I hope you are all having a delightfully spooky Halloween. Mine was spent in a state of relative normalcy, no trick or treating for me tonight, just some great pizza and a nice glass of wine. I didn't really have any particular topic in mind for today's post, so I thought it might be a good time to look back on some of the recent releases of the past few week.
Neil Young - Chrome Dreams II (Reprise)
I've been a long time fan of this great Canadian, so I was really looking forward to checking this one out. This misleadingly titled disc is a sequel of sorts to one of Neil's many, many notorious "lost" albums; featuring ten tracks of recently re-recorded songs written at various points over the last twenty years or so. The album's centerpiece, and definite highpoint, is the eighteen minute "Ordinary People" - a rousing epic about the real people that make the world go round. Surprisingly it never overstays its welcome, mostly thanks to the rousing workout by the Blue Note Horns. There a couple clunkers (as seems to be the case with any recent Young release), but the Crazy Horse stomp and swagger of "Spirit Road" and "Dirty Old Man" make this well worth checking out.
check out: "Spirit Road"
Avenged Sevenfold - Avenged Sevenfold (Warner Bros.)
There really isn't any gentle way to say this, but this album completely sucks. I (rather stupidly) had high expectations for this one after really enjoying the exciting City of Evil, but I was not prepared for this big of a turkey. I suppose I should have been prepared by the underwhelming, right-wing ranting "Critical Acclaim", but I was hoping it wouldn't be representative of the rest of the disc. I'm not sure what these guys were thinking, but their reach most definitely exceeded their grasp this time around. Gone is most of the punk swagger and metal workouts of the last album, in favor of bloated "epics" that try way too hard to be Use Your Illusion rejects. Quite possibly one of the biggest letdowns of the year.
check out: "Almost Easy"
Shooter Jennings - The Wolf (Universal)
Holy shit was this unexpected. I didn't even realize Shooter had another album coming out until the day of its release, so this took me completely by surprise in more ways than one. I've long been a fan of Waylon's kid, but this is most definitely his strongest release yet. His cover of Dire Straits' "Walk of Life", the album's first single, is an inspired choice - as is his team-up with the Oak Ridge Boys on "Slow Train". I feel like Shooter's always had a little trouble balancing his many moods (country outlaw, traditional country crooner, rock rebel) resulting in patchy albums when taken as a whole, but The Wolf strikes the perfect balance of all three. Definitely worth checking out, even if you might not be a typical country fan.
check out: "Walk of Life"
1 comment:
he's a cool dude in person, met him at the WIXY studio last spring...was in town for a show at the Highdive.
Post a Comment