Simple Minds
Good News From The Next World
Virgin
Simple Minds were one of the best bands during the early ’80s British synth invasion. With albums like New Gold Dream, Sparkle in the Rain, and Once Upon a Time they were all that was good in music. Now, they have fallen.
Good News From The Next World features only singer Jim Kerr and guitarist Charlie Burchill from the original line up. With them are a bunch of session musicians that run through the material with cutting precision.
That’s the problem: this album is bloody boring. Virtually nothing grabs you where it counts and says “play me again.” Only the lead single “She’s A River” has any life to it. All the rest of the songs blend together—there’s a song called “Hypnotised” that actually puts me to sleep.
What Kerr and Burchill really should do is bring back the other original members to do an MTV Unplugged special. If Duran Duran can do it, why not Simple Minds? It would sound a lot better than this muddle of sound
– Chris Rands
Alphabet Soup
Layin’ Low In The Cut
Mammoth/Prawn Song/Attic
My limited experience with newer brands of hip-hop has left me disappointed. Despite the tag, there is very little real jazz in “acid jazz”…just a brass riff or bass line to jump onto the bandwagon with. Thank God for Alphabet Soup.
What sets Alphabet Soup apart? This is hip-hop with a real jazz base, not sampling or the occasional nodding trumpet. Alphabet Soup could brew with Davis or jam with Mingus, and their vocals don’t detract from the sound. Smooth and syncopated lyrics drift in and out of the music like another instrument, working with the band instead of on top of it. “Oppression,” “What I Am,” and “Walkin’ Roots” are three of the best on the album, empowering lyrics (without being overwhelmingly angry) over cuts that wouldn’t be out of place on Davis’ Kind Of Blue or In A Silent Way.
I recommend Layin’ Low to both hip-hop fans and jazz folk looking for a fusion of both styles without prejudice towards one or the other. Nothing dominates…everything slides. Praise to the Soup.
– F. Bander
The New World Disorder
The Happy Destructive EP
Death Records
The New World Disorder is Toronto’s answer to the punk revival. They strive to be the antithesis of musical popular culture. Against major labels, oppressive baby boomers and their parents they are a suburban garage band yelling taunts into a mike. Formula musicians down to their Sears instruments, Disorder follows early musical examples of an intro bass line followed by a chorus, bridge with commercial guitar riffs, and a repeat of the chorus for a close. Lyrically they shine in “Break Somethin:” “Life is just like a big old Cadillac with jesus at the wheel and Elvis in the back.” Local appeal could soar with a tribute to Montreal combined with references to Leonard Cohen. However, the band will break up when the first member notices that they have been playing the same song over and over.
– Chris Smyth
The Durutti Column
Sex and Death
Factory Too
Hey, anglophiles: Factory’s back! And to prove that they still don’t give a wet slap about sound business practices, Factory Too is launching the new label the same way it launched the old one, with an album by Vini Reilly’s Durutti Column.
A fine album it is, too. Mostly instrumental, guitarist Reilly and his cohorts deal in sounds and soundscapes ranging from pastoral to techno to blues. Reilly uses guitars, violas, and drum samples to create a varied sonic smorgasbord in which both Eric Clapton and the Cocteau Twins would be comfortable—even if Reilly’s occasional techno leanings throw them at first. Guitar freaks will gush about Reilly’s superlative technique, and others will yammer on about the Durutti Column’s “fragile instrumental beauty,” but ultimately, that stuff isn’t important. What is worth emphasizing is that Reilly is making instrumental music that doesn’t just sound like aural wallpaper. Sex And Death isn’t the artless nodding of so many other so-called “ambient” projects. More instrumentalists should take their cue from Reilly and put together an album that will be admired by someone other than recording engineers.
– Philip B. Strunk
Brill
Brill
Independent
This North York quartet sure sounds pretty. With the three songs on this clean-sounding release, Brill have recorded a morsel of danceable, swayable dream-pop that can even urge a curmudgeon like me to play with kittens. “God’s Child” has enough edge in its guitar to class it as a rock, while “Sleep” is Victorialand-period Cocteau Twins with lyrics you can understand. Side two’s “Baby’s Breath” trips psychedelic for a minute, but avoids nodding off of the Sundays or the Cocteau Twins, but still engaging. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to find a ball of string.
– Leslie Furlong
Smif-N-Wessum
Dah Shinin’
Wreck/Nervous
Straight out of “Bucktown” N.Y., “Boot camp generales” Smif-N-Wessun are back with an album, a year after their first single and a concert tour with labelmates and fellow Bucktown’ers Black Moon. “Dah Shinin” is a great start for the new year, and will undoubtedly be counted among the best rap albums for 1995.
Right from the start of the music is relentless, due to the excellent production provided by The Beatminerz (Black Moon’s dj Evil Dee and his brother Mr. Walt), and the “blunted never stunted” lyrics of Steele and Tek. Tracks to watch out for are “Timz N Hood Chek,” “Wrektime,” their first single “Bucktown,” and “Cession At Dog Hilles,” featuring Bucktown up-and-comers Helta Skelta.
Although they provide the usual talk of blunts and bullets, Smif-N-Wessun aren’t worried about your feelings (“We ain’t many/but we crazy/shady/broke into a crib/what we did/yes, we smoked a fat lady!”); they just want to rock ya’. And in that respect, they’ve succeeded.
– Leslie Seaforth
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