Reviews February 2008 Page 3 American Music Club - The Golden Age (Cooking Vinyl) It’s been awhile but Mark Eitzel and American Music Club are back, and it’s like they’ve never been away. Extensive line-up changes might have brought about a stylistic rethink but they continue to play to their strengths, namely melodies and harmonies that hark back to the ‘70s West Coast scene and Eitzel’s way with melancholy. It’s a good record, and one which might be played extensively as the seasons change and the sun comes out, but give it time. In a couple of years, when it’s a fix of AMC you’re after, it’ll be Everclear from ‘91 or better still, 1993’s Mercury you’ll be pulling out the rack, the same as last year and the year before that. Rob F. - Jose James - The Dreamer (Brownswood) I’m not a big fan of contemporary jazz vocalists - you know who I’m talking about. The guys all seem far too enamored with Sinatra and for the women it’s Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holliday and Nina Simone. It all seems a trifle irrational trying to sound like your hero or heroine. Happily, James is his own man. His debut is a beautifully balanced collection of mostly self-penned songs, which emphasize both his smoky baritone and the cooler than cool arrangements. Not to say that James has honed his style in a vacuum; his version of the Freestyle Fellowship’s ‘Park Bench People’ borrows in style from Gil Scott-Heron and his take on Rashaan Roland Kirk’s ‘Spirits Up Above’ has drawn comparisons to Andy Bey. Rob F. - Shannon Hurley - Ready To Wake Up (For Lenore) Though recently named one of Rolling Stone’s top 25 artists on MySpace, I have to confess I couldn’t find her page anywhere so I don’t know what’s happened there. To anyone familiar with these MySpace lists, it’ll come as no great shock that Hurley is a singer-songwriter with a gentle, easy-on-the-ear style which will sound perfectly at home on Radio 2 and / or its US equivalent. You know the sort of thing. Impeccably performed, inoffensive songs about love, loss and not rocking the boat. Middle aged men (of a certain sort) will swoon, and maybe even buy. Wogan will play it to death and probably do a little sex-wee every time he does. Good luck to her. www.shannonhurley.com Rob F. - Lenny Kravitz - It Is Time for a Love Revolution (Virgin) Never one to let originality get in the way of his sexed up, classic blues rock, Kravitz is back with his eighth studio record and it’s mostly business as usual - big guitars with muscular sing-a-long choruses to match. It’s not unpleasant, just pointless, but at least we can take solace from the fact that our Lenny’s got his finger on the pulse of contemporary concerns - ‘Vietnam’ anyone? Rob F. - Demons - Evocations (No Fun Productions) The striking beauty of the artwork and packaging that shroud No Fun Products tends to inspire feelings of utter contradiction when contrasted against the terrifying squalor that is usually housed within. Demons (Nate Young and Steve Kenney) present an analogue guttural splurge that is far more accessible than most No Fun servings, where haunting bleeps and ultra-distorted modulations form a gruesome horror soundtrack to exorcise tortured, alien souls. www.nofunproductions.com Will F. - Merzbow - Live Destruction at No Fun 2007 (No Fun Productions) The ‘godfather’ of noise emits an analogue and digital hybrid of sheer, unrelenting assault of measured cacophony on the audience of No Fun 2007. www.nofunproductions.com Will F. - The Mountain Goats - Heretic Pride (4ad) Those Mountain Goats - they keep on coming. This is album number 15 from John Darnielle, a former psychiatric nurse and writer. Big on autobiographical songs and lo-fi production, there’s never going to be a mass market for this sort of stuff, but there’s a nagging feeling that it should be more popular than it is. It’s intelligent, literate and positively elegant in places, and what with Darnielle’s unnatural attention to detail, we’re all for it. Now, if we can just convince another hundred thousand or so folks... Rob F. Next Page Past Reviews: March 07, April 07, May 07, June/July 07, Sept/Oct 07, Dec07, Jan08