Separating the sweet, juicy flesh from the stone and skin of upcoming major label releases.
It’s a very busy week for music. Maybe the record companies have had the corporate poop scared out of them by Prince‘s declaration that all electronic media is dead, and have thus thrown out everything with a chance at making profit in this one week.
Or perhaps Beyonce, or Lady Gaga, or Bloody Glee have got a new album out next week and they’re releasing all the second-tier stuff now to avoid chartular humiliation.
Either way: it’s a feast. And how better to digest it all than with a lovely slice of cool, refreshing Mango. Mmmm.
Firstly, Hard Rock.
See? No space this week for individual band breakdowns. Get over it. This week, we are going by genre.
Firstly firstly, Stampede, Hellyeah. Self-proclaimed ‘supergroup’ Hellyeah boast ex-members of Pantera and several other, less famous bands.
This ‘supergroup’ produce copies of Metallica‘s music but with little of that mighty band’s passion, talent or originality. From musical content (Stampede could have been on Master Of Puppets) to song titles (surely Debt That All Men Pay was considered for Metallica:Metallica), Hellyeah are just a facsimile of their masters.
Which is fine, if you’re waiting for the originals to hit their stride again. Think of Hellyeah’s Stampede as a stopgap until the next Metallica album.
Firstly secondly, A Star-Crossed Wasteland, In This Moment. Heavy metal, thrash, deathcore: call it what you like, but it does seem to be a set of genres which displays an extremely slow evolution. We’ve just had Metallica copyists Hellyeah, and now we are faced with In This Moment, who are seemingly in thrall to – of all things – Evanescence, a band who virtually copyrighted this kind of thing nine years ago.
The music is pretty good; everybody’s got the technical skills and all. It’s just… it’s just pub-band copycatting, really. It’s as if the fans of these bands hear a great album from Artist X, refuse to listen to anything slightly different, and that leads to Artists Y and Z coming along and releasing the same album twice more.
Oh, I’m sooooooo sorry that you have a problem with tributes, Mr Reviewer. Whatever, just take me to Stampede or A Star-Crossed Wasteland.
Secondly, Country/Bluesgrass/Folk.
Secondly firstly, Judge Jerrod And The Hung Jury, Jerrod Nieman. His name suggests a conflict between the twanging Telocaster sounds of Nashville and the twanging mouth harp sounds of Manhattan’s Lower East Side.
Fortunately for you – if such is your buzz – Jerrod Nieman chose Tennessee over New York. So what has he delivered on this, his first album? Well, 20 tracks of extremely well-written, performed and produced country music. That’s not 20 songs, though: about five of these tracks are not songs, but brief little amuse-bouches such as recordings of Jerrod Nieman pretending to drunkenly slur “Hey, that ain’t no country music” (Drunken Complaint). That’s fine; great bands’ histories are littered with this kind of early-career self-indulgence. This is enjoyable country with a mildly rocking edge.
Secondly secondly, The House You’re Building, Audrey Assad. Another artist this week with a non-standard country surname who has embarked upon a country (ish, in this case) musical journey.
In Audrey Assad’s case, this journey has been chosen by GOD. But don’t worry, this isn’t 20 Contemporary Christian Classics. Yes, there’s a message behind the music, but it is distinguishable only if you’ve been told it’s there.
Which, on reflection, you now have been. Soz.
Audrey Assad has a beautiful, pure voice, and she or her producers really know which instruments and arrangements complement it best. Go listen to this album if you like a simple, unadorned female voice singing nicely constructed, mostly acoustic songs.
And forget the whole God thing: honestly, it’s about as noticeable as a sheet of toilet paper in a hurricane.
Secondly thirdly, Safe Upon The Shore, Great Big Sea. Oh, now this is really what floats our boat. What breaks our biscuit. What crumbles our cookie.
Hmm. Anyway, Safe Upon The Shore, the 10th album from American folk gods Great Big Sea, is one of those releases we’ve been waiting a long time to hear.
And it’s? everything we wanted: the Americanised version of Fairport Convention (Good People, Yankee Sailor), the Americanised version of Saw Doctors (Over The Hills, Road To Ruin). There’s even a cover of Gallows Pole, author unknown but made a classic by Leadbelly and Led Zeppelin.
This album by The Great Big Sea is a wonderful thing. It will be on rotation for a while with us, and we hope that you’ll enjoy it too.
As a real-ale quaffer, I of course love a bit of folk music. Take me if you would to Judge Jerrod and the Hung Jury, The House You’re Building, or Safe Upon the Shore.
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