MUSIC REVIEWS, 10-30-2023

I had these reviews in the chamber last time, but Drake had to come and cop a squat on everything (especially the charts), so here we are, delving into nine other albums I feel like talking about.  Starting with a perennial staple of the airwaves:

Candlebox "The Long Goodbye"

For those of us who have listened to rock radio since the early 90s, Candlebox are a fact of life.  They're a band who will only fall out of rotation once the formats that support the time period fade away.  Right now they're comfortably on the "Classic Rock" layer and can ride that for up to another 30 years.  Their place is set and sure.

But that only applies to the self-titled debut.  1995's Lucy went gold and has one song you might remember, but after that they faded into obscurity (which is weird to say about a band who's songs will never go away).  They broke up in 2000, got back together in 2006, chugged along with lineup changes to the point where the vocalist is the only one left, and now we're here: The Long Goodbye.  Their self-proclaimed finale.  2023 has been a year about processing my past to make way for a future, so why not look at the last bow from a band that broke big during the second year I was listening to music?

The first song "Punks" has a pulse, it's not terrible.  It's pretty standard faire for an album like this, but it works.  It's the lyric in the chorus that gets me though:  "We paved these streets, that's why you're here."  Really?  Cuz your first album, though it has some pretty good songs on it, is basically Pearl Jam's Ten without the yarl and a bit more attitude.  The rest of the lyrics are about how they've been here, they've done that, but now it's "already gone" so you're too late to get on the bandwagon.  It's...fine, I guess.

"What Do You Need" is a weedy-voiced attempt at modern butt-rock, replete with very unconvincing attempts at swagger.  This one's ass.  Track three "Elegante" is a functional, unremarkable quiet/loud style song with no punch whatsoever.  It's weird to think a band going into their finale is still trying to craft radio pablum, but here we are.

"I Should Be Happy" is actually more convincing in the swagger department, despite the lyrics being about the bittersweet circumstances of the band's impending end.  The production softens the blow that this thing could have (and maybe should have) struck, but I would say this is the best song so far.

"Nails On A Chalkboard" is a slow song that has some potential, but the lyrics just don't say much of anything.  If you were vibing with the album up to this point it works, but if you weren't it would probably be the stopping point.

"Ugly" is upbeat, but runs out of unrepeated lines 90 seconds in to a 4 minute song.  "Maze" is a serviceable acoustic number, but kinda whatever.  "Cellphone Jesus" is a song I'd expect Spacehog or some other mid 90's oddball-adjacent band to make, not the second wave grungesters of Candlebox.  It's a nice, bouncy edition to the proceedings, though again the lyrics are YMMV.

Penultimate track "Foxy" is the worst song I've heard this band do.  It's Candlebox trying to make "Physical" by Dua Lipa but still be "themselves" (and failing miserably).  (Then again, it's the singer and a bunch of replacement parts so who are "they" anyway?)

Then we have the closer "Hourglass".  It's a piano-driven, kind of like "Dream On" song about the hour glass running out.  Then for the last 45 seconds or so it goes double time, tambourines get involved and...it just stops.  No crescendo, no fade out, that's the cap on their career.  They went out how they chose, abrupt and limp.  Not a match to all the buildup.

 

The Long Goodbye manages to have some decent faire, but man does it get corny in places and dull in others.  All in all not terrible, but wouldn't recommend.

Amon Tobin "Hole In the Ground (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)"

Definitely one you have to give yourself over to.  That doesn't mean passive listening is off the table (in fact that might be the way to get into it), but the dark, tense, grinding, sinister atmosphere connected with me.  I was picking up what this EP was putting down.  I got the idea after track 3 of 6, but it's still worth a listen.  The palpable unease and weighted darkness stuck a chord in a way most ambient music completely fails to do with me.

Amon Tobin, Two Fingers & Cujo "Nomark Selects, Vol. 1"

Some Selected thoughts about this project:

• "Babou The Dog" was cool.
• Tracks 2 & 3 were some bullshit.
• "Yumyum Rhythm" has some bass.
• "Mighty Tetra"?  Now we're talkin'.
• "Early For Clink Street" is a vibe.  A "3:30 to 5AM, just got off work on a split second/third shift job and the rest of the world is asleep; tired, but still have to get home and this is on, and wow I feel it" vibe.  What's that?  Lived experience?  I don't know what you're talking about...
• "Nine Bars Back" has me thinking about the frustrating minutiae of life and social life.
• "In Long Dark Grass" is Tron from hell, but in an African safari setting.  And like, you're trying to escape from and/or capture wild Tetris pieces that are coming to kill you.
• "Deep In Time" is goopy, viscous liquid, slowing down the descent as you sink to the bottom.
• And "Red Shift" is some more bullshit.

Not a record I'd put on all the time, but I liked most of what I'd heard and it sounds different than most of the things I listen to.  I give it some points.

Gretchen Parlato & Lionel Loueke "Lean In"

 

Wanna hear pretty good singing be absolutely ruined by squicky mouth noises used as percussion?  Lean In might be for you!

Mutoid Man "Mutants"

You know what?  I haven't heard enough shit that wrecks face in 2023 yet.  Mutoid Man?  Listen to that, you get some face wreckage.  Fans of the band will not be disappointed.  It wrecks FACE.

Vanishing Twin "Afternoon X"

The title track was the single, and I've been bumping it for at least six weeks so far (even making the Fall Hit Mix for 2023).  It's easily the most body any one of their tracks have had up until now, going a Boom-Bap via Trip Hop route.  So I had to wonder what we were going to get with the rest.  I've liked Vanishing Twin albums up until now, but they have a tendency to get whispy despite a strong single or two.  ("Magician's Success" from the last one was amazing; highly recommend.)

The intro is kinda formless, but the soundscape is interesting enough that I can dig it; those synths that kinda sound like voices really set the uneasy tone.  "Afternoon X" the song bumps in the whip, with distressing, dark tones in the vocals and keys, making you think you're in some alien zone you're not supposed to be in.  By track 3 though, this album is like:  "No."  [Points finger]  "You.  Will.  Vibe.  Sit sown.  [Gently but firmly pushes you into a barber's chair]  Now.  [Takes a deep breath; starts massaging your hair]  We vibe...."  

And it does.  The six minute "Marbles" is a great centerpiece.  But by about the halfway mark of the eight and a half minute "The Down Below" it starts to lose me, and it really keeps falling away to nothing until the last 90 seconds of the album, with the phrase "What are we waiting for?"  At first, I snidely retort: "Yeah, what are you waiting for?", but then I'm vibing again; I have just enough to hold onto.  But then it's all over and I'm left feeling a little disappointed.  Still, it's a pretty good album overall.  Might sneak into Honorable Mention territory on the Year-End.

Apollo Suns "Departures"

If Thank You Scientist covered the Persona 5 soundtrack.  If you know what those things are, you're probably not reading this sentence right now, you're clicking over to your streaming service of choice to check this out.  Sonically, yes, that's what you'll hear; the influences are pretty blatant.

But there's two problems: The album doesn't really...go for it.  The songs are all at the same even kiel, neither getting emotional enough to make you really resonate nor rocking hard enough to satisfy the prog metal nerd, nor being complicated enough.  The compositions are all solid, they're all head nodders, but they don't really get out of second gear.  The other thing standing in its way is the horns are mixed so much louder than everything else.  If they were dialed back a bit, the other elements would shine through and this thing would have more punch.

So Departures ends up being pretty good, but I have a feeling it aspired to be much more than that.

Teezo Touchdown "How Do You Sleep At Night"

Well...he's certainly not afraid to be himself.

I want to like this, I really do, but MAN.  I could just write "Blacklemore" and be done with it.  But that would be much too much of a disservice.  Teezo Touchdown's sound reminds me of Kenny Mason (which is a compliment) and an early 2010's network sitcom trying to be adorkably street (which is decidedly NOT).  Hell, TT even pulls it off sometimes because there's so much charm, but by track 10 there's no saving it.  It's kind of impressive how cornball this album gets, right down to censoring most (but not all) of the swear words (which are few and far between enough that you notice).

How Do You Sleep At Night is a frustrating mess, but I still had some amount of fun with it.  I get why I've heard bad reviews for this one; it's got flaws...or are they character?  Take a listen and be the judge.

X-Ray Dog "A Tail Of Two Cities"

I picked this one because I hadn't listened to a band starting with "X" this year yet, and this was the first album I came across.  From the look of it, the album cover, the band name, the song titles, I was expecting some 50-something pseudo prog like The Winery Dogs or something, but what we get instead is...soundtrack fodder?  Don't get me wrong, it's good soundtrack fodder; it kept me listening for like four tracks before I decided I had the idea, but yeah.  It's a budget orchestra doing music that sounds like a film score.

I decided to see if maybe this is an alternate version of a previous album and OH GOD THEY HAVE 12 ALBUMS IN 2023 ALONE.  On YouTube music, they have NINETY-FOUR RELEASES going back to 2017 (with a Christmas album from 2015).  I have no idea if they've been around for three decades and just re-released everything onto streaming with a modern date, or if they truly have churned out close to 100 projects in six years.  But one thing's for certain:

They're all soundtrack fodder.

As far as I could tell from clicking around a few random releases, they're all meant for film or video game scores.  Some of them even sound like they were meant for video games from the late 90's, so it gives credence to the theory above.  I had to look them up to see what the deal was.  

Last.fm says they are a "music library" that sells music directly to movie studios, so there you go; that's why it sounds like that.  And their Discogs page reveals the actual release dates to be mostly the 00's.  The video game music I thought sounded dated is indeed old enough to drink.  And yet, despite the second-most recent edition to their YouTube music page also coming out in 2002, A Tail Of Two Cities just dropped first week of September.

I then clicked on the link to X-Ray Dog's website Last.fm provided and it TOOK ME TO A SPORTS BETTING WEBSITE FROM TANZANIA WHAT THE FUCK EVEN IS THIS?!?!?

The journey was far more interesting than the destination, but as long as my computer doesn't have a virus, this was a fun journey spurred on by mere soundtrack fodder.

And that'll do it this time.  We're firmly in Q4 for music now, so bundle up, watch for surprises, get those backlogs paired down, and we'll see what's what when we come to December.  I should have a couple more blogs out before then, but you never know.  Been trying to get my life in order after more than a decade of neglect.  And because it's working, I'm hella busy.  But you make time for the important stuff, and writing is important, dammit.  I can't tell you why in any quantifiable sense (which I think has kept me from writing a lot more because I can't convince asshole brain it's important enough to do half the time), but it's part of who I am.  And you read this, which is part of who you are.  I'm glad we can squad up like that and make it happen.

'Til next time.