BuzzCuts: New Music
This week, British post-punk band Editors see the stateside release of "An End Has A Start," their No. 1 U.K. sophomore effort, and American alternative pioneers Meat Puppets put out their first album in 12 years. Also, former Mavericks frontman Raul Malo releases his second covers album, and singer-songwriter Suzanne Vega issues an album based around post-9/11 New York.
Editors, "An End Has A Start" (Epic/Kitchenware Records/Fader)
Editors, "An End Has A Start"
Raul Malo, "After Hours"
Suzanne Vega, "Beauty and Crime"
Meat Puppets, "Rise to Your Knees"
Like most post-punk revivalists, Editors often draw comparisons to genre stalwarts such as Joy Division and early Echo and the Bunnymen.
But the British quartet, who depicted a dark, industrialized image of their life in native Birmingham on 2005's "The Back Room," make an ambitious attempt to stand out from the pack on their sophomore effort, "An End Has A Start."
Without forsaking the goth vibe, propelled by frontman Tom Smith's deep baritone, the band shines more light on their songwriting — relying on piano and synthesizer arrangements to heighten the guitar punch.
Russell Leetch (bass) and Ed Lay (drums, percussion) keep a simple groove, allowing Chris Urbanowicz to showcase haunting melodies on both lead guitar and synthesizer that function more like muffled screams than overpowering wails.
The one-two punch of "Smokers Outside The Hospital Doors" and the outstanding title track set the table nicely before the introspective "The Weight of the World." They decry the everyday grind on a driving "The Racing Rats," lift the spirits with "Push Your Head To The Air," and offer the love-sick "Spiders."
A somewhat lighter side to Editors for sure, but they still lurk near the shadows in all the right spots.
CHECK THIS TRACK OUT: Channeling early U2 with massive reverb on the lead riff, the manic rocker "Bones" is already a highlight of the band's live show. (John Kosik)
Back to topRaul Malo, "After Hours" (New Door Records)
Aged Scotch, a fine cigar and the voice of Raul Malo all are acquired tastes.
On "After Hours," the former frontman of the late Mavericks blends some country, some jazz and a touch of pop into a mix that would go well in a smoky joint with a cold drink and a good friend.
The songs — "Welcome to my World," "Cold, Cold Heart" "For the Good Times" — are country chestnuts, but Malo makes them sophisticated country with a clarinet, saxes, a tinkly piano and hissing snares to accompany his soaring tenor in an often torchy sound.
It's largely a fine makeout album, but Malo swings on his rendition of Hank Williams' "Cold, Cold Heart," a la Louis Prima, and adds a Bakersfield sound with the Dwight Yoakam-Roger Miller tune "It Only Hurts Me When I Cry" — the closest he comes to the Latino-flavored country sounds of his Mavericks days.
Buck Owens, the father of the Bakersfield sound, wrote "Crying Time" and Ray Charles owns it, but Malo adds a wonderful interpretation.
CHECK THIS TRACK OUT: Roger Miller will always be known for his goofy little ditties like "England Swings" and "King of the Road," but he wrote some serious stuff as well. Malo nails one of the best with a solid "Husbands and Wives." (Tom Gardner)
Suzanne Vega, "Beauty and Crime" (Blue Note)
Suzanne Vega's "Beauty and Crime" uses New York City as a backdrop to weave together a sometimes unrelated — but always wistful — mix of songs in honor of the city and its changes after the terrorist attacks.
The native New Yorker evokes the grief of rescue workers in "Angel's Doorway," a song about a cop stationed at ground zero, and the hope that slowly returned on "Anniversary," an acoustic ballad that paints a picture of New York a year later when memories of loss filled the empty skyline.
The concept is noble, but it's been done before and naturally subject to comparison.
Wynton Marsalis. Leonard Cohen. Most notably Bruce Springsteen. Everything changed after 9/11 when they and countless others recorded albums of poetry and song to honor the city and its resilient wonders.
And to be fair, it's not that the topic has become taboo. But it has to be done well if done at all.
And that's the most unsettling feeling in the album, how it veers wildly away from the streets of New York and the theme she's labored to establish to explore something new.
"New York Is A Woman," which offers a sultry personification of the Big Apple, seems more like she fell in love with her own poetry. "Frank and Ava" is a ballad about Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner.
What? Old Blue Eyes?
Granted, Frank and Ava are quintessentially cool lovers symbolic of New York. But the jump from the sorrow and grief of Sept. 11 to celebrity love makes one wonder what Vega hoped to accomplish at all. (Ryan Lenz)
Meat Puppets, "Rise to Your Knees" (Anodyne Records)
The Kirkwood brothers are back together, and for that we are thankful.
It's been a dozen years since Curt (guitar) and Cris (bass) played together. "Rise to Your Knees" marks an unexpected return for Cris, who Curt once called a suicide in progress because of heroin addiction, jail time and a gunshot wound.
Curt muddled through in the time his brother was gone with a 2000 release under the Meat Puppets name and solo work. But "Rise" is a return to the sunburned, acid-drenched psychedelia filtered through punk rock and country that has helped transform underground American rock 'n' roll since the band's formation in 1980.
Perhaps best known for the songs covered by Kurt Cobain on Nirvana's "Unplugged" album, the brothers — both in their late 40s — have returned to their run-and-gun recording style of their youth, but now bring a perspective earned with age.
"Rise" is a bleak album for bleak times. It opens with the line, "You can run/but you'll never get away from the smell of the garbage" on "Fly Like The Wind." Fourteen tracks later it buzzes to a crescendo with the tape-loop trance of "Light the Fire."
Along the way there is great beauty ("Tiny Kingdom"), apocalyptic visions ("Vultures," "The Ship"), cautionary tales ("Stone Eyes") and eventually the kind of infected energy that made albums like "Up on the Sun" and gold record "Too High to Die" such revelations ("New Leaf").
During "Enemy Love Song," one of the brothers sings, "I want to be a rainbow, laid out across a stormy sky." The Meat Puppets are just that.
CHECK THIS TRACK OUT: There are several outstanding songs here, but let's focus on a contribution from Cris. Check out the cascading beauty of his gitjo on "Tiny Kingdom." It's like stumbling across a waterfall in the desert. (Chris Talbott)
Previous BuzzCuts: New albums from Spoon, Brad Colerick, and Crowded House.