New music

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 27/02/2020 (2234 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

 

PUNK

Green Day
Father of All… (Reprise/Warner)

Green Day recently caught some people unaware. The trio performed at the NHL’s All-Star Game in St. Louis and singer Billie Joe Armstrong dropped some swear words into the mix. NBC had to bleep the band. What did everyone expect?

The trio is older now but age hasn’t blunted the band’s urgency. Green Day come out of the gate, as always, snarling on their latest release, Father of All… They may have pulled back on the official title — if you want to know what the ellipses replace, look at the album cover — but the spirit of punk lives on in the band, even if you’ll detect some strong rockabilly tendencies.

Father of All… represents Green Day’s first album in the Donald Trump era and the trio’s angry, anti-establishment voice has been missed. “What a mess because there’s no one to trust,” Armstrong screams in the title track. On Sugar Youth, he warns: “All hell is breaking loose.”

It clocks in at just over 26 minutes long. Two of the 10 songs don’t even hit the two-minute mark. Alienation and drug use run through the album, as do violence and aggressive language. But the vocals sound more distant than when we last heard a crisp urgency to Armstrong delivering such songs as Bang Bang in 2016.

The 50s-ish sock hop of Stab You in the Heart is undercut by murderous lyrics, while the band even approaches doo-wop in Meet Me on the Roof. (By the way, maybe skip the date with Armstrong on the roof: “How high is your low gonna go, girl?”)

On the glam rocker Oh Yeah, which samples a tune by Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, the band mocks social media addictionand how we’re failing our kids. Bassist Mike Dirnt shines on Junkies on a High and drummer Tre Cool propels Graffitia, a song that is as close to Bruce Springsteen as Green Day can get.

Perhaps the best song, Fire, Ready, Aim, sounds a little like the Hives and it’s a driving scream about daily outrage. The NHL has bought the song and seems to want it to be their equivalent to the NFL’s Are You Ready for Some Football?. One wonders if they really spent time with the lyrics. “Knock your teeth out/To the ground/You’re a liar,” Armstrong sings. Watching this corporate tie between the NHL and punk will be interesting indeed. Someone’s teeth are going to end up on the ground indeed. ★★★1/2 out of five

Stream these: Fire, Ready, Aim, Father of All…

— Mark Kennedy, The Associated Press

 

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POP & ROCK

Sarah Harmer
Are You Gone (Arts & Crafts)

The last line of Just Get Here, a song Sarah Harmer wrote for The Al Purdy Songbook, which honours the late Canadian poet, is: “There is still time, but it’s not waiting.”

Just Get Here is also the third track on Harmer’s new album, a splendid collection of 12 folk/roots/rock songs suffused with the notion she conjures in the Purdy song — the mid-life realization that our time here is finite.

In just over 40 minutes, the 49-year-old singer/songwriter spins tales of loves lost and friends missed, of tender moments and precious spaces, of fond memories and hopeful futures — and her overriding theme is that the best we can do is be present for each other and the earth we live on.

In that sense, this new album — Harmer’s first full-length recording since 2010 – is a welcome reminder that her trilling voice and gently loping rhythms have been sorely missed.

Are You Gone opens with St. Peter’s Bay, a wistful, chiming reminiscence of a former lover that uses a clever hockey metaphor and pastoral imagery to acknowledge both loss and regeneration. Second song New Low is an upbeat new wave tune (close your eyes and you’ll hear shades of Martha & the Muffins – complete with horns) inspired by the world’s urgent need for passionate activism and protest.

Take Me Out mines a similar musical vein to impart the urgency of new love and adventure. What I Was to You is Harmer’s ode to Gord Downie – a beautiful, jaunty salute to a dear friend and much-loved fellow traveller.

The Lookout tells a hiking story to reflect on the thrill and danger of relationships, and Harmer’s deep love for the natural world is imbued in the imagery of Wildlife (written by Kingston/Montreal musician Dave Hodge), Cowbirds and Little Frogs.

The keening guitar tones of closer See Her Wave, another farewell to a departed friend, may hint that it’s a weeper but the song is an uplifting paean to a life well-lived – a fitting end to a special record. ★★★★

Stream these: Just Get Here, New Low, What I Was to You

— John Kendle

 

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POP & ROCK

Tame Impala
The Slow Rush (Interscope/Fiction)

The Slow Rush is preoccupied with the passage of time, so it’s appropriate that the fourth album by Australian pop auteur Kevin Parker has arrived a year late. For Parker’s one-man band, 2019 was supposed to be a triumphal year — and indeed it was, with headline dates at Coachella.

Parker missed the deadline, however, for his follow-up to Tame Impala’s 2015 psychedelic pop breakthrough, Currents. Instead, he released only a handful of songs last year, including one cheekily titled Patience.

That song didn’t make the Slow Rush final cut, but a dozen other tracks did, including the sleek pop-soul nugget Borderline, altered from its original 2019 form. (Parker is a tinkerer who is not finished until he’s finished; he’s credited as producer and songwriter, and plays all the music himself.)

On 2010’s Innerspeaker and 2012’s Lonerism, Parker came on like an acid-tested ’60s throwback, seeking stoner bliss. He’s since evolved as a master pop craftsman. The Slow Rush at first seems like a lighter-than-air mood piece, fluttering from the sky like the candy-colored confetti at an artfully directed Tame Impala show.

Repeated listening, however, reveals angst lurking beneath the Day-Glo rock, disco and house music surface. Posthumous Forgiveness considers things left unsaid in his relationship with his late father. And on It Might Be Time, the 34-year-old confronts a reality all aging rock stars one day face. “You ain’t as cool as you used to be,” he sings. “You ain’t as young as you used to be.” ★★★★

Stream these: Borderline, It Might Be Time

— Dan DeLuca, Philadelphia Inquirer

 

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ROOTS & COUNTRY

Jake La Botz
They’re Coming For Me (Hi-Style Records)

It’s not usually a good thing when actors attempt to foist their musical skills upon the public. There are too-numerous-to-mention examples of these artists’ albums filling CD bargain bins around the globe.

Chicago’s Jake La Botz, who has appeared in films such as Ghost World and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter as well as the second season of HBO’s True Detective, has turned this theory around by making music his bread-and-butter occupation and keeping his acting as a side hustle.

His ninth album, the wonderful They’re Coming For Me is an unfussy set of tracks that delivers some compelling La Botz-created characters that give you a true sense of his imaginative abilities.

The failed attempt that leads to personal redemption and finally death in The Bankrobber’s Lament as well as the thoughtful life lessons-learned in The Terrible Game reveal the singer’s willingness to dig for deeper meaning through these inhabitants. On a somewhat lighter, yet no less convincing point, there’s the lovable, yet still somewhat heartbreaking Hey Bigfoot that finds the legendary Sasquatch attempting some kind return to infamy with little success.

Nashville, Nashville details the life of a struggling musician as seen through the advice of a fan (“My uncle Bobby jams out every Saturday night… covers Maiden and country and even Pearl Jam… my buddy will cut you for $399”). Both Grace Of The Leaves and Are We Saying Goodbye? are the kind of slow-burn ballads that showcase La Botz’s talent at using his voice and guitar to shape solemn sentiment perfectly.

Producer Jimmy Sutton (JD McPherson Band) creates a masterful, one-take mood, keeping the songs devoid of affectation. As the song declares La Botz’s music is “not country, not rock and roll, too arty for the blues and too dark for folk…” and just right for sitting down and escaping in to. Just like a good movie. ★★★1/2

Stream these: This Comb, Hey Bigfoot

— Jeff Monk

 

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JAZZ

Emie Rioux-Roussel Trio
Rythme de passage (Self-Produced)

Quebec native Emie Rioux-Roussel and her trio, Nicolas Bédard on bass and drummer Dominic Cloutier, have moved from recognition at home to an international name around the world. Rythme de passage is the trio’s fifth album and shows maturity, chemistry and a collective voice.

Whether reflective or with terrific up-tempo numbers, the trio never falters in its knowledge of exactly how each musician will interpret the moment. The writing here is solidly in the modern jazz trio groove with mood swings and melodies showing each member in full involvement.

Rioux-Roussel has commented that she loves invention and improvisation in both her passions of cooking and music. Bédard plays both upright and electric bass with equal intensity. Rioux-Roussel’s piano or keyboard always display grace and creativity. I bet she’s a great cook too.

This is contemporary jazz that is a treat to listen to. Melodically as in Maltagliata, or with up-tempo rhythm as in Taniata, there is thought and energy. Empriente is beautiful example.

I’m sometimes fearful about saying that an album can be stellar without taking the music to a new level, as it implies that all albums must/should do that. Not true. Invention within known parameters makes up some of the best jazz anyone will ever hear. ★★★★

Stream these: Yatse Club, Empreinte

— Keith Black

 

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CLASSICAL

Utah Symphony and Thierry Fischer
Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique (Hyperion)

The Utah Symphony, led by Thierry Fischer, celebrates the music of Hector Berlioz and the French composer’s seminal piece Symphonie Fantastique.

The five-movement work, composed in 1830, follows the journey of its artist protagonist, peppered with groundbreaking musical innovations including Berlioz’s use of the “idée fixe,” representing the artists’ beloved, and interweaving of the always harrowing Dies Irae theme as the now opium-addled artist hallucinates about marches to the guillotine and witches’ Sabbaths.

Naturally, the penultimate movement, Marche au supplice, is always Symphonie’s highlight, and Thierry paces the overall performance so it builds to its tragic outcome. Other highlights include a lilting Un bal, suitably romantic opener Reveries: Passions, and more pastoral Scene aux champs, before its finale Songe d’une nuit de sabbat, ends the imaginative work on a chilling, yet triumphant note.

The album also includes three shorter works, such as the rarely performed Reverie et caprice, Op. 8, based on an aria from the composer’s 1837 opera Benvenuto Cellini, featuring the lyrical playing of multi-Grammy award nominee violinist Philippe Quint.

La mort d’Ophelie, Op. 18, No. 2, transcribed for two-part women’s chorus, and a similar transcription of Sara la baigneuse, Op. 11, serve as reminder that Berlioz also wrote other works not quite as nightmarishly grim as those filled with cackling sorcerers and demons, or head-lopping trips to the guillotine. Instead these highlight his much gentler vocal writing, providing both ballast and an antidote to the darker images still rattling the soul. ★★★ 1/2

STREAM THIS: Berlioz’s Un bal, from Symphonie fantastique

— Holly Harris