CODEINE - Frigid Stars LP (1990)

Reviewed by: Roland Bruynesteyn
Album assigned by: Joseph Middleton-Welling

In many ways, this album has a somewhat Pink Floydian feel: simple drums, prominent guitar (circa Animals, I think), mostly minor chords, a sad and pessimistic atmosphere and a voice that is a little lower than Gilmour’s and a little less sadistic than Waters’. Keyboards are almost absent however, and they lose to Pink Floyd in other fields as well. Overall starting to listen with Pink Floyd in mind may not be honest or helpful, but I could not get it out of my head.

Generally, the album is very monotonous and it has a slow, dragging, drony feeling in many places. In “Gravel Bed”, the singer has real trouble to stay in tune and it’s quite painful to hear. “Pickup Song” starts with some quieter guitar, before becoming a drone again. Next point of reference was Ragged Glory by Neil Young, also 1990-ish. Neil’s voice may be an acquired taste as well, but as far as energy goes Neil Young and Crazy Horse win hands down.

OK, let’s give them a “Second Chance”: five songs in, we get a different sound. Probably still a guitar, but it sounds like a cross between a mellotron and an organ. Here the drone works and it may be the best song so far.

In “Cigarette Machine” the singer is not really singing but telling the story, such as it is. There is some use of dynamics here, that elevates the song somewhat. “Old Things” employs a similar trick, although the singer is trying to sing again. “Pea” is the best song of the album to my ears, partly because it’s mostly acoustic, perhaps…

This is really nothing for me, too few ideas (it’s all one song, really) and poorly executed, but I may be an old conservative dad-rocker. Youtube reviews on the whole are (very) positive but this music fails to engage me at all.

This album is probably ideally suited for a depressed 16-year old boy who can empathize with the feelings expressed here, while contemplating his own (apparently) shitty future. “Luckily” I was 15 when the Wall came out! If waterboarding will not return (as per current CIA director), playing this music loud, ten hours a day, might be a good follow up.

CAEDMON - Caedmon (1978)

Review by: Charly Saenz
Album assigned by: Ed Luo

So much interesting music from Scotland, right? Caedmon's is not an exception. This album (their only one until a recent comeback record) comes from 1978, but might as well be from 1972 or 1969.

There is a Christian background, a Christian impulse, let’s say, and if Christ gets you to write such great songs, well, count me in for Salvation! 

You have pretty much everything in here. Biting electric guitar, pulsating bass, both competing with several acoustic instruments. And the great female 

voice of Angela Naylor. She's really an angel in the best Annie Haslam tradition. 

Take “Ten Maidens Fair” as an example. The leading female voice, that middle age chorus, that *hard* rock guitar, the sublime organ, the mandolin. Great interplay in fact. “Maker man”, more jazzy, almost Bossa Nova in certain bits, great percussion, tasty guitar, a drone feeling that sticks around.

Or “Death Of A Fox”, which is like full speed Folk, with horns and another great bassline, until the Violin is left alone to great effect, to be swept away by a sudden acoustic guitar and the Angel Voice of Angela (seriously I just realized her name is that adequate). These are four non-idle minutes, believe me.

“Sea Song” is Floydish to my ears, started by the male singer this time. Haunting specially when the electric guitar steps in and grows stronger, with a furious acoustic guitar trying to keep pace. 

“Aslan” has a great bass introduction, a chant somewhere, the electric guitar with the bass always upfront: frenzy. And then, the violin rushes into madness over the vocals...  But it’s the turn of the guitar and the voices end up singing for their lives. Those cellos!

                                                                                                                                       

“Beyond the Second Mile” is something I'm sure Led Zeppelin would have loved to include in their III album but heck that happened nearly 10 years before.

“Living in the sunshine” is another highlight, almost experimental for the record, quite jazzy too, goes off the beaten path while staying on the pretty sound of the whole set. A magnificent song.

On the second side (Kids, there used to be two sides in those LPs you know!) it gets a little tiring, maybe it's just me or maybe the first side is so gorgeous that I don't need anymore. Nothing offending, except perhaps “Give Me Jesus” which is, maybe just too explicit, a little dull indeed. But then again this is a Christian band, so that's acceptable.

Nothing prevents this from being a beautiful experience. And it comes to show, that folk rock (or any genre, for the matter) doesn’t have to repeat formulas. Forever Changes from 1978? That's surely going too far, but indeed they get a great mix of ingredients in this timeless album. 

A compelling listen for those who want to fly without wings or substances. Just plain old good music.

ADAM GREEN - Gemstones (2005)

Reviewed by: Francelino Prazeres de Azevedo Filho
Album assigned by: Roland Bruynesteyn

A bouncy album full of happy-go-lucky tunes coupled with dirty sexual lyrics, Adam Green’s Gemstones might seem, at first listen, like an album that tries too hard. That might put off potential listeners, as it looks more like a novelty act than something made for the sake of its music. However, by halfway through the album, it’s clear that not only Adam has a great voice, but some good songwriting chops as well.

The 15 songs are all on the short side, and they use the same few instruments, with a focus on the electric piano. They also have lyrics going all over the place, and a few of them even sound sincere. Most, however, are humorous, or try to be so. Quite many of those have lines like “and if I went back to that whorehouse tonight / do you think I'd find a reason for a princess not to bite / my cock” or “Carolina, she's from Texas / red bricks drop from her vagina”. Are they successful in their humour? Honestly, no. Ween could manage to convince us when they did stuff like that because they acted really stupid. Adam on the other hand always sounds kinda intellectual, so he just looks like an asshole.

The strong point of this album is the melodies. Even if the arrangements all sound similar, they are incredibly varied, and pretty good overall. Due to the short lengths of the tracks, the album almost dazzles you with the sequence of hooks. While there are some blues and pop-rock influences, the focus seem to be on pre-1960s genres, bringing to mind cabaret- and Tin-Pan-Alley-style ballads. In this respect, I soon realized the album is pretty similar, in mood and melody, to the classic 69 Love Songs; in fact, it seems almost like a continuation of that album’s aesthetic. That comparison made it easier to accept the lame humour.

If you don’t mind a singer that occasionally sounds like a jackass, and if you like a good variety of melodies that go straight to the point and never overstay their welcome, do listen to Gemstones.

JELLYFISH - Spilt Milk (1993)

Review by: Eric Pember
Album assigned by: Jonathan Hopkins

I’ve wanted to listen to this album forever, and I’m glad that Jonathan forced me to finally get around to it.

I also listened to Bellybutton so I could have proper context for this review, and I have to say that album was curiously light on hooks, although the arrangements were pretty good. The great “Baby’s Coming Back” was an exception.

That song feels like a model for this album. Brilliant character assassinations (sometimes on the self, sometimes on others) with great hooks and arrangements. Spilt Milk also adds one more thing that isn’t really in “Baby’s Coming Back” or on Bellybutton: some real rocking energy. Thankfully, these guys are smart enough to stay in their own lane and don’t try co-opting grunge in the process. The closest they come to it is “All Is Forgiven”, and even that is leavened with ELO-style harmonies. 

Speaking of ELO, in a lot of ways, this album sounds like ELO would if Jeff Lynne had some taste (which he didn’t, but we love him for it anyway).

If you want to take a listen to one song to figure out if this album is for you, take a listen to “New Mistake”. It’s the best exemplar of everything Spilt Milk does right.

Unfortunately, Jellyfish would release no more albums after this. It is worth thinking about whether they would’ve gotten weirder or tried to become more commercial if they had recorded a third album. Either way, we’ll never know, and maybe that’s for the best.

DON CABALLERO - For Respect (1993)

Review by: Jaime Vargas Sánchez
Album assigned by: Alex Alex

The little information I’ve looked up about this band says they’re a “math rock” band. I don’t know what this is actually supposed to mean; to me this sounds like progressive rock à la King Crimson post-Red. Now, my main knowledge of prog is in the “symphonic” subgenre (Genesis, early KC, Camel, etc.) so I don’t know how derivative this is, but it was a pleasant surprise.

The language is rock; there are not any classical or jazz affectations (maybe this is why they call it math rock instead of prog?). The emphasis here is in the interplay between the instruments which are tightly locked, and particularly the drummer has chops to spare; the bass has a rather metallic sound, bright and responsive, while the guitar acts as the glue that holds it all together.

Now, the weak point of this is in the composition. Arrangement-wise, the pieces are excellent (it doesn’t matter than most are very short, because they kind of blend together as mini-movements of something bigger), but I hear no discernible themes or melodies. The guitar mainly plays rhythm and arpeggios, and while I don’t imply that every album should feature guitar hero pyrotechnics, this lacks foreground to go over the impressive background. Many times this sounds like the backing to a non-existent frontman, or like they recorded the foundation tracks and then forgot to go into the studio the next day to complete the album.

Bottom line: Good chops, high excitement, a bit of a lack of substance. I wouldn’t mind listening to this again, besides, it’s less than 40 minutes, like the good old 12″ LPs. Thumbs up.

ANAÏS MITCHELL - Young Man in America (2012)

Review by: Jonathan Birch
Album assigned by: Graham Warnken

Anais Mitchell is a modern folkie, in the same ilk as Bon Iver, and from the cover it’s clear what you’re getting into: the travels and travails of the Americana experience. The opening song sets the mood, with a lot of sparse guitar chords, screeching vioin, and oohs and aahs. Dorothy, we have found ourselves back in Kansas.

The second title track highlights the grievances I have with this record.  The instrumentation is professional, the production clear and pristine, the backing vocals soulful and atmospheric. But Miss Mitchell’s voice could not be more twee and precious, as though she is purposefully emulating the intonations of a twelve year old valley girl from southern California. It was one of those things I could just not move past, save for when she briefly stopped singing, and it hampered my enjoyment of the rest of the record. Something about the overly earnest and cherry sweet delivery made me wince whenever her voice squeaked into my ear canal. Which is a damn shame, because everything about it is easy to like. The second track begins as a simple folk ballad, before morphing into this New Orleans jazz-style tale of a young girl’s journey to adolescence. It’s both simultaneously moving and annoying to listen to. It does finish with a little bit of flourishing flute work, so that creates a nice high note at the end.

Third song, “Coming Down,” has a lot of teary eyed emotion to it, with Mitchell singing about the time she got very high and laughed so loud. I’m not sure what the message behind the song is, but it’s very pleasant with the breezy backing harmonies and crisp playing. It gets better on “Dyin Day,” a country/bluegrass piece with a slightly more energetic feel. I’m no longer dozing off but tapping my feet to the steady beat and groovy mandolin solo. Miss Mitchell seems to know the way to my roots rock heart. “Venus” is a pleasant little number about the singer discovering her womanhood and meeting the Roman goddess Venus. A nice electric guitar shuffle melds with jovial accordion solo, which really tickles my earbuds. How can one not feel happy when listening to such optimism?

The rest of the songs do sort of blend together after a while in this pudding of syrupy folksiness. The lyrics do begin to travel bit heavily into biblical, country-bumpkin, John Steinbeck-ish territory, as Mitchell wails about how her daddy “was a builder who swung his hammer brown and silver” or “how she sowed a party dress with a needle and thread.” It’s almost like she’s trying her darnest to convince me how pragmatic and salt of the earth she is. Because she’s from rural Vermont you see.

The track “Tailor” has a fair bit of annoying, and dare I say ostentatious lyrical utterings, where she repeats some seemingly innocuous phrases over and over, such as “In and out, In and out, In and out,” or “Who am I? Who am I? Who am I?” I don’t know Anais, I wish you’d get to the point and tell me though.  Apparently the album was designed to tell a story that relates to the recession of ’08, and Miss Mitchell seems to anoint herself as the voice for the zeitgeist of modern America’s alienated youth. But her themes never seem to expand beyond the superficial side of longing for love and motherhood, and her overall style is slightly too drippy to carry any weight; the track “Shepherd” sounds like something I’d hear on a commercial for Johnson’s baby powder. Supposedly it’s based on a short story her father, a college  professor and former novelist, wrote, which I appreciate for its honesty, but the self-indulgent audacity of it is rather cringe worthy too. Miss Mitchell, I understand you come from a long line of distinguished bards, but your poetry need some more bite for it to catch my interest.

“You Are Forgiven,” the second to last track, is slightly more rocking. Which means that the acoustic guitar is strummed a bit faster and we finally have some drums. There’s even a nice trumpet solo that adds some spice, but by now it’s too late to enlarge the horizons of this record beyond the obvious. It’s clear this was designed as one of those albums you listen to intently on a sultry evening, but there are billions of these homely folk albums that I would be willing to recommend in its place. It’s slightly less labored than your average Red House Painter’s record, but not as atmospheric as The Cowboy Junkies. It’s somewhere on the scale between enjoyable and pleasantly mediocre. 

BENJAMIN CLEMENTINE - At Least for Now (2015)

Review by: Tom Hadrian Kovalevsky
Album assigned by: Viudas Tormo

God, how utterly cold.

I get it, At Least For Now is emotional, it’s desolate in lyrical content yet incredibly lush in terms of production, Clementine has a rich, beautiful, emotional voice that drips with passion, and his piano playing is beautiful and stark and fragile - but I just don’t like this album at all.

If one reads about the accolades the album received upon release, reaching high places in iTunes charts in Italy, Holland, Switzerland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Poland and Greece, even going as far as to reach the coveted place of #1 and a tidy little gold certification in France, I can merely purse my lips and think about how incredibly suited the album is to such titles. 

It reeks of the benign popularity and showmanship that musicians like Antony and Adele bring to the charts, a sense of being forward-thinking while making no innovation, expressing such emotional angst while not expressing any sort of true emotion at all; every attempt at meaning being brushed over by a uniform brown with which anything that is too startling is kept at bay, out of sight and out of mind for the general music consuming populace, who are seemingly unable to stomach actual sadness.

That isn’t to say either that Clementine possesses more talent than those artists; although such a statement might not be controversial, I shall not deny that both Adele and Antony are in possession of voices only slightly less powerful than Clementine’s, I will even be kind and say that the sort of bland indie posturing is much more interesting than a lot of modern mass-produced dancepop. Alas, Clementine, the blandness of this album makes my heart hurt. There are moments - during “Then I Heard A Bachelor’s Cry”, “Nemesis” and the interlude “St-Clementine-on-Tea-and-Croissants” especially - where the sameness of the affair is briefly escaped, and we glimpse his truly arresting talent, heart-rending and transfiguring, for brief glimpses of time, but the veil is quickly brought back down and we are shown normalcy once more.

I can barely even produce the sort of visual element that I would normally posit in a review, as I don’t even feel passion radiating from the music that’s sufficient to produce an image. In sublime moments? An androgynous figure in a dark, spacious apartment, indistinguishable as either man or woman, weeping silently to themselves. They have a cigarette, slowly burning between their pursed lips, and they swirl scotch in a small crystal glass, thinking about their situation. Occasionally, they glance to the telephone on the table next to them, and as they are about to pick up the receiver- then it cuts out again, and the lack of image, the brown colour that consumes the album, resumes.

Oh god. Clementine has talent enough to make a beautiful tragedy of an album, but he wastes it on this LP. Hope springs eternal for the next, though.