'The Danish Duo Set Aside the Surf-Rock Kitsch and Revisit Their Darker
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MAY 2011 ISSUE MMUSICMAG.COM REVIEWS HOLE TNobody’sHE RAVEONETTES Daughter [Universal] Raven in the Grave [Vice] The first album released under the Hole moniker since 1998’s Celebrity Skin is really frontwoman Courtney Love’sIn 2008, garage-rock revivalists the Raveonettes got their hands on some second solo album—co-founder, songwriter and lead guitaristsynths and recorded two uncharacteristic EPs, Beauty Dies and Sometimes Eric Erlandson isn’t involved,They Drop By. The Danish duo still drew from ’50s and ’60s rock, but nor is any other previous Hole member. So it’s Love andrather three than stomping on distortion pedals they summoned the woozy-cool ringers on 11 new songs—10 of which Love wrotetextures with of ’80s dream-pop and David Lynch film scores. They followed collaborators like Billy Corgan, Linda Perry and new guitarist Micko Larkin. (Perrythose gets samplersfull credit on onewith tune, 2009’s bubblegum palette-cleanser In and Out of “Letter to God.”) Much of the riveting intensityControl of, thebut group’s on their 1990s fifth album, Sharin Foo and Sune Rose Wagner set heyday appears to have left along with her former Daniel Jackson aside the surf-rock kitsch and revisit their darker, more electronic impulses. 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 suchThey devastating contemplate effect back the in afterlifethe day. onthey “War were showcases in Heaven,” for harrowing while “Summerdisplays of naked Moon” emotion, She spits out her vocals with vengeful disdain on “Skinny Little Love sounds more dispassionate these days. The production Bitch,” overdriven guitarsand roiling “My atop Time’s an elastic Up” bassline offer thatvariations doesn’t on help—the the theme songs have from an Twinairless, Peakssanded-down—a tune feel 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 andtheir attitude slower on the songs more contemplative tend to reference. history suggestsFoo has that called she hasthis a acompelling wintry album, story to and tell, 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 guitars chug alongrightly behind so—but her. the late-disc mood-breakerDaughter. –Eric “Ignite” R. Danton find the Raves sunny and hopeful, imagining a love that sets their hearts aflame. –Kenneth Partridge 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‘The she stepped Danish to the mic more often.duo Court Yardset Hounds aside ably the 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 surf-rock kitsch Forand a dozen years,revisit the [Mercer Street/Downtown]their 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 WAINWRIGHT busier and his sometimes on their latest, Fire Away, include “Are You Ready?,” a horn-and- darker, more electronicnaughty, occasionally impulses.’ percussion-driven blast of salsa-fl avored ska; “Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah,” All Days Are Nights: Songs 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 MAY 2011 M MUSIC & MUSICIANS MAGAZINE M3_v10.indd 70 5/14/10 3:37 AM.