JENNYANYKIND
Blues of the Afflicted (No. 6)
There are at once a dozen comparisons this band merits that wouldn’t
really describe them anyway, so let’s just concentrate on the music. Slight
country sensibilities meet Seventies-arena hooking on not-quite-right chords,
topped off with quintessentially slacker vocals, and currently fashionable
loud/soft dynamics. “In My Neighborhood” features a nifty juxtaposition of an
almost-danceable, compound-time ascension with a jangle-metal bridge that
demands those lighters be hoisted in the air. “Afflicted” and “Unfulfilled”
teasingly begin with blues riffs only to burst into sloppy rock workouts; the
latter inserts a truly weird bluegrass waltz twice in a four-minute song. Ennui
and guilt run through the lyrics, although Michael Holland sings as if he’s
just marking time with his voice. The closing instrumental, “Afflicted Blues,”
sums up the album succinctly: alternative rock filtered through a Southern
sensibility, created and recorded in a quiet Southern town. (Jennyanykind
plays the Electric Lounge Friday 26)
HHH 1/2 –
Ken Hunt
FUCK EMOS
Lifestyles of the Drugged and Homeless (No Lie)
Monster mash metal riffs backed by trombones, keyboards, and even a
violin bash together for a full album that is meant not to be understood by
all, but enjoyed by many. To best enjoy the Fuck Emos is to not try too hard to
elicit anything but sheer dancing pleasure fueled by a few cocktails, and a
dose of this Rohypnol rock. Suffice to say if you don’t know what Rohypnol is,
you’ve probably never experienced the Fuck Emos live or otherwise, but don’t
feel bad; it won’t be held against you. Pleas for understanding are rife
throughout this record, which I’m sure would be extended to any fan – past,
present, or future. The Fuck Emos will play songs and wait. They’ll play songs
at clubs. At parties. They’ll wait for you to show up. And be too fucked up to
play. So, hang on to that CD, pop it in your deck, and better luck next time,
sucker.
HHH – Kelly M. Petrash
STEVE VAI
Alien Love Secrets (Relativity)
For too long, Steve Vai’s been the dog trying too hard to learn new
tricks. A shredder with a sweet tooth for hyperbole, Vai too often comes off as
a guitar wank when he pushes the limits of oddity and notes-per-second.
Luckily, Alien Love Secrets finds Vai re-learning the oldest of tricks:
the blues. On this EP, Vai’s drenched his blooze in enough live rhythm tracks
and speed variations to keep him away from the tired revisionism, and the
guitar show-boating punk has apparently killed dead. And on the centerpiece,
“Ya-Yo Gakk,” Vai’s smartly opts to contrast his guitar licks with his infant
son’s nonsense vocals rather than overdub a guitar battle with himself. Short,
smart, and ultimately soulful, Alien Love Secret‘s proof that Vai’s so
strong of a player he can now make two steps back seem more rewarding than
three awkward steps forward.
HHH 1/2 – Andy Langer
THE WALT LEWIS BAND
Wrong, Wrong, Wrong (Galaxie)
Walt, Walt, Walt. Why hire such capable craftsmen of Texas-style
country (band members Boomer Norman, Carl Keesee, and guests like Howard
Kalish, Floyd Domino, Marty Muse, Dale Allen, and Ponty Bone) just to make such
a Nashville-style album? The first song is kind of catchy, and musically solid,
but the play-on-words title, “Breathless from Racin’ Through My Mind,” made me
suspicious. Sure enough, nearly every song featured either similar word play or
a lyrical clich�, and it gets old quick. Worse than lyrical
clich�s are musical ones – nearly every lick here can also be heard on
just about any Nashville album. Walt and band don’t suck – there’s plenty of
talent here – but they suffer from a lack of originality, in a George Strait
sort of way. I prescribe listening to less contemporary Nashville and more Buck
Owens.
HH – Lee Nichols
BEAU JOCQUE & THE ZYDECO HI-ROLLERS
Git It, Beau Jocque! (Rounder)
You knew after those great studio albums that a live album would have
to be even more impressive, and you were right. Beau Jocque is probably the
first zydeco artist who has a “crossover” style that couldn’t be called
“sellout.” Yes, he’s risen to the top of the crawfish circuit over the last few
years with a youthful appeal, but he’s done it not by incorporating pop, but
rather the hard edge of rap, a start-and-stop vocal style that evokes James
Brown. Especially intergral to his take-no-prisoners jam is six-string bassist
Chuck Bush, who lays down the funkiest groove this side of P-Funk. And whenever
guitarists Ray Johnson and Cookie Chavis cut in, they lay down a screaming
Buddy Guy or Stevie Ray Vaughan riff. Recorded at two of Louisiana’s most
important zydeco bars, Slim’s Y-Ki-Ki in Opelousas and Harry’s Lounge in Breaux
Bridge, you get to hear the only man who could challenge Boozoo Chavis at his
down-home best.This disc make a nice warmup for his upcoming gig at La Zona
Rosa on June 10.
HHHH – Lee Nichols
BABES IN TOYLAND
Nemesisters (Reprise)
In some ways, Babes in Toyland long player number three is both an
advance and a return to roots. Sure, compared to the
let’s-go-to-the-woods-and-make-a-record studio sheen producer Lee Ranaldo gave
Fontanelle, Nemesisters is fairly spartan. So while
Nemesisters scans as raw as any of the Babes’ indie records, it’s also
loaded with a number of things unseen on previous records. Amongst the
innovations: harmonies, Kat Bjelland vocals that are sung far more than
shrieked (although she remains one of modern rock’s most distinguished
screamers), four lead vocals from drummer Lori Barbero (including an adorably
shaky, a capella Billie Holiday cover, “Deep Song”), and one from bassist
Maureen Herman. The sheer presence of three covers is also boggling, especially
since two of ’em originated with Eric Carmen (a severely tortured “All By
Myself”) and Sister Sledge (a totally straight “We Are Family”). Still, once
Bjelland’s Rickenbacker begins laying into the nasty, mutated “Smoke on the
Water” riff at the core of “Sweet 69,” there’s no mistaking who this is.
Maturity and a return home all at once. Believe it, friends, believe it.
HHH 1/2 – Tim Stegall
STEVE BROOKS
Purgatory Rd. (Frog)
Steve Brooks could very well be the quintessential country singer. With
his slightly nasal, quivering alto voice, he sings of the open country he loves
so much, and the people who live there. He happily plays into old country
stereotypes. On “Hurt Me Tonight,” he begs his girlfriend to do the most
miserable thing she can imagine to him so that he can write a song about it.
“(Deep In the Heart is) Texas” is one of those sitting around the campfire with
your horses and eating jerky sing-a-longs. Although “The Land of Catfish”
sounds too much like Springsteen’s “Pink Cadillac,” it perfectly exemplifies
all that makes Louisiana, well, special. The fact that it follows the angry
rocker, “The Great White Hope,” about the inexplicable rise of David Duke and
other neo-Nazis, lets you know that Louisiana fascinates him like a car wreck,
even though Texas is his utopia.
HHH – Al Kaufman
SUSAN VOELZ
Summer Crashing (Pravda)
Like her contemporary Lisa Germano (who plays with John Mellencamp),
former Austinite Susan Voelz is a violinist who first gained notoriety in a pop
band (Poi Dog Pondering), only to release highly esoteric and atmospheric solo
music. On this, her second solo effort, the songs are so personal you feel like
you’re watching her go to the bathroom. Her introspective lyrics are layered
with muddled and muted melodies full of bent notes. When she sings “Just for an
hour, I’m gonna be happy,” you feel like she’s just trying to convince herself
of that foreign notion. Yet this moody, lush production strikes a nerve. Turn
out the lights, turn it up, and feel the emotions swell inside you.
HHH – Al Kaufman
MAD SEASON
Above (Columbia)
Recording tunes inspired by a season of creative hibernation and years
of inebriation in a span of less than 10 days, Pearl Jam guitarist Mike
McCready, Screaming Trees drummer Barrett Martin, and Alice in Chains wicked
vocal warlock Layne Staley have turned their bleakest, most dormant musical
urges into a sobering, 10-song album, and taken that familiar Seattle sound to
yet another level. The deep, solitary moodiness of Staley’s lyrics and the
sinking ebb of McCready’s always painfully tuned guitar effortlessly evoke raw
and real without sounding regurgitated. The first single “River of Deceit” is
full of heart, as is the soul-drianing “X-Ray Mind,” proving, at least
temporarily, that there are still musicians left out there who find solace in
making music, not just making money.
HHH – Chris Marsh
This article appears in May 26 • 1995 and May 26 • 1995 (Cover).