ISSUE #26 MMUSICMAG.COM REVIEWS HOLE SNobody’steVE EARLE Daughter & THE DUKES (& DUCHESSES) [Universal] The Low Highway [New West] The first album released under the Hole moniker since 1998’s Celebrity Skin is really frontwoman Courtney Love’sThough not exactly a New Orleans record, Steve Earle’s latest has a second solo album—co-founder,distinct Big Easy flavor. In part, that’s because Earle wrote three of the songwriter and lead guitarist Eric Erlandson isn’t involved,songs for the HBO series Treme, on which he played a street musician. nor is any other previous Hole member. So it’s Love andThere’s three zydeco-style accordion on “That All You Got?”, and jaunty bayou ringers on 11 new songs—10 of which Love wrotefiddle with on “Love’s Gonna Blow My Way,” and the titular reference of “After collaborators like Billy Corgan,Mardi Gras.”Linda Perry Even and some new of the songs not specifically about New Orleans guitarist Micko Larkin. (Perry gets full credit on one tune, “Letter to God.”) have a humid, river-town feel, as heard in the subtle, jazzy piano of “Pocket Much of the riveting intensity of the group’s 1990s heyday appears to haveFull left of along Rain” with and her blustery former swampDaniel Jackson guitar of “Calico County.” If it’s not fully a 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 suchNew devastating Orleans effect album, back init’s the definitely day. they werea road showcases album. for harrowingOn the folky displays acoustic of naked emotion,title She spits out her vocals track,with vengeful Earle’s disdain voice on “Skinnycarries Little the dustLove soundsof a thousand more dispassionate byways, these while days. “Down The production the 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 Roadraces toward Part aII” climatic pairs pile-up punchy at the mandolin doesn’t fi twith with her the visceral steady persona. thump Courtney of anLove’s upright 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,”bass taking forstock a revved-upas layers of acoustic feel. The and originalperhaps “Downshe does. theIt’s just Road” not the appeared one she’s telling on onGuitar Nobody’s electric guitars chug along behind her. Daughter. –Eric R. Danton Town, Earle’s 1986 solo debut, which gives a sense of how many miles

COURT YARDthe HOUNDS Texas troubadourA side project has traveled. of new offering –Eric suggested R. Danton 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‘Even stepped to thesome mic more often. of Court the Yard Hounds songs ably not 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 specifically aboutFor a Newdozen years, Orleans the [Mercer Street/Downtown] haveTijuana 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- aAll humid,Days Are Nights: Songs river-town naughty, occasionally feel.’ 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 #26 M MUSIC & MUSICIANS MAGAZINE

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