T-#50
Future of the Left - How to Stop Your Brain in an Accident
29 Points, 2 Votes, 1 Top 5 Vote
Ranked Highest By: Ahrn
Previous Albums On Our Countdown: The Plot Against Common Sense (#42 in 2012), Travels With Myself and Another (#10 in 2009)
Album Review: So here it is: the stunning and unexpected return to top form of the UK’s most criminally underrated rock band. It’s a surprise, because not since their 2007 debut ‘Curses’ have Cardiff rockers Future Of The Left sounded this thrilling. Where last year’s disappointing third album ‘The Plot Against Common Sense’ was characterised by tongue-in-cheek silliness and fussy arrangements, the follow-up ‘How To Stop Your Brain In An Accident’ is direct and heavy as hell – as it should be. It is a serious album for serious rock fans, even though taking anything seriously isn’t exactly Andy Falkous, Jack Egglestone, Jimmy Watkins and Julia Ruzicka’s strong point.
The power of ‘How To Stop Your Brain…’ can be partly attributed to the welcome return of British rock’s toughest and most acidic guitar sound. A hangover from frontman Falkous’ nine years in Mclusky, the sound in question is less like a guitar and more like some mutant strain of power electronics. It was, across their previous two albums, slowly being phased out of FOTL’s DNA. But here it is again, broken down into 14 thumps of pure atomic fury, and the result is something like the strangest and sorest funk music imaginable.
Setting the tone, opener ‘Bread, Cheese, Bow And Arrow’ is a study in extreme minimalist rock, and Falkous’ lyric “I’m just a man: a simple thing” is the perfect introduction to the album’s rawness. Purged of the vocal harmonies, kitschy organ and sing-song melodies that cluttered the band’s increasingly soft sound, all that’s left is three and a bit minutes of coiled tension and measured violence: a focused, post-hardcore give-and-take between space and roar, restraint and face-melting release.
The album continues in the same vein with ‘Future Child Embarrassment Matrix’ and ‘I Don’t Know What You Ketamine’ – the former a doom-rock juggernaut with a heavy acceleration in pace, the latter resembling an industrial retread of ‘Small Bones, Small Bodies’ from ‘Curses’. ‘She Gets Passed Around At Parties’, meanwhile, is pure late-’80s American post-punk – a danceable blend of clipped bass and crunchy power riffs.
All this back-to-basics songcraft will be like the Second Coming for fans of early Future Of The Left, but the poor saps will #### a conker when it comes to ‘Things To Say To Friendly Policemen’. A bratty two minutes of hyper-speed noise-punk complete with a kazoo-powered chorus, it brings Mclusky’s 2002 classic ‘Lightsabre Cocksucking Blues’ immediately to mind.
Elsewhere ‘The Real Meaning Of Christmas’ and ‘The Male Gaze’ change things up without compromising the album’s hard-nosed tone, and add indie and melodic college rock to the mix. Then there’s ‘French Lessons’, FOTL’s first foray into balladry. Equally surprising is ‘How To Spot A Record Company’ – which, with its Siouxsie guitar flourishes and spooky progressions, is basically goth-rock.
Though ‘Singing Of The Bonesaws’ – with Falko feigning a posh English accent – recalls the weak and irritating silliness of their last album, as usual the frontman’s acerbic lyrics are a blast as he skewers the most preposterous aspects of modern British culture with the kind of scalpel-sharp precision not seen since Jarvis Cocker. But more importantly, against the impossibly evil sonic backdrop, his devilish barbs have never sounded so delicious.
--NME
T-#50
Avicii - True
29 Points, 2 Votes, 1 Top 5 Vote
Ranked Highest By: Nick Vermeil
Album Review: Two years ago the Swedish D.J., producer and denim model Avicii released “Levels,” a clangorous and joyful club anthem that was a global hit so vast that it reinforced the fact that the United States isn’t really the center of global pop, at least not the way it once was.
America has no real radio infrastructure for dance music, which means even a song like “Levels” has little hope of moving beyond the Electric Daisy Carnival circuit and into the broader pop consciousness, although everywhere else that’s exactly where it resided. At least in this country, American sonic imperialism still works.
But a lot has changed since “Levels.” Dance music is becoming normalized, even here, and has been seeping into other genres, from traditional pop to R&B. D.J.-producers like Calvin Harris, by working with superstars like Rihanna, are beginning to gain a dollop of the respect they garner elsewhere.
Into that environment arrives Avicii’s full-length debut album, “True” (PRMD/Island), which, thanks to the success of “Levels,” has the whiff of a fait accompli about it. At least it did until the Ultra Music Festival in March, when Avicii turned his high-profile set into a roots jam session, to the befuddlement of almost everyone, and the outright anger of many. I’m sure someone would have screamed “Judas!” if they’d gotten the joke.
“Hey, you got your bluegrass in my techno!” is a perfectly valid complaint most of the time. And yes, on a few songs on “True,” with the help of the bluegrass stalwart Dan Tyminski and the longtime country songwriter Mac Davis, that is more or less what Avicii attempts.
But don’t see “True” as the album in which dance music imports the sounds of the American heartland into the club in hopes of digging up new audiences, or even new ideas; see it as the one in which country takes its place front and center in global pop.
That is the subtext of the guitar-laden stomper “Wake Me Up,” already another huge hit that undermines American centrality in global pop, and especially the unexpectedly lovely “Hey Brother,” which features the keening vocals of Mr. Tyminski. (How much of a risk is it to use the main voice from an album, the “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” soundtrack, that has sold over seven million copies in the United States?)
Even though they’re unexpected twists in Avicii’s otherwise clean ascent, these songs don’t arrive in a vacuum. They sit comfortably next to the king-size crossover country and folk of recent years — think Mumford & Sons, or the dubstep song on the last Taylor Swift album. Even Keith Urban has a fake club song on his new album. And that’s to say nothing of the emergent trend of club remixes of country hits by the likes of Dee Jay Silver and DJ DU. (And yes, there was disco-country in the 1970s, for what it’s worth.)
Marry that to the recent impulse among a certain more classicist stripe of dance-music act to bring the genre back to organic roots — Daft Punk’s last album repudiates the last couple of decades of computer music — and Avicii’s musical choices feel savvy and timely. (Along with the selections of his manager, Ash Pournouri, who receives a writing credit on almost every song on this album.)
That Avicii is testing himself, and his public, is clear. “Heart Upon My Sleeve,” which features vocals from Dan Reynolds of the alt-rock preservers Imagine Dragons, opens up like an acoustic Queensryche song. “Shame on Me” is swing music, more or less, and a less successful hybrid than Avicii’s roots experiments.
Compared with “Wake Me Up” and “Hey Brother,” the rest of “True” doesn’t offer much challenge, even if it is thoroughly effective in places. “Dear Boy” is completely straightforward electro-infused house, and it’s sharp. “Lay Me Down,” produced in part by Nile Rodgers, who is having a banner year, and featuring a bracing vocal by Adam Lambert, is completely valid modern disco, faithful to the genre as it once was but not a slavish throwback. It’s another escape into yesteryear by an artist carrying today — and tomorrow — on his shoulders.
----New York Times
T-#50
Janelle Monae - The Electric Lady
29 Points, 2 Votes, 1 Top 5 Vote
Ranked Highest By: D House
Previous Albums on Our Countdown: The ArchAndroid (#19 in 2010)
Album Review: Janelle Monae's The Electric Lady arrives fully formed, in a delightfully conceptual way. When someone of Prince's pedigree elects to guest star on your album, you know you're doing something right. Continuing on the sci-fi, dystopian, Afro-futuristic, R&B world-building of 2010's The ArchAndroid, Monae once again tackles sexuality, gender and social empowerment issues in an automated and allegorical fashion — though the eyes of android avatar Cindi Mayweather. Reading between the lyrics, lines like, "Am I a freak because I love watching Mary," "exploding in a bathroom stall" or "Robot Love is queer" lay out a powerful sexual subtext that Monae simultaneously owns and remains cryptic about. This is arguably as much a rock album as a soul project and, at 19-tracks, the sophomore opus is gloriously sweeping and cinematic in scope. The Prince-guesting track, "Givin' Them What They Want," lives up to its title, romping guitar stomps and all, while "Q.U.E.E.N." and "Electric Lady" (starring Erykah Badu and Solange Knowles, respectively) both take advantage of a "women who run the world" funk-soul vibe and Monae's exceptional ability to outshine and complement the guests. The '80s, pseudo-reggae-style vibe of "What an Experience" doesn't quite stick the "authenticity" landing, but the mainstream, pop-friendly "Can't Live Without Your Love" and Esperanza Spalding-starring "Dorothy Dandridge Eyes" more than make up for it. Spotless in execution, The Electric Lady musically reaches for the future, yet is firmly beholden to the past. "I'll reprogram your mind," she intones on "Q.U.E.E.N.," which is effectively the hook for Monae as an artist and the project as a whole. Existing in layers, The Electric Lady revels in its polarity. The overriding statement, however, is that Janelle Monae has arrived. -- Exclaim