Semi-Classic Album of the Week #10: Ween - "The Mollusk"

It's been three weeks since I did this feature. I think one could judge my periods of stress and relationship troubles by my periods of inconsistency in following through with projects. Airtight alibi concluded, let's jump right in with:

Ween - The Mollusk (1999)

An album that's pretty hard to discount, incorporating the sensibilities of acid-dropping psychers, iconoclastic noiserockers and classic rock enthusiasts (more like a freaked-out Floyd meets Genesis than the rawer stuff they mimicked later on). The drug elements (or at least the perception of drug elements) seem pretty essential to Ween's mythos; they certainly make no effort to shake the associations, filling their album with warping, inebriated sound effects and high-as-a-kite lyrics.

So it seems fitting that the most remarkable moments on this album are the trippiest - the opening, pitch-shifted piano confidence booster, transcendent, hilarious title track or unforgettable "Mutilated Lips."

They pull off some seriously epic, "in-accordance-with-prophecy" moments as well ("Buckingham Green", "The Golden Eel", "She Wanted To Leave"). Nothing about this album is manufactured - it's tuneful, fresh and exciting. Still, Ween has a way of being crude even when they aren't trying to (I seriously have a hard time not seeing a vulva in that cover art). This arcane sense of ribaldry is undeniably part of their charm, but the more sensitive among you may wish to consider a reburn of the disc sans a coupla tracks before playing it in the car with the kids. Anyway, to each his own - This is a great album I can easily put up with anything else I've reviewed. I should have gotten to it earlier.

Semi-Classic Album of the Week #9: The Knife - "Silent Shout"

The Knife - Silent Shout (2002)

I've loved electronic music for some time now, organic music that incorporates standard instruments in unconventional ways or makes gentle noise sound more musical than most music. But before Silent Shout I never really got into really cold, bleeps-and-bloops electronica. And this is a very cold record - cries for help resonating from ear to ear in crystal-clear sonority.

I still consider this album a musical hug, distant and tortured though it may be. It's just so densely-layered, ingenious and alive that you have to accept its "why'd you kick me?" puppy attitude. The Knife took a sudden turn from sunny electropop to make this record, which sounds all the more jarring and essential by contrast.

Semi-Classic Album of the Week #8: "Serart"

"Serart" (2003)

It's easy to like world music, but often difficult to get really enthusiastic about it. Listening to music in foreign tongues and tones, after all, helps us build a kinship with the human race and makes us feel cultured to boot. But it's difficult to deny the perspective barrier between an artist a hemisphere away and the listener picking up her LP on a whim. Ergo, the the thrill of exploring new cultures and sounds often subsides long before you take the disc back to the library.

But Serart is folk music unlike any other, a collaboration between famed Armenian musician Arto Tunçboyacıyan and fully half of the members of System of a Down (SoaD singer Serj Tankian, along with Arto, forms the body of the group while Shavo provided samples). It celebrates culture and heritage while including modern elements and compositions that you won't find in folk music. It's a soulful, intelligent album that understands dissonance and melody, well-written and produced without being too glossy. Arto gives the project focus without repressing Serj's natural tendencies to squawk and use dissonance, and not even the dance elements and samples feel out of place.





Link to my crappy yet well-read review from nearly four years ago.

Semi-Classic Album of the Week #7: The Flaming Lips - "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots"

The Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (2002)

I credit The Flaming Lips for introducing me to the concept of "slow rhythms/fast beats" and, by extension, to the world of independent music. Though the Lips had long been signed to Warner Bros. Records, their music maintained an independence, personality and, perhaps most importantly, an occasional raggedness that always put them more in line with the indie groups they influenced.

Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots is forty-five minutes of blissful, moving pop music, with a science fiction theme that eventually wanders into more introspective territory. The band has a knack for making traditional instruments sound very electronic, and the guitars, keyboards and drums on this album often sound almost sampled, making a nice spacey atmosphere that makes this great driving/"chill" music.

The lyrics are still fairly unsophisticated, but quite affecting in their simplicity, giving weight to tracks like "One More Robot / Sympathy 3000-21" or "In the Morning of the Magicians." Wayne Coyne isn't always the world's most shining lyricist, but this album has few cringe-worthy moments, unlike the fairly bland* The Soft Bulletin or At War With the Mystics, which seemed to dedicate itself to being as thoroughly uncompelling and uninvolving as possible.

But Yoshimi (aside from one really terrible shrieking instrumental early on) really shines. So much work went into creating the funky, organic soundscapes that anybody with a shred of patience should find themselves head-bobbing along, if not preparing for the upcoming robot war, which sounds like it's gonna be pretty dang stylish.



* I'm aware that the critical consensus doesn't agree with me on that statement.

Semi-Classic Album of the Week #6: The Mars Volta - "Frances the Mute"

NOTE: When I don't post as often, these music reviews take up a disproportionate amount of space on my blog. If this whole feature isn't as interesting to others as it is to me, I'm open to two possibilities: either doing it less often (say, every other week) or including a new tag which shows all content but these music reviews, essentially sorting them out. Those interested in my musical proclivities can still click the "Semi-Classic Album of the Week" tag (like the one below) to read only this feature.

The Mars Volta - Frances the Mute (2005)

Progressive rock is nothing new, but few contemporary groups have managed to pull it off as well or as satisfactorily as our favorite bunch of chronic guitar wankers The Mars Volta. So it's undeniable that their second record Frances the Mute is pretentious, like all good prog, but why overlook the genuine talent needed to write lyrics as incomprehensible or melodies as roundabout and affecting as the ones you'll hear on this release?

Even casual fans who find themselves put off by the meandering ambient pieces or some of the album's less-focused bits will find golden moments here. The album's opening track is a hard-hitting torrent of funky, percussive guitar and whimsical, Jabberwocky-style multilingual lyricism, the following track a slick whirlwind of slick Latin licks, "Miranda That Ghost Just Isn't Holy Anymore" heartbreaking, and the 32-minute closing track truly epic, with a repeating chorus that serves to tie some of its slower moments together (and when one of your "slow" moments is a fifteen-minute scraping grind to oblivion, you need that chorus). Only the radio single "The Widow" could have stood to be cut - it's a decent track in and of itself but would have been better as a standalone single like the title track, which would have been included if the world's CD players could handle a commercial CD as long as most feature films.

This band isn't nearly as experimental as they'd probably like to be, and when they try to really push the envelope and be strange they almost uniformly fail, but they're excellent songwriters and they have a great sense of progression which really serves this, their best record. Even the haters might be converted if they get a chance to listen to Frances the Mute on a really, really good stereo - the production values are second to none and they use every inch of available aural space, most of which you won't hear on those ubiquitous white heaphones. Even the ambient pieces settle into their own Dark Side of the Moon grooves once you give them a chance. You really should.

Semi-Classic Album of the Week #5: Man Man - "Six Demon Bag"

Man Man - Six Demon Bag (2006)

When you're a demented cabaret act it pays to know a goodly number of instruments, and to play each of them like each track is the last you'll ever record. Man Man is a five-member group who plays like fifteen, and this, their second record, is as complete and free-spirited an experience as you're likely to hear outside of one of their concerts.

Man Man plays like they're losing track of each song, carried away by inescapable momentum until they're forced to reboot with a strange transition or a thumping scream-off. Gleeful, twisted humor fills every track, as if they've bought a dozen instruments, taken the spirit of Tom Waits, lit it up and passed it around while thinking of the next trick to play on the audience.

And it's all terrific fun - some of the speedy, lively thumpers plead to be sung along with on the third listen. Early tracks "Engrish Bwudd" and "Black Mission Goggles" can't help but pulsate with their own genius, the glow of people who are having a terrific amount of fun doing what they're doing and don't much care who likes it and who doesn't.

And "Young Einstein on the Beach" is the shortest, most danceable exorcism you've ever heard, almost too heavy to be believed with no electrical guitars and no comprehensible lyrics, until you catch yourself blasting it from your car on the freeway.

But Man Man has heart to spare, and they don't spare it on Van Helsing Boombox or Skin Tension (not to mention the somber opening track), some of the most heartbreaking treatises on desire and loss you're likely to hear this side of sanity. In the nearly three years since the release of this record, Man Man has already fallen off of their creative peak, so check out Six Demon Bag and find out where it's at.

Semi-Classic Album of the Week #4: The Pixies - "Doolittle"

I've been feeling a little down for the last couple of weeks and haven't felt like doing this feature. Well, music sounds good again so now I'm back. (C'mon - it's just a blog.)


The Pixies - Doolittle (1989)

I haven't been selecting these albums in any particular order, so if I had to choose a second-favorite all-time record after Mr. Bungle's last effort, Doolittle would sit at the top of a very short pile. The Pixies never released a bad record during their heyday (and the reception to their one unambiguously bad comeback single killed the chances of a reunion record which could have gone either way), and Doolittle is raw, melodic, immediate and, most importantly, it sounds like nothing before or since.

Much has been made of The Pixies' trademark ability to counterbalance loud and soft bits - shrieking choruses interspersed with quieter verses or vice versa - but I've always found their understanding of dissonance and melody far more compelling. What would a song like the epic "Monkey Gone to Heaven" be without the pretty bits, and what would it be sans the shrieking? It wouldn't be The Pixies.

Of special interest are the unambiguously poppy tracks - "Wave of Mutilation", "La La Love You" and "Here Comes Your Man" - which sound so smooth and agreeable that you might not even notice the offbeat guitar work continuing unabated, or the fact that they're still so muddy most people will never give them a chance. See, The Pixies mine melody from shrieking and catharsis from off-kilter chaos. Nobody's ever done it better and I don't think anybody ever will.

Semi-Classic Album of the Week #3: Metallica - "Master of Puppets"

Metallica - Master of Puppets (1998)

Yeah - Master of Puppets. Recommending this album to a dedicated metal fan in 2008 is like "recommending" Pixy Stix to a five-year-old; they already know what it is, and you can guarantee they've already found it palatable.

Nevertheless, it's a testament to Metallica's glory years that they released their best album a month before I was born, and it's still one of the heaviest, most intense and dedicated metal albums of the recording age (though some of Baron von Armageddon's early wax cylinder pressings from the turn of the century shredded as only turn-of-the-century riffage could).

This album's razor-sharp metal aesthetic gives it most of its appeal. It's neither as brutal or sadistic as Slayer's contemporary offerings, nor as fantastical, overblown and ridiculous as. . . well, as pretty much every other metal album of the time. It's much crisper than Metallica's early releases, but showcases the band at the peak of their talents, before they beefed up the production and lost the sense of adventure they showed on their first three albums.

"Battery" may very well be the very best Metallica opener of all time. It's pure fast-as-nails punk and it's unforgettable. The album runs through a good mix of fast and slow tracks, all of them very technical and all of them heavy. The first half a dozen times you lie awake at night with "Master! MASTER!" echoing through your head, you might even enjoy it.

Semi-Classic Album of the Week #2: Eels - "Electro-Shock Blues"

Eels - Electro-Shock Blues (1998)

It's fitting that one of the most personal, beautiful, and dark albums that I've ever heard is also one of the funniest and most hopeful. E's world-weary, often vulgar musings on death (including his sister's suicide), cancer and, ultimately, coping with the same make this one of the best albums of the 90s. (The album art for this release is strangely appropriate - the goofy cartoons in the liner notes and fatalist puns throughout the lyrics all give off a nice feeling of tired-in-the-soul, magic absurdity.)

Many tracks are funky and dissonant, but we see the real showpieces when the band stops to take a breather. The guitars in the introductory track seem to click with every strum, a happy consequence of playing some fairly-contorting chords. The title track midway through is probably the most hopeless and understated moment on the album, but absolutely crucial. It is, in fact, always darkest before the dawn.

Things eventually start to look up, of course, with brighter tunes and self-effacing lyrics ("Are you missing the dearly bereft?"), promises of brighter times - proving that life's best moments mean nothing without the dark bits to balance it out. The band never topped this.




(See here for an explanation of this feature)

Semi-Classic Album of the Week #1: Mr. Bungle - "California"

I love writing about music. For some time I was one of the top reviewers on the user-driven review site Sputnikmusic.com, and had a few top reviews with aggregate hits approaching the hundreds of thousands, less because of my proficient prose and more because of my glowing praise of already-popular albums - hardly controversial writing. My tastes have since expanded a great deal, and I find of late that I enjoy the immediacy and personality of a blog format far more than the opportunities offered by a site like Sputnik.

So I'm introducing a new feature, such as it is: Every Monday, I'll be posting a short review of a great album that has affected my life in some significant way. Some have blown me away, introducing me to new artistic possibilities and changed my tastes in some dramatic manner (see below), and some merely stand the test of time as fantastic albums. I see this as a great opportunity to promote some of my favorite music (I'll be posting Amazon links as well for those with enough trust in my taste to actually purchase the music I love.)

I make no claims to be a music encyclopedia or distinguished aural connoisseur - I certainly know quite a bit about what I enjoy and try to seek out new sounds and opportunities when possible, but my blog and everything on it is uncompromisingly introverted and my resources and income are limited. The "semi-classic" label for this feature is intended to connote the subjectivity of my recommendation. Sure, I love all of the albums I'll be featuring, but what do I know?

Though I've started with my favorite album, keep in mind that from now on they'll be featured in no particular order. Anyway, the couple hundred of you who read this thing should know my shtick by now. So without further ado:



Mr. Bungle - California (1999)

Mr. Bungle's interpretation of The Golden State is at once familiar and shockingly new. This soulful, dangerous album's finest moments often connote an image of the California portrayed by Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys, but touched by a melancholic madness and sense of confident adventure that sets this apart as an entirely new creation.

So the best tracks - "Retrovertigo", "Pink Cigarette" - are genuinely sweet but unsettling, working as impactful, vocal-driven pop, yet at the edges of their composition lurks a twisted subversion that lends them a depth you'll find in few other records. On California Mr. Bungle hones their eclectic chops to precision, creating a record as visionary, scattered and organic as anything this gifted crew (including the venerable Mike Patton) has ever worked on. Oh - and the lyrics are as perfect as any I've seen.

On this, their last and finest album, Mr. Bungle breaks the mold on every track, from the hellfire-tinged cautionary rockabilly number "None of Them Knew They Were Robots", the funky, creepy "Golem II: The Bionic Vapour Boy", the steady, cinematic "The Holy Filament" or the heavy, technical Arab thrash of "Ars Moriendi". Every track is killer and this album has nary a wasted moment. With so much fine music to consider, I unhesitatingly call this my favorite record of all time.

You want this album - you just don't know it yet.

Buy This Record Through Amazon