No suspenseful build-up to the final result: Snakes & Arrows is Rush’s best album in a very long time.
The Canadian power trio’s 18th full studio album harkens back to the early days when guitar (Alex Lifeson), bass (Geddy Lee) and drums (Neil Peart) were the only sounds heard. Yes, there are some keyboards mixed in, but not as much. The troika sounds refreshed and energized here. The album is bookended by the band’s two most rocking songs: first single (and best work in a while) “Far Cry” and “We Hold On.” In between, there are several mid-tempo numbers focused on life’s ups and downs. Standouts include “Armor and Sword” and “Workin’ Them Angels.” Even the three instrumentals stand out. All three members’ instrumentation is heavy, yet sharp and purposeful. Rush is still around to haunt those who don’t get them, and Snakes & Arrows is more than enough to make any fan rock out for joy.
Starting big, building even larger and erupting into jam-drenched peak after peak, Rhythms from a
Cosmic Sky commands your attention from the very start and never lets up. Torridly fueled by guitarist Isaiah Mitchell’s fierce, raw approach and ear-ringing amplitude, Earthless explodes, one spectacular trek after another. His psychedelic and aggressive riffs are otherworldly, as this trio’s rather hard-edged sound beams with a stripped-down, live excitement that feels more like an impromptu jam session than a studio effort.With the exception of “Cherry Red”— which clocking in at under five minutes, shows Earthless can write songs and not only 20- minute jams, this is a strictly instrumental journey which sounds something like a geeked-up interpretation of vintage Sabbath. And oh what a trip it is.
With The Mix-Up, The Beastie Boys pull off a musical jack move that is modest as it is dope: they have made the album they were probably always looking for. An all-instrumental sequel to 1996’s pleasing-as-pie The In Sound From Way Out compilation, The Mix-Up reverse engineers the mythical world the now 40-something Beastie Men imagined and fetishized during their crate-digging youth: a fantasy genre combining deep organ jazz, deeper dub pockets, analog electronics explosions and enough breaks to seed generations of hepcat pastiche-laden hip-hop (if hepcats were allowed to sample the Beastie Boys, that is). While there is no shortage of bands jamming throwback soul-funk, many tend towards overthunk jazz geekdom. Though the Beasties have grown more proficient on their instruments since their days as a punk trio, there is still something of the old egg-raiding spirit in every groove. On “Dramastically Different,” a melody (on what sounds like synthesized sitar) naively recalls Sly Stone’s “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin),” more a casually graffitied reference than a sample. On “Suco De Tangerina,” the band uses a variety of strategies: slathered layers of delay referencing Jamaican versioning sessions, a distorted and shimmying organ melody siphoned from an Afro-beat side, and guitar and Rhodes fills that mimic that decay of the initial reverb. Phrases are imprecise, and the echo straight up. But what makes the material fresh isn’t sloppiness or even simplicity so much that every move sounds like a real-time creative decision made by a band writing and recording collaboratively. Rough edges notwithstanding, the band’s efficient arrangements are striking and mature. With “Electric Worm,” guitarist Adam Horowitz even manages to make a wah-wah pedal sound subtle. Longtime auxillary keyboardist Money Mark contributes impeccably throughout, from oscillating Hammond on “The Rat Cage” to watery noisescaping on “The Gala Event.” Like any artist returning to their roots, The Mix-Up both closes a circle and opens up as broadly as one can imagine. Neither chill-out LP nor raucous party fave, The Mix-Up is serene in its own existence: the eternal, transcendent sound of the utterly hip. Hot damn, that’s groovy.
Live at Massey Hall 1971 is the yang to the yin of last year’s Live at the Fillmore East. Where that 1970 Crazy Horse-accompanied show, the first release in Neil Young’s long-delayed Archives series, focused on his blistering electric side, the Massey Hall set spotlights the loner. Splitting his time between acoustic guitar and piano, the solo Young is at his most intimate for the Toronto audience, during one of the most creative spurts of his career. Even “Cowgirl in the Sand” and “Down by the River,” two of the crunchiest tracks on that first album with Crazy Horse, are laid bare here.
Listening now to these vintage performances of “Ohio,” “Helpless” and “Old Man” (the latter introduced as “a song about my ranch—I have a ranch now, lucky me”), so ingrained in classic-rock culture, it’s often difficult to reconcile that most of these songs, so fully formed, were still new, that some had not yet been recorded for albums. Two, “Don’t Let It Bring You Down” and “Tell Me Why,” had appeared on 1970’s After the Gold Rush, but five songs, including the harrowing “The Needle and the Damage Done,” would not be released until ’72’s Harvest, and others wouldn’t show up for anther year or two after that. Already, they felt like classics.
Pristinely recorded, Massey Hall presents a young Young, simultaneously upbeat and fragile, restlessly seeking, but already world-weary. In a recent interview, Bob Dylan praised Young’s omnipresent melodic gift and said, “There’s nobody in his category.” Even as far back as 1971, that was apparent.
The members of ALO have been playing together for well over a decade, but it’s really only in the past few years that the rising Bay Area stars have truly hit their stride. Since forming in high school, the group has fashioned itself a horn-laced funk band, a trance-infused dance band, and a SoCal college party band. But, as Roses & Clover quickly proves, ALO’s true calling is writing the same sort of breezy, organic pop music that catapulted their college classmate and current label president, Jack Johnson, to fame. And, if the group’s Brushfire debut, Fly Between Falls, introduced the new ALO, Roses & Clover perfects its latest persona, thanks to choice tracks such as the Hawaiian-like “Plastic Bubble” and the Marvin Gaye-influenced “Shine.” The group hints at its past too, spicing up cuts like “Monday” with electronica teases which will no doubt be stretched out onstage. And, like Fly Between Falls, if Roses & Clover doesn’t turn ALO into a national attraction, it will certainly help a handful of college kids get laid along the way.
