New Music

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This article was published 14/01/2012 (5325 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

BIG DAVE MCLEAN

Outside the Box (Floodland Records)

It turns out some of Big Dave McLean’s talent is inherited. On his latest album, Outside the Box, his 95-year-old mother Pearl McLean offers up one of the disc’s highlights with her composition The Redwood, an achingly beautiful ballad about a vow of love made under a redwood tree punctuated with some searing guitar work by Chris Carmichael and featuring the McLean matriarch herself on organ.

The remainder of the 14-track release is a mix of her son Dave’s originals and covers of tunes by the likes of Mississippi Fred McDowell, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Muddy Waters and the Mississippi Shieks. The veteran Winnipeg bluesman is in top form on his own Daddie-O, featuring some stellar harmonica work by Gord Killer; gets swampy on Her Soul Goes On; shows off his boogie-woogie side on Mother Nature’s Party; and evokes a backporch jam on the fun Drink’n and Stink’n, an ode to the joys of alcohol with lines like, “There’s too much blood in my alcohol system, if I had any brain cells boy I sure do miss ’em.”

McLean is joined by a cast of Winnipeg musicians, including Bernie Thiessen, Joanna Miller, Brendan Nagel, John Miller and Kevin Werre on a fun album that shows off his love of traditional blues while colouring outside the box. Four stars

— Rob Williams

 

POP AND ROCK

SNOW PATROL

Fallen Empires (Universal)

The big news about album No. 6 from the Irish/Scottish group Snow Patrol was that the quintet was getting out of its comfort zone with some electronic experimentation, but fans of the band’s melancholy anthems shouldn’t worry since there are only a few numbers where the band truly breaks out of its box. What fans should worry about is the quality of the material, which fails to leave much of an impression.

I’ll Never Let Go is the most edgy of the new songs as the band mixes electronic dance beats with some backing vocals by the L.A. Inner City Mass Gospel Choir, which returns for the otherwise forgettable Weight of Love. Called Out in the Dark is driven by pulsating bass and keyboards that lead to a big ’80s-sounding chorus with frontman Gary Lightbody at his most positive telling listeners, “This is your life, this is your time.” Thanks Gary.

Fans of the band’s breakthrough single Chasing Cars aren’t forgotten, as the second half of the album settles into default mode with the group offering up soothing arena-ready cellphone waving anthems like Lifening, In the End and Those Distant Bells that sound big and bright — they are masters at building to soaring choruses — but lack memorable hooks that will have you coming back for more. Still, listen for a ballad like New York to make it to Grey’s Anatomy. Snow Patrol knows who its fans are. Two stars

— Rob Williams

 

CANNON BROS.

Firecracker/Cloudglow (Disintegration Records)

The debut full-length release from Winnipeg’s Cannon Bros. (on local songwriter Greg MacPherson’s new label) is a boon to those of us who came of musical age during the indie-rock boom of the early ’90s. The bespectacled guitar-and-drums duo of Cole Woods and Alannah Walker effortlessly capture the spirit and sound of bands like Superchunk, Spent and others of their North Carolina ilk.

The two longtime musical partners, who trade off instruments and lead vocals, deliver 12 scrappy, crackerjack pop songs veritably buzzing with youthful energy and bristling with hooks. Neither member has what could be called powerhouse voices (though Woods has a sinewy Tegan & Sara quality on some tracks), but what they lack in sophistication they make up for in feeling.

The album opens with the one-two-three punch of Soft View, You See and Out of Here: the first an urgently paced track with fuzzed-out guitar that ducks and weaves around the melody; the second a slow-burning, sonorous beauty; the last a frantic bash-and-strum that’s a conflicted call to arms. It’s an effective snapshot of the talented twosome’s scope, and the rest of the album doesn’t let it down. Four stars

— Jill Wilson

 

THE FORBIDDEN DIMENSION

The Golden Age of Lasers (Saved by Vinyl)

You are forgiven thinking Calgary horror-punk veterans the Forbidden Dimension were dead and buried since they haven’t released an album since 2006’s A Cool Sound Outta Hell, but the band indeed lives as Jackson Phibes and his other awesomely named band members, H.P. Lovesauce and P.T. Bonham, prove on their return disc The Golden Age of Lasers.

The 14-track release is a mixture of ’50s inspired rock SSRqn’ roll, sinister surf, skuzzy garage, distorted punk and even some metal with titles like Wild Old Wolfman, Where’s My Wolves? and Hitchhike to Hades. Phibes’ voice is rough enough to imagine he gargles with a mixture of honey and formaldehyde while his lyrics feature a dastardly cast of characters doing everything from participating in demon-raising ceremonies to drag racing. It’s all good bloody fun. Three and a half stars

— RW

 

THE LONELY VULCANS

Vulcan Cesspool (Transistor 66)

Local scenesters the Lonely Vulcans create a deliciously simple din on their new album and make it obvious they are in this for fun. The quartet revels in its own lo-fi juices and the album almost sounds like the players traded instruments and are winging it just for the session.

The band’s rudimentarily awesome sound trades on a ’50s rock esthetic minus the pretense. Everything from The Fly ’86 to album closer No Fun Pt. 2 kick at current local conventions while staggering through a weed smoke haze of their own making. Other tracks like High Vultage Weed, Absinthe Father and Satan MILF give you a sweet idea of the band’s outside pursuits.

It’s distinctive for sure, and will go down a treat at any local rubber chicken tossing night you could name. Three stars

— Jeff Monk

 

COUNTRY AND ROOTS

THE LITTLE WILLIES

For The Good Times (Milking Bull/EMI)

The Little Willies formed in 2003 to play a one-off gig sharing their love of classic C&W. The talented quintet eventually recorded a successful album in 2006.

Six years later the Willies are still living in the past. Songbird Norah Jones and guitarist Richard Julian handle lead vocals complimented by bassist Lee Alexander, drummer Dan Reiser and lead guitarist Jim Campilongo. Together they successfully tackle classics from writers like Ralph Stanley, Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, Johnny Cash and Lefty Frizell. Julian does his best Lyle Lovett on Red Simpson’s hit Diesel Smoke, Dangerous Curves and Johnny Cash’s Wide Open Road. Jones excels in her readings of Loretta Lynn’s Fist City and Dolly Parton’s timeless Jolene. Another highlight is the “stringmanship” of Campilongo that can only be described as finger-pickin’ good.

On For the Good Times, The Little Willies respectfully pay tribute to their C&W heroes. Three stars

— Bruce Leperre

 

FOLK

MURRAY MCLAUCHLAN

Human Writes (True North)

“Dusty old farmer, out working your field, hangin’ down over your tractor wheel….” Who doesn’t recall the dulcet tones of Canuck singer-songwriter Murray McLauchlan’s ’70s-vintage hit drifting from their car radio? All these years later and the venerable McLauchlan is still making music for his own age group as solidly as ever.

Murray is no Bruce Cockburn though and with Human Writes he pretty much centres his lyrics on essential, aging baby-boomer topics. Painting Floors espouses that love is all we have to rely on as we “reach for the sky” and “whistle home after dark” while “only time will heal” bad times. It’s the kind of mild and non-specific truth seeking that plays well with recent retirees living on Salt Spring Island. Musically it’s a peach, and McLauchlan can always be counted on to keep the sound of his albums razor-sharp and lucid.

There is definitely a market for this kind of music and where there is a market, there is an artist. Three stars

— Monk

 

JAZZ

GARY SMULYAN

Smul’s Paradise (Capri Records)

Baritone saxophonist Gary Smulyan hits the groove right out of the gate in this tribute to the classic jazz organ combo by playing the immediately recognizable, funky Sunny.

The bari sax is not usually associated with the organ trio sound, but Smulyan makes a place for it by fronting a band of drummer Kenny Washington, guitarist Peter Bernstein and Hammond B3 player Mike LeDonne in an eight-tune set that includes three Smulyan originals, including the tasty title track.

This is not a regular working band, but the musicians sound as tight as if they just came off an extended tour of one-nighters. The music is fun, funky and the great bari playing gives it a new twist. Three and a half stars

— Chris Smith

 

CLASSICAL

JOHN LENEHAN; ROYAL LIVERPOOL PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA, JOHN WILSON

John Ireland: Piano Concerto; Legend; solo works (Naxos)

John Ireland (1879-1962) was an English composer with an individual voice, despite a mix of ingredients one senses was drawn from other composers equally individual in their Romantic ways. You hear the bittersweet longing of Fauré, the expansive keyboard resources of Chopin or Rachmaninov and most of all the clear-sighted richness of Brahms, which is not surprising since Ireland was a pupil of Charles Villiers Stanford, the “Irish Brahms.” The album evokes a picturesque vision of the English country and seasides in your imagination.

Ireland’s Piano Concerto (1930) was a popular item on the London Proms concerts in the 1930s but fell out of fashion afterwards. It’s a highly engaging, resourcefully scored 25-minute work that’s been well served on recordings, especially so here. Legend for piano and orchestra is darker in character and very nearly as good. Ireland’s First Rhapsody is most Brahmsian, the early Pastoral is here in its first recording, along with more solo items revealing Ireland’s accomplished, if occasionally discursive, style. Four stars

— James Manishen