Spring Break
CD Reviews
Issue date: 2/15/07 Section: Out & About
'GREEN BLUES'
MV & EE with The Bummer Road
No doubt about it, Matthew Valentine and Erika Elder love their music. I can picture them now - sitting around certain mind-inducing cocktails and talking the day away.
"Green Blues" takes us into one of those conversations and inside the mind of two abstract artists with a dark and complicated vision - or at least, it attempts to.
The album's opening track, "East Mountain Jount," is a deceptively straightforward and well-done start to this collection with simple melody lines laid over a pulsating, funky groove.
Don't get attached to this first glimpse because anything like it is more or less undetectable for the remaining abstract and confusion-laden compositions that amount to little more than useless noise.
There's something to be said for free form and expression. Unfortunately, it's not always a nice thing when it more closely resembles a drug trip than music.
The good news for Matt and Erika? If this album doesn't catch on, there's probably an underground sci-fi movie that needs a score.
Verdict: This one will leave you down.
'INFINITY ON HIGH'
Fall Out Boy
"Infinity on High" isn't much more than a struggle between lustfully catchy (most every chorus) and basically bland (most every verse).
The track-to-track sound of "Infinity" is a scatterbrained rollercoaster at times - something that perhaps FOB considered themselves entitled to in its newfound fame, but something that isn't likely to be appreciated on the whole. The pop is there and the punk is there, but both get lost in the production on some of these tracks.
No matter for these Chicago natives. If the current popular music landscape has proven one thing, it is that FOB can and will survive with an album of this nature - a theory the band already knew to be true.
The bright spots are (not surprisingly) Patrick Stump's vocal control and (doubly not shocking) Pete Wentz's lyrical wit. The driving pop/punk anthem "This Ain't a Scene, it's an Arms Race" is a great example of both, and Wentz follows with other FOB-esque titles like "I'm Like a Lawyer with All the Ways I'm Trying to Get You Off" and "You're Crashing, but You're No Wave."
Verdict: Insert Fall Out Boy opinions here. Whatever they are, this album won't change them.
'I LOVE EVERYBODY'
Lyle Lovett
I was surprised the other day to hear that a good friend of mine thought Lyle Lovett was dead. Well, he's not. Not even close.
"I Love Everybody" is a collection from 1994 that found Lovett in an introspective mode, and the result is an 18-track, vocally upfront commentary on both his own inner-self ("This world's full of creeps like me") and the society in which he finds himself ("I don't like hippies, and I don't like cornbread").
Lovett's voice is entertaining but pure - like the most talented street corner musician you could fathom.
The almost 50-year-old folk rocker didn't find commercial success in the '90s, and his most public achievement may have been his brief marriage to Julia Roberts.
Those who listened found an album that stands strong in some of the finest arranging and instrumental talents that the decade had to offer (Lovett's surrounding musicians are nothing short of the top notch).
- Alec Wooden
MV & EE with The Bummer Road
No doubt about it, Matthew Valentine and Erika Elder love their music. I can picture them now - sitting around certain mind-inducing cocktails and talking the day away.
"Green Blues" takes us into one of those conversations and inside the mind of two abstract artists with a dark and complicated vision - or at least, it attempts to.
The album's opening track, "East Mountain Jount," is a deceptively straightforward and well-done start to this collection with simple melody lines laid over a pulsating, funky groove.
Don't get attached to this first glimpse because anything like it is more or less undetectable for the remaining abstract and confusion-laden compositions that amount to little more than useless noise.
There's something to be said for free form and expression. Unfortunately, it's not always a nice thing when it more closely resembles a drug trip than music.
The good news for Matt and Erika? If this album doesn't catch on, there's probably an underground sci-fi movie that needs a score.
Verdict: This one will leave you down.
'INFINITY ON HIGH'
Fall Out Boy
"Infinity on High" isn't much more than a struggle between lustfully catchy (most every chorus) and basically bland (most every verse).
The track-to-track sound of "Infinity" is a scatterbrained rollercoaster at times - something that perhaps FOB considered themselves entitled to in its newfound fame, but something that isn't likely to be appreciated on the whole. The pop is there and the punk is there, but both get lost in the production on some of these tracks.
No matter for these Chicago natives. If the current popular music landscape has proven one thing, it is that FOB can and will survive with an album of this nature - a theory the band already knew to be true.
The bright spots are (not surprisingly) Patrick Stump's vocal control and (doubly not shocking) Pete Wentz's lyrical wit. The driving pop/punk anthem "This Ain't a Scene, it's an Arms Race" is a great example of both, and Wentz follows with other FOB-esque titles like "I'm Like a Lawyer with All the Ways I'm Trying to Get You Off" and "You're Crashing, but You're No Wave."
Verdict: Insert Fall Out Boy opinions here. Whatever they are, this album won't change them.
'I LOVE EVERYBODY'
Lyle Lovett
I was surprised the other day to hear that a good friend of mine thought Lyle Lovett was dead. Well, he's not. Not even close.
"I Love Everybody" is a collection from 1994 that found Lovett in an introspective mode, and the result is an 18-track, vocally upfront commentary on both his own inner-self ("This world's full of creeps like me") and the society in which he finds himself ("I don't like hippies, and I don't like cornbread").
Lovett's voice is entertaining but pure - like the most talented street corner musician you could fathom.
The almost 50-year-old folk rocker didn't find commercial success in the '90s, and his most public achievement may have been his brief marriage to Julia Roberts.
Those who listened found an album that stands strong in some of the finest arranging and instrumental talents that the decade had to offer (Lovett's surrounding musicians are nothing short of the top notch).
- Alec Wooden
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