ISSUE #24 MMUSICMAG.COM REVIEWS HOLE CNobody’sHIEF KEEF Daughter [Universal] Finally Rich [Interscope] The first album released under the Hole moniker since 1998’s Celebrity Skin is really frontwoman Courtney Love’sTaken out of context, the songs on Chief Keef’s big-league debut aren’t terribly second solo album—co-founder,remarkable. The Chicago rapper slurs his way through slang-heavy lines about songwriter and lead guitarist Eric Erlandson isn’t involved,liquor, drugs, money, guns, jewelry, foreign cars and occasionally the validation nor is any other previous Hole member. So it’s Love andand three security that come with success. He’s blunt and boastful, an unrepentant ringers on 11 new songs—10 of which Love wrotegangsta with who found internet fame while under house arrest. The interesting collaborators like Billy Corgan,thing: KeefLinda isPerry just and 17. new His youth is a detriment and a boon, and while he lacks guitarist Micko Larkin. (Perry gets full credit on one tune, “Letter to God.”) cleverness and flow he brings the raw honesty of an American teenager falling Much of the riveting intensity of the group’s 1990s heyday appears to havethrough left along the with cracks her former yet enjoyingDaniel Jackson the ride. The music is an afterthought, but bandmates, but there are fl ashes here of the snarling Too often, though, the slower songs trip her up. While once fury Love deployed to suchwhen devastating Keef breaks effect back from in theproducer day. they Young were showcases Chop’s anxiousfor harrowing fidgeting displays ofand naked gets emotion, a She spits out her vocals beatwith vengeful from, say, disdain Mike on “SkinnyWiLL MadeIt,Little Love he soundsshows more his inherentdispassionate musicality, these days. suggesting The production Bitch,” overdriven guitars roiling atop an elastic bassline that doesn’t help—the songs have an airless, sanded-down feel that speeds up as the song hisraces fame toward isn’t a climatic a fluke, pile-up and at that the thisdoesn’t promising fi t with her debutvisceral persona.may lead Courtney to bigger Love’s things. tumultuous end. She shifts tempos and attitude on the more contemplative history suggests that she has a compelling story to tell, and “Pacifi c Coast Highway,”–Kenneth taking stock asPartridge layers of acoustic and perhaps she does. It’s just not the one she’s telling on Nobody’s electric guitars chug along behind her. Daughter. –Eric R. Danton

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 piano 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 vocals (“Gracefully”) is so warmly affecting that listeners may 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 ‘Keefdemonstrates shows that, whetherhis withinherent their fellow Dixie musicality, Chick or without, suggestingblend 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 his fame isn’t a fluke,For and a dozen that years, thethis [Mercer promising Street/Downtown] Tijuana Brass, Caetano Veloso, and Sly and RUFUS arrangements on Rufus the Family Stone into a magical blender and Wainwright’s albums got you get some sense of Ozomatli’s eclectic approach. High points debutWAINWRIGHT may leadbusier to andbigger his sometimes things.’ 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

70 MAY 2010 ISSUE #24 M MUSIC & MUSICIANS MAGAZINE

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