Living With War - Neil Young

Living with War may just be the capstone of Neil's Career, merging folksy acoustic protest songs with the bombastic electric work that earned him the nickname- the "Godfather of grunge". It is a perfect protest album crafted with the experience and exposure to protests that espoused half truths, languished in metaphor, or succeeded only through polarization. Living With War is biting, honest, hopeful, tragic, angry, and above all patriotic. Stream it.

Neil doesn't repeat the mistakes of his generations Vietnam's protests. He doesn't vilify soldiers. They are shown to be courageous people, doing a job, and wishing that they could be back with their families. The religion of the silent majority isn't mocked as outdated or hypocritical. Instead, it is declared "hijacked" to manipulate the masses.

The songs aren't written on party lines. While Neil spares no criticism of the Bush Administration, there are voices for democrats and republicans in these protest songs. Colin Powell and Barack Obama are named as potential leaders who could unify America after the next election.

Who would have guessed that America's most moving political album in years would be penned by a Canadian ex-pat. Yet somehow, Neil Young manages to embody America's great spirit and give it a voice to express outrage and hope for peace. He lashes out at consumerism, the war in Iraq, wire taps, and the mismanagement of New Orleans during Katrina.

Living with War is raw, unadulterated Neil Young. The instrumentation is simply Neil's guitar rich with analog distortion, bass, drums and the occasional trumpet. A 100 voice choir of lay people provides an emotive depth, and populist relevance. There are some warts in the recording, some missed timings, and awkward harmonies. These flaws add to the albums homespun feel. It's nothing if not a genuine expression of Neil Young's current take on US politics.

Perhaps the poignancy of the songs comes from Neil's point of view as an American who truly feels mislead. He wasn't anti-Bush from day 1. Like most Americans, Neil was deeply angered by 9/11; but ,unlike many of his hippie compatriots, Neil spoke in favor of the patriot act. He wrote songs honoring the Hero's of Flight 93 and expanding a metaphor justifying war to stop evil.

It really doesn't matter why it's effective. Living with War is simply the most moving record I've heard since Springsteen's "The Rising".

Rating: 5/5
Top Track: Let's Impeach The President
Reason to Buy: Honesty....Patriotism....Hope.... That's three... Sorry.
Reasons Not to Buy this Album: You're an ostrich with your head in the sand.

Sound the Alarm - Saves the Day

To offset the lovefest that this blog has become, I bring this mediocrity. Admittedly, it's high-end mediocrity at that.

I started off deciding against this album. I know Saves the Day well, and I'm well past the emo scene, given how it's sold out in the last 5 years. However, after a few listens to the album... I can't deny it. It might be my past affinity for the band playing tricks on my mind, but the music itself is solid for the genre and head and shoulders above contemporaries such as Fall Out Boy.

The guitar work is simple, but effective. The songwriting is whiny and overly graphic at times, but tolerable. The bass, however, is the shining star. While simple, like the guitar work, Manny Carrero gets a great growl out of his bass, especially on Shattered and Bones. The notes he's playing aren't amazing, but he knows his instrument and knows how to get just the right sound out of it. While powerful, it doesn't overpower other tracks and is used when and where it is most effective.

Chris Conley does a good job with the songwriting, as always. His lyrics are often unnecessarily gruesome in describing his whiny inner torment, but they end up at least marginally better than lyrics of other bands on the scene. The music itself is catchy emo/pop-punk. In the end, it in many ways sounds like a cross between whiny pop-emo and harder music like Green Day. So, marginally closer to punk than what you'll see playing on MTV2. Something I respect, since it shows that maybe, just maybe, their primary desire in making music isn't to sell out as quickly as possible.

Head For the Hills, the opener, sets the tone for an energetic album that doesn't pause for the first 8 tracks. With Don't Know Why, the album takes a slight turn and you see Saves the Day branching out a touch into something slower and a bit more melodic for the next 5 tracks, closing with Delusional and Hell is Here, which pick up the energy a bit before the end.

Compared to other works by Saves the Day, it doesn't compare to Through Being Cool, but beats the hell out of Stay What You Are, which I found to become annoying rather quickly. There isn't a great range in the album, but after the response to their last album, I can't blame them for sticking with what works. Overall, this is a solid album from one of the better emo bands out there. There aren't many to speak of, so finding one is nice. To see them not actively trying to whore themselves out to MTV is even better.

Rating: 2.5/5
Top Track: Shattered
Reason to Buy: You want good emo/punk minus the really poppy elements
Reasons Not to Buy this Album: You don't want to feel like an angsty high schooler all over again.

At War With the Mystics - The Flaming Lips

Hopeful Pessimism? Jaded optimism? The Flaming Lips' chaotically good follow up to Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots is ambiguously political. The satire and sarcasm is deep enough to be thought provoking, but light enough to be fun. This collection is not as conceptually or melodically united as Yoshimi but offers more interesting layers. The Lips mix vintage guitars on top of techno beats, and ambient sounds capes. They manage to employ every cheesy 60's and 70's effect to add credence and credability to their music. Even the talk box, which was long since destroyed by Peter Frampton is back, and relevant. At War with the Mystics will guitar geeks giggity glaven. Of course, there's too many synthesizers, and funky beats to call it a guitar album.

Like many cds prepared for the digital age, At War with the Mystics is front loaded with catchy tunes ready to be fed to a digital boom box. The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song (With All Your Power)and Free Radicals (A Hallucination Of The Christmas Skeleton Pleading With A Suicide Bomber, and The Sound Of Failure / It's Dark...Is It Always This Dark?? are tangled balls of fishing hooks waiting to grab every ear.

The transition from focused song craft into and out of spacey, flowing arrangements is particularly interesting. After the Yoshimi sound alike "My Cosmic Autumn Rebellion", the Lips explore space with languid arrangements and clever sonic juxtapositions. The album transitions back into structure with Mr. Ambulance Driver, a with a disco air, and shades of canadian breakbeat house. The remaining songs maintain the Lips' vague imagistic political criticism.

Rating:3.75/5
Top Track: Mr. Ambulance Driver
Reason to Buy:It's t9ime for an interstellar freak out
Reasons Not to Buy this Album: Politically charged recreational drug use does not amuse you.

Safety in Numbers - Umphrey's McGee

Umphrey's McGee planned to have a pleasant, furtive start to 2005 by spending the early winter months in the studio crafting a record. Fate had other ideas, and sent spirits plummeting when a close friend of the band was killed by a drunk driver while taking a cab from Umphrey's New Years show to a post-party at the keyboardist's house. Add a souring relationship and ugly break up to the emotional tumult and you have enough drama to pen a season of the OC.

It also inspired the band to pull together, finding safety in numbers, and record their best studio work to date, a record that captures the emotions that fueled recording, and begions to develop a studio personality for the band. Too many jambands get lost in the studio, trying to capture the essence of their live show, or unable to distill ten minute songs to concise and meaningful selections. That's not the case with this release. There are concise layered arrangements, an effective use of guest and supporting musicians, a few longer compositions, and an energy that is quintessentially Umphrey's.

What other band would open a record with the lines "Let this become memory / The worst is yet to come!". The joke is quickly washed away by the intense and strained piece, “Believe the Lie”. This song is one of a few on the album which were composed by assembling sections of the band's improvisations and honing them into complete songs. It is also one of the weaker cuts on the record, but most effectively sets the tone for the album. The song introduces one of the more interesting motifs of this release. The contrasting voices of Brendan Bayliss and Jake Cinninger are used to capture despair and hope, respectively. The hope may not be real, but it seems better than the ocean of pain. Alternating verses and songs help to balance the albums sound and feel.

The album begins to roll with the quieter "Rocker" which couples the loss of life to the end of a relationship. The dualism is explored throughout the album, but only after Cinninger ads some introspective levity with his Beatlesesque "Liquid". It's the same song as Ali Babba's Tahini's "Liquid in My Head", but is treated much differently with Umphrey's. It's a great song by it self, and is an excellent respite before the epic center piece "Words". It's a brooding sectional song that features a Zepplinesque build to an incredible instrumental, and vocal peak. This is the band's most epic composition since Divisions.

"Nemo", and "Women Wine and Song" belong on the radio. They have excellent hooks, and a genuine economy of composition. The latter also features Huey Lewis on backing vocals and harmonica. It's a honky-tonk Jake tune which serves as an homage to Little Feat, a respite, and contrasting opinion to the heavy undercurrents of the albums material.

Jazz Saxophonist Joshua Redman guests on "Intentions Clear", trading licks with Jake Cinninger, and blowing ripples and waves of fractional notes while Brendan Bayliss wails in his own, heavy hearted way. If Frank Zappa had written a serious musical version of Romeo and Juliet, this would be Romeo's final soliloquy.

"End of the Road" is a pleasant acoustic instrumental, which serves nicely to connect some melodic ideas from early selections and better exhibit the harmonica styings of Huey Lewis.

The final suite of songs are among the albums finest. "Passing" features incredible four part harmonies amidst pulsing prog rock. "Ocean Billy" presents a thoughtful re-interpretation of a concert staple, born of improv, into a masterpiece of studio rock showcasing drummer Kris Meyers. The re-envisioning of it's opening build is a bit controversial on fan sites, but the nay-sayers miss the boat on the possibilities of the studio. The album closes with the acoustic "The Weight Around" which provides some thematic closure, and ends with a pair of lines, which when take out of context are just as delightfully self deprecating as the cd's opening couplet.

"Safety in Numbers" is by far Umphrey's best studio album, and one of the best albums I purchased this year. This won't be the band's master piece. It shows too much unrealized promise.

Rating: 4/5
Top Track: Words
Reason to Buy: You've alway's wondered what would happen if Pink Floyd and Led Zepplin had a baby.
Reasons Not to Buy this Album: You'd like to strike because the lucky bastards who pre-ordered the limited Vinyl release scored a studio version of Divisons. Divisions!

3121 - Prince

Even though he’s been producing music continuously for nearly three decades, Prince’s self-proclaimed “comeback” has reached its second installment with the release of 3121. And he’s succeeding. While his solid 2004 release, Musicology, played like a big middle finger to current musical trends, the government, and everybody in the audience that ever claimed that the man could no longer bring it sonically; Prince’s latest effort does something that he has not accomplished since 1996’s Emancipation, and that’s have fun with the music, confidently and without trying too hard to do anything but make music.

This freedom is evident on the title track, which is not only the funkiest cut on the album, but also the triumphant return of Prince’s curious Camille persona, who hasn’t come out to play like this since the 80s. The lead single, "Te Amo Corazon" is ultra smooth and infused with Latin vibes and some nice tricks on the guitar, while its follow-up, "Black Sweat", is a certifiable club banger with a minimalist drum loop and studio effects that Pharrell Williams dreams about. In contrast, "Get on the Boat" closes the record with a joyous jam session featuring stellar performances by percussionist Sheila E. and the NPG horn section.

Even his missteps on this album hold merit. "Lolita" contains some of Prince’s more banal lyrics and a backing track that sounds like a midi from an early Megaman game, but it’s undeniably smile-inducing and simple fun. "Fury", meanwhile, hardly treads any new ground in the world of rock, but Prince’s brilliant performance of the song on Saturday Night Live will leave fans salivating at the recorded track in anticipation of the coming tour this summer. "Satisfied" is a decent enough ballad and would be attention-grabbing if done by any other artist, but Prince has done so much better with the genre that it’s not even worth mentioning.

Other songs such as "Incense and Candles" and "The Word" are a little overproduced, but the former remains a seductive slow-jam regardless, and the latter benefits from the extra studio time, producing a dreamy aural landscape for a Gospel track that is rather subtle by Prince’s normally heavy evangelical standards. "Beautiful, Love and Blessed" on the other hand is unapologetically devout and hopeful, as Prince intentionally steps down his performance in order to showcase his newest protégé, Tamar, who unfortunately does not do much to promote herself on this uplifting song. For a fleeting moment on "Get on the Boat" however, her backing vocals soar even higher than Maceo Parker’s saxophone in an amazing display that offers a glimmer of hope for Prince’s latest pet project.

Overall, 3121 is a very good album, a better record than Musicology, and will ultimately keep Prince relevant in today’s musical environment with strong grooves and clever song-writing. It is not, however, groundbreaking in any way, and will not be remembered as one of the best in Prince’s discography, or anybody’s list of favorite records. It may be unfair to continuously compare the man today with his 28 year career, but that’s the downside of being a musical legend.

Rating: 3.5/5 - Prince is on a different scale than most, but it's definitely worth buying.
Top Track: 3121, Get on the Boat
Reason to Buy: Prince is still great at what he does.
Reasons Not to Buy this Album: You're stuck in the 80s and have unreasonably high expectations.

Nothing but the Water - Grace Potter and the Nocturnals

Grace Potter is a vermonster of soul. She brings heart wrenching vocals, and a feisty organ style to a band that is reminiscent of Big Brother and the holding company. While there’s a bit of Joplin in her voice, the Nocturnals are no sixties revival. They reach deeper to the roots of their music touching on blues, gospel, country and a bit of southern funk. They're a band that can warm any barn on a snowy Vermont night by pulling heart strings and shaking hips.

Their sophomore release was recorded in a barn at Goddard College, and retains a rustic and genuine feel. There are minimal over dubs and plenty of raw musicianship. Nothing But the Water is an album with fluidity and direction. It doesn’t sound like a collection of songs packaged on a CD ready to be ripped, and shuffled on Ipods. Songs like "Toothbrush and My Table", "Ragged Company", "Treat Me Right", and "Joey" are crafted as well as any single and would stand out in a play list. The title song Nothing but Water is split into two tracks in a move that can only remind shufflers that the recording is meant to be heard in its entirety. The mastery is the way the album presents itself smoothly, shifting through styles and arrangements introducing the talents of the band without overloading the listener.

From the unaccompanied Hammond intro to the final vocal fade out. This album is Grace Potter and her energetic backing band. They're hear to take you on some kind of ride. The album, like it's prime single candidate, Ragged Company begins sparse and austere but builds to a captivating climax. "Treat Me Right" has a great beat and continues the albums savage theme of love gone awry. The record hinges on the raucous blues number, Joey, a song about violent lovers and restraining orders. Afterwards, Grace quiets her band for a Robert Johnson-esque number "2:22", before traveling through Norah Jones’ Nashville on "All but One". I enjoy the instrumental jam session "Below the Beams" it pays a nice homage to some of Goddard’s more noted musical progeny while clearing the listeners minds in preparation for the albums final song.

"Nothing but the Water" is a tour de force live. Nothing can capture the power an presence of seeing Grace belt this out in person, but the album version uses some of the studio's advantages to present a uniquely stirring take on a song that showcases so many of the bands strengths yet sounds little like any other song on the album.

Also, I'd strongly recommend Grace's live show. I've only seen her in opening slots but I've been impressed or blow away each time. She's unreal. If I were involved in a collegiate activities committee, I'd book her now while she's cheap.

Rating: 4.5/5
Top Track: Joey and Nothing But the Water (I&II It's one song).
Reason to Buy: The copies of this without Hollywood Records' imprint will be a collectors item.
Reasons Not to Buy this Album: You're to distracted by Grace's figure to get your wallet out of your pocket.

Let it Die - Feist

Leslie Feist's major label debut is eclectic, relaxed, and musically deep. Feist's greatest strength is her voice which isn't technically perfect but provides a unique, and versatile sound. She slides from acoustic pop, to jazz, and techno tinged disco covers. It's positively delightful.

The single Mushaboom is a pooped up treatment of the albums typically sparse, but thought provoking soundscapes. There are layers of tracks but the arrangements leave ample space instead of forming a collage. I'm a fan of both approaches, and find that there's considerable strength in this recording. Its one of those records that's guaranteed to grow on me in time. Not on any objective merit but because of some subtle awesomeness.

Rating: 3.5/5
Top Track: Mushaboom and Leisure Suite I'm not deciding.
Reason to Buy: You want danceier Madeleine Peyroux
Reasons Not to Buy this Album: You're still clinging to your freedom fries and a hatred of all things French.