SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2011 ISSUE MMUSICMAG.COM REVIEWS HOLE WNobody’sILCO Daughter [Universal] [dBpm/ANTI] The first released under the Hole moniker since 1998’s Celebrity Skin is really frontwoman Courtney Love’sAlthough its first seven minutes and last 12 minutes help to make The second solo album—co-founder, songwriter and lead guitaristWhole Love ’s boldest record since 2001’s landmark Yankee Hotel Eric Erlandson isn’t involved,Foxtrot , those opening and closing marathons are also familiar reminders nor is any other previous Hole member. So it’s Love andof three leader ’s wide emotional range. Amid the gloom of the ringers on 11 new songs—10 of which Love wroteopening with “Art of Almost,” Tweedy is the dark-clothed loner with his head collaborators like Billy Corgan, Linda Perry and new guitarist Micko Larkin. (Perrydown. gets fullYet credit he’s on the one tune,same man who, on the closing “One Sunday Morning “Letter to God.”) Much of the riveting intensity(Song of for the Janegroup’s Smiley’s 1990s Boyfriend),” can shut his eyes and achieve a heyday appears to have left along with her former Daniel Jackson bandmates, but there areseemingly fl ashes here cosmic of the snarling father-son connectionToo often, though, straight the slower out of songs Terrence trip her up.Malick’s While once fury Love deployed to suchfilm devastating The Tree effect of backLife in. Inthe between,day. they were Tweedy’s showcases occasionally for harrowing displays puzzling of naked lyrics emotion, She spits out her vocals with vengeful disdain on “Skinny Little Love sounds more dispassionate these days. The production Bitch,” overdriven guitarsmake roiling hisatop intentionsan elastic bassline unclear—but that doesn’t drummer help—the songs Glenn have Kotchean airless, sanded-downis always feelon that speeds up as the song races toward a climatic pile-up at the doesn’t fi t with her visceral persona. Courtney Love’s tumultuous end. She shifts tempos andhand attitude to ondraw the more us intocontemplative everything history from suggests the chaosthat she ofhas “Born a compelling Alone” story to to thetell, and “Pacifi c Coast Highway,” taking stock as layers of acoustic and perhaps she does. It’s just not the one she’s telling on Nobody’s electric chug alongjangly behind pop her. of “Dawned on Me.”Daughter No .such –Eric R. assistance Danton is needed on the title song, which features Tweedy at his most joyful and direct. –DS COURT YARD HOUNDS A side project of new offering suggested that its creator was a few strides closer to Dixie Chicks’ Martie crafting something truly monumental in both musical and social terms. Court Yard Hounds Maguire and Emily This cold and private set isn’t it, although that’s probably due more to [Columbia] Robison, Court Yard personal circumstances than anything related to talent. Wainwright Hounds delivers wrote All Days Are Nights while his mother, Kate McGarrigle, was much-anticipated dying of cancer, and there is a quiet, complex sadness even in its insight—both musical and personal—into the sisters who have less autobiographical material. There’s nothing here except for so long ceded center stage to Chicks singer Natalie Maines. and vocal, and Wainwright doesn’t project his words in the way Though steeped in familiar instrumentation, the album offers little we’ve come to expect from him. Instead of serenading the person of the barn-burning brashness that made the Chicks famous (save in the farthest corner of a packed theater, he’s singing to himself in perhaps the gutsy “Ain’t No Son”). Instead, its delicate folk-pop an otherwise empty room. –David Styburski prettiness perfectly suits Robison’s more-than-capable voice and the jumble of emotions, sunny and melancholy, that emerge in a song Ozomatli’s music has been called a collision cycle inspired by her 2008 divorce. Maguire’s weeping fi ddle and OZOMATLI of styles, a cultural mash-up, and a 20-car seamless harmonies are welcome as always, and her one turn on pileup of genres. It’s also some of the most lead“Wilco’s vocals (“Gracefully”) isboldest so warmly affecting that record listeners may since joyfully energetic music you’ll ever hear. On wish she stepped to the mic more often. Court Yard Hounds ably its fi fth album, the L.A.-based band stirs its demonstrates that, whether with their fellow Dixie Chick or without, blend of salsa, ska, samba, funk, and hip-hop these ladies’ talent runs deep. –Katie Dodd in ways few groups could conceive. Imagine .Fire Away” tossing the English Beat, Herb Alpert and the For a dozen years, the [Mercer Street/Downtown] Tijuana Brass, Caetano Veloso, and Sly and RUFUS on Rufus the Family Stone into a magical blender and Wainwright’s got you get some sense of Ozomatli’s eclectic approach. High points WAINWRIGHT busier and his sometimes on their latest, Fire Away, include “Are You Ready?,” a horn-and- All Days Are Nights: Songs naughty, occasionally percussion-driven blast of salsa-fl avored ska; “Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah,” for Lulu angry declarations of gay an exultant Latin pop anthem fi tted with shrieking sax; and “Gay Vatos [Decca] pride got louder. Each in Love,” a rockabilly-tinged tune with a soaring chorus. Even when

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