]> http://www.artistdirect.com/nad/editorial/albumreviews/0,,,00.html Most Recent Album Reviews on ARTISTdirect 86400 Tue, 06 Jan 2009 07:22:45 PST en-us http://www.artistdirect.com/nad/store/artist/album/0,,4791615,00.html Elvis Presley Christmas Duets is the ultimate mash-up release. Here, the King's renditions of "Blue Christmas," arguably his most famous holiday jingle, "Here Comes Santa Claus," "Silent Night," "White Christmas," "Merry Christmas Baby" and "O Come All Ye Faitherful" are essentially digitally engineered duets where his sultry croon is spliced with modern country starlets, like Martina McBride, Carrie Underwood, LeAnn Rimes, Sara Evans, Amy Grant and Gretchen Wilson. Hell, even Olivia Newton-John shows up for a song. It's like a harem of female singers engage in a little sing-song with the King, and why the hell not? He's Elvis Presley for God's sake. Who wouldn't jump at the chance to have their voice synched up with his, even if it is accomplished through state-of-the-art technology and studio trickery? The wonders of digital enhancement have allowed this collection of cheery carols to exist seamlessly. Despite the fact that Elvis was performing in a different era, with much Tue, 06 Jan 2009 07:22:45 PST 4913219 Album Review http://www.artistdirect.com/nad/store/movies/title/0,,4804887,00.html By now, it should be no surprise that Bob Saget's stand up, comedic dark side is at odds with his clean-cut, wholesome, goody two shoes television persona. His roles as nice guy, widowed dad of three on Full House and as host of America's Funniest Home Videos are merely a veneer for a man who thrives on his X-rated jokes. This no-holds-barred roast, Comedy Central Roast of Bob Saget, throws Saget and his cohorts from the frying pan into the blazing hot fire with vicious barbs. While roasts were wildly popular in the golden age of comedy gone by, when comedians such as Foster Brooks and performers like Dean Martin were partaking in the act of ripping their celeb pals to shreds, the spirit of cut-down comedy lives on via this roast. The jokes work because they play on the comics and pop culture figures we know, love and don't mind seeing skewered. Pretty boy roastmaster John Stamos does a shockingly fantastic job tearing apart his former co-star, popping off-color, blue and Tue, 06 Jan 2009 07:08:09 PST 4913218 Album Review http://www.artistdirect.com/nad/store/artist/album/0,,4818490,00.html Ladyhawke's pedestrian dance music makes it really difficult to focus on the fact that there are some really interesting things happening lyrically on her full-length, self-titled debut. "Manipulating Woman" begins, "Better not try to get inside my head / you'll find a nightmare waiting." Okay, okay, maybe not a revolutionary lyric, but interesting when you consider that singer Phillipa Brown lives with Asperger's Syndrome, related to autism spectrum disorder. Unfortunately, an interesting back-story can only take you so far–just ask music critics around the world about Chinese Democracy. Once the listener knows about Brown's Asperger's, it's hard not to read every lyric as a reference back to it, but ultimately that doesn't help the album recover from how musically bland it is. Blips and bleeps meander about steady, repetitive drumming, while long drones of synthesizers hide in the background. Brown’s career is certainly impressive, but this debut doesn't lend the future of Mon, 05 Jan 2009 13:43:18 PST 4913140 Album Review http://www.artistdirect.com/nad/store/movies/title/0,,4673395,00.html Twenty-six rabid dogs tear through the streets, foaming at the mouth, seeking their target: a middle-aged man with glasses. He wakes with their barks, walks to his balcony and stares down into their flaming eyes. He has this dream each and every night and has, ostensibly, ever since the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon. His recounting of this dream over a few drinks is where Waltz With Bashir, Ari Folman’s beautiful new animated documentary, begins. The film is centered on Folman's quest for the moments, the rather large chunks of time, that he has forgotten since his tour of duty 25 years ago. The film is a self-propelled search for truth in the shadow of war—a powerhouse of self-reflection through which the audience may encounter some provocative ideas relevant to their own lives. After all, Waltz With Bashir is a film that obsesses in its exploration of the most malleable human tool: memory. In his utilization of animation, Folman is able to transmute what would have been a Mon, 05 Jan 2009 07:11:38 PST 4912081 Album Review http://www.artistdirect.com/nad/store/artist/album/0,,4770977,00.html In a break from the way things generally go with these remix albums, Verve Remixed Christmas's interpretations that stray far from the source material and the more faithful re-workings are on even ground here. Production duo Yesking gives Billie Holliday's "I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm" a dubby Jamaican twist, and Brazilian Girls fuses samba grooves into Dinah Washington's more staid version of "Silent Night" (though Washington's vocals barely figure into the mix). Producer Oh No works "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" into a looming, portentous hip-hop track. It's not surprise that it's so creative and so successful; Oh No's the son of '70s soul singer Otis Jackson and the brother of Madlib. It's not all holiday cheer, though; The Orb's remix of Louis Armstrong's "What A Wonderful World" falls flat. It doesn't even matter that this isn't a Christmas tune—the whole enterprise feels arbitrary and trite, with Armstrong's vocals moved into the background and electronic flourishes Mon, 05 Jan 2009 06:43:50 PST 4912079 Album Review http://www.artistdirect.com/nad/store/artist/album/0,,4855243,00.html Chicago six-piece Anathallo holds back no punches on Canopy Glow, its second full-length album. Like 2006's Floating World, the album skips between quieter moments and larger musical proclamations, as literate in pop gorgeousness as the New Pornographers are. Guitarist/pianist Matt Joynt and Autoharp player Erica Froman are Anathallo's primary vocalists, but there are moments when the whole band comes in and sings, and the choral harmonies hit like some sort of ebullient, angelic marching band. Unlike some bands who pack on the instruments to obscure a lack of songwriting chops, Anathallo only unleashes its biggest sounds when necessary. It's tasteful overindulgence, and the entire album's united by solid lyricism and a thematic current of life and of death. "We saw the sky, swarming full with the light that the fireflies made," sings Joynt on opener "Noni's Field," "An accidental constellation/ You, how will you go?/ Out through your mouth in a sigh?" Anathallo relies on sturdy Mon, 05 Jan 2009 06:34:14 PST 4912078 Album Review http://www.artistdirect.com/nad/store/artist/album/0,,4795010,00.html Capitalizing on the recent spate of female singer-songwriters to make a strong mark in the popular consciousness, modest Los Angeles venue The Hotel Café has assembled an impressive assortment of wintry, chilly tunes well-suited for the holiday season, and beyond, many from singers who've honed their skills at the club. Sara Bareilles and Ingrid Michaelson open the album with the sweet duet "Winter Song," a delicate acoustic number that pairs a keening violin with the ladies' harmonized vocals asking "Is love alive?" The answer is a resounding, "Yes." Brandi Carlile's "The Heartache Can Wait" is a real winner, proving that a few sleighbells here and there can add the right amount of melancholy and seasonal pathos. It's another of the compilation's original songs. It's not all hushed voices and acoustic instruments on Winter Songs; KT Tunstall takes a lively if predictable turn with "Sleigh Ride." Her slight English accent offers at least an interesting twist to the classic Sun, 04 Jan 2009 19:23:11 PST 4912060 Album Review http://www.artistdirect.com/nad/store/artist/album/0,,4819015,00.html Damien Rice's breakthrough album O got a lot of attention for its fragile, folky love songs and its creator's easily enchanting vocals, but that album's secret weapon came courtesy of Irish singer Lisa Hannigan, whose mellow backing vocals elevated O. Her light lilt lifted his melodramatically moody phrasings, and Hannigan's debut album Sea Sew serves the same purpose: delivering upbeat, playful melodies and an overall breezy tone. It seems like lately a number of UK artists have been diving into the folk crates and resurrecting the traditional sounds of acts like Kate and Anna McGarrigle, and Hannigan does that, sure. However, Hannigan rounds out the arrangements with trumpets, violins, cello and piano. "I Don't Know" is a subtle song, and one of the less assuming on the album, but it's one of Sea Sew's stronger numbers; its arrangements are a little more creative than the rest of the album's, its lyrics a little more engaging. There's not much to the idea of desire, and there Sun, 04 Jan 2009 19:22:05 PST 4912059 Album Review http://www.artistdirect.com/nad/store/artist/album/0,,241168,00.html Brighten the Corners: Nicene Creedence Edition is the fourth Matador reissue of Pavement's five classic albums, and in addition to the original (remastered to slightly noticeable levels), a second disc boasts 32 extra mostly unreleased tracks. Though Brighten the Corners doesn't boast Pavement's highest points, it also doesn't have to be ashamed of the band's lowest, either, and is one of the group's more consistent outings. That can be a good or a bad thing, depending on where on the endearing/aggravating scale you place Wowee Zowee's sloppy extremes. R.E.M. producer Mitch Easter and Bryce Goggin worked the album, a neat pairing with the band's refined, melodically focused tunes. (And perhaps Easter's drawn to overanalyzed lyricists.) Brighten the Corners extends some of the country and classic-rock ideas Pavement played with on Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, but gives them a more abstract sheen. The anthemic "Stereo" comes across as a glorious singalong, though one which is also Sun, 04 Jan 2009 19:21:04 PST 4912058 Album Review http://www.artistdirect.com/nad/store/artist/album/0,,4856355,00.html Musicians love to use the iTunes "Genre" field as a chance to make a joke, so whenever a contemporary artist's album comes up as "Classical," it's natural to arch an eyebrow. But the description isn't so out of place for Austrian electronic artist Christian Fennesz. Black Sea finds Fennesz building his minimalist symphonies out of guitars and computers, spliced with glitchy blasts of static. At times so minimalist that it threatens to recede altogether, Black Sea tests and rewards a listener's patience. "Glide," one of the album's most moving tracks, is an instructive example, starting and lingering in relative silence. An almost ominous hum begins rising along with a gathering storm of white noise–and the faintest of melodies fighting underneath until, about five minutes in, it explodes into full bloom. Grand and cinematic in vision, "Glide"–like Black Sea–could easily be passed over by restless listeners; it's more about mood than melody, and when it's taken off the speakers, Wed, 31 Dec 2008 09:31:48 PST 4911860 Album Review