Record Reviews
Fri., Feb. 7, 1997
ENIGMA
Le Roi Est Mort, Vive Le Roi (Virgin)
Not much has changed in the Enigma camp since the first CD's release four
years ago, which swept across European discotheques before finally catching up
to the more fickle U.S. pop market nearly a year after its release. Michael
Cretu, the band's driving force and sole official member, is still busy
creating the swirly, lethargic lover's music that caught people's attention the
first time out, but with Vive Le Roi, he's backed away from the
faux-Franciscan friar choruses and branched out into a more ambient groove,
relying more on traditional African tribal rhythms and native chants. Life and
sometime-music partner Louisa Cretu is again on hand to inject a bit of la
femme mystique into the whole affair, to varying degrees of success.
Sometimes it's hard not to crack a smile listening to the duo's relentlessly
romantic lyrical fluff, especially when it suddenly strikes you that the male
of the species sounds more often than not like a cross between Steve Perry and
Michael Bolton. That aside, I've always found Enigma's particular strain of
music -- waif-pop? ambi-candy? call it what you will -- just perfect for doing
dishes on a rainy Sunday afternoon. It's also perfect background sound for that
other cherished rainy Sunday activity, but I'm in celibate mode right
now, so I'll have to get back to you on that.
2.5 Stars -- Marc Savlov
MOBB DEEP
Hell on Earth (Loud/RCA)
"This ain't rap, it's bloodsport," warn Mobb Deep, a crew smart enough to
capture its ethic in one sentence. And on this second album's second track, the
pair of gleefully unapologetic thugs deliver their toughest body blow -- to a
corpse: Tupac Shakur, who outted the Mobb's Prodigy as a sickle-cell victim on
"Hit 'em Up." "Must have been drunk when you wrote that shit," they retort,
before threatening that he'll need to "reconstruct [your] face so you can learn
to talk again" in a track recorded before Tupac's murder. On it's more timely
tracks, Hell on Earth is not only equally raw, but also far deeper
lyrically, opting more often for apocalyptic self-destruction than old-school
self-congratulation. And while Prodigy and Havoc still sound unaffected by
their own tales of horror, their flawless mike-passing nonetheless holds its
own against a guest role call of Nas, Method Man, and Raekwon. But Hell on
Earth's real legacy isn't its lyrical brutality, but rather its musical
vitality: hypnotic soundscapes of big beats and anti-funk organ rolls. Who
needs to be funky, they seem to ask, when their overt pessimism plays itself
out as so oddly uplifting? And maybe they're onto something with this
bloodsport theory, because already Mobb Deep's poor sportsmanship has outlasted
the West's Thug Life game.
3.5 Stars -- Andy Langer
BOOZOO CHAVIS
Hey Do Right! (Antone's/Discovery)
The first 10 seconds of legend Boozoo Chavis' "Zydeco Cha Cha" tells you
everything you need to know about this man and his music. Chavis lights into
one of his patented, swooping accordion licks while his two sons, Rellis and
Charles, whip out a boilermaker rhythm on drums and rubboard. Add Guitar
Thomas' licks for spice and June Barfield's thick-as-roux bass for bottom, and
stir on a dance floor. That's zydeco. That's what Boozoo Chavis has been doing,
off and on, for the past 40 years. And is he on. Those first 10 seconds stretch
into the rest of "Cha Cha," "Bosco Stomp," the irresistible "You're Gonna Look
Like a Monkey," and several other South Louisiana stomps that dare you not to
get up and move, man, move! After a slowed-down middle section
culminating in the delicate, aching "Crying Waltz," the sweat flies from Hey
Do Right! like one of Chavis' racehorses as it nears the stretch, crossing
the finish line with the jocular Creole reel "The Spotted Cow Died" and the
relentlessly funky "Zydeco Lady." Chavis has perfected zydeco over the years
like a fine jambalaya recipe, and hits the jackpot here with as exhilarating a
dance record as anything in a London club. Still not as good as a trip to
El-Sid-O's or Slim's Y-Ki-Ki, but damn close.
3.5 Stars -- Christopher Gray
SQUEEZE PLAY: A WORLD
ACCORDION ANTHOLOGY
(Rounder)
 |
4.5 Stars -- Lee Nichols
SUBURBIA
Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (DGC)
In deejaying, nothing matters as much as the segue, having one beat stitch
seamlessly into the next. Richard Linklater, whose slacker opus Dazed and
Confused was a masterpiece of editing -- wasting not one single frame of
film -- has a firm grasp on this. Besides assembling a soundtrack that's
flawless in its indie-rock pedigree (Elastica with Pavement's Stephen Malkmus,
Sonic Youth, Beck, Girls Against Boys, Boss Hogg, Superchunk, Butthole Surfers,
The Flaming Lips), local boy made legend, Linklater, who had a hand in both
gold and platinum-selling Dazed and Confused soundtracks, has now, with
subUrbia, put together a mix tape so singular in sound that it could
only be termed the soundtrack to Lollapalooza nation. There may not be a single
song on subUrbia (quick, all you non-fanatics, name a song by
Pavement, Sonic Youth, or Superchunk), save possibly for Ray Davies' "I'm Not
Like Everybody Else" (Boss Hogg) or the Lips' "Hot Day," but the sound
herein is so completely of one mind -- one tuning -- that were you to slip into
reverie, you'd swear it was all one group. And what exactly is that
sound? Try that same maddening rant that disguises the dead cold heart
of subUrbia's author Eric Bogosian. And isn't that, after all, what
being trapped in the 'burbs is all about?
3.0 Stars -- Raoul Hernandez
PAVEMENT
Brighten the Corners (Matador)
Cool. Pavement is cool. Indie cool. Almost too cool for words. Pavement has
gotten so cool that they're boring. The unrefined, unpracticed, meandering
guitar sounds together with Stephen Malkmus' unenthusiastic vocals had always
been the cornerstone of the band's hipness; but now, on Brighten the
Corners, Pavement's efforts to be nonchalant sound, well, chalant. You
can't do the exact same things for four records and still be "inventive" or
"refreshing." I've got nothing against stagnation. AC/DC has made a career out
of it. But in the past, particularly on Crooked Rain Crooked Rain, at
least Pavement's disenchantment was focused. Corners is mostly them
inventing more unusual phrases and stringing them together with things like
Geddy Lee references or obvious facts about U.S geography. Often the lines are
just silly: "One of us is a cigar stand/ And one of us is a lovely, blue,
incandescent guillotine." Funny, this is the same band that two albums ago, in
reference to the then-budding superstar Smashing Pumpkins wrote, "I don't
understand what they mean/ And I could really give a fuck." Me too guys, only
now you're the referent of your own sentiment.
2.0 Stars -- Michael Bertin
TRANS AM
Surrender to the Night (Thrill Jockey)
A friend recently loaned me a bootleg videocassette of some juicy,
jaw-dropping Seventies ephemera: H.R. Pufnstuf, The Partridge
Family, Lidsville, The Brady Bunch Variety Hour, even a
Sno-man Sno Cone commercial I hadn't thought of in 20 years. Great fun, for
sure, but within limits; the tape works because the excerpts are short enough
to cut out before discomfort sets in. That's how it is with the Seventies --
big fun in small doses, big drag in larger ones. Maryland's post-rock power
trio Trans Am understands that; like their self-titled debut, Surrender to
the Night takes a few of the longest-winded Seventies genres -- progrock,
metal, kraütrock -- sucks all the hot air out of them, and offers up
freeze-dried, bite-sized nuggets of irony and devotion. Unlike, say,
Soundgarden, who treat the melodramatic clichés of Seventies with the
utmost reverence, Trans Am stretch out climactic metal riffs until they take on
a trance-like quality, then bump them up against some cheesy Casiotone figures.
If this was a tonier publication, I'd award them the sobriquet
post-modern, but since this is a family paper, I'll just call them the
bastard love-child of the Ventures and Ash Ra Temple and leave it at that.
3.5 Stars -- Jeff Salamon
WINDSOR FOR THE DERBY
Metropolitan Then Poland (Trance Syndicate)
This gem of a five-song EP manages to be both more cohesive and more outgoing
than last year's Calm Hades Float without missing a tick of the
metronome. While the minimalist electronic numbers "Exposito" and "Slow Death
+" bleep and hum like something out of a David Cronenberg movie on the horrors
of high-tech corporate feudalism, the live track "Moving Florida" resounds with
a creeping, hypnotic effect accentuated by the muffled crowd noise in the
background. "Slow Death" and "The Electric Co." then delve into a warm mine
that sparkles with New Zealand-flavored psych-pop. Metropolitan Then
Poland is an informal yet highly effective pastiche that taps a myriad of
Windsor for the Derby's strengths without ever falling prey to creative
inertia. When it's over, you'll be sorry that WFTD abandoned Austin for the
more ambitious climes of the Big Apple.
3.5 Stars -- Greg Beets
