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Random Recent Album Reviews

Date: April 19, 2010 • By • Comments 0

I only review albums that I like. Here are a few new ones that I’ve been digging lately.

High on Fire
Snakes for the Divine

The adrenal gland needs its own theme music. When that rush of adrenaline is pumping through your body, there are very few fitting genres of music. High on Fire has been specializing in brutally powerful riff metal for a long time, and their formula will have the meekest music enthusiasts ready to pound down brick walls. Matt Pike and his band have honed a very distinct brand of metal that’s based entirely on fast, loud, and ethereal guitar chops, rounded out by growling vocals and the tightest and heaviest rhythm section in the genre.

As usual, the album comes out swinging with the title track. A searing finger-tapping opening riff reminiscent of a cross between Black Sabbath and Van Halen. But it’s Pike’s expansion on that seemingly basic theme along with the ferocious bass licks and pounding drums that elevate this music well above that basic comparison. The riffs also begin simply on other standout tracks like “Frost Hammer” and “How Dark We Pray”, but as the cornerstones of most High on Fire songs, they unravel into beautifully complex heavy metal melodies. It’s an evolution that’s thrilling to trace within each track.

That’s the trademark High on Fire sound, and it’s a formula they’ve stuck to since 2005′s Blessed Black Wings. Fans won’t hear much of a departure from that album. But if there’s anything metal fans appreciate, it’s consistency, and you can count on these guys to get your adrenal gland pumping album after album.

Blakroc

Aerosmith and Run-DMC thought it’d be a good idea back in 1986 to record a rap/rock collaboration of “Walk this Way” and bring it to the mainstream. Then Anthrax and Public Enemy did a better job with a heavier “Bring the Noise” in 1991. Then a couple years later, the Judgment Night soundtrack came out, a full album’s worth of rap/rock/metal collaborations from the most popular artists of the time. But as the 1990s progressed, bands devoted their whole careers to mashing rap and rock, and with each copycat the music got progressively worse and we listeners got dumber for hearing it.

But finally in 2010, Blackroc has reversed that trend. The brainchild of Akron, Ohio’s The Black Keys, this album captures the original spirit of that partnership of making revolutionary music and building bridges. Here you have soulful melodies and beats rapped and sung over by some of today’s best artists in rap and R & B, like Raekwon, the RZA, Mos Def, Pharoahe Monch, Ludacris, Q-Tip and Nicole Wray. They even dug up some old Ol’ Dirty Bastard vocal tracks and made a song around them.

It’s a very energetic and eclectic project, due largely to the obvious enthusiasm and dedication of everyone involved. The Black Keys have always played stripped-down and soulful blues-rock – something that’s very translatable to hip-hop. Almost any of their older albums could have easily become Blakroc, because of the universal riffs and rhythms. Perhaps they waited until now to release it because of the saturation in the rap/rock genre earlier in their careers. Regardless, this album has restored the faith of music fans who had to endure the all the garbage of the late 1990s.

Joanna Newsom
Have One on Me

One of my all-time favourite albums is Joanna Newsom’s Ys. I bought it on a whim after reading a few glowing reviews shortly after it was released at the end of 2006, and it totally blew me away. It was unlike anything I had ever heard and whenever it came on I became so captivated that I’d have to listen to it right to the end. One of the main reasons is she plays the harp, and there’s not much I listen to based on that ancient and bizarre instrument. On top of that, she weaves intricate and epic narratives into her massive songs. Some may find her lyrics a little strange and perhaps esoteric, but after a few listens they totally suck you in.

So to follow up that masterpiece, she just released a TRIPLE album. If the last one wasn’t enough of a mindblast, she decided to bring it threefold on this one. But before giving it a spin, I went into this one a little cautiously. In contemporary music, excess and eccentricity don’t necessarily make good albums. Quality over quantity, less is more, blah blah blah. I was delightfully surprised to hear an album of focused, shorter songs that flow rather seamlessly. Have One on Me is also a journey, but a slightly less intense and equally enjoyable one as Ys.

The unconventional instruments are still there, along with her nasally voice delivering sometimes bizarre ballads. But there’s also a lot more percussion – something totally missing on her last album. That should make these songs more accessible to newer fans. At over two hours of music, I’m still digesting it, but I’ll always appreciate the new path she’s trying to chart for modern music.

Do you have any new music recommendations? Leave them in the comments!

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The day I fell in love with the White Stripes

Date: March 15, 2010 • By • Comments 0

This week the White Stripes will release Under Great White Northern Lights, the documentary highlighting their ambitious and touching cross-Canada tour in the summer of 2007. They played every province and territory, making community appearances during the day, and rocking arenas and theatres in the evening to support their Icky Thump album. As a fan, it was fun to watch their progress, turning heads at seemingly random points across the country. They captured the hearts of a whole nation one city at a time, building an incredible momentum that totally enamored new and long-time fans.

I bought tickets for the Winnipeg show at MTS Centre right when they went on sale. My fervor paid off – I scored floors. So right away I was counting down the days until the show. When the tour finally kicked off, though, that excitement simmered to a steady boil. The day of their show in Whitehorse, a buddy who lives there texted me to say they played a surprise afternoon show at a downtown park.

Meg and Jack in Whitehorse - photo courtesy Rob Stalkie

Meg and Jack in Whitehorse - photo courtesy Rob Stalkie


That was just the beginning. As they made their way east, they played surprise shows at places like a youth centre in Edmonton and a bowling alley in Saskatoon. The media caught wind, and it became the hottest tour in the country that summer. Fans became enthralled in an intoxicating guessing game, wondering where they’d show up next.

Finally, the day came for their Winnipeg show. It was the holiday Monday after Canada Day. I was lucky enough to have it off, and it was a gorgeous, vibrant sunny afternoon. Everyone knew they were gonna show up somewhere, but I really had no clue where. I was out for coffee with a friend when the phone rang. It was another buddy who heard from someone else that the White Stripes were gonna play an afternoon show, and that if fans wanted to try to catch them, they had to show up at the street corner across from Canwest Park. We rushed down there.

About 30 other fans heard the same buzz. Everyone was milling about, not really sure what to expect or where the band would actually be playing. This was, after all, just a random street corner on the outskirts of downtown Winnipeg. A couple dozen more showed up as text messages starting flying about. There were also three dudes dressed up in black suits with red ties and fedoras just standing on the opposite corner. They were clearly part of the White Stripes’ entourage, but they weren’t offering up any details. Finally, after about half an hour, a bus showed up, and two of them got on. One signaled to the crowd to get on too. However, only about half of the fans were able to, and the bus left. The rest of us stood there, confused. In a few minutes, text messages started coming back to us who missed the bus, saying Jack and Meg got on at the next stop, and played a few songs for the lucky bus riders.

Naturally, we were bummed. But one of the black-clad handlers told us to sit tight. After a few more minutes he told us to follow him, and led us to the end of the Provencher bridge. Again, more waiting, but we were much more optimistic we’d catch one of these rare community shows fans in other cities had been so lucky to experience. Suddenly, we saw two familiar figures emerge from the Salisbury House restaurant that’s on the bridge. Luckily, I remembered my camera.

They stood on the concrete edge of the railing, and serenaded us with three acoustic songs.

It was over in under 15 minutes, but it was one of the greatest little sets of music I’ve ever witnessed. It wasn’t just the intimacy and calibre of the experience that totally warmed my heart – it was the effort. Not only did this band defy the odds by playing every single corner of this country that summer, they made sure their fans got the most of their visit. There are few other bands who would go out of their way to make a tour such a complete experience for their fans. I was always really into them after they broke out with White Blood Cells, but this firmly established them in the canon of legendary bands for me. The show at MTS Centre later that night was epic as well. Picking up that documentary this week will be a sweet reminder and lifelong souvenir. I’ll always be grateful for being able to spend that day with them.

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Odaaminowaabiikoons

Date: February 27, 2010 • By • Comments 0

For this year’s winter Olympics in Vancouver, the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network is broadcasting live events in Cree, Mohawk, Mi’kmaq, Ojibway, Dene, Inuktitut, Michif and Oji-Cree. It’s a remarkable and ambitious initiative that’s had lots of people across the country tuning in. I watched tonight’s gold medal curling match between Canada and Norway in Anishinaabemowin (Ojibway) and it was sort of like coming home. My native language skills aren’t the greatest (I understand it way better than I speak it) but it was pretty fun to follow along to a sport that I’ve always been pretty complacent about. But more importantly, hearing Anishinaabemowin spoken on such a grand scale fostered a great sense of pride in me that’s no doubt resonating even more with our elders in communities right across Canada.

There’s an ominous statistic that keeps getting kicked around whenever the topic of Aboriginal languages comes up: of the 55 native languages spoken in Canada, only three – Ojibway, Cree, and Inuktitut – are expected to survive into the 22nd Century. Linguists, anthropologists, and Aboriginal leaders and elders argue about how legit this speculation is. Regardless, a lot of languages are hanging by a thread and it’s really up to us to make sure they survive. Hearing them broadcast during the biggest sporting event in the world will go a long way in keeping that pride and ambition alive.

That pride was scrubbed from a lot of our elders a long time ago. Generations before us were beaten for speaking their language. Canada established residential schools to make sure these languages were killed. Even people who didn’t have to endure that nightmare were shamed to forget the words they grew up speaking – their closest tie to their heritage. In my family, my grandmother and her siblings grew up speaking primarily Anishinaabemowin. My dad and his siblings grew up speaking both that and English. My brothers and I grew up speaking primarily English, with a few traditional words and phrases peppered throughout our conversations. In just a few generations, Anishinaabemowin could have completely disappeared from our family and our community.

But over the last 20 years there’s been a linguistic revival in communities across the country. And this new Olympic initiative should be a rallying cry to make sure the languages don’t die. I can’t imagine what it’s like for our elders to be witnessing these games in their traditional tongues. It’s almost like a total vindication of who they are and why they’ve never forgotten those timeless words at the core of their spirits. They’ll never have to be ashamed of what they say – or who they are – anymore. Now it’s up to us to make sure these words never die.

For a translation of the title of this blog post, visit Anishinaabemowin and follow @Anishinabemowin on Twitter.

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