Billy Joel - The Stranger (30th anniversary deluxe edition)
Artist: Billy Joel Review: In 1977, Joel's fourth and best album replaced Simon & Garfunkel's Bridge Over Troubled Water as Columbia Records' all-time top-seller, establishing Joel as a titan of adult contemporary America's answer to Elton John. The Stranger also launched Joel's longterm collaboration with producer Phil Ramone, who distilled the Piano Man's music to its essence, a hook-packed blend of AM-radio pop-rock and Broadway schmaltz. The hit single was the gooey "Just the Way You Are," but there's impressive... Rating: 4 Stars
School Of Seven Bells - Alpinisms
Artist: School Of Seven Bells Review: This New York trio of ex-Secret Machines guitarist Benjamin Curtis and twins Alejandra and Claudia Deheza is the sum of hip contradictions: om-drone modernism coated with the Dehezas' antique vocal blur of Gentle Giant's prog-choir counterpoint and the harmonies of a medieval Shangri-Las. The effect is warm goth — New Order with more eros. "Chain" veers close to electro-candy Madonna, but the Neu-like zoom and robot-nun chanting in "Sempiternal/Amaranth" are more beguiling, like an evening... Rating: 3.5 Stars
Mattafix, Rhythm and Hymns
This has its share of pop hooks, but attempts to square this with Mattafix's world music sympathies don?t always come off.
Death Vessel - Nothing is Precious Enough For Us
Artist: Death Vessel Review: No, Joel Thibodeau is not a girl. Though the Death Vessel mastermind, whose falsetto matches his pixielike stature and long hair, is probably used to people making that mistake. On Thibodeau's Sub Pop debut, his voice is as delicate as Juliana Hatfield's, threading wispy notes into haunting ballads that crib from the backwoods folk of acts like Iron and Wine. The result evokes a makeshift jam session in an Appalachian cabin: fingerpicked ditties like "Block My Eye" and "Jitterakadie" use railroa... Rating: 3.5 Stars
Duffy
Czy kobiety zdolne do wielkiego śpiewania rodziły się w latach 80. tylko w Wielkiej Brytanii? Takie wrażenie można odnieść po karierach Amy Winehouse, Amy MacDonald czy wreszcie Duffy....
Anti-Flag - The Bright Lights Of America
Artist: Anti-Flag Review: Pittsburgh punks Anti-Flag have long proclaimed their leftist outrage on their albums, and they act on their convictions too: The band's press bio lists ten different organizations its members have worked with, from Amnesty International to PETA. Unfortunately, The Bright Lights of America, Anti-Flag's second major-label album and eighth overall, proves for the billionth time that good intentions don't always make good music. With producer Tony Visconti (David Bowie) giving the songs cla... Rating: 2.5 Stars
Wild Beasts, Limbo, Panto
This is a fine debut, full of surprises.
Loco Star
Efekt owocnego spotkania doświadczonych muzyków ? Marsiji i Tomasza Ziętka w avant-popowej przestrzeni....
Tricky
Świat usłyszał o Trickym w 1991 roku, gdy światło dzienne ujrzał kultowy debiut Massive Attack "Blue Lines". Kilka lat później był już w pełni samodzielnym artystą ? jednym z najbardziej wyrazistych na triphopowej scenie. ...
Nickelback - Dark Horse
Artist: Nickelback Review: What's a poor rock band to do when your last album sold 8 million copies at a time when nobody buys CDs anymore? You can hire a guy who produced AC/DC, Def Leppard and Shania Twain albums that sold even more. On Dark Horse, "Mutt" Lange lightens Nickelback's dreary post-grunge plod, applying guitar shimmer to prom ballads and detonating big beats under frat-party shouts and raplike vocal parts. Lyrics revel in dorkitude, hair-metal style: "No class/No taste/No shirt/'N shitfaced." The two... Rating: 3.5 Stars
The Replacements - Tim
Artist: The Replacements Review: Released in 1985, Tim caught a great American garage band stretching out, working Big Star pop and Fifties-style rock into a mix of punky abandon and regular-dude romanticism. This version — reissued along with three other 'Mats albums, none of which is quite as tuneful as Tim — brightens the sound and adds six bonus cuts, including a bare-bones version of "Here Comes a Regular," Paul Westerberg's moving acoustic ballad about directionless barflies. Rarely did Westerberg write so... Rating: 4 Stars
Republika
Historia zespołu przerwana w połowie drogi przez śmierć wokalisty, bez którego nie byłoby grupy. Jednak właśnie to smutne wydarzenie podkreśliło mocno legendę zespołu zbudowaną m.in. jednym z występów na festiwalu w Jarocinie....
Adele
Młoda, zdolna i atrakcyjna, nie tylko muzycznie. O kim mowa? Nie o Amy Winehouse ani o Amy MacDonald, ale o Adele....
Weezer, The Red Album
The Red Album is quintessentially theirs, but with a somewhat misguided twist
Roy Orbison - The Soul of Rock and Roll
Artist: Roy Orbison Review: Roy Orbison was a superhero of song. Unassuming in appearance, he became someone extraordinary when his weeping tenor took flight, rising from deep, dark places on anguished ballads like "Only the Lonely" and "Crying." Orbison rebuilt the stark balladry of Elvis Presley's "Heartbreak Hotel" as a jukebox opera house, expanded rock's arrangement limitations, and opened a door to Phil Spector and Freddie Mercury alike. This 107-track box captures Orbison's Fifties rockabilly beginnings on its first... Rating: 5 Stars
L.Stadt
Łódzki kwartet powstały w Strasburgu z połączenia pasji z solidnym wykształceniem muzycznym, kultywujący wymierającą tradycję wydawania EP-ek i posiadający w swoim składzie dwóch perkusistów. Nic dziwnego, że nazywany jest nadzieją polskiej muzyki. ...
Sun Kil Moon - April
Artist: Sun Kil Moon Review: Sun Kil Moon?s Mark Kozelek is not a man to be rushed. April, like many of his solo albums, is full of sad, quiet songs that move as slowly as molasses in outer space. The pace can be a problem, but the music is long on understated beauty: ?Harper Road? sets Kozelek?s stoned croon over mellow guitar-picking, evoking a hazier version of Neil Young?s After the Gold Rush. Still, with electric rave-downs such as ?The Light,? it?s clear the best moments come when this sensitive dude plugs in. Rating: 3 Stars
Linkin Park snags Cornell, Bravery for tour (Reuters)
Reuters - Linkin Park, Chris Cornell and
the Bravery will perform on the main stage of the fifth annual
Projekt Revolution tour, set to begin July 16 at the Tweeter
Center outside Boston.
David Archuleta - David Archuleta
Artist: David Archuleta Review: On he most recent season of American Idol, David Archuleta was a golden-voiced koala, too sweet to be sexy. His debut is similarly flavorless: Beautifully sung but snoozy tunes like "My Hands" never achieve takeoff, and his chaste voice is a poor match for lovey-dovey lyrics. He only sounds like he's having a blast on "Don't Let Go," co-written with JC Chasez, which digs into an edgier melody and trades vocal gymnastics for pure power. At least the disc ends with a reminder of how Archuleta got... Rating: 2.5 Stars
George Strait - Troubadour
Artist: George Strait Review: Like a bottle of Heinz ketchup on a diner counter, a George Strait album is a reassuring product. At fifty-five, dude's spent his life making fairly low-bullshit, high-yield mainstream country: Since 1981's Strait Country, his LPs have gone platinum or better thirty-two times, and the four-CD anthology Strait Out of the Box has shifted 8 million units. That's a lot of Resistol cowboy hats, pardner (although thanks to his endorsement deal, Strait no doubt gets 'em free). Troubadour is... Rating: 3 Stars
dEUS, Vantage Point
This might even be the thin edge of the wedge that heralds the return of prog rock.