The Good …
The Broken Side of Time, the debut full length album from Alberta Cross, was the lovechild of a long affair with 60s and 70s music. And if you heard one of their songs on the radio you may well imagine that you were listening to an early 70s rock band. It’s difficult for a band who write in this vein to stand out from the crowd, and to silence the kind of critics who say that their music is unoriginal. You would think that having a lead singer (Petter Ericson Stakee) who was brought up in Sweden and England singing in a southern rock style would make it even more difficult. But somehow they pull it off.
There are several great tracks on the album, and I don’t use the word ‘great’ lightly : check out Song Three Blues, Rise From the Shadows and the achingly emotive closing track Ghost of City Life. These songs draw you in with their slightly slower rhythms, with the variations of mood and ranges of emotion, and by Stakee’s beautiful voice which is used to best effect on the slower songs. Live audiences love their bluesy rock sound and the audiences are getting larger and larger : recently they sold out L.A.’s Troubadour, and at Santa Barbara the venue was so packed that they played two separate sets for two different crowds. Catch them now while you still can.
Buy The Broken Side of Time on Amazon
The Bad …
Him ? Couldn’t they have come up with a better band name ? At least it’s better than their original name, the corny His Infernal Majesty. The Finnish rockers new album does though have the pretentious title Screamworks: Love In Theory And Practice. The theme of the album is heartbreak, but although frontman Ville Valo has had his share of experiences of broken relationships the songs have a generic feeling to them. Yes there is some anguish and rage there, but that’s a mantle which it’s easy for him to take on, and it would have been good to see him tackle songs that were more specific and personal.
Screamworks is the band’s 7th album. Their work is new to me, but having listened now to a few of their previous songs it seems that what they do best is a kind of goth rock. On Screamworks they’ve adopted a more Americanised 1980s style melodramatic power rock, and the result is pretty dull listening. The strong guitar riffs and big choruses are still there but overall the music is tired and outdated and the songs all sound a bit the same. If I had to pick a best track it would probably be the opener In Venere Veritas.
There is a special edition of the album which includes a second CD with acoustic versions of the songs. Going unplugged may have worked for Nirvana, but when Him strip down their songs it doesn’t leave much to savour. Avoid.
And the Outlandish …
With our outlandish videos we like to celebrate some of those artists who’ve taken risks and done something different or unexpected. It’s not so often that you see a hip hop video with no rappers in it, but in this video put out by the Oakland based crew Souls of Mischief we see the artist Steven Lopez painting what was to become the cover of their latest album Montezuma’s Revenge.
Lopez who recorded the video himself has made a number of other similar videos : you can check them out on his vimeo page. For a glimpse of his wider work, here’s his website. Souls of Mischief have been making brilliant alternative hip hop recordings since 1993 : they’re part of the loose underground hip-hop collective Hieroglyphics.
