Sunny Sweeney

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2011 ISSUE MMUSICMAG.COM REVIEWS HOLE SNobody’sUNNY SWEENEY Daughter [Universal] Concrete [Big Machine] The first album released under the Hole moniker since 1998’s Celebrity Skin is really frontwoman Courtney Love’sSmart storytelling songs with compelling melodies and rootsy but not second solo album—co-founder, songwriter and lead guitaristanachronistic settings; dashes of wit amid adult settings involving cheaters and Eric Erlandson isn’t involved,leavers and stayers. Singing that’s pitch-true without having been Auto-Tuned nor is any other previous Hole member. So it’s Love andinto three submission. Ah, so it must be Americana, yes? No, Sunny Sweeney’s ringers on 11 new songs—10 of which Love wroteConcrete with is a genuine contemporary country contender, released on a major collaborators like Billy Corgan, Linda Perry and new guitarist Micko Larkin. (Perrylabel gets and full already credit on sportingone tune, a Top 10 country hit in “From a Table Away.” If we want “Letter to God.”) Much of the riveting intensityto go with of the hope group’s over 1990s cynicism, we could consider the Texas-reared Sweeney heyday appears to have left along with her former Daniel Jackson part of a refreshing mini-movement that’s cutting through the radio schlock: 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 suchConcrete devastating stands effect asback a worthyin the day. colleague they were to showcases Miranda Lambert’sfor harrowing Revolution displays of naked, Jamey emotion, She spits out her vocals with vengeful disdain on “Skinny Little Love sounds more dispassionate these days. The production Bitch,” overdriven guitarsJohnson’s roiling atop Thean elastic Guitar bassline Song that and doesn’t other help—the recent songs works have of an vibrant airless, sanded-down country neo- 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 andrealism. attitude Highlights on the more contemplative include “The history Old Me,” suggests a grinning that she studyhas a compelling of internal story conflict, to 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 alongand behind the her.poignant “Amy,” in which—inDaughter a 180-degree. –Eric R. Danton turn on modern, soccer- mom country—the other woman confronts a betrayed wife. –Peter Cooper 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 “Concreteseamless harmonies arestands welcome as always, as anda herworthy one turn on colleague 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 todemonstrates Miranda that, whether Lambert’s with their fellow Dixie ChickRevolution or without, , Jamey 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 Johnson’s The Guitar ForSong a dozen years,and the other[Mercer Street/Downtown] recentTijuana 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 works WAINWRIGHTof vibrant countrybusier and his sometimes neo-realism.” 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 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2011 M MUSIC & MUSICIANS MAGAZINE M3_v10.indd 70 5/14/10 3:37 AM.

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