May 2003

JUSTY'S MUSICAL CAVALCADE

It's been a while since I threw any music reviews at you all. Here are a few current/upcoming/recent releases that have caught my attention over the past month or so. I'll start in no particular order.

BLUR - Think Tank
I guess we can consider this album to be the completion of the de-evolution of Blur. In just about a decade or so, Damon Albarn and friends have gone from wise-cracking Brit-poppers to something much more simple and introspective. Is it better this way? I don't know that it is. This album, completed after the departure (firing? I don't know) of guitarist Graham Coxon, is probably as close as we've come to an Albarn solo project on any of Blur's records. Unfortunately, it comes across as very bland. When Radiohead veered into Kid A and Amnesiac, there was still a passion in the music that kept my ears tuned in with interest. Think Tank sounds totally detached, like an experimental record with no focal point to bring it all together. Song by song, it is far from a terrible record, but as a whole piece it probably could have used some polishing. The highlight, ironically enough, is "Battery In Your Leg", the only song on the album recorded with Coxon. If that doesn't clue Blur into what's missing, I don't know what else will. 2.5 out of 4.

STEPHEN MALKMUS AND JICKS - Pig Lib
I sort of covered this album last month, but not nearly enough. Where SM's first album was a solo effort, Pig Lib was most certainly written and performed by a group. The songs are played tighter, but with a much more laid-back feel. The Jicks establish themselves as a group, evident from the very first track "Water and a Seat," where you hear them hanging together through tempo changes and breaks in gloriously fluid motions. While the jokier elements of SM's previous works are not as present, Pig Lib delivers such a package musically that you don't really mind because everything else is so good. Still, "Vanessa From Queens" offers a Bob Packwood joke, "Dark Wave" has a splendidly funny synthesizer melody throughout the song, and "Craw Song" tells the story of a bizarre love, uh, quadrangle? Anyway, lots of highlights on this record. SM keeps moving forward, and for that we should all be thankful. 4 out of 4 Nutty Swedes!

RADIOHEAD - Hail to the Thief
Oh yeah. From the very first song on the album, "2 + 2 = 5" I knew I was in for something special. This album delivers for everyone - everyone who thought that Radiohead was too far gone with Kid A and Amnesiac, and for everyone else who has enjoyed the whole catalog. There's no going back with a band like this, so certainly there aren't any of the U2/arena rock anthems of Pablo Honey or The Bends, but there is enough of the loud guitars and banging of the skins to satisfy some of that need. Honestly I've had trouble getting past the third track, "Sail to the Moon," which may well be my favorite Radiohead song ever right about now, but this whole album is noteworthy. "Myximitosis" (I hope I spelled that one right), "Drunken Punch-Up at a Wedding," and "Wolf at the Door" are all stand-outs for me on the album. The particularly creepy "We Suck Young Blood" is fantastic in that it's the kind of song that you're not really so sure about, and maybe you find yourself convinced that Thom Yorke and the gang might actually suck young blood, or any other blood. Kinda like Jello Biafra and "We Kill Children," where you just don't know for sure. Anyway, buy this when it comes out, or else. 4 of 4.