press photos do emphasise an important point: chaps like to be photographed drinking together and frowning, but with a lady you can have a nice baked potato without any difficult questions being asked. how's about some mp3s and links?

gutter twins - 'god's children' (live)

ekko has the full live show - featuring the whole album and some older tracks:

saturnalia - full stream

isobel campbell and mark lanegan - 'come on over (turn me on)' (from sunday at devil dirt)

campbell & lanegan 'rambling man' (careful, though - it's dead rude!)

Ramblin Man
Uploaded by websil

gutter twins myspace

buy saturnalia

isobel campbell myspace

buy sunday at devil dirt

Album review - Ministry - 'Cover Up'

If I’m not out on the corner, I’ll usually be up in my kitchen, kicking back with my life partner, maybe eating some porridge while sitting on my inflatable exercise ball. More than likely some tunes will be blasting out of the 4” speakers on my Dell laptop with Intel Pentium processor, as Windows Media Player lines them up. There sure are a lot of albums to choose from, but if I’m looking for something we can both get along with, something that complements the view out the back door to the garden and the bird-feeder, chances are I’ll be playing Cover Up, the new covers album by veteran industrial rockers Ministry.

Truth be told I haven’t been checking for Ministry since the halcyon days of Psalm 69 and Filth Pig in the early-to-mid-90s, but the track-list of this new long-player got me fiending for sure. It bears a striking resemblance to Heavy Metal: Superstars of the Seventies, a brilliant vinyl compilation, on the Warner Special Products label, that I picked up at a car boot sale some years back. It’s an intriguing compilation, from a period when Warner’s roster was getting big enough that it felt like coining new genres and targeting niche markets - fans of countrypolitan, critically-approved easy listening, Woodstock acid-folk and heavy metal in particular. The compilation drew together under the ‘metal’ bracket a motley group that included the likes of Dr. John, Eagles, Yes and Delaney & Bonnie alongside more conventional names like Black Sabbath, Deep Purple and Hendrix.

Cover Up shares two songs with the aforesaid compilation: T-Rex’s ‘Get It On’ and Golden Earring’s incomparable ‘Radar Love’, the pinnacle of Dutch civilisation. They also take on the Doors (‘Roadhouse Blues’), Deep Purple (‘Space Truckin’) and Sabbath (‘Supernaut’), all of whom appeared on Heavy Metal. Mountain’s ‘Mississippi Queen’, ‘Lay Lady Lay’ and the Stone’s ‘Under My Thumb’ also get snarling, hi-NRG re-workings. Throughout the album, Ministry’s ability to drum really fast, to play super-distorted shredding guitar solos, and to snarl and shout remain undimmed. Unsurprisingly, ‘Space Truckin’ makes an appearance.

This is a gloriously, unrepentantly stupid album: the closing cover of ‘What A Wonderful World’ recalls Joey Ramone’s swansong version, and rivals it for pointless indulgence and celebration. Apparently, this is also Ministry’s swansong after twenty-seven years of unpleasant single-mindedness. A fine way to go out.

Ministry – ‘Radar Love’

Golden Earring – ‘Radar Love’

Buy Cover Up

Homepage

Album review - Tindersticks - 'The Hungry Saw'

If I’m out on the corner hustling, or just walking around town with a chip on my shoulder, looking for trouble, I like to crank up my 40GB iRiver E-140 series mp3 player. Probably I’ll be playing an album that fits my mood – or that takes that mood and amps it up to the power of ten, or even to the max. Something true and bad-ass like The Hungry Saw, the new album from Nottingham’s Tindersticks, would fit the bill.

Tindersticks are O.G.s in the maudlin string-laden embittered-indie game, and wrote the rulebook for young hoppers like Absentee and the National. They recently lost some members due to internal beef, but that’s not addressed on the Hungry Saw. Instead the three-piece asks you to walk a mile in the shoes of mumbling baritone-voiced singer Stuart A. Staples. Trust me – it ain’t pretty. Staples is on some grown man business from the get-go as he airs out past regrets, loves, and losses. On the title track he even goes one-on-one with the Big Man himself – by which I mean the Devil!

Musically, this is Tindersticks’ most stripped-down and intimate release: it has little of the expansive dissonance of Golden Era ‘sticks (circa 94-00), the for-the-ladies seventies-soul stylings of later releases like Simple Pleasure and Can Our Love, or the barbed lyrics of their most intense work. At times the band comes across as slightly reserved, and they only cut loose and break the five-minute barrier on closing lament ‘The Turns We Took’. But this also works as a good introduction to their core sound: the deceptively-breezy ‘Flicker Of A Little Girl’, the barely-there reminiscences of ‘The Other Side Of The World’ and the building tension of 'Boobar' all take it right back to the essence, while simultaneously raising the game on their pale imitators. (B)

Tindersticks – ‘The Other Side Of The World’

Buy The Hungry Saw

Myspace (where 'The Flicker..' is streaming)

Previously on GMS:

Swing incongruity with those pesky Tindersticks