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Following on from the trouble Ann Robinson has recently found herself in after making derogatory comments about the Welsh, I shall have to tread very carefully knowing that the Stereophonics fellow countrymen walk among us in the hallowed ImagoQA halls. Cwmaman most famous sons, Stuart Cable, Kelly Jones and Richard Jones (no relation) took the name "Stereophonics" from the front of the old sideboard styled gramophone in Cable’s grandmothers’ house. The success of their second long player, "Performance and Cocktails", ensured that this third installment had no problem entering the top of the UK charts, toppling Hearsay’s "Popstars". Kelly Jones has taken a minor slating from the popular musical press for the quality of his lyrics. Although Jones is hardly in line for the next poet Loriet, this does seem a trifle unfair, after all the competition aren’t doing any better, and the standards set by the likes of Dylan and Cohen are rarely reached in these enlightened times. Perhaps a more important thing to look at is the quality of the music, and that sounds pretty good to me. The opening track, "Vegas Two Times", picks up were "Performance and Cocktails" left off with Kelly Jones’ distinctive throaty vocals and brusque guitar. "Mr. Writer" has a bubbling reverbing backdrop on which the trio overlay some interesting harmonic vocals, bluesey piano and pounding acoustic guitar. The Steely Guitar and Harmonica on "Rooftop", the final track provides a solid end to a wholly acceptable album. They do however, never seem to quite reach the pace and energy of "The Bartender and the Thief". The more optimistic of those watching their careers with interest will feel that "Just Enough Education to Perform" falls slightly short of their higher aspirations, still the majority of fans should have no cause to be disappointed.
By providing the musical backdrop to Eminem’s "Stan", Mr. Mathers has attached his proverbial jump leads directly to the career starter motor of Miss Dido Armstrong. Although the Islington singer/songwriter would finally make her name on Eminem’s "Stan", her first break into the American market was as a result of singing the theme tune to the American Drama series "Roswell High". On the back of all this she has seen some impressive sales of her album "No Angel". My first listen to the album had completed floated over me. I inserted the disc into the CD tray and sat down quietly to listen to my most recent purchase. By the time it had reached the second track my mind was elsewhere, I had reached the seventh bobo of spiritual enlightenment and I was drifting towards a somewhat higher astral plain. Then I realised that the record had finished without me really listening to it. I approached my second listen some time later with a level of enthusiasm usually reserved for that monthly task of scraping the crud from the roller inside my mouse. A few weeks later and no "No Angel", has spent quite a long time in my CD Player, like all good records, its starting to grow on me. As usual a quick round-up of few key tracks follows; "Don’t Think Of Me" sound like a strong single contender to me and the well orchestrated string section builds up into a powerful Robbie Williams style chorus. "My Lover’s Gone" is very pretty, haunting number that deserves a mention, but unfortunately "All You Want" is more disappointing. Her habitual need to change pitch and tone in the middle of words gets a tad annoying after a while. Although I hold the Corrs and the Cranberries responsible for making this high pitched wobble fashionable, Miss Armstrong should not be excused. My copy of the album concludes with an additional bonus track, "Take My Hand", which takes me back to a 1970’s discotheque, with it’s pounding hi-hat and prominent Boney M style strings. Despite the album title she seems a lot more Angelic than a lot of her contemporaries.
The current nü -metal wave being surfed by the likes of Limp Bizkit and Blink 182 has yet crash onto the beach and ebb away into obscurity. An entourage of young hopefuls have therefore greased up their boards and paddled out to sea. Although most are destined for "Wipe Out", a quartet of Californian nü-metallers fronted by Coby Dick are currently looking pretty stable on the crest of this new wave thanks to their hit single "Last Resort". The album, Infest, is packed full of solid riffs and angst. The lyrics are crammed with depressing images of mutilation and self hate which is what the current generation of moody American teenagers seem to want to hear. Dick’s aggressive and often gruff vocal style switches between Fred Durst style rapping and more traditional metallic high pitched screaming. The album maintains a consistent musical standard throughout and is generally a much better bet than Limp Bizkit's "Chocolate St*rfish". "Last Resort" starts off with the cheery opening "Cut my life into pieces, this is my last resort" before the crunching guitars kick in, this is followed with "Broken Home", which is a typical example of lyrics aimed at the "No one understands me" youth culture. "Dead Cell" mixes spliced guitar riffs and rapping versus with a fast and furious chorus, and the finale, "Thrown Away", consists of the standard 4 minutes of thrashing followed a surprise change of pace to wind the album down. Not bad from a lead singer who admitted to excessive bedwetting during his teen years.
The title of the new double live album is taken from the opening track of what is probably Roger Waters’ best-known work, "The Wall". Unfortunately, we have been offered relatively slim pickings from Mr. Waters in recent years, 1992’s Amused to Death was the last new piece, and "In the Flesh" contains only one previously unreleased song, "Each Small Candle". All songs are taken from his tour of North America and Canada in 2000 and consist of a good mixture of Solo work and Pink Floyd classics. It makes a refreshing change to hear some of the old Floyd songs that seem to have been shunned by Dave Gilmour & co on all of their recent tours. The version of "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun" originally from the second Floyd Album, "A Saucerful of Secrets", gets a serious make-over and sounds as fresh today as it did back in 1968. Other Floydian rarities include "Southampton Dock", "Dogs" and "Get your filthy hands of my Desert". Of course he includes many of the old favorites from "Wish you were here" and "The Dark Side of the Moon" too. The closing track " Each Small Candle" promised to be part of a whole new piece of work that is yet to emerge. There is however a fairly interesting story behind the first verse of the new song, it was written by a South American who'd been a victim of torture. An Italian journalist, active in the initiative against torture in Northern Italy, had given Waters the short poem years ago. The poem lay in a drawer in Waters' studio until, during the crisis in Kosovo, he read a piece in The Times describing a Serbian soldier who saw an Albanian woman lying in a burned-out building. The soldier left his platoon to give aid to the woman, then rejoined his men and marched off. The image inspired Waters to set the short poem, "Each Small Candle," to music and pen additional lyrics. All of Waters’ post Floyd work seems far superior to what Pink Floyd have come up without him. Waters has managed to fill the gaping chasm left by Dave Gilmour with such accomplished musicians as Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton and Snowy White. How different may things have been if Waters had won the court battle for the right to trade under the name of "Pink Floyd". I guess we will never know. Still, I have deducted 1 point for not including any European venues in his last tour.
Another debut album, this time, from a young three-piece from Dublin. JJ72 seem to have carved themselves out a sound that sits somewhere between the Manic’s, Joy Division and Suede’s early Bernard Butler days with rather edgy guitars and high pitched vocals. There is something about this album that gave me a strange feeling of Deja vu. Although the album consists of new material, there is a weird familiarity about it that I can’t quite put a finger on. One track inparticular that generates these feelings is "Way Down South". It has crisp well defined drums, guitar and bass and an intriguing falsetto which could have easily convinced me that it was a Siouxsie and the Banshees track from 1979 that I had never heard before. "Undercover Angel", the second track has an excellent chorus and a riff that can stick in your head all day if you listen to it on the way to work. The latest single, "Snow", is another fine track worth listening out for. It’s no wonder that JJ72 have been nominated for the best newcomer in this years Q Awards. The band seem to be incorporating all of the best Rock n’ Roll cliches, The plain black album cover, and more recently they cut short their set at London’s Astoria and proceeded to smash up everything, including drums, percussion, bass and amplifiers. All they need to do now is have their drummer killed in a bizarre gardening accident and they can claim to be true rock stars.
Following on from the trouble Ann Robinson has recently found herself in after making derogatory comments about the Welsh, I shall have to tread very carefully knowing that the Stereophonics fellow countrymen walk among us in the hallowed ImagoQA halls. Cwmaman most famous sons, Stuart Cable, Kelly Jones and Richard Jones (no relation) took the name "Stereophonics" from the front of the old sideboard styled gramophone in Cable’s grandmothers’ house. The success of their second long player, "Performance and Cocktails", ensured that this third installment had no problem entering the top of the UK charts, toppling Hearsay’s "Popstars". Kelly Jones has taken a minor slating from the popular musical press for the quality of his lyrics. Although Jones is hardly in line for the next poet Loriet, this does seem a trifle unfair, after all the competition aren’t doing any better, and the standards set by the likes of Dylan and Cohen are rarely reached in these enlightened times. Perhaps a more important thing to look at is the quality of the music, and that sounds pretty good to me. The opening track, "Vegas Two Times", picks up were "Performance and Cocktails" left off with Kelly Jones’ distinctive throaty vocals and brusque guitar. "Mr. Writer" has a bubbling reverbing backdrop on which the trio overlay some interesting harmonic vocals, bluesey piano and pounding acoustic guitar. The Steely Guitar and Harmonica on "Rooftop", the final track provides a solid end to a wholly acceptable album. They do however, never seem to quite reach the pace and energy of "The Bartender and the Thief". The more optimistic of those watching their careers with interest will feel that "Just Enough Education to Perform" falls slightly short of their higher aspirations, still the majority of fans should have no cause to be disappointed.
By providing the musical backdrop to Eminem’s "Stan", Mr. Mathers has attached his proverbial jump leads directly to the career starter motor of Miss Dido Armstrong. Although the Islington singer/songwriter would finally make her name on Eminem’s "Stan", her first break into the American market was as a result of singing the theme tune to the American Drama series "Roswell High". On the back of all this she has seen some impressive sales of her album "No Angel". My first listen to the album had completed floated over me. I inserted the disc into the CD tray and sat down quietly to listen to my most recent purchase. By the time it had reached the second track my mind was elsewhere, I had reached the seventh bobo of spiritual enlightenment and I was drifting towards a somewhat higher astral plain. Then I realised that the record had finished without me really listening to it. I approached my second listen some time later with a level of enthusiasm usually reserved for that monthly task of scraping the crud from the roller inside my mouse. A few weeks later and no "No Angel", has spent quite a long time in my CD Player, like all good records, its starting to grow on me. As usual a quick round-up of few key tracks follows; "Don’t Think Of Me" sound like a strong single contender to me and the well orchestrated string section builds up into a powerful Robbie Williams style chorus. "My Lover’s Gone" is very pretty, haunting number that deserves a mention, but unfortunately "All You Want" is more disappointing. Her habitual need to change pitch and tone in the middle of words gets a tad annoying after a while. Although I hold the Corrs and the Cranberries responsible for making this high pitched wobble fashionable, Miss Armstrong should not be excused. My copy of the album concludes with an additional bonus track, "Take My Hand", which takes me back to a 1970’s discotheque, with it’s pounding hi-hat and prominent Boney M style strings. Despite the album title she seems a lot more Angelic than a lot of her contemporaries.
The current nü -metal wave being surfed by the likes of Limp Bizkit and Blink 182 has yet crash onto the beach and ebb away into obscurity. An entourage of young hopefuls have therefore greased up their boards and paddled out to sea. Although most are destined for "Wipe Out", a quartet of Californian nü-metallers fronted by Coby Dick are currently looking pretty stable on the crest of this new wave thanks to their hit single "Last Resort". The album, Infest, is packed full of solid riffs and angst. The lyrics are crammed with depressing images of mutilation and self hate which is what the current generation of moody American teenagers seem to want to hear. Dick’s aggressive and often gruff vocal style switches between Fred Durst style rapping and more traditional metallic high pitched screaming. The album maintains a consistent musical standard throughout and is generally a much better bet than Limp Bizkit's "Chocolate St*rfish". "Last Resort" starts off with the cheery opening "Cut my life into pieces, this is my last resort" before the crunching guitars kick in, this is followed with "Broken Home", which is a typical example of lyrics aimed at the "No one understands me" youth culture. "Dead Cell" mixes spliced guitar riffs and rapping versus with a fast and furious chorus, and the finale, "Thrown Away", consists of the standard 4 minutes of thrashing followed a surprise change of pace to wind the album down. Not bad from a lead singer who admitted to excessive bedwetting during his teen years.
The title of the new double live album is taken from the opening track of what is probably Roger Waters’ best-known work, "The Wall". Unfortunately, we have been offered relatively slim pickings from Mr. Waters in recent years, 1992’s Amused to Death was the last new piece, and "In the Flesh" contains only one previously unreleased song, "Each Small Candle". All songs are taken from his tour of North America and Canada in 2000 and consist of a good mixture of Solo work and Pink Floyd classics. It makes a refreshing change to hear some of the old Floyd songs that seem to have been shunned by Dave Gilmour & co on all of their recent tours. The version of "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun" originally from the second Floyd Album, "A Saucerful of Secrets", gets a serious make-over and sounds as fresh today as it did back in 1968. Other Floydian rarities include "Southampton Dock", "Dogs" and "Get your filthy hands of my Desert". Of course he includes many of the old favorites from "Wish you were here" and "The Dark Side of the Moon" too. The closing track " Each Small Candle" promised to be part of a whole new piece of work that is yet to emerge. There is however a fairly interesting story behind the first verse of the new song, it was written by a South American who'd been a victim of torture. An Italian journalist, active in the initiative against torture in Northern Italy, had given Waters the short poem years ago. The poem lay in a drawer in Waters' studio until, during the crisis in Kosovo, he read a piece in The Times describing a Serbian soldier who saw an Albanian woman lying in a burned-out building. The soldier left his platoon to give aid to the woman, then rejoined his men and marched off. The image inspired Waters to set the short poem, "Each Small Candle," to music and pen additional lyrics. All of Waters’ post Floyd work seems far superior to what Pink Floyd have come up without him. Waters has managed to fill the gaping chasm left by Dave Gilmour with such accomplished musicians as Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton and Snowy White. How different may things have been if Waters had won the court battle for the right to trade under the name of "Pink Floyd". I guess we will never know. Still, I have deducted 1 point for not including any European venues in his last tour.
Another debut album, this time, from a young three-piece from Dublin. JJ72 seem to have carved themselves out a sound that sits somewhere between the Manic’s, Joy Division and Suede’s early Bernard Butler days with rather edgy guitars and high pitched vocals. There is something about this album that gave me a strange feeling of Deja vu. Although the album consists of new material, there is a weird familiarity about it that I can’t quite put a finger on. One track inparticular that generates these feelings is "Way Down South". It has crisp well defined drums, guitar and bass and an intriguing falsetto which could have easily convinced me that it was a Siouxsie and the Banshees track from 1979 that I had never heard before. "Undercover Angel", the second track has an excellent chorus and a riff that can stick in your head all day if you listen to it on the way to work. The latest single, "Snow", is another fine track worth listening out for. It’s no wonder that JJ72 have been nominated for the best newcomer in this years Q Awards. The band seem to be incorporating all of the best Rock n’ Roll cliches, The plain black album cover, and more recently they cut short their set at London’s Astoria and proceeded to smash up everything, including drums, percussion, bass and amplifiers. All they need to do now is have their drummer killed in a bizarre gardening accident and they can claim to be true rock stars.