video review: 'the moon rang like a bell' by hundred waters

Well, this was interesting. Wish it had clicked with me a little better, but I definitely recognize the quality.

Next up... whoa, busy schedule all of a sudden. Probably that Sharon Van Etten album before tackling 50 Cent, Miranda Lambert, and clipping. Stay tuned!

video review: 'behind the light' by phillip phillips

See, that's what I was talking about. One take, and it looks great. Shame the uploads keep sputtering out midway - need to figure out why that keeps happening.

Up next will probably be Cher Lloyd, because I need more time to tackle the twin monsters of Mariah Carey and Swans. Stay tuned!

album review: 'behind the light' by phillip phillips

So as I’ve mentioned a few times, I don’t really watch reality TV. Part of it is a factor of me not owning a TV and getting anything I’d want to watch online, but partially because most of the reality singing competitions just don’t really interest me. I mean, American Idol might have been a big deal about a decade ago, but you can’t say it is in the same way now.

Or can you? The late-period American Idol winners haven’t been all that bad upon closer examination. After all, I liked more of Scotty McCreery’s sophomore album than I was expecting, even so far as naming ‘Feel Good Summer Song’ as one of my favourite tracks of 2013. But of the late-period winners from that show, the one that really struck my attention was Phillip Phillips, a folk singer-songwriter who stepped up to the plate with a lot more character and personality than you normally see in reality show winners. And his debut album was surprisingly strong in that regard, bucking the trend of Idol winners delivering flavourless garbage on their debut record in order to maintain as much of their Idol audience as possible.

Now that’s not saying that album was flawless. Plenty of critics made the Dave Matthews Band comparison, and that’s not without merit, especially considering the frontman with solid acoustic guitar skills and a grittier voice singing about artfully crafted, if broadly sketched subject matter. For me, his production was a little cleaner than I’d normally like to see in folk rock, and there were definitely moments of clumsiness in his songwriting that stood out. But then again, the guy was also younger than me, the album was rushed together in two months, and it was his debut record, so I was willing to be forgiving here. And coming into his sophomore album Behind The Light, I wondered if Phillips might stand out a little better now that the brief folk rock revival of late 2012 had petered out. So I gave the album a couple listens – how did it go?

video review: 'shine' by anette olzon

Glad I got this out. Think I might be one of the few critics who bothered to look at this, and that's a bit of a shame, because it was pretty good.

Next up, Tokyo Police Club. After that, I'll start tackling the April releases, like Dan & Shay, Lacuna Coil, Mac DeMarco, and Cloud Nothings, plus a few more. Stay tuned!

album review: 'shine' by anette olzon

Let me take you back seven years, when word first broke that the symphonic metal band Nightwish had hired a new lead singer - the former frontwoman of Alyson Avenue, Anette Olzon.

And at that moment, the Nightwish fanbase split into three distinct parts. The first were the fans of Tarja Turunen, who were incensed that she had been fired and took a while to come around to the new singer, if they did at all. The second were pro-Anette, embraced the rougher, looser tone Nightwish took with their next two albums, and really enjoyed her more dynamic stage presence. And the third group - where I would count myself - realized that Nightwish had always been the brainchild of keyboardist and songwriter Tuomas Holopainen and the band was still capable of making great music regardless of the lead singer. And with that in mind, acknowledging the change in direction, I like music that was made by both incarnations of the band.

Now fast-forward to October of 2012, where the news broke mid-tour that Anette Olzon had been dismissed from Nightwish and had been replaced by the female singers from tourmates Kamelot and later by Floor Jansen. I'm not going to get into the back-and-forth drama of the whole endeavour, but I will say this: from what I know of Tuomas and the way he runs Nightwish, I was disappointed, but not surprised. But just like Tarja had done ahead of her, Anette Olzon made the choice to strike out on her own and release a solo album - and I did not expect much. Let's face it, it took Tarja three albums to hammer out a working formula,  and Anette had never been responsible for any of Nightwish's songwriting. Furthermore, the buzz was suggesting this album wasn't a metal or even a hard rock record like she made with either of her previous bands, so I wasn't sure what to expect. So how was Shine?

video review: 'lost in the dream' by the war on drugs

Holy shit, I did not see this album coming. Genuinely gripping and an early contender with 'Daylight & Dark' and 'Sun Structures' as one of the best albums of the year.

Next up... well, I need to talk about that Freddie Gibbs & Madlib collaboration, but I need to do a little more research on that one first, so I'll probably tackle something like the Shakira album next. Stay tuned!

video review: 'oh, what a life' by american authors

Wow, this was a fun surprise. A good palette cleanser, especially considering what might be coming up in coming weeks.

Next up... shit, I've got no idea. Stay tuned, anyhow, it'll be coming soon!

album review: 'oh, what a life' by american authors

Well, we knew this was going to happen eventually. We knew that someday, some major label executive was going to notice the smash chart success of The Lumineers and The Neighbourhood and Bastille and think, "Oh god, indie rock has actually scored a foothold on the charts, how the hell are we going to capitalize on this without signing an act that's actually challenging or hard to market?"

Well, the funny thing is that there really are a lot of bands in this vein, just indie-sounding enough to avoid the pop brush but not so indie that Pitchfork gives a damn about them. Acts that you might know and like for 'that one song' but would be hard-pressed to call yourself a hardcore fan. In other words, we're looking at a silent majority act, or, to be a little more snide, the indie rock that gets popular thanks to commercial jingles or showing up on sitcoms. And while you have acts like Bloc Party, Vampire Weekend, and Deafheaven who have shaken the silent majority label by actually being critical smash hits, most critics don't tend to care much about bands in this vein.

Enter American Authors, formerly called The Blue Pages when they were still trying to build buzz on Bandcamp. After two independently-released EPs, they landed a major label contract with Mercury in early 2013 and have since then seen their songs feature in mainstream ads around the world. And like with Alex Clare's 'Too Close' from 2012, this has led their big hit single 'Best Day Of My Life' to gain some major traction on mainstream radio. My initial judgement of them based on that single were as a cross between The Lumineers and Imagine Dragons (in other words, the marketer's wet dream), but I've been surprised by bands in this vein before and I didn't want to brand them as derivative without giving them a fair chance, so I gave their debut album a few spins. How did it turn out?

video review: 'morning phase' by beck

Wow, this was a great surprise. I guarantee there'll be critics who don't see this coming and won't pick up on it. 

Next up... well, we'll see. Stay tuned!

album review: 'morning phase' by beck

I've been a fan of Beck for years - if I was looking for an act I would describe as my 'go-to' for describing what indie rock can deliver at its best, Beck would be near the top of my list. Beautifully textured instrumentation (most of which he plays himself), dense lyrics, and a real heartfelt connection to his music that shows he's giving it his all, he's one of the most talented composers and songwriters to explode in the 90s, and all of his albums are worth your time, with my personal favourites being Mutations and Sea Change.

That being said, Beck has been fairly quiet over the past few years, his last major project attracting headlines being Song Reader, a book full of sheet music he wrote for others to put together if they wanted to play his material. It turned out he had a very good reason for delaying his most recent effort: he had received a spinal injury back in 2008 which had led to a painful recovery process (one of the reasons the vocals on his last album Modern Guilt were so subdued and muted). That, on top of his other assorted projects and a change in label to Capitol Records, meant that by the time Beck had planned to release his newest album, six years had gone by, which really can feel like an eternity in indie rock.

But now he's back with his newest album Morning Phase and I couldn't be more excited. A return to his country and folk roots with a decidedly lighter tone (well, lighter for Beck), paired as a companion piece to Sea Change? There aren't many ways to get me more enthusiastic about an indie rock project! So, did it live up to my expectations?

video review: 'paradise valley' by john mayer

Got to be honest, I'm pretty proud of this review, I think it came together well. In this review, I finally get my chance to take direct aim at John Mayer with his new album, and it's worth it. 

The album is pretty much crap, though.

video review: 'trouble will find me' by the national

So, I normally post these as an edit to my typical review posts, but I want to try something new by having the videos on the main page. If you have any comments regarding the reviews, make sure to let me know whether or not you prefer the old format.

So, in case you didn't take a look at the written album review, this is my retrospective review of The National's album 'Trouble Will Find Me', and where I finally deliver the smackdown on Mumford & Sons. Fun stuff!

album review: 'trouble will find me' by the national (RETRO REVIEW)

So here's the rant you've all been waiting for, the topic of which I'm sure has been seared into your mind since the very beginning: why I, like apparently every other music critic, thoroughly hates Mumford & Sons with the hatred of a thousand suns. The faux-folk rock band that deserves to be consigned into the flaming abyss, the band that co-opted the image and earnestness of folk rock and turned it into shameless commercialism, clearly one of the worst acts to have every blighted this world today. And I, as a critic with reputably harsh standards, clearly must hate them with extreme force, right?

Well... no, not really. Make no mistake, Mumford & Sons aren't a good band, but they sure as hell aren't the scourge of all music as a slew of would-be hipsters have branded them. They have some natural talent for catchy-as-all-hell melody lines and memorable harmonies, they have a mostly distinctive sound, and they sell all of their material with gutwrenching sincerity (which, believe it or not, goes a long way with me). To me, I've consigned to the rung of 'painfully mediocre', right next to Nickelback (don't even start).

Hmm, come to think of it, Mumford & Sons does seem to strike me as rather similar to the post-grunge act that ruled the rock airwaves throughout the early 2000s. Both bands have a lead singer that sounds like he's delivering his lines directly from his colon, both were accused of selling out to the tasteless masses (believe it or not, this was actually true for very early Nickelback), and both made music that somehow lodged itself in our brains like tapeworms. 

But what I think is most indicative of the similarities between these two bands is a very important concept that I've been skirting about for a while, but haven't found the right time to talk about until now: artistic framing. This is most often conceived as a device for literature and film, where the context can be adjusted depending on how the scene is written or shot, and which can be used to powerful effect by talented directors and great writers. One of the reasons, for example, while many people despise Twilight isn't for the misogyny or the stalking or the Mormon undercurrents, but because said elements are framed in such a romantic light. In the hands of any sane writer, Bella's story could have easily been written as that of a thriller or a melodrama between a very stupid girl and her vampiric stalker, but Stephanie Meyer sets up these events to feel romantic and attractive to Bella, and thus the reader - you know, abandoning appropriate context in favour of the author's wish-fulfillment fantasy.

And believe it or not, this becomes a big issue in music as well. A lot of alarmists tend to look at acts like Eminem and Kanye West and see terrible, reprehensible human beings promoting messages of misogyny, homophobia, and violence - and yet both artists have made it clear from the very beginning that they aren't role models and that nobody should aspire to be like them (hell, Eminem wrote several songs about it). They (or at least their artistic personas) are assholes, and we shouldn't so much glorify them as recoil from or pity them (that's the one big reason that I give a pass to Relapse, an album that seems designed to make Slim Shady look as pathetic and wretched as possible). Of course, the question then becomes that some people will interpret the surface themes of the album anyways and follow their manifests of hatred anyways, but that's a trickier topic for another day.

So coming back to Mumford & Sons and Nickelback, the same problems with framing crop up here too (albeit significantly more with Mumford & Sons). We're expected to buy into these acts as having sensitivity and/or more heartfelt emotions, and it feels completely disingenuous with Nickelback's humourless and sour delivery and Mumford & Sons' consistently terrible lyrics. You don't buy into the emotions they're trying to convey because some element of their framing completely shatters that immersion. It's why I'd argue Nickelback has actually slowly been getting a bit better over the years: they've actually embraced the fact that they're douchebags, and are just rolling with it to create douche-bro party anthems that at least feel authentic (if a little gross).

Mumford & Sons, unfortunately, haven't quite reached that point of self-awareness, which I think is one of the big sticking points for me with the band. They deliver all of their material with the heartfelt earnestness of a man proposing marriage in the mid-1800s, but their lyrics are rife with lines that undermine this earnestness at every turn, which makes it look all the more like a pose (also, their music has little-to-no instrumental texture and the production is pop as all hell, but that's another issue). And more than once, I've wished that we could find that band that had all of the earnest sincerity of Mumford & Sons, but had the lyrical context and texture and was framed in a way that made sense or added additional depth.

Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce you to The National, the indie post-punk act for which I was waiting. Now I suspect that many of you actually already know this band (particularly if you watch Game of Thrones), but I just discovered this band and considering they're easily one of the best acts I've discovered in a long time, I want to talk about them at length. Make no mistake, considering my luck approaching indie acts this year, I was more than a little surprised by how incredibly solid The National was, particularly when placed in competition with their lesser contemporaries, and they pushed a lot of important buttons for me.

For starters, the lyrics were audible and high enough in the mix to make out, and occasionally there was some real emotive poetry hidden behind the clever turns of phrase. I wouldn't quite say it's as descriptive or lurid as that of Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, but it's not trying to be either. The National is very much a 'mature' act, and like Deep Purple from earlier this year, they transform that maturity into a real strength that adds poignance to their lyrics. You can tell through the placement of the vocals that The National began as an alternative country act, and the importance placed on lyrics and the 'older' subject matter comes through here as well. More importantly, The National are smart enough to frame their songs intelligently, making sure that if their song's narrator could be interpreted as an asshole or a prick or a loser, he's appropriately positioned in that regard, supported by both lyrics and instrumentation. And considering how many songs The National writes about sad-sack losers who have screwed up their lives, they've nailed the formula down to a tee.

But what I find significantly more interesting with The National comes through on the other underlying theme of the majority of their work: upper class Americana, and the existential ennui that comes with it. Admittedly, The National do a very solid job speaking to all demographics, but with the highly literate songwriting and richer instrumentation, it's very clear they're targeting a certain college-aged yuppie hipster group within popular culture. And as with before, it comes back to the framing for why this works, both skewering the nastier elements of these subcultures (racism, classism, misogyny, antiquated value systems, etc.) and still writing music for the more perceptive of the audience to find the distinct sadness in said characters. In comparison to Vampire Weekend (who treat their privilege like a family heirloom only they are allowed to play with), The National are more blunt and don't hesitate to cast their narrators as just as sad, pathetic, desperate, and lonely as anyone else, and it's a testament to their excellent instrumentation that you're actually able to sympathize instead of scoff with derision at 'white people problems'.

All of that being said, I do have a few issues with The National. The band has occasionally recycled instrumental themes (which can get exasperating) and musical dynamics, which can lead to some songs running together. And as often as Matt Berninger has been compared to Nick Cave for his delivery and uncompromising framing, I'd argue he doesn't quite have the same emotional range in his voice that Cave does. Granted, he pulls off depressed and morose very well, but anger still occasionally seems like a foreign emotion to Berninger and that can get frustrating. On top of all of that, with similar thematic elements running through their previous five albums, it would be nice to see them switch up the formula, go for something darker or in a different vein entirely. Otherwise, it just feels like they lack imagination.

So, what do I think of their newest album, Trouble Will Find Me?

album review: 'wakin on a pretty daze' by kurt vile (RETRO REVIEW)

Believe it or not, I don't go into albums looking to hate them or bash them. One of the reasons I review a lot of material is because I'm looking to be surprised or caught off-guard by something of shockingly good quality. I want to find that special album that blows my mind in a dozen conceivable ways. And more importantly, to quote Abed from Community, 'I like liking things'. Hell, at the beginning of the year, you probably couldn't have told me that one of the most pleasant surprises of the year was a 4-part album from a white female rapper called Skitszo, but Colette Carr's debut album was actually surprisingly decent.

That being said, it's extremely difficult to not immediately form an opinion in your mind about what an act will sound like when you first hear about them, and I'll admit that can adjust your expectations in one way or another. I'll admit that going into critically-acclaimed indie rock albums, I tend to have a sharper critical opinion than, say, a Backstreet Boys album. And knowing my own tastes, if anything, makes it all the worse, as my ability to prejudge material is all the sharper.

So when I heard about Kurt Vile's new album, it was hard not to immediately cast more than a few judgments on the guy without even hearing a single song. A critically acclaimed, Pitchfork-adored lo-fi indie rocker primarily on a laid-back guitar with hazy, borderline incomprehensible vocals and lyrics that could only pretend to make sense on a good day? You bet your ass i prejudged the hell out of this guy and very nearly decided to ignore this album entirely. As I've said before, I don't have a lot of patience for white guys with acoustic guitars, and if they're half-stoned or have pretensions to depth, that limited amount of patience drops to a critical low. And sure, there's Beck, but he proved to have extraordinary amounts of talent, both in instrumentation and songwriting (to say nothing of his particular brand of insanity), and I can't say many of the lo-fi acts that followed in his wake did much to blow me out of the water.

And so before reviewing Kurt Vile's Wakin On A Pretty Daze, an album title that just screamed stoner indie rock in the worst possible way, I took a deep breath and plowed through this guy's discography, prepared for song after song of bland, pretentious nothing that I'd be able to jettison out my mental airlock the second it was over.

I didn't get that, and believe me, that was as much of a surprise as anything. Even as I say this, I'm still a little flummoxed why Kurt Vile works while so many other act like him have either bored or infuriated me. And while I wouldn't quite call myself a fan of his material, I found myself liking much more of his songs than I actively disliked.

Let's start with the songwriting, which is arguably the spot I would have come down hardest if he had been any of his contemporaries - and while there is a certain profundity that shows up in his material, there were more nuggets of insight in his ramblings than I expected. It's almost impossible to know how many levels of irony or sarcasm Kurt Vile might be operating on, which adds a layer of ambiguity to his presentation I found intriguing. On top of that, he doesn't tend to leap into the trap of acoustic love songs - hell, I don't even think Kurt Vile could record a truly effective love song even if he tried. Most of that comes down to his delivery, which I would describe as something of a cross between Beck and Wayne Coyne if the latter was actively smoking pot over dropping acid. And while he does abuse vocal affects and reverb more than most, it contributes excellently to a certain atmosphere that completely justifies Kurt Vile's appeal.

You see, I'd almost hesitate to call Kurt Vile an acoustic act - a lot of his material might have roots in acoustic rhythmic guitar, but it is often swallowed up in distortion and static that permeates the track, creating a rich expansiveness that still manages to feel organic and real. It may flirt with psychedelia at points, but that's only to suit the hazy, dusty feel of the tracks. Many critics have drawn connections between Vile and the gritty guitar-based singer-songwriters of the 60s and early 70s, and I can definitely buy into that aesthetic, particularly when it feels as authentic as it does.

And, of course, it helps that Kurt Vile is a gifted instrumentalist and songwriter all on his own. The guitar lines are often mesmerizingly simple, but contain enough shifts and complexity to keep me wanting more, and the natural free-flowing nature of the writing is a perfect fit for it. I'm reminded of Kacey Musgraves in a very good way, and like with her, they share the same affection for downbeat, rural Americana that feels all too real, particularly because Vile doesn't hold back from including himself in his message. It feels like the events in Vile's songwriting could have really happened to him, or are thoughts coming from a real place, and that does wonders for the atmosphere of the album.

That being said, I do have my gripes with Kurt Vile, particularly considering the fact he seems to be losing some of that richer instrumental texture with more recent albums. The distortion is peeled back, the vocals are cleaner, everything feels that much more polished, and I don't feel that's the greatest choice for preserving the atmosphere. But on the other hand, it does do wonders for exposing the smarter elements of Vile's songwriting, which I do appreciate, even though I wish more of that distorted grit would return. So does Wakin On A Pretty Daze deliver on that?

Youtube review after the jump

album review: 'edward sharpe and the magnetic zeros' by edward sharpe and the magnetic zeros

Today, let's talk about the hippie movement.

As someone who has always had an interest in cultural demographics, I've always been a little fascinated by the hippie movement, particularly considering its presence in the music of the late 60s and throughout most of the 70s. So many great acts of the era can be linked directly to it and the countercultural force it was for a brief time. Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, The Beatles, Janis Joplin, hell, pretty much all of the psychedelic rock genre owes its existence and most of its fanbase to the free love, free drugs, inner peace nirvana that the hippie movement preached. In terms of an era where cultural progressives owned the industry (rather than the other way around), it was unlike any other.

So what the hell happened? Well, pretty much what anyone with a brain could have expected. The 'intellectuals' of the hippie movement went into prog rock and avant-garde music that became too pretentious to be sustainable, the music industry digested the musical and visual aesthetic and dumbed it down for the mainstream, and midway through the 70s, a group of angry punks smashed whatever free love was left to pieces. It's a sad testament to the legacy of the hippies that Seth MacFarlane was able to sum it up aptly in the words of his talking dog on Family Guy: 'We lost the values but we kept the weed'.

Now to be completely fair, there were always gaping holes in the hippie ideology that you could fly a spaceship through, namely a complete ignorance of consequences to all the free love and free drugs. The pacifism was nice, but human nature made it abundantly clear that pacifist thinking and radical politics weren't a combination built to last (the radicalization of the leftist movements in the 70s proved this). Speaking on the topic of the philosophy, most of it was a product of the drugs and lifestyle that spawned it, and was thus incoherent, unfocused, and surprisingly shallow - without a clear message, there was never going to be societal change on the scale the hippies wanted. And on the political side (most commonly recognized as the Yippies), there may have been some movement towards social and racial equality (driven by some of the great leaders for social change of the time), but without changes on the institutional level, most of the greater 'change' died in a sputtering heap. And as for the progressive movement... well, I'll just let Will McAvoy from Aaron Sorkin's The Newsroom explain (along with some rightfully required ruminations on the Tea Party):

The sad thing is that he's not wrong about any of it, hippies or Tea Party (yeah, I said it), and you can go further and trace this to how 'hippie music' and psychedelic rock suffered their painful decline throughout the 70s. But what I think was more damaging was how the image of the hippie movement was further ridiculed as 'out-of-touch' or so high that any fragments of coherent or interesting ideology is drowned out in baked-out nonsense. And really, that bugs the hell out of me, because there were nuggets of real truth and wisdom, about the human condition in that culture that gets swept away and ignored. Now I'm not exactly surprised that material was ignored - often times it was more grounded and had some serious teeth - but it was enough to justify the hippie movement's philosophy, if not its execution.

And funnily enough, issues with problematic execution are where I always used to stand on Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, another band I'd categorize as a 'silent majority' act that broke through in 2009 with their debut Up From Below. A musical project run by singer-songwriter Alex Ebert, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros resemble nothing less than an act attempting to recapture the 60s hippie aesthetic, but never quite grasping the meat of the message. 

Now don't get me wrong, I like what this band represents, and there are definitely elements of their material that I find extremely compelling. For an act that debuted in 2009, they sure as hell do a good job sounding like an act from the golden era of psychedelic rock, particularly in production. I like the interplay between the vocalists, I like the harmonies and the stomping choruses, I like the breadth of instrumentation, and I even like some of the more ridiculous and grandiose moments that only seem to work half of the time. If anything, what makes Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros stand out to me is their musical 'texture', particularly on their first album - the mix is organic and layered masterfully, yet done in a way that we don't see the seams. I don't know who does the production work for this band, but Jimmy Eat World needs to hire them as soon as possible!

But unfortunately, I know the exact reasons why Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes never worked for me: there was never any edge. Sure, the music had the sound of a hippie record, but there was no edge or hint that their lyrics meant anything, or were going to take any chances - in fact, any attempt they did try to stretch themselves lyrically on Up From Below they sounded laughably out of their depth. They did try to improve things with their second record Here, but in doing so, they also cut back on the larger scope and feel of the band, and some of the texture leaked away. If I might make a TV comparison, the second season of The Newsroom has a lot fewer mistakes than the first, but it also lost some of the grandiose bombast and utter insanity that made that first season so compellingly watchable. Simply put, if you shoot lower, you're going to fail less, but your successes won't mean as much either. 

What Here also revealed for the band was that the project's focus was solely on Alex Ebert. Now, granted, some of this was bound to come out - the album was a concept piece exploring one's difficulties with religion and spirituality - but with that knowledge comes a lack of inclusiveness that really runs contrary to the hippie ideal. Any attempts at having Ebert balanced by the other vocalists just fell painfully flat because it was so obvious where the lyrical focus was fixed. And while the album might have had a more coherent tone and narrative throughline, it still lacked the edge that would truly make the album distinctive. 

So a year after that album's release, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros have come back with a self-titled album two into their career, something that just happens to be a serious pet peeve of mine. Does the band manage to overcome that peeve and create something of substance?

Youtube review after the jump

album review: 'dancer and the moon' by blackmore's night

In the fall of 2012, many mainstream music critics were hailing the new indie rock explosion, and at the forefront of that wave we had acts like Mumford & Sons and The Lumineers and Phillip Phillips. Now, granted, I was never a huge fan of any of these acts, but I understand what they do and they occasionally managed to impress me. Yes, even Mumford & Sons (I stand by my criticism of the act that they really don't contribute anything to music as a whole, but they certainly don't embarrass themselves that badly unless you dig deeply into their lyrics).

But what I took a little umbrage to at the time was the genre classification of the majority of these acts, and how people were calling them 'folk rock'. It wasn't that I disagreed, per se - indeed, if I were pressed to come up with a genre classification of these acts other than indie, I'd probably call them contemporary folk rock and run with that. But what annoyed me a bit was the level of mainstream acclaim these acts received. Once again, I wouldn't call any of these acts bad, but at least to me, they sure as hell didn't represent the folk rock with which I was most familiar.

And with that, let's talk about Blackmore's Night.

As I mentioned before, when I was younger, I skipped straight from pop music and Eminem to power and symphonic metal, and in the process of using that old, unreliable bit of vapourware Limewire, I came across several songs that were mistakenly noted as Nightwish songs. As most of you probably remember, getting accurate song titles and band names in the days of Limewire (to say nothing of album names) was a nightmare, and pre-Wikipedia (this was around 2005), it required a fair amount of legwork to figure out what these songs actually were. Eventually, I managed to discover that these songs came from a  medieval folk rock act known as Blackmore's Night, founded by former Deep Purple virtuoso guitarist Ritchie Blackmore and his wife Candice Night. 

And as a teenage fantasy nerd, I immediately fell head over heels for Blackmore's Night. Almost all of the elements clicked - Ritchie Blackmore's impressive guitar work, Candice Night's ethereal voice, the backing instrumentation was properly modulated to build to impressive crescendos, and the lyrics were steeped in fantasy and Wiccan culture. They immediately set in my impressionable mind the definition of what I thought folk rock was, and that definition persisted until my uncle introduced me to Bob Dylan. 

So coming back to Blackmore's Night as a more mature music critic, does the band hold up to my expectations? Well, for the most part, yes. As with Deep Purple, the instrumentation is easily the biggest strength of Blackmore's Night, and Ritchie Blackmore's guitar work has remained as solid as ever. And I must admit a certain fondness for Candice Night willowy, ethereal delivery that perfectly matches the quasi-mystical feel the band is attempting to cultivate. Unfortunately, while the band does have an impressive repertoire of material in myth and legend to draw upon, they do occasionally repeat cliches between songs a little more than they should. And while they are more innovative and interesting songwriters than Deep Purple, I would hesitate to put them on any sort of pedestal here. It also doesn't help that they've done some pretty hit-and-miss covers over the course of their careers (the most egregious example being of 'Times They Are A Changin', which is just awful and embarrassing).

But if anything, I think the biggest 'barrier to entry' with regards to Blackmore's Night is the fact that they're a bit difficult to take seriously, specifically due to their genre. As much as I have issues with Game of Thrones, I will admit that the one net positive the HBO series is doing is increasing the mainstream public's tolerance for fantasy in their pop culture (a process begun in most cases by The Lord of the Rings films). But even with that,  it can be tough to buy into an act that sings about magic and fae and fantasy with wholehearted sincerity, and Blackmore's Night doesn't have an ounce of cynicism or winking in their subject matter. They believe what they're selling, and thus it's absolutely no surprise that they only tend to play live at Renaissance fairs and smaller, medieval-themed venues - which also puts a definite ceiling on any mainstream success they're aiming to have. But then again, I'm not sure Ritchie Blackmore is actively looking for mainstream success in the same way he was with Deep Purple - to him, Blackmore's Night is a passion project, and he's not going to turn it into work.

So with all of that in mind, how is their discography? Well, I'd describe all of their previous albums as good, but I'd have a hard time calling them great, mostly due to inconsistency. Typically per album you'll get three or four great songs and a whole lot of passable material, but not much more. Their most recent album Autumn Sky (released in 2010) was probably on the lower end of that spectrum - not as shaky as their debut album Shadows of the Moon, but not as strong as Village Lanterne (yeah, they spell 'lanterne' with an extra 'e' - they're that kind of band).

So, in the past week, they released a new album, Dancer And The Moon - how does it fair?

album review: 'having a beard is the new not having a beard' by the beards (RETRO REVIEW)

I don't like reviewing comedy albums.

Now this isn't to say I don't like comedy albums, because I do. Weird Al Yankovic and The Arrogant Worms are both hilarious acts that I find really funny for wildly different reasons (the former because the man is a master at song parodies and the latter because their uniquely Canadian humour has surprising breadth and wit), and I even occasionally enjoy listening to stand-up comedy albums and laughing my ass off at the better ones. But I don't like reviewing comedy albums because humor is very different for different people. For instance, I showed my sister some of George Carlin's comedy, and she didn't find it funny so much as finding it vulgar and a little too middlebrow for her tastes (but then again, she likes some of the humor in The Carrie Diaries, which i find incomprehensible). The point I'm trying to make is that everyone tends to have different tastes and styles when it comes to comedy, different things that make us laugh. 

In my case, I think the best comedy (at least for me) is something that can resonate on other levels as well, maybe spur a bit of an emotional impact or have some intellectual heft. For instance, I think Superbad is one of the funniest movies of the last decade because Judd Apatow nails the atmosphere and there's a genuine emotional connection between the characters of Michael Cera and Jonah Hill. It's the same principle with Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, because the comedy seems to mean more when it comes from characters you have a connection with. On a similar note, that's why This Is 40 is such an utterly wretched comedy - half because I can't relate with Paul Rudd's slacker character, and half because the entire script is rooted in deep-seated anger and depression that makes all the comedic bits feel really uncomfortable.

And on a similar note, Aaron Sorkin's comedy tends to work when it's delivered with some class and panache and a deft talent for clever dialogue (The Newsroom makes this work about a quarter of the time, mostly when Thomas Sadoski is on screen). Community works as comedy in a similar way, but also balances the cleverness of the entire show with real emotional heft. The Daily Show and The Colbert Report work on the principle that if you take real complex issues and intelligently examine them, you can wring real laughs out of the occasional silliness and idiocies of modern life and politics. Hell, that's a premise Carlin used for years, finding and complaining about the stupidity of the modern world and making it entertaining and funny. 

Either way, my basic principle behind comedy is that I like material that has some wit behind it, but also can connect with me on an intellectual or emotional level. So considering that, does Having A Beard Is The New Not Having A Beard by The Beards manage to work for me?

album review: 'tempest' by bob dylan

It's really hard to review Bob Dylan.

I mean, where do you start? What frame of reference should you use? Bob Dylan isn't just one of the best artists of all time, he's also one of the most prolific, with a huge share of great music and a fair share of the awful as well. He's one of the best, most impacting songwriters of the past generation, and any bearded indie rocker owes at least something to the man, now fully in the autumn of his life.

And speaking as someone who isn't completely familiar with every album and every live cut and every one of the hundreds of bootlegs that Dylan produced, I feel more than a little overwhelmed by the sheer weight of history behind the man, even more so because he's a fantastic writer and poet and musician one that I admire tremendously. For god's sake, I can look ninety degrees to my right from my kitchen table and see a framed poster of the man!

So I guess it can't hurt to provide a little context to where I'm coming from when I write this review, at least when it comes to my 'Dylan' experience. Well, here it is: it's painfully limited. I'm familiar with his hits - everyone should be - and I can thank my uncle for getting me to listen to Infidels, which Dylan's first legitimately great album of the 80s. From there, it's Blonde on Blonde, Blood on the Tracks, Highway 61 Revisited, and really not much else. To say I feel out of my depth stepping into a review of his most recent album, particularly when I'm not even all that familiar with his material this decade, isn't hard to believe.

But then again, Bob Dylan, of all the albums and artists I've ever reviewed, has always been a poet first (musician second, singer third). And I have a literary background, which does provide some applicable skills to assess and analyse the man's work. And of all of the artists I've examined so far, I feel the least compunctions in branding this man's work 'art'. And art earns some of its worth and meaning due to the experience and interpretation of the viewer - and since we're all different, no one person's view (with the exception of the artist, because the whole 'death of the artist' theory is a load of horseshit) is sacrosanct.

So yes, while I will admit that not being familiar with Dylan's entire discography or indeed the majority of it adds something of an asterisk to my review and criticism, I do know good music. I know good poetry. And I can recognize good art when I see it. 

And without further ado, let's examine Bob Dylan's newest album, Tempest.

album review: 'down to the river' by monica munro

Short version: an indie folk/jazz singer/songwriter that you've likely never heard of, but who you definitely should be listening to. Strong points go to her excellent delivery, clever songwriting, and a few surprise stand-outs that elevate her above the usual conventions of her genre. Definitely one you should check out.

Those of you who actually read these reviews (and I have no idea who you are, by the way) are probably a bit perplexed by this name and album. Hell, after the shouty-then-sullen behaviour in my Linkin Park review (which is ironic, come to think about it), you probably I expected I was going to review Metric's new album before I went after Chris Brown.

And indeed, I am planning on taking on Metric's Synthetica next time before I pummel Chris Brown's Fortune, but this is a rather different review for me for a number of reasons, and while I will be just as characteristically harsh, I ultimately want to walk away from this review with a smile on my face (so make of that what you will).