TYBS#27
Here’s the final part of our reviews of CDs from SONY-BMG Music Entertainment. With a mix of electronica and emo-type indie rock it’s perfect for this July’s first salvo of storms. Heat up some hot chocolate or tea with honey, put these on and you’ll have a great time indoors.
GROOVE ARMADA
Soundboy Rock
I’m a big fan of albums. I mean albums that hold together and cohere, rising like a good piece of cake. While Soundboy Rock is about as cohesive as an 80s Madonna fashion victim, it still floats despite the things it’s burdened with.
Groove Armada are the duo of London partyheads Tom Findlay and Andy Cato who were formed in the mid 1990s. They formed their own club with the same name so they could spin the tunes they wanted and make people dance. Soon enough they got their own songs going and released a couple of singles, then albums. Then these albums attained notoriety so much so that Fatboy Slim remixed “I See You Baby.”
Groove Armada have since accumulated a decent following. Not as sizeable as Underworld, Chemical Brothers or Faithless but they nonetheless have their faithful. Rightly so, too. See, GA are dancefloor architects who have honed their craft to a fine degree, which is why Soundboy Rock may seem like a package of very eclectic goodies top those used to GA’s focused records. It’s the kind of holiday fruitbasket us media types get when companies don’t have decent PR people (you know, the container that comes with bananas, melons, chocnuts and even a huge can of Sustagen).
From the soursweet to the totally saccharine this album opens in jungle territory with MC Stush doing tribalistic rap vocals on “Get Down.” From there we quickly go through a host of top shelf collaborators like The Rakes’ frontman Alan Donohoe (doing a Gallagher Brothers cameo on the melancholy “See What You Get”), former Pinay Sugababe Mutya Buena (tripping out on the bluesy, hip-hop dancefloor mover “Song 4 Mutya”) and Simian Mobile Disco’s Simon Lord (on the bleeptastic house number “The Things That We Could Share”). It’s like a glorified party turned jam session with a revolving door of musical celebrities.
As challenging as this listen is, the diversity does the whole album good, like a theme park with delights to offer every age group or musical perversion. The tastiest among them are the atmospheric, flutteringly elegant “Paris” and the chillest-of-them-all track “From the Rooftops.” The sonic equivalent of the catnip, it’s clear, is what GA excel at.
THE FRAY
How to Save a Life
The Fray have gained their fame by getting on guilty pleasure TV shows like Grey’s Anatomy. Their brand of emo-leaning indie rock with art geek sensibilities and a healthy dose of REM soulfulness fits right into the boob tube soundtrack format.
This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. But bands like The Fray are a dime a dozen, or literally dozens who come out of the woodwork every two to three years or so, get amazingly huge major label push and rise like a wayward kid’s balloon escaping into the atmosphere, never to be seen again.
True their singles “Over My Head (Cable Car)” and the horridly overplayed “How to Save a Life” have glimpses of latent energy and celestial insight, but none of the gravitas or subtlety that could make them a Keane, a Live or perhaps a footstool to the mighty REM.
The good stuff only comes in by the 11th track “Little House” where a misery laden calliope riff on piano conjures up family secrets, dark corners of the home and acts of atrocity that inflict both physical and mental anguish. There’s still too much roundabout and beating the bush going on here for any clear attempt at solid songwriting but at least this song and “Trust Me” prove there’s more to The Fray than just balladeers posturing as indie rockers. “Trust Me” even has the most unpretentious lyrics on the whole album: “We’re only taking turns/ Holding this world.”
The mess and iteration of post break-ups, confused love, suicides or attempts at, loads resulting in depression, boy meets girl and loses her or vice versa gets banal and pathetic halfway through the album. The added VCD (which has two music videos, a “making of the video,” three stripped/acoustic performances and two short documentaries on band history and life on the road) is totally unnecessary. I can’t count how many times I fast forwarded it and I still zonked out. Bad, bad, bad.
Even the lyrics would rival a Corgan song, and vocalist Slade doesn’t have half the sonic brilliance to pull off these Hallmark worthy gems, as on “Look After You”: “If I don’t say this now I will surely break/ As I’m leaving the one I want to take/ Forgive the urgency but hurry up and wait/ My heart has started to separate.” Geez, is there even a girl alive in the 21st century who falls for this atrociously rhyming shtick?
~ 30
Here’s the final part of our reviews of CDs from SONY-BMG Music Entertainment. With a mix of electronica and emo-type indie rock it’s perfect for this July’s first salvo of storms. Heat up some hot chocolate or tea with honey, put these on and you’ll have a great time indoors.
GROOVE ARMADA
Soundboy Rock
I’m a big fan of albums. I mean albums that hold together and cohere, rising like a good piece of cake. While Soundboy Rock is about as cohesive as an 80s Madonna fashion victim, it still floats despite the things it’s burdened with.
Groove Armada are the duo of London partyheads Tom Findlay and Andy Cato who were formed in the mid 1990s. They formed their own club with the same name so they could spin the tunes they wanted and make people dance. Soon enough they got their own songs going and released a couple of singles, then albums. Then these albums attained notoriety so much so that Fatboy Slim remixed “I See You Baby.”
Groove Armada have since accumulated a decent following. Not as sizeable as Underworld, Chemical Brothers or Faithless but they nonetheless have their faithful. Rightly so, too. See, GA are dancefloor architects who have honed their craft to a fine degree, which is why Soundboy Rock may seem like a package of very eclectic goodies top those used to GA’s focused records. It’s the kind of holiday fruitbasket us media types get when companies don’t have decent PR people (you know, the container that comes with bananas, melons, chocnuts and even a huge can of Sustagen).
From the soursweet to the totally saccharine this album opens in jungle territory with MC Stush doing tribalistic rap vocals on “Get Down.” From there we quickly go through a host of top shelf collaborators like The Rakes’ frontman Alan Donohoe (doing a Gallagher Brothers cameo on the melancholy “See What You Get”), former Pinay Sugababe Mutya Buena (tripping out on the bluesy, hip-hop dancefloor mover “Song 4 Mutya”) and Simian Mobile Disco’s Simon Lord (on the bleeptastic house number “The Things That We Could Share”). It’s like a glorified party turned jam session with a revolving door of musical celebrities.
As challenging as this listen is, the diversity does the whole album good, like a theme park with delights to offer every age group or musical perversion. The tastiest among them are the atmospheric, flutteringly elegant “Paris” and the chillest-of-them-all track “From the Rooftops.” The sonic equivalent of the catnip, it’s clear, is what GA excel at.
THE FRAY
How to Save a Life
The Fray have gained their fame by getting on guilty pleasure TV shows like Grey’s Anatomy. Their brand of emo-leaning indie rock with art geek sensibilities and a healthy dose of REM soulfulness fits right into the boob tube soundtrack format.
This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. But bands like The Fray are a dime a dozen, or literally dozens who come out of the woodwork every two to three years or so, get amazingly huge major label push and rise like a wayward kid’s balloon escaping into the atmosphere, never to be seen again.
True their singles “Over My Head (Cable Car)” and the horridly overplayed “How to Save a Life” have glimpses of latent energy and celestial insight, but none of the gravitas or subtlety that could make them a Keane, a Live or perhaps a footstool to the mighty REM.
The good stuff only comes in by the 11th track “Little House” where a misery laden calliope riff on piano conjures up family secrets, dark corners of the home and acts of atrocity that inflict both physical and mental anguish. There’s still too much roundabout and beating the bush going on here for any clear attempt at solid songwriting but at least this song and “Trust Me” prove there’s more to The Fray than just balladeers posturing as indie rockers. “Trust Me” even has the most unpretentious lyrics on the whole album: “We’re only taking turns/ Holding this world.”
The mess and iteration of post break-ups, confused love, suicides or attempts at, loads resulting in depression, boy meets girl and loses her or vice versa gets banal and pathetic halfway through the album. The added VCD (which has two music videos, a “making of the video,” three stripped/acoustic performances and two short documentaries on band history and life on the road) is totally unnecessary. I can’t count how many times I fast forwarded it and I still zonked out. Bad, bad, bad.
Even the lyrics would rival a Corgan song, and vocalist Slade doesn’t have half the sonic brilliance to pull off these Hallmark worthy gems, as on “Look After You”: “If I don’t say this now I will surely break/ As I’m leaving the one I want to take/ Forgive the urgency but hurry up and wait/ My heart has started to separate.” Geez, is there even a girl alive in the 21st century who falls for this atrociously rhyming shtick?
~ 30
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