New music

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This article was published 08/11/2018 (2864 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

POP / ROCK

Imagine Dragons
Origins (Interscope/KIDinaKORNER)

Do Imagine Dragons ever sleep? Not apparently.

Less than a year and a half after releasing the double-platinum album Evolve and crisscrossing the globe on a 100-date tour, the band is back with a dozen new songs. Whew.

Origins is supposed to be a sister companion to last year’s monster Evolve and it’s an intriguing follow-up, offering more textures and sonic experiments. If Evolve was the band stalking around as an arena powerhouse, Origins is their quirky little sister, making cool stuff in her bedroom.

Don’t let the first single, Natural, fool you. That slice of bombastic, fist-pumping bravado seems to indicate more of the same on Origins, but they drift into other areas, like the blissed-out summer jam Cool Out that could be on a DNCE album, and the gloriously anarchic, disruptive Digital, which plays with dub step and chops itself into pieces.

The album sees the Dragons again reteaming with producers Alex da Kid and Mattman & Robin — folks who have delivered some of the band’s biggest hits — but, to everyone’s credit, not doing more of the same.

Bullet in a Gun is fresh with unpredictable electronic flourishes, and the club-ready Only has interesting temp shifts and unexpected layered parts, as if the Dragons are fighting monotony this time. West Coast is basically a folky tune that could happily sit in a Lumineers album — how’s that for predictable?

Lyrically, Origins dwells on modern-day alienation and the band’s own uncomfortable relationship to its own fame. On Zero, lead singer Dan Reynolds reminds everyone he once felt empty and unreal. On the moody Bullet in a Gun, he notes sadly: “To make a name you pay the price” and later the words “sellout, sellout, sellout!” are heard.

The Dragons also explore a dehumanizing digital world, like in their plea for Love, where Reynolds notes everyone tones out shocking news: “We put on our headphones.” Elsewhere, he screams: “I’m not a part of your machine/I am the machine.”

The new album extends the band’s flirtation with Charles Darwin — taking its name from On the Origin of Species and coming right after Evolve. In some ways, the names should be reversed: Origins shows their sound really evolving.

★★★1/2 stars out of five

Stream these: Natural, Love

— Mark Kennedy, The Associated Press

 

 

ROOTS / COUNTRY

Richard Lloyd
The Countdown (Plowboy Records)

Richard Lloyd is known as the co-guitarist/songwriter from 1970s-era New York band Television. Along with Tom “Verlaine” Miller, the duo created a special kind of highbrow, alternative-rock commotion that was specific to New York at the time and spoke more to fans of bands that could actually play their instruments.

Early in his life (Lloyd just turned 67) he had studied guitar with Velvert Turner, who was a pal of Jimi Hendrix, and Turner in essence turned Lloyd on to a larger musical palette. Lloyd keeps a low profile and this dazzling 10-tracker is only his seventh solo release since his days with Television.

From the outset you know the guitar sound. Lloyd has a stylistic flair that encapsulates more that his alternative rock peerage would suggest. Opening track Wind In The Rain is one of the most Television-esque tracks here, created by the guitarist’s chiming, quasi-modal chords and built upon a six-string riff.

Lloyd of course is no one-trick pony trying to re-create past glories. Every track has its own defined tonal space and the guitarist shifts his sound from raw to pretty with the kind of ease only a true journeyman can deliver. Run, I Can Tell and especially the blistering Down The Drain are overt power rockers that push the sonic envelope dexterously. The adult-life ballads (Just My Heart, Something Remains) sound similar yet each is full of worthy insights showing that Lloyd has significant ability in understanding his emotions. The closing title track gets even a little more off the chain sonically and the influence of Hendrix’s style is beautifully portrayed here. The Countdown is totally worth searching out.

Stream these: So Sad, I Can Tell

★★★★

— Jeff Monk

 

 

JAZZ

Ben Wendel
The Seasons (Motéma Music)

The genesis for this album is interesting. Over a full year, saxophonist Ben Wendel released a series of YouTube videos once a month for 12 months with a different duet jazz partner each month. (They are still available on YouTube.) The compositions were all Wendel’s, and the partners represented different instruments and styles.

There was never a CD release of that part of the project, and to complete this ambitious plan, Wendel has modified the monthly compositions for a quintet of musicians who individually were part of the YouTube project. They are: Gilad Hekselman on guitar, bassist Matt Brewer, pianist Aaron Parks and Eric Harland on drums. Wendel was initially inspired by the fact that in 1876 Tchaikovsky released 12 piano pieces called The Seasons, written for each month in that year.

The result of that inspiration is a simply wonderful personal and melodic exploration of seasons and colleagues in the jazz world. January starts the year with a driving celebratory mood, while March for example is gentle and peaceful in mood. April has hints of I’ll Remember April, but follows the sometimes dissonant but overriding melodic thrust of the album. Each of the quintet shine in both solo and accompanying roles.

The longest track is December, a meditative and partially electronic end to a fascinating jazz year. Whatever the inspiration, Wendel has created a thoroughly modern The Seasons.

★★★★1/2 stars

Stream these: March, December

— Keith Black

 

 

CLASSICAL

Raphaël Sévère & Trio Messiaen
Messiaen: Quatuor pour la fin du Temps (Mirare)

Trio Messiaen, joined by French guest clarinettist Raphaël Sévère, breathes new life into Olivier Messiaen’s harrowing Quatuor pour la fin du Temps, penned during the composer’s captivity at a Nazi prisoner-of-war camp from 1940 to ‘41.

The ensemble, founded in 2014, is dedicated to performing their namesake composer’s chamber music, with their first release in an ongoing series featuring one of his greatest masterpieces. Its eight distinct movements were scored for the only instruments available in the prison camp, and premièred by fellow prisoners in 1941. It continues to resonate with apocalyptical overtones.

The group’s simpatico sensibility is immediately displayed during the opening movement Liturgie de crystal, which is laced with Messiaen’s idiosyncratic, delicate birdcalls heard in the violin. Other highlights include the Biblically inspired Vocalise, pour l’Ange qui annonce la fin du temps with its hypnotic unison lines, as well as the later Danse de la fureur, pour les sept trompettes, including its evocation of gongs and trumpets signalling end times.

Kudos to Sévère, who performs the pivotal third movement Abîme des oiseaux like a cry from the depths; navigating its elegiac lines, prismatic dynamic shadings and abrupt outburst with utmost sensitivity that chills the spine.

The album also includes Thomas Adès’s Court Studies from The Tempest, inspired by the Shakespearean play. Each of the six textural, musical soupçons further showcase the players’ bravura, with its quicker-paced characters, including The Prince and The Counsellor clearly executed with the skill of a bard.

★★★★1/2 

— Holly Harris