Pop and Rock

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 03/10/2009 (6145 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Mariah Carey

Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel (Def Jam/Universal)

‘I should crack you right in your forehead,” Mariah Carey sings on the breakup tune It’s a Wrap, which finds a hungover Carey kicking her lover to the curb. But even though she’s spitting venom, Carey’s cooing on the doo-wop sounding song is so sensuous and sweet, even the tune’s intended target will remain under her spell — as will her listeners.

Memoirs… is an exceptional album about love — being in it, out of it, over it and trying to reach it. While the subjects are tried and true, they are never tired, thanks to Carey’s approach, which mixes a good dose of humour and wit with her multi-octave voice.

She produced and wrote the majority of the album with Christopher “Tricky” Stewart and Terius “The-Dream” Nash, hitmakers who add their own touch without overdoing it.

Some highlights include Ribbon, which bumps with southern flavour; H.A.T.E.U. a beautiful heartbreak ballad; and Candy Bling, a teenage love-affair tune.

No one is perfect — that’s obvious. This CD is — that’s obvious too. ‘Ö’Ö’Ö’Ö’Ö

— Mesfin Fekadu, Associated Press

Alice in Chains

Black Gives Way to Blue (Virgin/EMI)

‘THERE’S no going back to the place we started from,” sings new Alice in Chains vocalist William DuVall on All Secrets Known. Maybe not, but they can sure try.

When original vocalist Layne Staley died of a drug overdose in 2002 many thought it was the end of the grunge-metal band, but here they are with a sound-alike replacement picking up exactly where they left off — it’s like the 14 years since their last release never happened.

Little has changed about the band’s trademark sound: a mixture of Jerry Cantrell’s sludgy riffs, an ominous bottom end and the dreary vocal interplay between the guitarist and DuVall. The majority of the album is slow, dense and moody, with more than half of the 11 tracks wallowing in the dirt, which should please fans who thought Alice in Chains died when Staley did. ‘Ö’Ö’Ö1/2

— Rob Williams

Lights

The Listening (Lights/Universal)

Out of nowhere, Lights, a.k.a. 22-year-old Torontonian Valerie Poxleitner managed by CBC’s Jian Ghomeshi (full disclosure), surprised a whole lot of music industry types by winning the best new artist Juno this year on the strength of her self-titled EP.

Her debut full-length expands on the EP’s formula with 13 tracks of easy listening synth-pop balladry that is as sweet as her voice. Most of songs are slow, dreamy, bubbly and ultimately interchangeable. She ups the tempo a couple times — Ice is a sure-fire dance-floor filler and Lions! is a bouncy electro-pop ditty about being brave it the face of danger (an ode to Jesus, whom she thanks in the liner notes?) — but for the most part Lights keeps things on easy-listening mellow side. Lights is pretty lightweight. ‘Ö’Ö1/2

— RW

Default

Comes and Goes (Capitol/EMI)

THE old joke about Default was their name was a perfect description of their music: faceless commercial post-grunge radio-rock that sounded too much like Nickelback, the later criticism courtesy of the band’s affiliation with Chad Kroeger who discovered the band and worked with them on their early efforts.

Kroeger wasn’t involved in the band’s new album, but Default hasn’t changed on their first release in four years — they still write melodic modern rock and by-the-book ballads that sound like an attempt to rewrite their biggest hit (Taking My) Life Away (the song title was another industry in-joke about forced to listen to one of the band’s albums or sit through their live show. Man, were these guys easy to pick on.).

Comes and Goes has its moments, with the occasional big hook on songs like Turn it On and All Over Me, but if you’ve heard two Default songs — the upbeat one and the slow one — you’ve heard them all. ‘Ö’Ö

— RW