New music

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This article was published 12/11/2015 (3963 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

BLUES/ROOTS

GUITARIST/SONGWRITER Colin Linden has been a worthy ambassador for this country since he began playing music as a young boy in Toronto. His CV is filled with the kinds of names (Emmylou Harris, Bob Dylan, Robert Plant, Levon Helm) that confirm it is both his six-string prowess and deep familiarity with roots music that keeps him at the top of the session-players’ call list.

Rich In Love is stacked with extraordinary songs, and Linden’s guitar-playing and singing have never been better than they are on these dozen tracks. Linden is most desired as a slide-guitar player and there are plenty of his delicious scrapes here. The lone classic blues track ( The Hurt, featuring Charlie Musselwhite on harmonica) and the acoustic ballads (the slow-burn Delia and the atmospheric title track), reveal Linden’s extensive sonic range.

As the winner of multiple music awards, Linden doesn’t have much more he needs to achieve in his career, yet with RIL he proves that if a musician is only as good as his most recent release, then his career remains rich with promise. ★★★★

DOWNLOAD: Knob and Tube; No More Cheap Wine

— Jeff Monk

 

POP/ROCK

The Standstills

From the Devil’s Porch (eOne Music)

ONTARIO guitar-and-drums duo the Standstills take less than 30 minutes to make their claim to rock ’n’ roll significance on their debut release, From The Devil’s Porch; it’s not a long time, but it’s a very loud and powerful experience.

Jonny Fox (guitar) and Renée Couture (drums) don’t try to re-invent the popular tandem sound, but their burning desire is captured in new ways. Fox’s guitar sound is obviously courtesy of some very hefty amplification, but his thrifty pyrotechnics rely less on volume than interesting riffage. Dramatic power chords and such devilry are here in spades to be sure, but the propulsion afforded by bandmate Couture twists the sound into interesting knots. The additional background vocals and organ on opening track The Road and the barroom blues harmonica added to the low-slung Soul Taker build a further case for long-lasting appeal.

Shotgun, with its ecstatic mid-tempo throb and metallic guitar tone, could pass for a lost Tea Party B-side sans annoying vocals.

It’s hard to imagine Old Scratch having an overhang on his cottage in hell, but if it ever gets built, put the Standstills on repeat and start hammering those nails. ★★★★

DOWNLOAD: Orleans; Pay No Mind

— Jeff Monk

 

ROCK

The Noble Thiefs

It’s Tough to Be the Bad Guy (Pipe & Hat)

HERE’S one that deserves to rise above the splintered morass of genre niches and Internet noise. The local punk-soul rebels of the Noble Thiefs have been spreading their high-energy blend of rock-’n’-funking-roll for five years, and the quartet’s second fulllength recording is long past overdue.

Now that it’s here, let’s hope it’s the springboard that will enable the quartet to hit the road because a band with a frontman whose voice is as rich and soulful as that of Myron Dean should be seen and heard. Dean’s raw tenor rivals that of Otis Day & the Knights’ De-Wayne Jessie (Google it, kids) and these nine songs are driven by the power and nuance of his expressive singing.

On uptempo, beat-driven romps such as How Can You Think of Love or Made of Stone, the rest of the band — drummer Joel Armstrong, guitarist Riley Hastings and bassist Johannes (Ian) Lodewyks — are elastic enough to break the tunes down to fun and funky bridges, while slow-building vocal showcases such as When You’re in Love or Tread Lightly are given just the right support while allowing themselves just enough room to shine, too.

The release party for It’s Tough to Be the Bad Guy is Nov. 14, at the West End Cultural Centre. ★★★★

DOWNLOAD: How Can You Think of Love; I Died in America; Made of Stone

— John Kendle

 

POP

Ellie Goulding

Delirium (Interscope)

IT’S got lots of beats and would probably be near-impossible not to dance to it.

With Delirium, her third album, British singer Ellie Goulding has put together what’s essentially a playlist of singles destined for frequent repeat on the radio and in the clubs, all with catchy rhythms and her “this can only be Ellie Goulding singing” distinctive vocal style.

She’s pulled out the big guns, working with big-name producers including Max Martin, and has already announced a world tour for the album. It will likely be a high-energy event — there aren’t any ballads as such in the 16 tracks.

Overall, Delirium is a polished effort, if not a particularly memorable one. It includes Love Me Like You Do , her smash hit from the Fifty Shades of Grey soundtrack, as well as the single currently getting airplay, On My Mind. Other highlights are Keep On Dancin’ and Don’t Need Nobody.

It gets repetitive, dance track after dance track, and lyrically it’s fairly bland — Love! Attraction! Ooh! — but if you’re looking for something that will get you to move, this will do it.

★★★

DOWNLOAD: Keep on Dancin’; Don’t Need Nobody

— Deepti Hajela, The Associated Press

 

CLASSICAL

Seiji Ozawa

Ravel: L’enfant et les sortileges & Shéhérazade (Decca Classics)

THERE’S something sweetly poetic about marking one’s 80th birthday with a children’s opera. Newly minted octogenarian and acclaimed Japanese conductor Seiji Ozawa leads the Saito Kinen Orchestra in Ravel’s fantastical L’enfant et les sortileges ( The Child and the Spells) in this new live recording released for the occasion.

Inspired by the mysterious exoticism of the Far East, the imaginative oneact opera, composed in 1925, features a fairy-tale world of talking armchairs, singing cats and dancing teacups brought to life by a crackerjack cast of international soloists, including American mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard as the child. Two charming highlights include feline duet Duo miaule and the tongue-twisting Ding, ding, ding, ding!, with the SKF Matsumoto Chorus and the SKF Matsumoto Children’s Chorus providing support throughout the work’s 25 short sections. Also included is Ravel’s song-cycle Shéhérazade, sung by American mezzo-soprano Susan Graham, as well as his everpopular Alborada del gracioso.

Entering one’s ninth decade is worthy cause for celebration, but Ozawa’s latest recording also notably marks his triumphant return to the podium after surviving a life-threatening cancer diagnosis in 2013. ★★★★ ½

— Holly Harris