Dark Night of the Soul is a very interesting album for many different reasons.  One of which is the eerie vibe that creeps over the audience as it is taken in.  The lyrics of the album seem to be very dark and thought provoking.  This eerie feeling is escalated because Sparklehorse front-man Mark Linkous committed suicide just three months before its release.  Linkous’ personal struggles with self-esteem and insecurity can be seen littered throughout the album.  The song “Jaykub” seems to be about someone who puts on the happy face and goes about his daily business in the spotlight, but when alone remembers who he is and how little everything else means if he is unable to come to terms with the personal world crumbling around him.  “Revenge” is another titled that is full of anger and hate, a byproduct of the self-loathing contained in “Jaykub.”  Dark Night of the Soul is a flawless title for an album and truly reflects what it must be like to sit alone and constantly battle the demons that ultimately lead to the act of suicide.

While the writing comes from a dark place within, Danger Mouse found a way to produce an incredible album.  He enlisted some of indie rock’s greatest artists to capture the sentiment found in Linkous’ writing.  Julian Casablancas, of Strokes fame, appears for a song that one would expect him to be involved in.  His silky smooth vocals on “Little Girl” accompany the oh-so-familiar snare drum that commanded his entire Phrazes for the Young album.  “Little Girl” is an eclectic track that Danger Mouse mixed with perfection.  Linkous’ lyrics reflect his feelings of confusion and love.  Casablancas captures the frantic and confusing nature of the writing by creating a sound that his both upbeat, reflecting the confusion as well as happiness involved in love, and a haunting echo and distortion which added to the anger and sorrow involved in Linkous’ writing.

Ageless psychedelic rockers The Flaming Lips make an appearance on the album as well.  Their song “Revenge” could very possibly be the most poignant of the entire album.  Linkous once again paints a picture of heartbreak and sadness.  It seems to reflect his struggle to cope with everything, namely those who he feels have been a burden on him.  Danger Mouse brought in the perfect group to tackle the track in The Flaming Lips.  Lead vocalist Wayne Coyne delivers his signature soft vocals that create a feeling of depression all around him.

The album is laced with self-pity, disgust, confusion, love lost, etc. but it is amazingly well done.  The group that came together for this project seems as if they were the only ones that could have been up to the task.  With other songs featuring Iggy Pop, David Lynch, and Black Francis (Roxy Music) the cast features some of the more emotionally strong entertainers in rock n’ roll.  Audiences will be captivated by the power of this album both lyrically and musically.  The haunting last days of Mark Linkous will forever be enshrined in the contents of this album as told by his very own colleagues.

By Mitch Inkrott

Introduced by “A Peace of Light”, a wordless track containing the measured harmonizations of three female vocalists’ (Amber Coffman, Angel Deradoorian, and Haley Dekle of The Dirty Projectors), the initial sound of this album is elegiac and understated. While this tone is carried throughout with tracks like “Walk Alone” and “Dear God 2.0”, there is an unmistakable, underlying sense of self-empowerment and gratitude incorporated into songs like “The Fire”, and “How I Got Over”.

The degree to which The Roots allow such a broad-based array of genre’s to influence the sound and construction of their music is one of the qualities that has sustained their fan bases’ interest in them over the past seventeen years, but what I found most enticing about this album was the clarity of self expression displayed in the bands lyrics. This characteristic is most prominent in Now or Never; a verbal realization that in order to reconcile with negativity in your past, one has to utilize self-awareness to regain control and structure their future in ways that will serve them productively. Tariq “Black Thought” Trotter even mentions himself in this song; “I’m ready for the next chapter and page to start acting my age/and part ways with Black Thought from back in the days.”

The Roots collaborated with an unconventional number of guest artists, with featured singers on every track other than two 42-second-long songs. One of the most notable artist’s incorporated in the making of this album is John Legend’s help in re-working his song “Again” to become the track “Doin’ It Again”. With Legend’s smooth, yet cogent vocals, alongside a higher register piano in the background, this track definitely displays a more soulful, gospel element than the other tracks. The famous R&B singer is also featured in The Fire, a fantastically well written homage to self-motivation and inner strength that manages to remain authentic and spirited.

Monsters of Folk – a supergroup made up of Bright Eye’s Conor Oberst, My Morning Jacket’s Jim James, and M. Ward’s Mike Mogas – participated in the re-construction of an older Root’s song Dear God into what is included on this album, Dear God 2.o. This is perhaps the most overtly socially conscious track, commenting on global issues ranging from Chinese labor, over-dependency on technology, drug abuse, and endangered species.

After announcing that they planned on calling it quits when it came to producing albums in 2008, fans of The Roots were not expectant of any more releases until Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson made public their plans for a ninth album. Anxiously anticipating  ”How I Got Over “after the release date for the album got set back three times, the public largely appreciated the maturity and reflective attitude displayed in this set of tracks. And although some may disagree that the selling point of this album is the content of the lyrics, that only offers more praise to The Roots ability capture an audience with their uniquely modified style of Hip-Hop.

By Lacey Smalldon

Any recounting or assessment of Further seems as though it should be at least loosely structured around the order of the tracks, due to the impressive and consistent continuity of the album. There are almost no pauses or breaks in or between songs, and layers of beats often overlap until it becomes inconsequential which track you’re listening to and easier to classify each segment by it’s unique incorporation of the various electronics used by the Brothers.

In “Snow,” measured and almost angelic whispers of “your love keeps lifting me, lifting me higher, lifting me higher” initiate the sparse incorporation of lyrics or vocals into the album. Introduced with sporadic beeps and pulses the song eventually levels off into understated swells & releases that play off the varying tone and intention of the vocals of Rowland and Simmons. This creates a parallel, yet distorted, intertwinement that bleeds through the typical second-long break in-between tracks and does not diminish completely until a good minute into the next song, “Escape Velocity.” The momentum in this twelve minute long track builds periodically, taking a few minutes to rev-up in what I can only imagine as being a continuous inhale until the Brothers are satisfied with the amount of impetus and exhale into sound explosions. But what tickles my fancy most about this track is the words that it goes out with; “wow, that was some experience. Now just let me adjust the spacial controls and we’ll move to another observation point.” With that, they move onto “Another World.”

Though the album plays fluidly, with little to concretely distinguish the songs, “Horse Power” is perhaps the most distinctly independent track. Using samples of real horse neighing and carried by a hurried back beat, this is definitely a more deliberate execution of what was clearly a premeditated song nugget and less of an impromptu creation.

The abrupt appearance of drums and an assortment of percussion instruments on “K+D+B” contributes an entirely different dimension to the album. What starts out as a funk-inspired sound morphs into an electric ambience that is carried into the closing track, “Wonders of the Deep.” The amount of energy generated from the music propels the end of the sound-experiment into a cascading, synthesized harmony complete with climaxing percussions. After reaching these transcendent eruptions, the drums stop and the sound fades, leaving the listener with only a lingering sense of wonderment and the urge to press repeat.

By Lacey Smalldon

After achieving commercial success with a solo album and two albums with rock supergroup Velvet Revolver, Scott Weiland comes back into the fold to lend his vocal talents to one of the most prolific bands to come out of the 90’s grunge rock movement.

Stone Temple Pilots is a nice amalgamation of all the different phases we heard the band go through with previous albums.  This is why fans of theirs might be very indifferent towards this particular album.  As a fan of STP for most of my life I was excited to hear what they had come up with in the last 9 years.  The answer is basically, “nothing much, but we also didn’t change anything.”  They even show how little they changed things up by offering a live cut of one of their old singles, “Vasoline,” on the deluxe version of the album thus telling their fans, “Sorry if this isn’t up to par, but here’s something we know you will like.”

Of the tracks on the album, “Peacoat,” seems to show the most resemblance to harder popular radio hits cut by the band such as classics “Dead and Bloated”, and “Vasoline.”  Weiland’s voice plays the star on this track, but a haunting bass line right from the start make it a fun tune to listen to.  “Dare If You Dare,” can be put alongside “Interstate Love Song” and “Creep” as a more ballad song which truly shows the range of Weiland’s voice, which surprisingly still has a life to it after all these years and a few stints in rehab.  Dean DeLeo shows on this song that he can still play his axe with the best of the grunge rock movement with a wicked solo that will almost surely be featured on the next installment of Guitar Hero.

While the album is musically and technically what you would expect from a band that has essentially been playing together for close to 2 decades, the writing is surprisingly subpar.  There are no signs of those very insightful lyrics that have been emblazoned on the legacy of albums past.  “Take time with a wounded hand,” from “Creep,” and the entire lyrical composition of “Plush” stole the thunder away from the rest of already good albums; Stone Temple Pilots doesn’t have that.  The singles either took a back seat and they set out to lyrically write a balanced album and fell just short, or Weiland snorted the last piece of lyrical creativeness he had up his nose.

So, if you feel compelled to hear this album, and if you were a fan of STP in the past I encourage you to do so, go into it with a closed mind instead of an open one.  There is no real “wow factor” on this album that will convert people into fans of STP, but there is nothing to drive their old fans away.  They way I looked at this album was just a casual catching up with an old friend, and if you look at it that way it will be a fun listen.

By Mitch Inkrott

Alexis Krauss’s petite, high- pitched voice matched with Derek Miller’s (ex member of Poison the Well) catchy and straight forward guitar riffs, makes you want to move to the beat, stomp your foot or bob your head. Add the element of distortion and a hint of club type mastering it is impossible to deny that Sleigh Bells will be following close behind the footsteps of veterans Crystal Castles.

Sleigh Bells possesses an artfully disorganized sound that gives you vague familiarity to other noise pop groups, but there is a piece of this duo that is difficult to put my finger on that really sets them apart from the rest. Maybe it’s the fact that Sleigh Bells is slightly troubled in their musical venture, so this “new” thrown together sound could be what this summer is calling for. Or maybe its just about time we had someone try to step into the place of Crystal Castles, it could be time for something a little fresher.

Their single “Tell ‘Em” blasts & assaults your ears from the very beginning, and after moments of tension Alexis Krauss comes in with her extremely feminine vocals to relieve you from explosion of noise, snapping, laser beams, amplified clapping and so forth. Though the music itself is exciting to listen to many of the lyrics seem to be decidedly irrelevant, nor relatable. A great example of this is the song “infinity Guitars” where the lyrics seem as if they were drawn from a hat and sung to a beat.

However, I’m not sure how important the relevancy of the lyrics really is because I feel like the more nonsensical Sleigh Bells’ songs become, the more I like them. Already Sleigh Bells is gaining a lot of popularity with their album “Treats,” having played numerous larger events with some of the more well known artists in their genre it will only be a matter of time before the guy next to you in class is asking you if you’ve heard of this “sick new group, “Sleigh Bells”, but of course you already have and this duo will no longer be under the radar instead they’ll be head lining major shows while you have to buy your tickets six months in advance.  The question is how long will this super fame last for Sleigh Bells and will there be a sophomore album?

- A. Devin Young

The most prominent and notable characteristic of this latest album (and perhaps Devo’s music in general) is their striking blends of multi-layered synthesizers, heavy back beats, hand clapping, and experimental electronic frequencies. Each song has a slightly or drastically altered combination of these techniques, contributing to the album’s holistic identity while still allowing for substantial differentiation between tracks. No Place Like Home is the most dynamic and sophisticatedly constructed track on the album; starting with what sounds like a heart monitor then dipping into a refreshing piano section that swells with soft-synth effects into a mystic, echoing combination of keyboards and lyrics that introduce the song with the herald “a song of truth and beauty for you.”

Mark Mothersbaugh, Devo’s lead singer and co-founder, has a quirky, David Byrne-esqe quality to his vocals that contribute to the bands deadpan humor, that when coupled with the electronic, dance-beat background music creates the distinct, and off beat attraction to their brand of social commentary. In Don’t Shoot (I’m a Man), Mothersbaugh sings of the working man/woman’s ambition for more exposure to authenticity while condemning the sense of burden felt as the result of the universal problems they feel helpless to control. Amongst shouts of, “Don’t Shoot! I’m a man!”, the bass-heavy, synthetically dubbed background levels with, but does not detract from the pleading lyrics. This comparability between what seems to be light hearted, dance-tempo instrumentals and the almost monotone delivery of substantial, socially conscious lyrics defines the trend that Devo has embodied as their unique combination between content and musicality.

Aside from the how catchy each song is, the quality that contributes to their danceability has also opened an invitation to the band members to use a song’s background beat as the track’s staple and allow for the degradation of lyrical quality and quantity. The albums starting track, Fresh is an example of what is musically one of the strongest tracks but lyrically weak. However, I would not consider this to be a significant down side to the album because as previously mentioned, there are tracks on this album that sufficiently balance the saturation of synths, beats, and verbal relevance.

By Lacey Smalldon

Love Will Have Her Revenge is a nice combination of the sounds of the Black Keys, CCR, Norman Greenbaum, Tom Petty, and the psychedelic movement of the late 60s and early 70s.  Somehow, this band has managed to mix such an eclectic array of sounds into an album capable of being played on easy listening stations or even a hotel lobby.

The album opens with the title track in which the melody builds into a beat reminiscent of the song, “Spirit in the Sky” by 60s feel good rocker Norman Greenbaum. Vocalist Barry Dean channels Black Keys singer/songwriter Dan Auerbach throughout the album.  The Keys influence can be heard heavily not only in this particular number but also all over “I Won’t Be Stayin’.”  The hard driving guitar riffs by guitarist Vug Arakas combined with the slowly building heavy bass drum from Adam Scoppa is what make this track extremely fun to listen to.

The instrumental ghost of Creedence Clearwater Revival rears its head in the song “Losing Sleep.” A twangy guitar and all around musically gifted song make this one of the most enjoyable of the bunch.

The song-writing on this album is impeccable.  Their lyrics do a very fine job of accompanying the tonality of the music itself.  The instrumental part of the album is a very laid back and bluesy tone, and the words of the album reflect that.  Some songs, such as “Getting Through,” make Love Will Have Her Revenge a perfect rainy day album.  The album almost steps out of the speakers and surrounds you in a world of tolerable, but eerily enjoyable sadness.

Do yourself a favor next time the sun isn’t shining– purchase this album off iTunes and sit back and watch the rain hit your windows.  It’ll make you feel a little bit better.

By Mitch Inkrott

The reason this album is such a let down is because of the talent that McCoy clearly has.  He has a naturally gifted voice and an ear for good backing tracks. The problem here is that McCoy failed miserably with the writing of this album. Even bringing hip-hop veteran Cee Lo Green in for a track couldn’t save it.

Lazarus was either meant to be played strictly on the radio to get McCoy his first ever #1 single as a solo artist, or to display Travie’s ability to write music.  I hope it was the former.  Lyrics from the single “Billionaire”, “I wanna be a billionaire so f@#!ing bad, buy all of the things I never had,” show his immaturity as a songwriter.  The beat behind this song is great, it is reminiscent of Sublime or comparative to the new hit band The Dirty Heads, it’s just that the lyrics are very juvenile and not thoroughly thought through.  Who wants to hear a millionaire bitch and moan about not being a billionaire?  Think Nickelback releasing a song about wanting to be a rock star.  There is no thought put into the song and no connection can be made with the audience.  Sure, we as a casual music fans want to be a billionaire, but we aren’t crying about not being on the cover of Forbes like Mr. McCoy the multimillionaire.

The rest of the album doesn’t get much better.  The song “Akidagain” appears to be his attempt at being sentimental of his childhood.  Throughout the song McCoy attempts to act a little bit “ghetto” but then tells the story of trading Garbage Pale Kids cards and playing wiffle ball while listening to Wu Tang Clan.  It’s hard to get behind this song and see it as an emotional story.  In all honesty it’s a vapid attempt at recreating R. Kelly’s hit single “I Wish.”

McCoy still possesses the talent to become a legitimate name in music despite the pathetic try at songwriting, mindless efforts to fool fans into getting behind him and his all too emotional memories of an extremely typical childhood.  He needs to quit writing the songs he thinks people want to hear and write what he’s really feeling.  Add these thoughts and expressions to the beats he is so keen and adept to making, and hopefully his next album will cause a little bit more of a stir.  His audience knows what he’s capable of after hearing his work with Gym Class Heroes, now he just needs to accept his talent and stop trying to be someone he’s not.

By Mitch Inkrott

Starting with the song “Blue Blood Blues,” which White admits as being “bluesier and heavier than we ever thought we could be,” the band focuses on the raw talents of the musicians as opposed to concentrating on any emotional appeal or substantial meaning behind the songs. What can be appreciated about this album is the sensual and experimental quality of their usage of complimentary sounds and rhythms. Contributing to the sensual nature of the music is the funk beats exhibited in the rhythm by hitting most notes at the end of each count. The prominence of the bass is complimented by the drums and percussion, setting the foundation for each songs rhythm. In addition, White and Mosshart’s vocals mimic and play off of the shrill, droning, and muffled sounds of the electric guitar.

The first three songs (“Blue Blood Blues,” “Hustle and Cuss,” “The Difference Between Us”) stand out as being able to hold their own with more distinction between them than the rest of the album. Upon hearing the names of those first three, the listener can immediately recall clips from each song, recognizing the difference between the beats and holistic sound. Following is the choked out, half sung, half spoken track “I’m Mad,” Mosshart’s tamest yet most cynical sounding performance. Apart from the album’s single, songs six through ten sound like a continuous jam of funk beats and experimental electric guitars and percussion broken up with multiple stilted variations during key changes. The lur of The Dead Weathers is that their music creates a strong, enticing atmosphere that does not rely on the meaning of each song but purely on the sound. The lyrics are a contribution; certainly not the foundation of their music.

This album’s single, “Die By The Drop,” is also capable of standing alone – a twisted, dark yet uptempo track reliant on call and response tactics by Mosshart and White. At times it is hard to tell their filtered, stern shouts apart from the shrieks produced by White’s electric guitar. What makes this song a single is that it keeps in tact the Weather’s tendency towards ugliness, but it cleans it up a bit – sounding less raw and a tad more refined.

Sea of Cowards is a satisfactory yet predictable follow-up to The Weather’s first album, Horehound. A lot of the tracks from Cowards have recognizable similarities to some on Horehound, not necessarily in a redudent sense, but what would have really thrown the audience for a loop is a progressive step into an evolved sound that was still true to their first album but for lack of a better word, matured.

By Lacey Smalldon

“Brothers” starts off with one of the best tracks of the album (which contains a lengthy 15 tracks), Everlasting Light. It is an introduction to the overall sound of the album; a gritty, low-end heavy version of blues-rock in which the drums often take a back seat to the forward moving bass/guitar. The low-end is such that at times one can’t tell if they are listening to bass or an effected guitar. When you can differentiate the two the guitar still leans towards to low-end, and the bass at times sounds like it was DI’ed (not mic’ed from the amp), resulting in a wide, heavy, but oddly in-dynamic low end.

Now aggresive-blues-rock isn’t anything novel for this band, but “Brothers” differs from those before in the way it uses the relationship between drums and guitar/bass. At times in this album it is as if the guitar has mutinied – in addition to becoming sonorously deep – and plunges forward to declare itself the leader. It is songs such as Next Girl, Sinister Kid, and The Go Getter in which this approach works best and produces truly fun songs that contian great movement.

The vocals or supplemental sounds (such as organ, or layered guitar or bass) on this album seem to move forward also, but don’t always choose to supplement the guitar, instead they just seem to move in a similar direction while the drums hold the middle ground. So in the end we find a more stilted, gravelly, atypical blues-rock sound. Tighten Up is a song that displays this quickly punctuated bluesy style well, and is also smartly fortified with a pleasantly rolling breakdown and delightful peripheral sounds.

And while this stilted, gritty blues sound is prevalent throughout the album there are also a couple tracks in which The Black Keys revert to their tried-and-true method of creating catchy, rhythmic, drum+guitar riffs and beats. On Howlin’ for You we find a toe-tapping, head-shaking song that revolves around an unchanging drum beat and a more traditionally emotive guitar. It is classic Black Keys, and it’s one of the albums best.

But then there are other tracks that don’t come off as successful. She’s Long Gone, Black Mud,  Too Afraid to Love You, and Ten Cent Pistol are examples of how easy it is to hit the creative ceiling with two musicians, and we find ourselves with blues-rock that unfortunately comes off as slightly vapid and stock-sounding.

Overall “Brothers” is an album that is best described as a mixed bag. There are indeed quality tracks that showcase The Black Keys ability to push the creative envelope of minimalist blues-rock. Yet, the album probably could have been reduced to 10 songs – as opposed to 15 – focusing more on the novel sounds of this album and cutting the fat of their more “normal” blues-rock numbers. Also, the soulful-swing present in their previous album, “Attack and Release” could probably have been brought in to good effect on a few tracks.

However, for just 2 guys playing the blues, I don’t know if anyone else could continually make such interesting, varying, and successful approaches to what is arguably the most static genre that exists. So while, for The Black Keys, it may be a “good-not-great album”, for the contemporary blues fan, it is still an album worth digesting.

By Sean Brna

Sean.Brna@OurVinyl.com