My Amazon Reviews: Mumford and Sons "Babel"

God and Bombast
4 Out of 5 Stars

Mumford And Sons have given music a much needed kick in the butt by proving you don't need to be a synthed out dance band to sell to a big audience. It's helped bands like Avett Brothers, Trampled by Turtles and more reach a wider listener-ship and helped reestablish Americana and roots music in the USA. And that's a good thing in my mind. "Babel" is their second full length CD, and it follows the slow-burn success of "Sigh No More," as well as finding the band in a tough situation. How do you appease this new found audience who look upon you as the newest and next big thing without disappointing them?

In response, "Babel" loads up on the bombast and the religion. Think U2 with banjos, with the bulk of the songs also having a soft/loud/soft/explode variety of songwriting that owes as much to grunge than folk-rock. There's way too much "Jesus saved me" here for my tastes, yet the disc overall is pretty darn great. There's a lot of soul in Marcus Mumford's voice and he's happy to pour it on with all the force he can muster (the title track) or in longing ("I Will Wait")or cries for salvation ("Whispers in The Dark"). As the band rises and swells behind him, Mumford's voice carries the emotional wallop of the lyrics he's penned with ease. Add some otherworldly harmonies and you have the makings for greatness.

There isn't much subtlety in that manner of music making, but the emphasis here is on the rock part of Folk-Rock. There's a hunger for this kind of honesty in music and "Babel" gives sustenance.

     

My Amazon Reviews: The Gaslight Anthem "Handwritten"

Gaslighting
5 Out of 5 Stars

This is the album that pulls it all together for The Gaslight Anthem. I have to admit, my fondness for "American Slang" has grown in the time since I've owned it, and if I had to re-rate it, I'd bump it to 4 stars. "Handwritten" finally culminates all the band's influences (Nirvana, Tom Petty, Springsteen) and forges them into a band identity. That alone makes "Handwritten" the TGA's best to date.

That's not all the group is about. There's an energy that producer Brendon O'Brien (Pearl Jam, Springsteen) has managed to harness that previous TGA discs haven't. The eleven songs here unleash a punkish racket at times, but remain lyrically focused while asking a lot of questions. In fact, almost every song starts off with a question, including "What's Your Favorite Song?" on the title track. But the questioning is sincere, and when they drop the adrenaline for a benediction ballad about a thinning relationship ("National Anthem"), it's good enough to make you tear up. The Gaslight Anthem are the kind of band that, should you see them in a local pub, would either have you raising your bottle clenched by your pumping fist, or crying in your beer over how damn good they are and how rare a band that rocks like they mean it seems to be these days.

The deluxe edition contains three bonus tracks that return the the bands' roots. One is a TGA original, but it's the other two that are telling. First up is Nirvana's "Sliver" (aka, "Grandma take me home"), and the Kurt Cobain resemblance is stunning. Then a straightforward version of Tom Petty's "You Got Lucky," one of Petty's darker singles. Singer Brian Fallon finds the everyman melodrama that Petty has always known, and milks the song for all he can. That everyman vibe infuses so much of "Handwritten" that you can't help but love it. Like a lot of the artists mentioned in this review (maybe John Mellencamp or Against Me on "New Wave"), TGA know that their listeners are probably still in that bar, clutching that bottle, and getting on when a band sings more about them than glitz and glamor. Already a best of for 2012.

     

My Amazon Reviews: Motion City Soundtrack "Go"

Go Get Some Motion City Soundtrack
4 Out Of 5 Stars

I loved "My Dinosaur Life" by Motion City Soundtrack a few years back, enough to automatically grab "Go" the week of its release. MCS are one of a vanishing type of bands (with the demise of Panic at The Disco and Fall Out Boy) making highly melodic but energetic punky-pop with wit and verve. But "Go" finds the band in a sudden shift towards maturity. It's a move that suits the band well.

"Go" kicks off as you would expect, with a hyper and literary "Circuits and Wires" that complains about singer Justin Pierre's faulty brain and a temper addled tongue. It's properly cheeky and hooky, as is the obvious single and following song, "True Romance." But then you start to notice something; the guitars are more acoustic than electric and the pulse isn't as frantic. In fact, "Go" sounds downright adult. There's nothing here as snotty as "@!#?@!" from "My Dinosaur Life" and, in one case, the strings swell up and you might even get choked up.

"Everyone Will Die" strums a sad lyric that is also the CD's shortest song. "The cycle of intense retrospection before the curtain call...who you going to love in the meantime before it catches you?" pleads Justin just as the strings swell. It's as big a surprise and stunner as when Green Day recorded "Good Riddance/Time of Your Life." Even more pointed (but not as shocking in sounds) is "Timelines," where the band produces what could easily be a fan fave as they rattle off life events like

"Catholic school, my private hell
I stuttered till the age of 12
Discovered sex at 17
And soon thereafter, self-esteem,"

Which renders almost everything else on "Go" irrelevant. Motion City Soundtrack are a band that has been making remarkably constantly good albums for a long time, and this may be one of their best yet. After several weeks of listens, it continues to grow on me. Always a good sign.

     

My Amazon Reviews: John Mayer "Born and Raised"

Born to be Grammy Bait
5 Out Of 5 Stars

John Mayer's public mea culpa comes musically, a whispered plea for understanding after some serious public bumbling of his life. Who knew that, when his musical world finally had a collision with the paparazzi word, it would humble the guy into making the stellar music of "Born and Raised"? It's the first album he's made where what used to be affectations towards the singer-songwriters of the 70's that John's long been enamored by become genuinely personal and effective.

You can't blame the man for wanting to make something other than knock offs of his heroes. He may have been extremely good at doing just that, but now he wants to be the man who - as he states in the song "Queen of California" - finds the "sun that Neil Young Hung after the gold rush of '71." The pallet he is drawing from is serious CSNandY and James Taylor turf, yet now he sounds less like he's rubbing shoulders with them and more like he's proving he can make music that spiritually accentuates his forebears. Those public slaggings have obviously made him want to try harder, and left their stings. "Now the cover of Rolling Stone ain't the cover of a Rolling Stone," he realizes in "Speak for Me."

"Born and Raised" also chucks aside any attempt at overproduction (no loudness wars here) for a spartan acoustic setting. "Whiskey Whiskey Whiskey" begs for quiet in a life that was filled with too much background noise, along with a great harmonica riff. Same with "If I Ever Get Around to Living," as blatant a confirmation that trials by fire are something that need to be part of the past. The bulk of the album is spent in these contemplative moments, and it all rings true. It's not only Mayer's personal best, it maybe one of 2012's classiest albums.

     

My Amazon Reviews: Rush "Clockwork Angels"

Rush, Steampunk and Candide
4 Out Of 5 Stars

The Rush of 2112 is back, the band of Moving Pictures, the conceptual maestros of concept albums; their 20th studio album and they sound as ferocious and powerful as ever. "Clockwork Angels" is Neil Peart's musing on faith and hope in the time of tragedy (and is allegedly inspired by the work of 17th century French philosopher Voltaire's Candide). Having lost his wife and daughter, then his drum mentor, Peart took a journey into the wilderness and came back with the seeds of what is this album. As he intones on the opener, "I can't stop thinking big."

That alone should tell you you're in for a near classic Rush CD. The band (or at least the central character in the upcoming novelization of the album) is traveling through time and making sense of the chaos surrounding him. He meets up with "The Anarchist," in a seven minute all-the-stunts prog-rocker and the "Carnies," who pound the drums between the 'flint and steel and games of chance." The bass-work here alone will melt your lasers.

Then there are the songs that are trademark rush, like the opening "Caravan" that starts our journey and "Headlong Flight," which propel you through the plot with reckless efficiency. "I wish I could live it all again" screams Geddy Lee (in fine voice), as he defies the clockmaker to make him downtrodden about the curves life has thrown his way and the rest of the band is pulsing with muscle right in their behind him. Or the eff-off of "Wish Them Well," as Lee tells us to ignore the cynics and make peace with what life has for you.

"Clockwork Angels" is a dense and powerful album, and given the long-in-toothiness of the band, Rush are still staking out territory few contemporaries can even dip their toes in. Maybe Peart measures out a life that goes "from bad to worse" (BU2B), but he is still optimally a heartbeat in a band that plays by its own set of rules and seems to find ways to make time stand still for their fans, and for their own sense of optimism.

      

My Amazon Reviews: Jack White "Blunderbuss"

All Aboard The Blunderbuss
5 Out of 5 Stars

Well, no one can claim that Jack White was hoarding his best material for the Dead Weather or Raconteurs albums. "Blunderbuss," his first official solo album, is top heavy with raucous guitars, southern-fried blues, big, liquid guitar fuzz-bomb solos, and White's odd view of the world. When your first song is about a woman who - literally - takes pieces of you with her, you know you're not in for your typical guitar hero album.

"Blunderbuss" tackles the radical sides of love almost as viciously as Marilyn Manson did on his new album. On the big noise of "Sixteen Saltines," White sings about the femme fatale whose "spiked heels put a hole in the lifeboat." Or "Love Interruption," the acoustic-ish number where White wants her so bad that he wants to turn "His friends into enemies." He's got it bad, and for us, that's good. Or the title track, where he moans that "doing what two people need is never on the menu."

Along with the great guitar, While pulls out an oldie to play about with (and would have fit in just as nicely on his production of Wanda Jackson), "I'm Shakin'." Originally by bluesman Little Willie John (and well covered in the 80's by The Blasters), White gets playful, again about another questionable lady who'll make him 'noivous' or get his locks clipped ala Samson and Delilah. While I certainly can't psychoanalyze the guy's "Blunderbuss" obsession with threatening women, I do hear the grooves in the album that he's inspired to make. His guitar is doing the bulk of the talking, the songs are all killer. This is on my shortlist for favorite album of 2012.

   

My Amazon Reviews: Dr John "Locked Down"

Steaming in the Swamp
4 Out Of 5 Stars

This is one heck of a comeback album for Dr John. Produced by Black Key Dan Auerbach, it combines the Keys' garage esthetic with John's Gumbo New Orleans funk. That may serve as both recommendation and warning; if you dig on the Keys' wall of noise sounds, you'll probably like this more than older Dr John fans might. The production is dirty and swampy, with minor key horns and wailing back-up singers piling on some serious blues.

Meanwhile, the Good Doctor uses the opportunity to rail against politics, to throw down a little old time religion, and to bump and grind like it's after closing time and the streets are empty except for you and some old friends with a piano. "Locked Down" is no excessive cheap nostalgia, it's a modern record with everyday concerns. Like the latest Tom Waits album, "Bad As Me," "Locked Down" lets the man Mac Rebennack, and the persona, Dr John, come together and use the character's strengths for superior purposes. As the Dr prowls through "Ice Age" or storms across Auerbach's guitars in the title track, he sounds like a man unleashed.

That retro-groove is astonishing, only letting down on the syrupy "God's Sure God." However, there hasn't been a record this greasy from Dr John for a couple of decades, and there are no covers/standards that seem to have been his stock-in-trade for too long. "Locked Down" is the return of The Night Tripper, and as such, makes this the best Dr John album in near 20 years.