DECEMBER 2010 ISSUE MMUSICMAG.COM REVIEWS HOLE YNobody’sNGWIE MALMSTEEN Daughter [Universal] Relentless [Rising Force] The first album released under the Hole moniker since 1998’s Celebrity Skin is Ifreally guitarists were paid by the note, Yngwie Malmsteen would be a frontwoman Courtney Love’s second solo album—co-founder,gazillionaire. For 30 years the Swedish six-stringer has shredded with songwriter and lead guitarist Eric Erlandson isn’t involved,a scorched-earth vengeance, delivering flying-fingered arpeggios and nor is any other previous Hole member. So it’s Love andwhammy three bar acrobatics that at times defy credulity. By that measure, his ringers on 11 new songs—10 of which Love wrotelatest with album ranks among his best. Framed by pile-driving percussion, collaborators like Billy Corgan,medieval Linda choral Perry flourishesand new and portentous lyrical themes, Malmsteen delivers guitarist Micko Larkin. (Perry gets full credit on one tune, “Letter to God.”) his razzle-dazzle riffs with textbook virtuosity. Sporting song titles that Much of the riveting intensity of the group’s 1990s heyday appears to havesound left along like with Spinal her former Tap-inspired Daniel Jackson howlers (“Into Valhalla,” “Arpeggios from 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 suchHell”), devastating the disc effect nonethelessback in the day. earnsthey were its showcases badge forof harrowingmetal-drama displays ofpretense. naked emotion, She spits out her vocals with vengeful disdain on “Skinny Little Love sounds more dispassionate these days. The production Bitch,” overdriven guitarsKey roiling is atopformer an elastic Judas bassline Priest that frontman doesn’t help—theTim “Ripper” songs have Owens, an airless, whose sanded-down vocals 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 andgrace attitude roughly on the more half contemplative the songs historyand whosuggests may that be she the has aonly compelling singer story around to tell, and “Pacifi c Coast Highway,”who taking can stock stand as layers toe of acoustic to toe and with perhaps Malmsteen’s she does. It’ssix-string just not the maelstroms. one she’s telling onSome Nobody’s electric guitars chug along behind her. Daughter. –Eric R. Danton dismiss Malmsteen’s pedal-to-metal pyrotechnics as soulless and sterile, COURT YARD HOUNDS A side project of new offering suggested that its creator was a few strides closer to but he continuesDixie toChicks’ find Martie new permutationscrafting something trulywithin monumental the narrowest in both musical of and stylistic social terms. Court Yard Hounds Maguire and Emily This cold and private set isn’t it, although that’s probably due more to [Columbia] parameters. Robison,Call him Court the Yard Chuck personal Berry circumstances of neo-classical than anything related metal. to talent. –RHWainwright 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 demonstrates‘Call that,him whether withthe their fellow Chuck Dixie Chick or without, Berry of 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 neo-classicalRUFUS arrangements metal.’ 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- 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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