Issue#56 [Album] Reviews

Reviews of the latest from The BPA, Casiotone for the Painfully Alone, Bruce Cockburn, Great Lake Swimmers, Junior Boys, N.A.S.A., Papa Roach, The Prodigy, Propagandhi and the War Child “Heroes” album.

[1] The BPA
I Think We’re Gonna Need a Bigger
Boat Southern Fried
The BPA (or Brighton Port Authority) is a concept record by Norman Cook, AKA Fatboy Slim. Mr. Cook likes his music, album titles, aliases, music videos, and conceptual albums jokey. The concept is that this “band” was only a rumour, until somebody discovered a cardboard box full of old tapes and now we have to listen to it. It seems that Fatboy has exhausted all his favours from artists and forced them to contribute to his latest record in an attempt to remain relevant. The finished product is an album that just barely reaches that goal. David Byrne and Dizzee Rascal seem to be content to live in a world made up only of guest appearances, and Iggy Pop is quickly following suit. Add in Martha Wainwright and Jamie T and we’re left to wonder if God told Norman Cook that a flood is coming and he has to gather artists for a giant chillout ark to sail around the world until he finds the new Ibiza. The Fatboy’s trippin’.
0/5
-Trevor Risk
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[2] Casiotone For the Painfully Alone
Advance Base Battery Life
Tomlab
Maybe you know Casiotone for the Painfully Alone as the main influence for “that guy’s” gloomy solo project or as the basis for a very memorable night of disappointing lovemaking, but it is certain that the name has left a mark on your mind at one point or another. Advance Base Battery Life is a compilation of Owen Ashworth’s past songs off limited vinyl releases and soundtracks. But this time they aren’t exclusively recorded on battery-operated electronics (like answering machines, etc) and they sound like a collection of songs meant for a basement filled with a wild populace (no visible depression here). Organ chord progressions are tenderly played between lo-fi electric drum beats and it sounds sweet and cute and applicable to your day. Put it on, take it off. Leave it somewhere. Listen. Listen. Listen because although there is no mention of menstrual blood this time, that woman’s absorbing voice (Jenn Herbinson) sings on the record just the same as last time (“Lesley Gore On The T.A.M.I. Show”). And, actually, as soon as you hear Hot Boyz your good memories of The Beat (back in 2003) will come streaming back, and you won’t feel weary about that thing called lalalove any longer.
4/5
-Stefana Fratila
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[3] Bruce Cockburn
Slice O’ Life
Rounder
After years of (presumably) being teased about his last name by all the jerks in high school, Bruce Cockburn emerged as Canada’s folk hero voice of first-wave environmentalism; save the dolphins, stop acid rain, no more Styrofoam egg containers, if a tree falls in the forest, if I had a rocket launcher… Question: If Bruce Cockburn is the mid-Eighties Canadian Bob Dylan, does that make “Lovers in a Dangerous Time” our “All Along the Watchtower”? And does it change your reaction to Stephen Page’s arrest last summer? Slice O’ Life is 25 tracks of live Bruce on two CDs that will not disappoint any fan of his work. All the recognizable songs are there and they are performed with the polite presence and understated guitar work that has made Bruce a favourite with the CBC Radio One crowd for over 20 years. Mostly, I was shocked at the revealing banter that Bruce has with the crowd, namely that he nearly gave up music to run guns to Cuba in the Sixties. In my best Stewart McLean: ‘Dave,’ said Morley, ‘Dave I think we ought to buy this album.’
4/5
-Bix Brecht
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[4] Great Lake Swimmers
Lost Channels
RCA
I like Great Lake Swimmers. Ongiara, their last record, grew on me slowly over the course of a long, dark Canadian winter. Where I have trouble with them is their moderate appeal. Yes they write nice songs about nice things, but since when is nice a virtue in art? At best, Great Lake Swimmers sweetly articulate shades of grey. At worst, they disappear into leader Tony Dekker’s melodic folk rock wilderness without a compass and fail to return after dusk. The band endeavors to be little more then a footnote in a Nick Drake universe, but as quaint Canadian folk-core they avail. With Ongiara, Great Lake Swimmers were treading water in mediocrity, with their latest release, Lost Channel, they sink beneath her murky depths.
1.5/5
-Joseph Delamar
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[5] Junior Boys
Begone Dull Care
Domino
In 1949, the NFB released an experimental film titled Begone Dull Care. The filmmaker, Norman McLaren, applied paint directly on film stock, creating a visual representation of Oscar Peterson’s jazz music. It’s fabulous, like poutine for both eyes and ears. More recently, Begone Dull Care has become the title of the new Junior Boys album and, I am ashamed to admit, is the main reason I pulled the CD from Trevor Risk’s music bowl. That and the undeniably catchy character of 2006’s So This is Goodbye. Goodbye indeed. If album titles reflect even a sliver of the music inside, then perhaps the Junior Boys—Jeremy Greenspan and Matthew Didemus—would’ve been better off calling it The Neverending Story, since every song sounds like the 1984 film’s theme song by Limahl (Who? Don’t worry about it.). Heck, while we’re here, how about tossing around some more appropriate titles for this album: The Worst of Jamiroquai, The Tiny Timberlakes, Café del Blar (to name a few). Granted, there are some extremely reputable folks who disagree with me on this and that’s great… I salute them. Now excuse me, it’s time to go edit the ol’ iTunes list.
2/5
-Jules Moore
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[6] N.A.S.A.
The Spirit Of Apollo
Epitaph
So what are you up to this weekend? Me, oh I’m going to go see DJ Zegon and Squeak E. Clean… NO BIG DEAL!!! You might ask yourself, “Who are these fuck wads with conscious minds that chose such wicked ill na na names?” Well these are the guys that collaborated to form N.A.S.A. Such clever boys, merging the continental names of North America and South America in order to show how wicked global gnarly they are. A quick piece of advice to the boys; don’t make an album via international mail, otherwise your debut album might, or will, take five years to make. I almost want to apologize because I have so much disdain for this album… Jesus Donkeys, they have “over 3 dozen collaborators” and I can’t name them because it will make me so goddamn angry. This album is irrelevant, honestly that is the worst thing that I can say about it. Basically listening to this album makes me feel like I’m 16 again, and at a rave, trying to bum a smoke off of some guy, who is fucked on e, and is trying to tell me that the fact that I don’t like happy hardcore isn’t because it’s god awful music, but because my ears haven’t evolved into the next level of p.l.u.r. consciousness.
0/5
Dr. Ian Super
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[7] Papa Roach
Metamorphosis
Interscope
Papa Roach moved me in a way that I wouldn’t have predicted. I could get into how the band successfully marries militaristic drum rolls and soldiers stomping while the heady chug of guitars blasts through triple rectifiers in polyrhythmic syncopated shots. That the mix is excruciatingly well-balanced in a radio-ready, modern rock over-compressed sound. I could tell you how many fans of higher profile bands like A Simple Plan and Good Charlotte might be wondering why these guys insist on still sticking around. Frankly, I think they’re just as deserving. Really, though, the record had me thinking of a problem that’s symptomatic with local bands aiming for the Billboard charts. Many have gone through stints hanging out with entertainment lawyers, hustling $10 beers in cheesy upscale bars and blathering at length in self-referential 1000-word bios of all the other lousy bands they’ve been in, and how, really, they’re just really into writing a smart pop song. Yet they’ll slag this shit! Anyone so disingenuous as to blast a band like Papa Roach while aiming to achieve the same accolades deserves nothing more than to tend bar well into their 40s. Peace.
2/5
-Adam Sabla
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[8] The Prodigy
Invaders Must Die
Cooking Vinyl
At my elementary school dances we were allowed bring tapes cued to a song for the DJ to play. This DJ would usually make fun of me for having brought my Green Day tapes but would always humor me by playing one song, at which point I would play air guitar by myself in the middle of the dance floor. Since I associated mainstream dance music at that time with older kids who bullied me, I felt very righteous about these performances.
In retrospect it would have been a lot cooler to just not go to the dance. In grade 7, I got Fat of the Land because I thought Keith Flint’s inverted mohawk was awesome. I was excited because it was totally alternative and aggressive but also seemed to be dance music with black people rapping. I thought for sure this was the compromise everyone needed to finally see how cool my taste in music was. They had pretty much the same reaction as before, but my interest in The Prodigy would eventually inspire my uncle to turn me onto PWEI and Aphex Twin. So, basically it had the exact opposite effect and led to me attending “special” high school.
3/5
-Kellen Powell
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[9] Propagandhi
Supporting Caste
Smallman
McCarthy, Marx, West Bank, Gaza Strip: All words that once bellowed from my self-absorbed, boy-crazy, 16-year-old mouth while pulling fishtails on the icy roads of Winnipeg. The teacher of such terms? The Canadian punk rock intelligentsia known as Propagandhi. Ten years and seven albums have passed, and it’s clear just how pathetic my understanding of their lyrics really was. Nevertheless, my friends and I memorized every word from Atheist to Zion, thus minimizing the gap between the individual and the world. Do I feel like driving around blasting Propagandhi’s new CD today? Not particularly, but I do get off knowing that others will. I also don’t feel like watching Vice write it off as “shitty punk.” That’s just lazy. It’s like a big ol’ poopy baby at dinner, crying because his music touched his politics. In order to understand social concepts—Propagandhi’s reason for howling since 1986—you sometimes have to involve thoughtful research and laborious listening. These guys have even produced albums for Noam “the mind” Chomsky! So, why not get brain-toned this summer? Even if you don’t dig ferocious, NOFX-looped punk rock, it’s still worth throwing down 15 bucks for the ingenious album art and lyric sleeve. Plus, you can always use the CD as a Frisbee on (Fat)Wreck Beach.
3/5
-Jules Moore
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[10] Various Artists
War Child Presents Heroes
Astralwerks
War Child is a non-profit organization created to help the children of war-torn countries. It’s a brilliant charity and you should buy this album to support it, or just give cash and time to them in any way you can. Heroes is a project which sees influential artists choosing young artists they admire to cover and record songs of the “hero’s” choosing. Again, the charity is important, but this is the music review section. Ergo, I have a few questions for the artists involved. John Squire, you’re the world’s fourth best guitarist. Why are you designing album covers, and why don’t you have anything better on your computer than Corel Draw? Peter Hook, you choosing Hot Chip to do a Joy Division song is a joke right? It’s a joke like your DJ tours, correct? The former is less funny than the latter. Ray Davies of The Kinks, did you not like The Fall’s cover of “Victoria”? I thought it was really great. Paul McCartney, do you like Duffy more than you like Guns ‘N Roses, or did you confuse her with Duff McKagan? Brian Ferry, did you think the Scissor Sisters were going to do any justice to your music? Did you not hear their unfortunate Pink Floyd cover from years ago? Iggy Pop, when are you going to finally ask Peaches to marry you? The Like, I’m having a party. Come nude. I know that’s not a question.
1/5
-Trevor Risk
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