ALBUM REVIEW — GREEN DAY

Green Day

Tre!

(Reprise)

Who could have guessed that Green Day’s antidote to the ambitious and pretentious concept albums that have occupied their past decade would turn out to be just as ambitious and pretentious? Even though they claimed that the trio of albums they’d be releasing within three months of each other would be back-to-basics collections of short, snappy songs, the entire notion of three-albums-in-three-months is more than just a little conceited.

It certainly didn’t help that the first two albums — ‘¡Uno!’ and ‘¡Dos!’ — were mostly filled with uninspired songs that steered from one side of the rock spectrum (loud and fast punk) to the other (sappy ballads) without much purpose. As the project chugged along, hope for the final record, ’¡Tre!’ quickly waned. But apparently they were saving the best new songs for last.

Make no mistake – ’¡Tre!’ isn’t ‘Dookie’; it isn’t even ‘American Idiot.’ But its 12 songs find a little bit of the heart and soul that were so crucially missing from the other two albums. And by nodding to pop music’s past – from R&B legends to ‘60s classic rockers to various punk icons – Green Day’s distilled history lesson caps the trilogy with style, even if that style is mostly borrowed.

‘Brutal Love,’ the opening track, is five minutes of SoCal soul music swelling over velvety strings, weighty piano chords and Billie Joe Armstrong trying his nasally voiced-white-guy best to pull off ‘60s R&B. From there, ’¡Tre!’ takes on classic-rock guitar riffs (‘Missing You’), modern-day indie rock (‘8th Avenue Serenade’) and even a six-minute suite (‘Dirty Rotten Bastards’), because rock-opera bombast still runs through their veins.

More so than ’¡Uno!’ and ‘¡Dos!’ ’¡Tre!’ doesn’t come off like an apology to old fans for ‘American Idiot’ and ‘21st Century Breakdown.’ There are few halfhearted punk throwaways or dirty jokes here, and the hooks are more immediate. It’s a grownup set of songs about growing up and being OK with it. Armstrong still can’t resist tossing out a few snotty cuts (see ‘Sex, Drugs & Violence’), but he doesn’t force them this time. Like almost everything else on ’¡Tre!’ they don’t sound like Green Day are out to prove anything. It’s the back-to-basics rock album they promised.

Diffuser.fm

ALBUM REVIEW – KID ROCK

Kid Rock

Rebel Soul

(Top Dog/Atlantic)

Like most of the albums Kid Rock has made since the turn of the century, Rebel Soul, his ninth, doesn’t snugly fit into just one genre. It’s a little bit country, a little bit rock ’n’ roll, and even a little bit hip-hop on one track. And it’s a whole lot of uneven songs crammed into an overlong album that tries hard to please the fickle country/rock-’n’-roll/hip-hop audience—but not too hard, because that’s not Kid Rock’s style.

Like 2010’s Born Free, Rebel Soul (the Beatles-nodding title is the most clever thing about the album, by the way) drives pickup-truck-sized riffs right through the center of Middle America. There’s a song about Rock’s hometown—“Detroit, Michigan”—that name-checks pretty much every major city in the U.S. as well as some Motown artists and Rosa Parks, who moved to Detroit in the late ’60s. The whole thing is punctuated by soulful horns that are supposed to give it some gravity. But like so many songs here, it’s about as sincere as the strippers Rock likes to hang out with.

Whether kicking up some back-roads dirt (“Chickens In The Pen”), knocking back a few cool ones (“Redneck Paradise”), or throwing down with a rap-rock crew like it’s still 1999 (“Cucci Galore”), Kid Rock wants to be everybody’s best friend on Rebel Soul. He’s the bro down at the bar, the buddy from the factory, and the dude from the trailer park whose mom will cook up some crawfish pie for supper on Sunday.

The thing is, it’s hard to tell which Kid Rock is the real one. It may not be any of them. Ever since he found a way to mash up Lynyrd Skynyrd and Warren Zevon in “All Summer Long,” he’s become a human jukebox capable of switching tunes and genres at the drop of a dollar. He even pays tribute to a time when jukeboxes mattered in “Mr. Rock N Roll.” And his idea of a meditative song comes in the form of maximum Auto-Tune and a cheap Casio drum beat on the ballad “The Mirror.” It’s all too much in the end, like an obnoxious drunk hoping to impress strangers with a dozen unrelated stories over one long, unbearable hour.

A.V. Club

ALBUM REVIEW — MASSIVE ATTACK

Massive Attack

Blue Lines

(EMI)

Back in 1991, when Massive Attack’s debut album, Blue Lines, was released, there wasn’t a whole lot of music that sounded like it. It was the year Nirvana broke through to the mainstream and hip-hop started crawling out of the old school and into a new era. But even with those cultural milestones, no one was prepared for the at-times discomforting sonic landscapes found on the British trio’s first record. Twenty-plus years later, it still sounds ahead of its time and remains an influential, genre-spanning work.

The core group—multi-instrumentalists and producers Robert “3D” Del Naja, Grantley “Daddy G” Marshall, and Andrew “Mushroom” Vowles—constructed a dusty, gritty, sometimes languid mix of hip-hop, R&B, pop, dub, and electronic music, layering samples atop live instruments. The guest singers, particularly Shara Nelson, countered the occasionally abrasive music with sweet, soulful vocals. The result was a set of songs that created a template trip-hop artists relied on extensively in the years to come.

The freshly remastered version of Blue Lines doesn’t include any new music, but the ear-opening 2012 remix found on the DVD and vinyl versions sounds great. Blue Lines has always been a great headphones listen, but all the little whirs, buzzes, and ticks tucked away in the corners now creep out into the open. “Safe From Harm”—the album’s opening track and the closest Massive Attack ever came to a U.S. hit—in particular balances delicate hi-hat hits and distorted guitar fills with rumbling bass rolls and subtle turntable scratching, most of it borrowed from an early-’70s recording by jazz drummer Billy Cobham.

That jazz element is a key ingredient to Blue Lines. It runs through the terrific “Unfinished Symphony” and nudges against the hip-hop-leaning “Daydreaming,” which inspired nightly playlists at every martini bar on the planet during the ’90s. And it’s a main component of the trip-hop genre Massive Attack created. The music weaves in and out of consciousness, falling somewhere between a restless dream and a late-night buzz, as Nelson and rapper Tricky—who later recorded one of trip-hop’s other landmarks, Maxinquaye—barely break a sweat with their vocals.

Massive Attack messed around with more expansive sounds later—1998’s Mezzanine is the group’s only other consistent listen—but Blue Lines is the moment where the group explored new musical terrain in 45 brilliant minutes, and changed a small segment of electronica. Since then, traces of that work can be heard in everything from Portishead to recent records by Radiohead and TV On The Radio. This is the source, however, and the reissue pushes the record’s timeless magnificence back into the spotlight.

A.V. Club

ALBUM REVIEW — AC/DC

AC/DC

Live at River Plate

(Columbia)

When you get right down to it, AC/DC might be the most reliable band on the planet. In 40 years, they never once challenged fans with anything other than straight-up, uncomplicated rock ‘n’ roll played with fuss-free intensity. They never made a concept album. They never dabbled in pop, R&B, hip-hop or electronic music. And they never swerved from their playbook of barroom-meets-arena swagger dosed with a shot of heavy blues.

So there are no surprises on ‘Live at River Plate,’ their third concert album and first since 1992’s ‘Live.’ The 19 songs on the two-disc album are a mix of old favorites (‘Back in Black,’ ‘You Shook Me All Night Long’), a few cuts from their most recent album, 2008’s ‘Black Ice’ (‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Train,’ ‘Big Jack’) and those AC/DC songs that work only onstage (a 10-minute version of ‘The Jack,’ 18 minutes of ‘Let There Be Rock’).

‘Live at River Plate’ was recorded in Buenos Aires over three nights in 2009 during the Black Ice World Tour. The shows marked AC/DC’s first appearance there in more than a dozen years, so the audience sounds appropriately pumped. The band, already on the road more than a year by this point, had perfected their set, which pretty much included the same songs every night.

Not that there was much to be perfected in the first place. An AC/DC concert is not a Bruce Springsteen concert. Most of the songs sound like their studio versions, right down to singer Brian Johnson’s tossed-off howls and grunts. So songs like ‘Thunderstruck’ sound great — sharp, exact and free of any signs of age. (They were also included on 2011’s live DVD, which also featured some behind-the-scenes footage.)

It’s a crowd-pleasing set filled with the familiar and predictable. Of course they’re going to play ‘Highway to Hell.’ And of course you’ll hear ‘Whole Lotta Rosie.’ And of course they’ll end with a literally explosive ‘For Those About to Rock (We Salute You).’ You know what you’re getting with ‘Live at River Plate,’ which makes it as disposable as it is dependable.

Ultimate Classic Rock

ALBUM REVIEW — THE ROLLING STONES

The Rolling Stones

Grrr!

(ABKCO/Universal) 

With the exception of Elvis Presley, the Rolling Stones are rock’s most repackaged artist. From ‘Big Hits (High Tide and Green Grass),’ which came out two mere years after their debut, to ‘Forty Licks,’ the excellent two-disc set released a decade ago to mark the band’s 40th anniversary, the Stones have made sure that fans would never have to look too far for ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.’

So it comes as a surprise to absolutely no one that they would celebrate their 50th anniversary with yet another compilation. And even though many of these songs – including, yes, ‘Satisfaction,’ – are making their 25th or so appearance on record, there’s no denying the bounty of great music found on ‘Grrr!’ The album starts with their first single, ‘Come On,’ and ends with a pair of new cuts. In between are some of rock’s most magnificent and influential songs.

Taking its cue from the 40 songs that commemorated the 40th anniversary, ‘Grrr!’ observes the 50th with 50 tracks spread over three discs. You know most if not all of them: ‘Paint It Black,’ ‘Honky Tonk Women,’ ‘Sympathy for the Devil,’ ‘Brown Sugar,’ ‘Start Me Up’ – all classics, all here.

And since the album plays out chronologically, it hits its stride on the second CD, which begins with ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash’ and wraps up with the disco-era ballad ‘Fool to Cry.’ But even the last disc, which attempts to sum up the past 35 years in 17 songs, comes off surprisingly filler-free, including latter-day hits like ‘Miss You,’ ‘Undercover of the Night’ and ‘Mixed Emotions.’

‘Grrr!’ ends with two new songs, the throwback rocker ‘Doom and Gloom’ and ‘One More Shot,’ a sturdy barroom shuffle that recalls the best of their ‘80s material. And the Stones sound remarkably resilient on both of them, checking in with their leanest and toughest performances in years. The real question, though, is whether or not the two new tracks are worth the price of adding yet another Stones anthology to your collection. These are essential segments of rock ‘n’ roll’s permanent foundation. But you already know that.

Ultimate Classic Rock

ALBUM REVIEW – GREEN DAY

Green Day

Dos!

(Reprise)

For a band whose first hit was a slacker anthem about getting high and beating off, Green Day sure have become an ambitious band over the past 10 years. First, they dropped a chart-topping rock opera stuffed with political, personal and sociological insight. Then, after a globe-conquering tour, they released another rock opera, crammed with even deeper perceptions about what makes people tick in the 21st century.

Their current super-motivated project consists of three albums released within the span of three months. The first, ‘Uno!,’ was a quick hit of buzzing guitar-based songs that barely stopped to catch its breath among the swirl of the pop-punk tornado. ‘Dos!’ turns out to be more of the same, just less so.

Breaking pace with ‘Uno!’’s blitzkrieg bop, ‘Dos!’ is a slightly more despairing piece that could hold some clues to Billie Joe Armstrong’s recent rehab stay. But it’s no less rapid in its approach. The 13 songs get in and out of there in less than 40 minutes, and none of them overstays its welcome. But, following ‘Uno!’’s generally underwhelming aftertaste, ‘Dos!’ comes off even more forgettable in the end.

The minute-long opener ‘See You Tonight’ is built on the skeletal frames of an acoustic guitar and Armstrong’s reserved vocals – hardly a raucous start to the crucial middle part of a back-to-their-punk-roots trilogy. It’s a long way from ‘Dookie’’s bratty defiance, and things don’t pick up much from there (certainly not on the surf-rock rap cut ‘Nightlife’). Even songs called ‘Fuck Time’ and ‘Wow! That’s Loud’ promise way more than they deliver.

The best songs on ‘Dos!’ – ‘Lazy Bones’ and ‘Stray Heart’ – are the ones that sound the most fully formed. Still, they come off tentative with their surroundings, like they’re more than aware of the filler on either side. Plus, the album’s closing track, ‘Amy,’ a ‘50s-channeling tribute to Amy Winehouse, sounds stifled, forced and as out of place as the album’s opener. Unless Green Day are saving the great new songs for next month’s ‘Tre!,’ it’s starting to look like their ambition is getting the best of them.

Diffuser.fm

ALBUM REVIEW – SOUNDGARDEN

Soundgarden

King Animal 

(Seven Four Entertainment/Republic)

The last time Soundgarden made an album, grunge was still a thing people could talk about without rolling their eyes. Unlike so many of their contemporaries, who dragged their dying careers into the ‘00s as both shame and relevance dwindled, the Seattle quartet was at the top of its game when it called it quits not long after the release of 1996’s ‘Down on the Upside.’

Since then, singer Chris Cornell hooked up with three-fourths of Rage Against the Machine in Audioslave, released a head-scratching solo album with hip-hop producer Timbaland and recorded what may be the worst James Bond theme song ever. Guitarist Kim Thayil and bass player Ben Shepherd kicked around in some indie projects. And the drummer joined Pearl Jam.

After some reunion shows and a song on ‘The Avengers’ soundtrack, ‘King Animal,’ Soundgarden’s first album in 16 years and sixth overall, sounds like it’s ready for the inevitable grunge revival. The band comes out hard, thrashing and swinging on ‘Been Away Too Long’ like it not only has something to prove to skeptics but also like the past decade and a half was filled with way too many compromises.

You can hear their pent-up aggression, drive and ultimate release in songs like ‘Non-State Actor,’ ‘By Crooked Steps’ and ‘Attrition,’ all of which sound like they could have been recorded back when ‘Friends’ was a Top 5 TV show.

But like even the best Soundgarden albums (1991’s ‘Badmotorfinger,’ 1994’s ‘Superunknown’), ‘King Animal’ relies more on strung-together riffs and muddy grooves than any real sense that they’re in control of all the noise they’re making. Cornell’s howls from hell are as larynx-shredding impressive as ever, and Thayil tears off some mighty guitar solos throughout, but too often ‘King Animal’ is weighed down by its heaviness. There are a few tweaks to the classic Soundgarden pattern (modern-day studio tricks show up once in a while, as do some exotic-sounding instruments), but for the most part the band isn’t too interested in reshaping its legacy on ‘King Animal.’ This is about reclaiming, by any means necessary, the title of the grungiest of the grunge, and they’re damned if they don’t.

Diffuser.fm

DVD REVIEW — THE ROLLING STONES

The Rolling Stones

Charlie Is My Darling – Ireland 1965

(ABKCO)

In 1965, the Rolling Stones’ manager, Andrew Loog Oldham, asked filmmaker Peter Whitehead to accompany the group on a two-day trip tour of Ireland following the massive success of ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.’

Whitehead shot the band onstage, backstage and outside of the shows. The result, ‘Charlie Is My Darling,’ is one of rock’s most legendary lost movies, with a complicated history — essentially, it never was released, and the small amount of footage that has surfaced over the years didn’t tell the whole story.

The new super-deluxe box set, ‘The Rolling Stones Charlie Is My Darling – Ireland 1965,’ marks the first official release of the fabled tour documentary, complete with a sterling stereo mix and a Blu-ray version of the film. Over the years, the movie has been shown in various forms, most notably a 35-minute version put together by Whitehead and a 50-minute one assembled by Oldham. This new set features, for the first time, a 65-minute cut of the film.

And for the most part, it’s a revealing and exciting portrait of a band on the verge of stardom. The interview sequences – Mick Jagger does most of the talking, Keith Richards does very little – show a group of young artists, initially influenced by American blues music, developing their own voices. Brian Jones, especially, is dismissive of their “pop” success, effortlessly playing the conflicted artist role for the camera.

Once they’re onstage, the Stones crackle with energy. The live footage is taken from a September concert in Dublin, where they tear through ‘The Last Time,’ ‘Time Is on My Side’ and ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,’ which is performed before an audience for the first time here. The offstage hustling and bustling, mostly talking about their uncertain futures and getting from one gig to the next, is a bit more tedious.

The very best scenes capture the cacophony onstage and the inspiration off: During a particularly ferocious version of ‘I’m Alright,’ fans begin rushing the stage, grabbing at various Stones, who duck for cover as their bodies and instruments twist in different directions. And a casual scene backstage features Richards, armed with an acoustic guitar, and Jagger working out ‘Sitting on a Fence’ and ‘Tell Me,’ before they take abandoned stabs at the Beatles’ ‘I’ve Just Seen a Face’ and ‘Eight Days a Week.’ (Later, they goof on Elvis Presley.) It’s enlightening moments like these that make ‘Charlie Is My Darling’ a rock ‘n’ roll documentary on par with Bob Dylan’s ‘Don’t Look Back’ at times.

The lavish set includes Blu-ray and DVD versions of the movie (all three cuts), a soundtrack CD, LP and CD versions of unreleased live performances from 1965, plus a handful of other collectibles. They all help to bolster the general skimpiness of the main movie, which barely cracks feature length. Still, the brief, frenzied footage offers an early, insider peek into the Stones, a good band closing in on greatness here.

Ultimate Classic Rock

ALBUM REVIEW — TRACEY THORN

Tracey Thorn

Tinsel and Lights

(Merge)

Holiday albums come cheap. From Sinatra to the Chipmunks, Mariah Carey to Scotty McReery, Christmas records have been a quick and cost-efficient way for artists to put a little something extra under their trees without spending too much effort. The classics — Elvis’, Phil Spector’s — mess around with convention and expectations. If they’re good enough, like Elvis’ and Spector’s records, they can be played in July and not sound out of season.

Tracey Thorn’s contribution to the genre falls somewhere between the great ones and those multi-artist benefit compilations that have a song or two you don’t mind hearing a couple of times during the holidays. More of a winter-themed album than a Christmas record, ‘Tinsel and Lights’ takes a cozy coffeehouse tone, all acoustic strums and lightly brushed drums. It’s more hot-chocolate-in-front-of-the-fireplace than snowball-fight-in-a-blizzard. And it’s all anchored by Thorn’s warm, rich voice, which is capable of thawing even the biggest chill. For years, Thorn provided the human element to Everything but the Girl’s electronic rattles and hums. Surrounded by a stripped-down band (including husband and Everything but the Girl partner Ben Watt) on ‘Tinsel and Lights,’ she’s as inviting as a raging fire on a cold night.

There’s only one song (‘Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas’) among the dozen tracks that will probably show up on another holiday album this year. The others, including two originals, come from such disparate sources as Stephin Merritt (‘Like a Snowman’), Randy Newman (‘Snow’), Low (‘Taking Down the Tree’) and Sufjan Stevens (‘Sister Winter’).

The best cuts celebrate the season by looking back as well as forward. There’s hope springing from the past in the opening ‘Joy’ and in the title track, both written by Thorn. She sneaks under the gorgeous melody propping ‘Hard Candy Christmas,’ undercutting Dolly Parton’s original sorta-sappy version found on ‘The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas’ soundtrack. And a cover of the White Stripes’ sly ‘In the Cold, Cold Night’ makes it in on general frostiness. The electronic and orchestral decorations found on a few songs can get a bit fussy, but for the most part Thorn holds back and chills out, settling in for a quiet winter storm.

Diffuser.fm

ALBUM REVIEW — NEIL YOUNG AND CRAZY HORSE

Neil Young and Crazy Horse

Psychedelic Pill

(Reprise)

Forget ‘Americana,’ the album of folk standards Neil Young released with Crazy Horse earlier in 2012. Please. It’s a tossed-off goof – a record that should have been uncovered by music archeologists 15 years from now, released as a bootleg and devoured by Young’s rabid fan base.

The good news is that 2012’s other album by Young and Crazy Horse, ‘Psychedelic Pill,’ should completely wipe away any lingering memories of ‘Americana’’s nagging children’s choir.

Young doesn’t mess around on ‘Psychedelic Pill,’ immediately jumping into what he and Crazy Horse do best: stretching four-minute songs into tracks seven times that length.

The album’s first cut, ‘Driftin’ Back,’ is a sprawling 27-minute monster that spends its first minute and a half like it’s an acoustic leftover from 2010’s ‘Le Noise.’

But once Crazy Horse stumble in with their usual plugged-in sloppiness, the album rarely lets up. Besides a few topical lines (stuff like “But then a big tech giant came along and turned him into wallpaper”), ‘Psychedelic Pill’ could be from the ‘90s or even ‘70s. It’s not as focused as ‘Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere’ or ‘Ragged Glory,’ but Young’s albums with Crazy Horse rarely are. Its closest antecedent is 1994’s unwieldy but turbocharged ‘Sleeps With Angels.’

At 90 minutes, the double-disc ‘Psychedelic Pill’ could use some trimming. The long jamming set pieces (‘Driftin’ Back,’ and ‘Ramada Inn’ and “Walk Like a Giant,” both 16 minutes) are highlights; so is the woozy title tune. But the two autobiographical songs in the middle of the album – ‘Born in Ontario’ and ‘Twisted Road’ — are almost as pointless as ‘Americana’ or 2003’s ‘Greendale,’ the last album Young recorded with Crazy Horse before 2012’s double blast.

The best Young/Crazy Horse albums sound like they could slip off track at any second. There are plenty of these moments on ‘Psychedelic Pill,’ especially ‘She’s Always Dancing,’ where the rest of the band might be playing a different song than Young. But that’s the raging glory of these collaborations. You never know if you’re hearing something transcendentally brilliant or a runaway train wreck. Either way, you won’t be able to turn away.

Ultimate Classic Rock