James Gandolfini (1961-2013)
James Gandolfini was a brilliant actor. Sadly, he’s passed away at the age of 51. May he rest in peace…
Public Enemy – “The Evil Empire of Everything” (2012)
A review of PE’s 2nd album of 2012. Matt Melis of Consequence of Sound wrote this Nov. 29th, 2012. Check out his other review of PE’s sister 2012 album, Most of My Heroes Still Don’t Appear on No Stamp, on The Beat Patrol.
PE is still the greatest rap group who ever lived, and Chuck D is, in my opinion, the all-time greatest rapper and lyricist…
Celebrating 25 years together by dropping their second album since summer, hip-hop game changers Public Enemy take a reflective step back on their latest record. If July’s Most of My Heroes Still Don’t Appear on No Stamp blazes like a classic PE take-to-the-streets protest rally, then the best of The Evil Empire of Everything simmers like the frank dinner table conversation afterwards—a dialogue that white America rarely gets to hear and one that gets cut tragically short on this record.
Chuck D has long been a vocal critic on race issues, corporate America, and the state of modern hip-hop, but rarely have Public Enemy grounded their music in a moment as universally known and incendiary across color lines as the Trayvon Martin shooting. On album centerpiece “Beyond Trayvon”, Chuck and Professor Griff share verses with newcomers NME SUN (comprised of sons of Public Enemy members) in a multi-generational dialogue revealing justifiable anger, deep wounds, and a steadfast determination to, as Chuck says, “Save our sons and daughters beyond Trayvon.” This pass-the-mic track puts into action the mentoring philosophy of Most of My Heroes’ “RLTK” and reminds listeners that Public Enemy still know what time it is after a quarter-century.
Other highlights include the chanting “Don’t Give Up the Fight” (feat. Ziggy Marley); Chuck putting life into perspective on the Otis Redding-inspired “…Everything” (feat. Gerald Albright and Sheila Brody); and some of Flavor Flav’s hardest rhyming since “Cold Lampin’…” on the kinetic “31 Flavors”. But listeners will likely skip over much of this album and gravitate back towards the record’s opening sampling of George Zimmerman’s infamous 9-1-1 call and Read the rest of this entry »
David Segal – “Akin Fernandez: The Shortwave and the Calling” (2004)
This Washington Post article by David Segal, dated Aug. 3, 2004, tells the story of numbers station enthusiast Akin Fernandez and how his obsession with them turned into The Conet Project, of which a new 5th disc was added to the original 4-CD set…
For Akin Fernandez, Cryptic Messages Became Music to His Ears
In a cluttered home office in the World’s End section of London, Akin Fernandez is trolling the dial of his newly acquired shortwave radio. It’s December 1992 and it’s late at night, when the city is quiet and the mad-scientist squawks of international broadcasts have an otherworldly tone. Fernandez, the owner and sole employee of an indie music label, is about to trip across a mystery that will take over his life.
Shortwave signals are bouncing, as they always do, around the globe, caroming off a layer of the atmosphere a few hundred miles above the Earth and into antennas all over the world. Fernandez can hear news from Egypt and weather reports from China. But his browsing stops when he tunes in something startling: the mechanized voice of a man, reading out numbers.
No context, no comment, no station identification. Nothing but numbers, over and over, for minutes on end. Then the signals disappear, as if somebody pulled the plug in the studio. And it’s not just one station. The more he listens, the more number monologues he hears.
“Five four zero,” goes a typical broadcast, this time in the soulless voice of a woman with a British accent. “Zero nine zero. One four. Zero nine zero one four.”
Numbers in Spanish, in German, Russian, Czech; some voices male, others female. When Fernandez lucks into hearing the start of a broadcast, he’s treated to the sound of electronic beeps, or a few bars of calliope music, or words like “message message message.” Then come the numbers. A few stations spring to life the same time each night, others pop up at random and cannot be found again. Read the rest of this entry »
Deep Purple – “Now What?!” (2013)
This review of the long-awaited Deep Purple (or Deep ?urp!e, as it’s stylized on the cover) release comes from William Clark (dated May 27th) in Music Enthusiast Magazine. Good stuff…
Considered to be one of the pioneers of heavy metal, Deep Purple have captivated the music world throughout the past four decades. And if you’re only familiar with their rock ‘n’ roll super hit “Smoke on the Water”, you’ve been truly missing out on the full breadth and depth of one of the greatest bands to ever grace the studio and the stage.
Renowned for their captivating and elaborate instrumentation comprised of bold synthesizer playing, ever expansive guitar work and vocal melodies, all of which is proudly showcased throughout their output of 19 studio albums.
Most musicians hang it up at this point in their musical career, but Deep Purple are still kicking, bound and determined to continue creating standout rock and roll anthems. And that’s all the more self-evident on their new studio album, Now What?!
This new album is a proud collection of 12 new compositions, filled with all of those captivating elements that made such previous outings as Machine Head and Perfect Strangers timeless classics.
Your anticipation slowly builds as the album kicks off with “A Simple Song”, which begins with a slow guitar riff that gradually increases its volume and power. Soon a passionate, wailing guitar solo rings out over the clicking high tops, before Ian Gillan begins to sing. “Once you sing a simple song, got Read the rest of this entry »
Church of Misery – “Thy Kingdom Scum” (2013)
This review comes from metal expert Adrien Begrand off his Headbang site (by way of MSN.com). This was written 2 days ago (June 11th). The music is pure Black Sabbath-inspired and well done but I’m not a fan of the hoarse, “Cookie Monster”-style of singing that is popular in a lot of death metal these days. I think it’s ridiculous and unlistenable… this music would be much better served by an Ozzy-type of singer… but it’s still worth a listen for the music…
Even though the Japanese band’s lineup is constantly in flux these days, whenever you hear Church of Misery on record or see them perform in person, you know what you’re going to get. Simply put, these guys, led by bassist Tatsu Mikami, pull off the wickedest doom jams you’ll hear from a modern-day band. One of the only bands around that remember that swing is just as important to doom metal than pentatonic riffs, Church of Misery emphasize the jazz and blues element that Bill Ward brought to Black Sabbath, and pull it off in stunning, convincing fashion. Their music makes audiences move a lot more than simply bobbing their heads.
Sonically, though, the albums have always been a bit lacking compared to the raw power of the band’s searing live performances, but they’ve righted that in a big way on Thy Kingdom Scum, their first new album since 2009’s Houses of the Unholy. Having reunited with singer Hideki Fukasawa, who last provided his demented, slurred singing on 2004’s The Second Coming, the band is scorching from the get-go, “Lambs to the Slaughter” loaded with the kind of contagious grooves people have come to expect. As usual, the songs are all about serial killers, which always adds a disturbing air to the proceedings, but in the end the music proves to be more important than the lyrical gimmicks, as “Dusseldorf Monster”, “Brother Bishop”, the colossal “All Hallows Eve”, and instrumental “B.T.K.” immediately rank as some of the best tracks the band has ever come up with. Also of note is the rampaging cover of Quatermass’s “One Blind Mice”, in which the band makes the song even more psychotic than it already is. Read the rest of this entry »
Kadavar – “Abra Kadavar” (2013)
This review comes from The Obelisk website, dated April 9th. The name of the writer is JJ Koczan, who puts out the website. Please check it out (link below). Hopefully he won’t mind me re-posting this review.
As for the band, you don’t see many guys looking like that these days. They are straight out of 1970, as is their music… but in all the best ways…
Foundation and Progress
Berlin trio Kadavar have worked quickly to become one of the most prominent acts in the European heavy underground. Their 2012 self-titled debut sounded so organic that even the mp3s had an analog hiss, and while they carried their songs across with an ultra-natural feel, it was the confidence in the material and the spontaneous feel of the performances that made Kadavar’s Kadavar such a watershed release. It was my pick for the year’s best debut; a lean but frighteningly cohesive 34-minute full-length that showed potential as much as it made an impact on its own. Touring and a split with Aqua Nebula Oscillator followed later in 2012, and Kadavar – vocalist/guitarist Wolf Lindemann, Rivoli bassist Mammut and drummer Tiger — were picked up by Nuclear Blast to join the ranks of Graveyard, Orchid and Witchcraft in the label’s growing stable of tube-amped heavy rockers. Thus it is that their second album, Abra Kadavar, arrives with no small measure of anticipation. Some immediate differences: the sophomore outing is three tracks and about eight minutes longer than the first one, clocking in at a still-vinyl-ready 41:16. The distinctive drum sound of Tiger’s kit – the sort of fuzz that came off his snare with each tap – has abated, though the snare hits hardly sound punched in and an overall natural, live feel has been maintained between both the drums and Mammut’s bass, which was a standout element of the first record and remains so on Abra Kadavar. As regards Lindemann’s vocals, they are forward in classic rock tradition, but more assured and mature for the band’s road time, and he skillfully follows his own lead lines in the second half of opener “Come Back Life,” the trio having already enacted a formidable shuffle en route to the closing solo. Throughout, there is clear, resonant stylistic growth and as much as Abra Kadavar proves the first album wasn’t a fluke, it also shows the three-piece aren’t necessarily limited to the driving ‘70s heavy rock that they nonetheless so effectively convey on the single, “Doomsday Machine.” The self-titled ended psychedelic and extended with the eight-minute “Purple Sage,” but though they’re shorter, the closing trio of “Liquid Dream,” “Rhythm for Endless Minds” and “Abra Kadabra” show a nascent sonic diversity in Kadavar’s approach that incorporates rocking organ, psych swirl, and a heavy jamming sensibility that underlies much of the band’s work to-date, but has yet to be so blatantly expressed. Read the rest of this entry »
Orchid – “The Mouths of Madness” (2013)
This review, dated May 22nd, comes from the Fearnet website and was written by Gregory Burkhart…
I’ve recounted many times on these pages how deeply the doom-filled strains of bands like Black Sabbath and Pentagram have burned their brand into entire generations of hard rock and metal, but the dark and heavy sounds of that era lend themselves so well to macabre, occult and horror themes that they continue to capture my attention. Many artists try ascending to those heights, but only a few capture the same dark majesty while retaining their own creative stamp.
San Francisco-based quartet Orchid is quickly becoming one such band – so much that acclaimed engineer Richard Whittaker, who was instrumental in the remastering of Black Sabbath’s early albums (including their self-titled 1970 debut), has been following the group’s progress since their 2009 EP Through the Devil’s Doorway, and came aboard to master Orchid’s latest full-length studio album The Mouths of Madness. On the heels of last year’s well-received EP The Heretic, Madness sports a cleaner, fatter and more modern mix, with production kicked up several notches, bringing the band into an expert balance of vintage blues-influenced hard rock and modern metal, with a powerful current of menace and haunting atmosphere rumbling through all nine tracks.
The album opens with the title tune, which also happens to be the strongest of the bunch, with hooky, snarling riffs from guitarist Mark Thomas Baker, gut-punch kicks and shimmering cymbals by Carter Kennedy, beefy, Geezer Butler-style bass by Keith Nickel, and the best vocal work to date from frontman Theo Mindell, who channels just enough of Ozzy Osbourne’s distinctive tenor to remind you of the band’s roots, Read the rest of this entry »
The Beat Patrol 