JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2012 ISSUE MMUSICMAG.COM REVIEWS HOLE LNobody’sEE RANALDO Daughter [Universal] Between the Times and the Tides [Matador] The first album released under the Hole moniker since 1998’s Celebrity Skin is really frontwoman ’sAfter three decades with the world’s best-known avant-garde rock band, second solo album—co-founder,it might be expected that ’s solo album would be a little more songwriter and lead guitarist Eric Erlandson isn’t involved,influenced by his steady gig. But the guitarist’s latest offering, nor is any other previous Hole member. So it’s Love andBetween three the Times and the Tides, bears more resemblance to Roger Waters ringers on 11 new songs—10 of which Love wrotethan with . What started as the recording of a few acoustic songs collaborators like Billy Corgan,blossomed Linda Perryinto aand far new more intricate and polished production. Ranaldo has guitarist Micko Larkin. (Perry gets full credit on one tune, “Letter to God.”) assembled an impressive backing band including Sonic Youth drummer Much of the riveting intensity of the group’s 1990s heyday appears to haveSteve left along Shelley, with herkeyboardist former Daniel Jackson and guitarist . While he 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 suchsteers devastating away effect from back Sonic in the Youth’s day. they less were orthodox showcases forinstincts, harrowing Times displays andof naked Tides emotion, She spits out her vocals stillwith vengefulhas plenty disdain of on tremolo-warped “Skinny Little Love guitarsounds tricks—evenmore dispassionate if here these they days. sitThe lowerproduction 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 inraces the toward mix thana climatic usual. pile-up The at hallmarkthe doesn’t of fi tthe with album her visceral is persona.in bridges Courtney that Love’s descend 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,”into taking psych-rock stock as layers jams, of acoustic rolling and through perhaps blistering she does. It’s guitar just not solos. the one It’s she’s a surprisinglytelling on Nobody’s electric guitars chug along behind her. Daughter. –Eric R. Danton accessible slice of rock for a man who’s spent the last 30 years playing it

COURT YARDdecidedly HOUNDS unsafe.A side –AF 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 ‘A surprisinglylead vocals (“Gracefully”) is so warmlyaccessible affecting that listeners mayslice of rockjoyfully 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 forthese ladies’a man talent runs deep.who’s –Katie Dodd spent the last 30 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 RUFUS arrangements on Rufus the Family Stone into a magical blender and years playing it Wainwright’sdecidedly albums got unsafe.’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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