'An Off-Kilter Collection of Woozy Serenades, Barroom Blues And

NOVEMBER 2011 ISSUE MMUSICMAG.COM REVIEWS HOLE RNobody’sEID PALEY Daughter AND BLACK FRANCIS [Universal] Paley & Francis [Sonic Unyon Records] The first album released under the Hole moniker since 1998’s Celebrity Skin is really frontwoman Courtney Love’s“I’ll bring down my foot on your daisy chain/I’ll have a drink from your jugular second solo album—co-founder,vein…” Given Black Francis’ reputation as a dark character, those lyrical songwriter and lead guitarist Eric Erlandson isn’t involved,musings from opening entry “Curse” would seem to affirm his ability to nor is any other previous Hole member. So it’s Love andshock three the heck out of his listeners. Joining forces with frequent collaborator ringers on 11 new songs—10 of which Love wroteReid with Paley, the former Frank Black (born Charles Thompson) offers up an collaborators like Billy Corgan,off-kilter Linda collection Perry and of new woozy serenades, barroom blues and rousing revelry. guitarist Micko Larkin. (Perry gets full credit on one tune, “Letter to God.”) Paley proves a game collaborator—he and Francis wrote these songs in three Much of the riveting intensity of the group’s 1990s heyday appears to havedays left andalong enlisted with her formerveteran producerDaniel Jackson Jon Tiven, ace bassist David Hood and 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 suchpiano devastating legend effect Spooner back in Oldhamthe day. tothey fill were in theshowcases stripped-down for harrowing arrangements. displays of naked emotion,The She spits out her vocals combinationwith vengeful disdain of players on “Skinny often Little producesLove sounds oddball more dispassionate results, from these thedays. crooning, 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 swooningraces toward “Thea climatic Last pile-up Song” at the and doesn’t the fiover-the-top t with her visceral ballad persona. “UglyCourtney Life” Love’s to tumultuous the 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,”chaotic taking stock sing-along as layers of “Happyacoustic and Shoes” perhaps and she the does. ramshackle It’s just not the shuffle one she’s tellingof “Praise,” on Nobody’s a electric guitars chug along behind her. Daughter. –Eric R. Danton song Lou Reed could be proud to call his own. –LZ 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 ‘Anlead vocalsoff-kilter (“Gracefully”) is so warmly collection affecting that listeners may of woozy 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 serenades, barroom bluesFire Away and tossing the English Beat, Herb Alpert and the For a dozen years, the [Mercer 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 WAINWRIGHTrousingbusier revelry.’ 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 70 MAY 2010 NOVEMBER 2011 M MUSIC & MUSICIANS MAGAZINE M3_v10.indd 70 5/14/10 3:37 AM.

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