Hello. Have you been having a good day? Oh, I’m sorry – didn’t she warn you? Oh dear. Well, I’m sure they make a cream for that. Oh, they don’t? I see. Well, if anything is going to cheer you up, it’s the paragraphs which directly follow this one. Tom Waits’ fancy new website tells us that Mr Waits is going to release a two-disc live album, taken from his 2008 Glitter & Doom Tour….
Soft rock really gets something of a raw deal these days. Mention in a conversation that you like soft rock (in an unironic way, rather than a “sings along to Journey’s ‘Don’t Stop Believing’ after a couple of drinks at a wedding” way… c’mon, keep up) and you may as well have told that person that you’re partial to licking their grandmother – you’re now a social pariah, and you’d best get used to it….
Album name: Black Gives Way To Blue Artist name: Alice in Chains Genre: Rock Released: September 29 2009 Label: EMI ZME Rating: 8/10 Website: aliceinchains.com There are lots of ways to open a review of Alice in Chains’ long-awaited return to the studio. The obvious approach is to eulogise Layne Staley, their sorely-missed lead singer. But I have some deep-seated neuroses that don’t let me do things the obvious way. (They also don’t let me…
Album name: Comes and Goes Artist name: Default Genre: Rock Released: September 28 2009 (Canadian release only) Label: EMI Canada ZME Rating: 5/10 Website: Myspace You probably didn’t know this, or perhaps you’ve simply blocked it out of your memory, but back in the earlier part of this decade, Chad Kroeger wasn’t just the annoying, frog-faced, inexplicably popular lead singer of turd-rock band Nickelback. No, in the dark days of Space Year 2002, Kroeger tried…
Album name: Backspacer Artist name: Pearl Jam Genre: Rock Released: September 22 2009 Label: Island ZME Rating: 8/10 Website: pearljam.com Look, I’m instigating a rule right now, okay? It’s very simple, and it goes like this: anyone who includes in their review of Backspacer – or any Pearl Jam album, for that matter – any allusion to Pearl Jam “getting their mojo back” or “returning to form” are forbidden to write about music for at…
Album name: Broken Artist name: Soulsavers Genre: A Confused Shrug Released: August 17 2009 Label: V2 ZME Rating: 9/10 Website: Myspace I clearly don’t know about you – and let’s face it, you probably prefer it that way – but I’m not a particularly splendid example of a human being. You can tell by the kind of accusations that have been slung in my poxy, four-eyed face. No one’s ever verbally accosted me for giving…
“Jitterbug Boy” isn’t the best song Tom Waits has ever written. It’s not even the best song on his splendid Small Change album – that honour goes to the simply phenomenal “Tom Traubert’s Blues (Four Sheets To The Wind in Copenhagen)”. It’s not as memorably clever and self-deprecating as “The Piano Has Been Drinking (Not Me)”, nor is it as stunning a composition as “An Invitation To The Blues”. It wasn’t picked to be part…
Album name: Live from Austin, TX Artist name: Drive-By Truckers Genre: Rock n’ Roll Released: July 7 2009 Label: New West ZME Rating: 9/10 Website: drivebytruckers.com In the spirit of full disclosure, I should probably inform you of two things: 1 – I’m a hard marker. In the time I’m writing for this website, you’ll likely never see me give an album 10/10. This is partly because I don’t think you could reasonably call any…
Oh yes it’s ladies night And the feeling’s right Oh yes it’s ladies night Oh what a night – Kool & The Gang Rock n’ roll is a wonderful, chaotic beast. Borne of a decadent tryst between blues and boogie, it’s grown from its simple, Chuck Berry beginnings into a many-tendriled monster, sprouting new bands and sub-genres from every possible pustular orifice. And while a lot of the descendent bands have grown up to be…
The other day, I was introduced – via the excellent Kieron Gillen – to a short-lived internet boycott of the Fox Corporation’s various outlets in response to Fox News’ distortion of reality amid the American health service hoopla. All this amounted to for me was a much-needed deletion of my Myspace account, which was useless and rubbish in equal measures. Which actually applies to Myspace as a whole: whatever appeal it held as a social…
Al Byrne