Wrote a little reviewski

New U2 is, well U2. Unpredictable and better with every listen. Here is my review, long but there is a lot to be said about it.

U2- No Line on the Horizon
By: Mark Wampler

There is a pulse throughout No Line On the Horizon that is a little upsetting — a bit agitating. Perhaps it’s how confident the band comes off on their 12th studio release, Adam’s throbbing and relentless bass and Larry’s militaristic drumming that holds the group together like mortar. Rolling Stone’s review of the album describes Larry’s drumming as “so sharp and hard all the way through that it's difficult to tell how much is him and how much is looping (that is a compliment).”
It’s the harshness of the synths and the urgency in Bono’s voice that commands attention - Edge’s guitar tone is rough, un-sanded and fuzzy. This album is not going to be digested in one sitting; it is too harsh and different, almost unfriendly at first. In a sound only U2 can fashion, No Line is almost erotic (a description that will make sense if one can imagine Bono’s passionate writhing during live performances being manifested into sound) and definitely mysterious. “I was speeding on the subway / through the Stations of the Cross” Bono sings in “Moment of Surrender,” an apt description of the tension contained in the albums content - ultra-modern in its sound, yet saturated with ancient themes of God, love and redemption.
Melodically, No Line seems to take cues from eastern ragas, where a central tonal drone is established and then built upon like the foundation of a building. Its accompanying images are towering skyscrapers and frantic, huge metropolitans. “Lights flash past / like memories,” Bono chants in “FEZ-Being Born.” “A speeding head, a speeding heart.”
“No Line on the Horizon,” the opening track flies at you like a swarm of infuriated bees — rough and frantic. One will have to decide if they like being attacked by the sheer forcefulness of Bono’s vocals. With as many “oh’s” as words in the song, it’s easy to picture it being a big sing along during U2’s upcoming tour, tens of thousands of fans straining to match Bono’s soaring falsetto.
But for all of his forcefulness, the experimental and edgy (no pun intended) nature of the music has given Bono a back seat on this album. The questioning and soul searching that seemed to permeate Atomic Bomb has taken a back seat on this album. Bono seems to have found his voice again, more confident, assured. “I was born / I was born to be with you,” he opens the track “Magnificent”, a beautiful tribute to his Creator.
On “Moment of Surrender” Bono turns into an eager and reflective R&B singer which is entirely appropriate given the subject material: “At the moment of surrender / I fall to my knees,” he sings. It’s easy to picture a full-choir backing Bono and Edge in the chorus a la’ Springsteen. “It’s not that I believe in love,” he sings, “but love believes in me,” a line that works because Bono has said it so many times before. Edges guitar solo on the track has a hushed, voice-like quality. It takes a close listen before it is certain that it’s a guitar and not a soft vocal line, a fascinating effect.
If you’ve heard “Vertigo” the single off U2’s Atomic Bomb, then you’ve heard “Get on Your Boots,” the first single off their new album. “Get on Your Boots” is a better track but carries the same formula. “Let me in the sound / let me in the sound…” Bono chants a capella over Larry’s drumming in a line that will stick in your head for days.
The intro to “Stand up Comedy” sounds straight from the Zeppelin catalog. It has a non-linear structure, once it’s over it’s hard to tell exactly where it is that you’ve been. With a simple three-line chorus, “Out from under your beds / C’mon, ye people / Stand up for your love.” It also contains what could be the most bizarre lyric of the album, “Stop helping God across the road like a little old lady.”
“White Snow” starts off with a beautiful lullaby-like organ but carries an eerie resemblance to “O Come O Come Emmanuel,” and is the weakest track on the album. One can’t help but wait for Bono to burst out in “Rejoice, Rejoice!”
The song that could easily have been the first single is “Breathe” a complex mixture of accessible pop elements, harmony and that signature huge U2 sound. It is Bono’s best and most unique performance on the album. In it, one can discern definite hip-hop influences as Bono practically freestyles the verses. “I can breathe / breathe now,” Bono and Edge sing in the chorus, stretching out the syllables in the word breathe, with stunning harmony.
“Cedars of Lebanon” is a brilliant cap to the album but ends so abruptly it’s startling. It has a haunting chorus that simply repeats in a ghostlike melody “return the call to home, return the call to home.”

Jazz

In one day I will start my History of Kansas City Jazz course at Kansas State. I am super excited. I got my textbook today and skimmed through it a bit. It is as much social history about Kansas City as it is actual jazz history which is really cool. The author says that his goal is not to give a straight jazz history book, but to "develop a social, economic, and political overview of pre-World War II history in the Mid West through the development of jazz." Pretty cool. It is basically an oral history of Kansas City, with a bunch of strange cats and hip birds talking about the scene. One kid, 16 years old, told his mother he'd come back to school once the circus band he was playing with circus got done. He ended up making his way out to Kansas City and bumming around as so many musicians do. Well his mother ended up hiring and sending a private detective to find him and drag him back to school. The kid is now 60 and telling all his stories in this book. How awesome is that? What's really nuts though is that jazz is a new enough art form that a lot of the original players are still around. My dad, who plays the trombone around town in the jazz scene, sometimes will say, oh yeah he's still playing or he's still around. I asked him about Jay McShann today, one of the founding fathers of the swing era, especially that funky KC Swing, and he said he still plays around town occasionally. It's cool thinking that he's been able to be a part of that and passed a little down on to me. Mike Metheny who is the brother of Pat Metheny, one of the greatest jazz guitarists of all time, or for that matter, one of the best straight up guitarists of all time, sometimes plays in one of the band's my pops is in. Crazy stuff.

A good friend of mine had the pleasure a couple of months ago of spending time with one of the great jazzers of Kansas City. I am hoping that through this class I will be able to do my own, in a sort of way. The history of the jazz mecca that Kansas City was in the 20's and 30's has been dying for a long time around here, the very place it all happened. I am excited to learn a bit of my town's history. Go check out the joints, and grab a beer down at 18th and Vine once all is said and done. I'll be like a sort of unofficial tour guide I hope.

Vatican Forgives Lennon for "more popular than Jesus"

Saturday's edition of the Vatican's official newspaper absolves John Lennon of his notorious remark, saying that "after so many years it sounds merely like the boasting of an English working-class lad struggling to cope with unexpected success".

I saw this on the news today. Thought it comical. I think Lennon was half serious and half kidding when he said this, but either way, I find it a really funny statement. He said:

"Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn't argue with that; I'm right and I will be proved right. We're more popular than Jesus now; I don't know which will go first - rock 'n' roll or Christianity. Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me."

And when he said this, people in America blew up. There were literally "Beatles burnings" where kids at the behest of their parents usually, came and put everyone Beatles in a huge bonfire. I watched a documentary on Lennon this week, and when I saw old footage of those burnings I was very pained. I want some of those records! How cool would all that stuff be.

Copeland

So I got that great feeling this morning when you stumble upon a new album. What made this moment so great for me was that I was not even sure these guys were still a band. I have heard a couple tracks, and it sounds pretty killer.

Copeland- You are my Sunshine. Best Buy apparently has it for a mere 8 bucks which is great. A DVD comes with a special edition for about 3 bucks more.

Khrusty Brothers

Went and saw the Khrusty brothers at the VooDoo Lounge in Harrahs Casino last night. Was a disaster of a show... the Brothers rocked, but not as hard and the opening bands were unspeakably bad.


Won $1.47 on penny slots. My first... and last time gambling. But hey, it bought me coffee this morning. I could and should write several posts on what I saw... it was a horribly artificial and depressingly lonely place.

Mute Math

Thank you Dear Jesus,
FOr this Band.

Everything Starts Where it Ends

Lovedrug- Everything Starts Where It Ends
Album Review by Mark Wampler 598 Words

Lovedrug fans have learned a lesson or two in patience waiting for their beloved Ohio based band to release a follow up to 2004’s Pretend You’re Alive. After becoming the fastest selling act ever with their Sony affiliated label The Milita Group, the band was signed to Columbia records and had high hopes to release their latest effort, Everything Start’s Where It Ends with them. Columbia found themselves forced to make serious cutbacks, putting Lovedrug back into the ranks of Militia Group. This setback has not stopped them from putting out a good, solid record.

In an interview with AbsolutePunk the bands front man, Michael Shepard said, “I think almost all of the songs on Everything Starts Where it Ends could be a short film or something. The stories are so specific and situational and that makes them so picturesque. I like that about them.” With lyrics like “you are sugar sweet / so fine I’d like to eat” and “your apples poison seed / will be the end of me” coming at you in Happy Apple Poison, the albums opening track, it is clear why Shepard would feel this way. The song opens with characteristic Lovedrug, haunting guitar followed by Shepard’s secretive and seductive vocals. What comes next will catch you off guard. The chorus throws you into unfamiliar territory, shadowing that this record will be even more of an emotional journey than the last. Shepard finally, just comes out and says it on the track Thieving. “Would you believe me if I told you / that I'm surfacing for just one thieving moment / to steal your heart?” While this album is dark and moody, songs like Castling, Doomsday and the Echo and, the apt titled Dancing, bring life and motion to your heart and your feet. The tighter, more layered, sound can be attributed to the bands change in songwriting approach. “The writing process was just way different this time around,” Shepard explains in an interview. “There was less of the spontaneity that took place on Pretend, where I’d tend to just sit at the piano and write. On this record everything’s more methodical.” This is evident in the sometimes, verse-chorus-break format, the biggest flaw with the album. The repetitive format will at times, make you feel like you are running through mud, not getting anywhere with your investment of emotion. But the end of the record more than pays up for it.
Hands down, the best songwriting of the new album is the track Salt of the Earth where Shepard declares, “all is lost if heaven fails us.” The song begins with an angry, marching piano part that culminates in the break of the song, which finally gives your emotions rest. It achieves the powerful effect of reflection, making that idea of heaven sink linger and sink into your being.
The album title is also the title of the last song on the record. Everything Starts Where It Ends is a reference to the idea that it all comes back to love. It is the only thing that is able to satisfy our hungry and searching hearts.
The album closes with the words

“Here we are again love
Here we go again
By your side I can't pretend anymore.
Now everything starts where it ends.”

Love is indeed, where it starts, and where it ends and when you’re done listening, you will want to go back and make sure that you heard it right, and then discover it all again.

The Soviet Lyrics

God is love and love is real,
But the dead are dancing with the dead
And though all that's charming disappears
All things lovely only hurt my head
As I gather stones from fields,
Like pearls of water on my fingers' ends and wrap them up in bones,
Safe from windows,
From things that break,
As the night-time shined like day,
It saw my sorry face,
Hair a mess but it liked me best that way
(Besides, how else could I confess?
When I looked down like if to pray,
Well, I was looking down her dress...)

Good God, Please!
Catch for us the foxes in the vineyard - the little foxes

Turn your ear, musician, to silence because they only come out when it's quiet
Their tails brushing over your eyelids
Wake up, sleeper, and rise from the dead!
Or the fur that they shed will cover your bed in a delicate,
orange-ish cinnamon red
Ah, I don't need this!
I have my loves, I have my doubts,
I don't need this. 

Booty and Cultural Relations

In response to the amazing weather that us Kansans have been seeing, Barret and I went to a common area in the middle of the K-State campus. I love watching people, and winter does not allow for too much of this as I do not go to many popular social gatherings. Today I could not help but notice that many of the cars driving by were protruding very loud bumps and grinds. The fascinating thing was that all of the kids in these cars were white, and most of the cars were very nice. So I posed a question to Barret: When is the last time that you saw a black person driving around with the windows rolled down listening to say Green Day, Mozart, or the Shins? I honestly cannot remember a time. Now i know that there are those people out there, but it is obviously not the norm. How then do suburban white kids relate to music that is so obviously fake and distant from theirs? (or at least used to be I guess actually that it is probably not so far away from how many of these kids live) I was checking the news on MSN and ran across a very sad and telling title of a rap song called "smack that" by Akon. Here is the chorus:

I feel you creepin', I can see you from my shadow.
Wanna jump up in my Lamborghini Gallardo.
Maybe go to my place and just kick it, like Taebo.
And possibly bend you over.
Look back and watch me
smack that, all on the floor,
smack that, give me some more,
smack that, 'till you get sore
smack that, oooh.
smack that, all on the floor,
smack that, give me some more,
smack that, 'till you get sore,
smack that, oooh 

Aside from just bad poetry, these lyrics are just absurd! Kick it like Taebo? Are you kidding? How can anyone take themselves seriously who listen and write this kind of stuff? As my friend Brian pointed out, it isn't the people that are making this stuff that should surprise us, it's that they are finding such a ready audience. Where have all of our brains gone?

HALLELUJAH!

Jeff Tweedy has confirmed that the new album from Wilco, Blue Sky Blue, will hit stores on May 15. The follow-up to 2004's successful A Ghost Is Born will most likely be supported by a sizable tour, so stay tuned for any updates .

There is a God

please listen to this band

www.myspace.com/annuals