REVIEWS
Hayes
Roseanne Cash MUSIC Black Cadillac
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In a fair world, pop music would be judged for mere sonic quality, or, you know, artistic merit, or something. But smart consumers know better. For a world of gossip magazines, internet news, and SNL screw-ups, anything can work within context. To see Britney Spears embrace her whoredom, finally, without that not-a-girl-not-necessarily-a-woman fluff, made the orgy that was In the Zone even greater than it was.
But cultural context doesn't always work to one's advantage. Case in point: Rosanne Cash's latest offering drops after the death of her parents: legends Johnny Cash, stepmother June Carter Cash, and her mother, Vivian Liberto.The album's foundation upon that death and grief is what makes it so expected, so consistent and, ultimately, so lackluster.
In the tradition of Cash offerings,
everything here is good. "Black Cadillac" opens in a post-grunge crunch of guitars and driving rhythm.
Mariachi horns reference "Ring of Fire." Oceana-influenced "Like a Wave" is pleasant and haunting. Ballads "God is in the Roses" and "The World
Unseen" are delicate, pianodriven odes to grief, death, life, and hope.
Never one for overt sentimentality,
Cash now straddles a thin line between originality and cliché. Her lyrics, at times arresting and touching, can turn to the dull and maudlin.
With her grief still fresh, Cash has difficulty distancing herself
makes the album's greatest, simplest point of love: transcending-life. These songs are what the album could have been — an otherwise solid and loving tribute.
from the emotion of her father's death, unable to sift through the mess of anger and abandonment to come up with something musically conclusive. But that rawness occasionally gets harnessed. "Radio Operator" is a fine piece of furious country-rock. "House on the Lake" is spooky and poignant and gorgeous "I Was Watching You."
★★★
Nick Connell
MUSIC WE ARE SCIENTISTS WITH LOVE AND SQUALOR
Let's just get straight to the point. We Are Scientists is another band doing that same sloppy dance rock a roll stuff similar to Hot Hot Heat, Franz Ferdinand and The Killers. The same easy crowd pleasing stuff we've heard a million times.
The formula for this type of music is incredibly simple. Find a few guys, take them to a thrift store to find retro dress shirts, teach the drummer to overplay and hit his cymbals really loud, tell the guitar player to play really fast high notes and encourage the band to never change dynamics. Works every time.
Through "With Love" and "Squalor," We Are Scientists-write the same song over and over again. They employ dirty sounding guitars, dancey beats, and vocals that sound they were recorded in a cave. They also have fun writing such nonsense lyrics as "my body is your body, I won't tell anybody, if you want to use my bod go for it."
So if you're fan of dancey rock n roll, maybe this is the CD for * you. But chances are you've heard this CD before, done by a different band.
The one break from the medium is "Textbook" a song where they actually slow down the tempo a bit and give it a different feel. It is one song of 12 that stood out.
Chris Brower
02.02.2006 JAYPLAY <17