Dasein
Brazil
Fearless Records
From the opening instants of the eerie, powerful opening track “Monolithic,”
Brazil comes out rocking — in sweeping fashion — hoping
to show the world there may be something cutting edge in Muncie, IL.
The song, urgent and loud, happens upon interludes of sonic foreplay.
The rest of this release taps several styles.
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Some interesting piano/guitar interplay
on “Erasure” takes Brazil beyond Ben Folds Five
when it was in overdrive. And what seems to start off as
a breezy morning drive through modern suburbia with
“Saturn Parkway” turns into angry sharks
lashing — literally and lyrically — before
fading away in somnolent guitar-solo bliss. The band
turns heavy on a dime, seeming both intent on the future
but unsure of it, with a Voivod-like apprehension over
technology, despite their reliance on modern, electronic
instruments. As always, balanced by the piano.
This six-song EP shows Brazil long on chops and
innovative transitions but short on harmonies. Rife with
industrial noise and other strange electronic sounds,
though, there’s enough to occupy the ear. —Lance
Jungmeyer
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Feast on
Scraps
Alanis Morissette
Maverick Recording Co.Feast on
Scraps includes eight previously unreleased songs
recorded for but scrapped from her last album, Under
Rug Swept. The tracks give off a familiar feel to
those of that CD — disturbed yet honest, longing yet
independent.
With just the audio tracks, Feast on Scraps is
well worth the price. However, Morissette goes even
further by including a DVD that boldly makes a stand
against other pseudo CD/DVD sets. It features more than
two and a half hours of concert footage and commentary.
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“Simple Together,” an aching
ballad topped off with a string section, reaffirms
Morissette’s deep-rooted angst so apparent in Jagged
Little Pill. “If I had a dime for every
hand thrown up in the air/My wealth would render this no
less severe.”
The acoustic version of the single “Hands
Clean” presents a much sweeter and restrained
character than the original. It is as if the narrator has
had more time to reflect and wants to be more honest with
herself. —Jessica Chapman |
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Mayors
of the Moon
Jon Langford & his Sadies
Bloodshot Records
An immediate anthem for detached country rockers
everywhere, “Drugstore” opens Jon Langford’s latest
experiment in musical chairs, for he sports a different backing band
on nearly every recent release. The players on this effort should
be familiar to many alt-country and punk aficionados. They’ve
played in bands including the Waco Brothers, Pine Valley Cosmonauts,
The Mekons and, of course, The Sadies.
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On this, moods range far and wide —
from ethereal 12-string on “Little Vampires” to
raggedy, driving punk on “Up to my neck in
this” to straight-ahead yet funky folk-rock on
“What makes Johnny run?”
Langford’s Welsh voice rings out most sincerely in
“Strange Birds.” He saves two of the best for
last — the rollicking “Solitaire song” and
“Are you an entertainer?” The latter runs on
like a lazy drinking song, the kind good buddies sing
when they’re goin’ nowhere too fast, but who
always remember to, as the chorus goes, “get the
money/don’t leave anything behind/just some pieces
of your heart, fragments of your mind.” —Lance
Jungmeyer
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We’ll Dodge it
On The Way Back
Fairview
Sidecho RecordsDespite a time in the
music industry when pop-rock quartets seem to be
multiplying faster than Tribbles, Orange County,
CA’s own pop-rock quartet Fairview still manages to
shoehorn in yet another collection of admittedly catchy
bubble-gum tracks on their debut album We’ll Dodge
It on The Way Back.
The CD itself seems short on the best stuff (only seven
tracks, followed by “live acoustic” versions of
the same exact songs — a bit pretentious for a first
release...), but songs like “telegrams” and the
somewhat infectious “i wrote you i would” echo
enough in the ears to keep the fingers away from the
eject button. —Brandon Whitehead
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