My Amazon Reviews: TV On The Radio "Nine Types of Light"

The other side of the prism
4 Out Of 5 Stars

TV On The Radio have been one of the most proggy groups of the last few years. Mixing elements and references from everyone from the Flaming Lips to David Bowie, their music has been a wonderful batter that pours out from each CD. For "Nine Types of Light," TVotR have moved into a new direction: relationship songs.

The first single was almost a straight ahead pop song. "Will Do" unravels slowly, like a lush R&B ballad with a seductive lead vocal. Had that song been the direction of the entire CD, I think most TV fans might have been too shocked to handle it. No need to worry, though, on "Nine Types of Light,: the following song is a buzzy beat number "New Cannonball Blues." Lurching from sassy vocals to a wailing falsetto, it has its own take on blues-rock that jerks along on its powerful drumline.

I also love the Bowie cop on "No Future Shock" and "Repetition." Kip Malone gives TV fans a new dance refrain as he barks out "Do the no future!" in a world that's gone insane. Same with the hard rocking "Caffeinated Consciousness" that ends the album, which hardly feel out of place on a Red Hot Chili Peppers album (or a little too much like INXS's "Guns The Sky" younger brother). To the other end of the spectrum, "Killer Crane" stretches out for over six minutes, with a "Dear Prudence" reference and refined and patient unfolding. Same with the album's beginning, "Second Song." "Confidence and ignorance approve me...I tried so hard to shut it down, gently walk away," is sung over a slow build. There's almost an acquiescence involved to "Nine Types of Light" that makes it fascinating.

Listening to this album made me often thing of the Talking Heads. That New York band followed their most dense and career altering album "Remain in Light" with the sunnier and poppy "Speaking in Tongues." "Nine Types of Light" finds TV leaving New York for Los Angeles and taking a sunnier view of the world. (Although no-one will mistake TVotR for Taylor Swift.) "Nine" is a great album, also standing as a tribute to band member/bassist Gerard Smith, who passed away from lung cancer in April of 2011.

   

GO NEW YORK!

Marriage Equality Passes.....

Join me this Saturday In NYC: I'm doing a reading after 3PM.

 

 David Stein and I will be sharing a book table at the event. Come on out!

 

My Amazon Reviews: Semi Precious Weapons "You Love You"

I've decided to make my last post of the year one of my 2010 favorites.

"It's not my fault I look better in her party dress..." 
4 Out of 5 Stars

The second album (and major label debut) of Semi Precious Weapons lives up to their outrageous reputation. As someone who long back bought the original "We Love You" CD on indie Razor and Tie, the main difference between the two albums is bigger and meatier production. The calculated Eff-You attitude is still there in gallons of glitz, and charismatic lead sinner/singer gay/ambisexual Justin Tranter wails away like a cross between David Bowie and Bon Scott.

"Girl, go ahead and drink, cuz I can only be so many things. But when you leave, please leave your pretty to me," Tranter moans on the album's most epic cut, the ballad "Leave Your Pretty to Me." This is a band that knows that fans make bands onto the images that they want to see (posters, magazines, etc), and SPW exploit that fact like few have since Alice Cooper. They also understand that for many guitar wielding misfits, being a big star might be the only way out ("Rock and Roll Never Looked So Beautiful"). Then they set up "I Could Die," a glorious racket that sounds like David Bowie conjured up a New York Dolls glam bomb and dropped it on AC/DC's "Highway to Hell." Don't leave out the non-subtle innuendo of "Sticky With Champagne's" 'she don't swallow top shelf, she spits it out all over herself, sticky! sticky! Sticky!'

This is an album that scares church ladies. And get this; the band met while they were students at Boston's Berklee School of Music. That's right, the same prestigious home of noteworthy grads like Paula Cole, Bruce Cockburn, Gary Burton, Al DiMeola, Pat Methany and most of Aerosmith gave us an album whose first line is "I can't pay my rent but I'm F---ing gorgeous." Lady Gaga, no stranger to outrageous herself, is friends of the band and took them on tour as her opening act (she helped them secure their deal and is the executive producer, along with glam-godfather Tony Visconti). That's all why "You Love You" could be the most important CD you listen to this year. Tired of conformist pap and posing hipsters passing themselves off as dangerous? Then bring on Semi-Precious Weapons.

PS: Minor quibble. Three songs - "Magnetic Baby," "Semi Precious Weapons" and "Rock and Roll Never Locked So Beautiful" - are re-recordings of songs from "We Love You" and "Put A Diamond In It" shows up twice. Four of ten songs are retreads, and that is troubling. Of course if you missed "We Love You," then this is no problem at all.