Cool Music Reviews provides live reviews and album reviews on both current and past bands. Plus links to bands I think you should listen to!
Tuesday, November 04, 2008
Courtney Love -
For over a year now I have been anticipating the release of Courtney Loves new material, and I'm STILL waiting! After the release of Americas Sweetheart Courtney's popularity seemed to drop, due undoubtedly to a string of bizarre tabloid stories and the records mediocre content. However, I for one have not given up on the Queen of Grunge just yet and am still going to purchase her latest offering, when it arrives that is! Anyone wanting to here a few tasters of the new record should check out her myspace. From what has been put up so far I have to admit I'm a little disappointed. The passion in her voice, so prominent in Holes Live Through This, seems to be lacking and the songwriting a little sloppy. But hey! Go make your own judgement then let me know what you think.
Hip hop/pop production group New Sound Pollution have recently put a song up on their myspace. The song, 'Northern Light', is a dark fusion of dance synths and eastern instrumentation. A strange fusion of sounds which make up a great sounding song. Its starts out slowly, with a broken up dub like beat, building up and breaking down. Half way through the beat changes into something you can nod your head and tap your feet to. A very interesting song that I recommend you have a listen to. Lets hope they put out something else soon!
Its a shame, how in the end all good music scenes come to an end. It feels that we have now come to end of the recent 'indie' scene here in England, that was started by bands such as the Libertines. We've reached the stage now where the industry is just churning out overly produced copycat bands, like The View. I have been feeling for a while that the recent music boom here in the UK was beginning to die down but when the View, a band who are a rip off of every other band in the genre, went to No. 1 I new it was definitely over. As with all the pure, organic, music movements it is only matter of time before the record industry cottons on and starts twisting the glorious movement into a money making scheme. They start producing bands with an exact sound and style but with absolutely no integrity or genius. It is a shame, but its the way it goes and we can only hope that next music revolution is not to far around the corner.
Cool Music Reviews now has its own store where you can buy some of the best music around via Amazon. Check out the store here and see what I recommend you buy this month.
Album title - Show Your Bones by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs
After the art punk perfection of Fever to Tell I couldn’t wait for the follow up. I first heard Gold Lion on the radio and was impressed, it sounded like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs had created this hyper produced Nevermind esq. album. I thought it was going to be a mainstream phenomenon that would bring the Yeah Yeah Yeahs into the lime light but instead it was a disappointment. That’s not to say it was a complete failure, there’s some good songs on the album, it’s just not half of what Fever to Tell was. Gold Lion is a brilliantly loud impressive song as is Phenomena but further into the record you find songs like Mysteries, Warrior and Honeybear which sound messy and unthoughtful. They say artists always have trouble with the second album and it sounds like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs had real trouble with this. It sounds like they turned up at their studio in LA without the faintest idea what to record and had to really force out every note. As I said Fever to Tell was art punk perfection, loud, grungy, interesting and energetic, but Show Your Bones has either lost or dampened down all these qualities only gaining them again in live performances (and despite the terrible album, taking the trouble to see them live is well worth it!). However, I don’t entirely condemn the album, it’s defiantly worth listening to and it would be worth downloading tracks such as Gold Lion and Phenomena but fans of the old Yeah Yeah Yeahs may be disappointed with their second attempt.
I can’t say I don’t agree with some of the things she writes on her website but how on earth did Lily Allen's song ‘smile’ get to NO.1 in the UK. It’s awful! For a start it doesn’t even sound in tune! The lyrics are simplistic and dull with a rhyming pattern that could have been written by a four year old. It’s one of those songs that no matter how hard you bang your head against the wall you just can’t get it out! Frankly the less said the better, steer clear of this single.
Turn it up is a catchy, arty, punk tune with a distinct Bikini Kill feel to it. As a female duo they share the singing, to good affect, with sections of speech amongst the verse and a powerful repetitive chorus singing, simply, ‘turn it up, turn it up, turn it up, turn it up’. With lyrical references to ‘The Sex Pistols’ and ‘Peaches’ it’s obvious who their influences are and it certainly shows in the music. The video for the song shows Robots in Disguise travelling to and playing a gig. And is that the guys from the Might Boosh in the audience and at the start?
Turn it up is a powerful, catchy and interesting song, one that’s worth the money! I hope to hear more from Robots In Disguise soon!
I was lent this album by a friend who claimed it was 'f**king brilliant', it turned out to be fucking awful. My friend must have the Doherty bug. To start with the good news, Pipe Down is an alright listen and 8 Dead Boys most resembles Babyshambles live shows in that it has a little passion to it while the rest of the album is slow, uninteresting waffle. As hinted, their lives shows generally seem to have a bit of passion and a spark to them but this has been totally lost in this overly and badly produced album. I was quite excited about this band after hearing them play F**k Forever on Radio one, but F**k Forever is now lost forever having gone though the studio. The same applies to Killamangiro which has lost its original buzz heard on the single due to terrible over production. The less said about the rest the better, save perhaps the title track Down in Albion. While not a very inventive or clever song, it has a bit of heart to it and merits a listen. The album as a whole, however, is not worth the money. While it has good parts these are few and far between and you’d be better off just downloading them.
Been to a gig or heard and album you want to share your opinion of? Leave me your reviews in the comments section of this post. I'll take a look and if there good, which I'm sure they will be, I'll post them up.