adds for 4.24.06
DATE: 4.24.06ARTIST: Yonder Mountain String Band
TITLE: s/t ( Vanguard )
GENRE: BLUEGRASS/PROGRESSIVE/JAMBAND
GRADE: A
REVIEW: The real test of a jamband is not whether they can jam on a riff for 30 minutes while on mushrooms, it's whether they can write and perform quality short songs. YMSB passes the test, probably due to the succint songwriting style of their prime influence – bluegrass. Using traditional instrumentation while taking stylistic risks in songwriting style, these songs carry a punch fueled by instruental dexterity and well-honed harmoinies.
RECOMMENDED TRACKS: 1,3,6,8,10,11
REVIEWER: Jim Manion/WFHB
DATE: 4.24.06
ARTIST: Matthew Sweet/Susanna Hoffs
TITLE: Under the Covers #1 (Shout Factory)
GENRE: ROCK/MAINSTREAM
GRADE: B+
REVIEW: This one may not have a lot of long-mileage potential but it is fun for awhile. Sweet and ex-Bangles vocalist Hoff take a crack at a tasty batch of 60s covers, not trying to reinvent them but more like paying homage to their original sound. For the most part it works, but I would avoid the Dylan cover.
RECOMMENDED TRACKS: 1,2,5,6,9,10,11
REVIEWER: Jim Manion/WFHB
DATE: 4.24.06
ARTIST: World Party
TITLE: Dumbing Up (Seaview)
GENRE: ROCK?MAINSTREAM
GRADE: A-
REVIEW: Karl Wallinger has always been stand-out pop artist but has also taken his good time between releases, nearly falling off the radar each time. While he still has a unique voice and songwriting style, too much of this album sounds over-deriviative of the Beatles/Stones/Dylan influence worn on his sleeve. Still, it sounds great for what it is.
RECOMMENDED TRACKS: 1,4,5,8,10 FCC: 12
REVIEWER: Jim Manion/WFHB
DATE: 4.24.06
ARTIST: Alejandro Escovedo
TITLE: The Boxing Mirror (Backporch/EMI)
GENRE: SINGER-SONGWRITER
GRADE: A+
REVIEW: After 15 years of stirring and stunning solo work, AE was knocked flat by hepatitis C, nearly dying. This is more than a comeback album, it's a life-affirming set of songs that cover all the sonic territory he is known for, from tender pin-srop acoustic ballads to fierce punky/Stonesy rocking out. Some are claiming this to be his best. Not sure about that but it's right up there with the rest of them. Produced by John Cale, who dominates a few tunes a little too much with freaky synth sounds.
Otherwise, it's a fine rendering of Alenjandro's various vibes.
RECOMMENDED TRACKS: rock-out with 6 & 8, get moody with 1,2,7,9
REVIEWER: Jim Manion/WFHB
DATE: 4.24.06
ARTIST: Bruce Springsteen
TITLE: The Seeger Sessions (Columbia)
GENRE:FOLK/SINGER-SONGWRITER
GRADE: A+
REVIEW:We Shall Overcome -- which was recorded live in Springsteen's New Jersey home with a fourteen-piece band, including horns, banjo, fiddles, washboard, organ and accordion -- is his most jubilant disc since Born in the U.S.A. and more fun than a tribute to Pete Seeger has any right to be. But as on Born in the U.S.A., seemingly triumphant anthems are paired with lyrics of pain and protest that champion the oppressed and the exploited. Springsteen has always mined a deep vein of Americana, from the hot-rod-and-B-movie-obsessed early albums to the Steinbeckian social realism of The Ghost of Tom Joad and last year's Devils and Dust. But with his first-ever album of songs written by other people, it feels like he's turned to the music of our shared past to find a moral compass for a nation that's gone off the rails. The protest anthems "Eyes on the Prize" and "We Shall Overcome" are performed with an understated urgency. On the gospel standard "Oh, Mary, Don't You Weep" Springsteen sings in a gruff Tom Waits-ish baritone and the Seeger Sessions Band gives it a Dixieland treatment with Stephane Grappelli-style violin." Springsteen discovered most of these tunes -- which also include sea chanteys ("Pay Me My Money Down"), minstrel songs ("Old Dan Tucker") and outlaw ballads ("Jessie James") -- on LPs by Seeger. Among the pleasures of this album is rediscovering childhood staples like "Erie Canal" or "John Henry" via Springsteen's craggy, familiar voice -- which is as mighty and powerful as the steel-driving man himself.
RECOMMENDED TRACKS: 2,3,6,8,9,11
REVIEWER: excerpts from rollingstone.com
DATE: 4.24.06
ARTIST: The Waybacks
TITLE: From the Pasture to the Future (Compass)
GENRE: FOLK
GRADE: A
REVIEW:The Chicago Tribune says that the Waybacks offer "a near-ideal balance of irreverence, chops, discipline, and originality," and that actually sums it up quite well. This primarily acoustic folk-rock group is irreverent about genre boundaries, jumping gleefully back and forth between the lines that separate blues from bluegrass, rock from jazz, and Celtic music from pop, but they're never so irreverent that they just sound goofy. Their chops are considerable, but (in the studio anyway) they never lapse into wanky self-indulgence. Their discipline and originality are manifest in tightly written, hook-filled songs and unusual arrangements, and all of those qualities come together beautifully in this, the group's fourth album. From the Pasture to the Future offers brilliant instrumental hot jazz ("Monkey Pants," "Hot Kranski"), a sharply rocking kissoff song ("Helping Me," which features the timeless couplet "It's not that you're bad for me/It's just that you're bad"), and a very fine rhumba ("Armando's Rhumba"). It also features a funny folk-rock number titled "Petrified Man" and a beautiful Texas-style dance number called "Bluebird Waltz." The Waybacks are not terribly convincing as purveyors of straight-up traditional Irish music, as "The Blacksmith" demonstrates, but everything else works so well that you hardly even notice that one. Very highly recommended.
RECOMMENDED TRACKS: 1,3,4,6,8,10
REVIEWER: Rick Anderson, All Music Guide
Tom Verlaine Songs and Other Things Thrill Jockey
Gotan Project Lunatico XL/Ya Basta
The Black Angels Passover Light in the Attic
Ursula 1000 Here Comes Tommorrow ESL
posted by WFHB Music @ 1:52:00 PM
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