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Queens of the Stone Age Lullabies to Paralyze
Attention ladies and gentlemen: bassist Nick Oliveri has left the Queens of the Stone Age.
And it shows.
The band's latest release, Lullabies to Paralyze, is the product of its career of revolving-door lineups and the loss of the mercurial Oliveri, who was one-half of the creative output of the band.
It wasn't always this bad for the Queens. Resurrected from the defunct Kyuss, the Queens debuted with a self-titled album in 1998, but didn't really get on the radar until its woofly underrated 2000 album, R: Restricted to Everyone. Everywhere, All the Time.
Things got exciting for the Queens in 2002 when they became the critic's darlings with Songs for the Deaf, which received considerable attention because of their recruitment of ex-Nirvana's Dave Grohl to play drums. Grohl, whose Nirvana and Foo Fighters' legacy has waned, punctuated the albums refreshingly abrasive, yet precise, hard rock/metal sound. The Queens shift vocals primarily between Homme's slick deadpan musings and Mark Lanegan's guttural, raspy tone. The music itself was delivered mostly on the vehicle of Oliveri's bass and Grohl's drumming, teaming up to make the most infectious rhythm section
in rock since Fugazi.
But now that's all gone. Grohl went back to the Foos and some Nine Inch Nails on the side, and Oliveri left because of internal strife with Homme. Now Homme is on his own, but he can't stand on his own two creative feet without using Oliveri as a crutch.
Lullabies to Paralyze takes the few rare languishing moments from its previous albums and makes an entire album of it. With the exception of a couple occasional minutes in "Everybody Knows That You Are Insane," and "Burn the Witch," there isn't much to keep fans of past albums to long for at least Grohl's return, not to mention that of Oliveri's.
Grade: Cunique sound. Bassist/vocalist Matt Dally even says "it's a cross between Black Eyed Peas and Blink 182;" huh, maybe, if by "cross between" he means "mixed tape of."
Steve Vockrodt
Superchick Beauty from Pain
I highly recommend this album...for an eighth grade girls' soccer team to listen to before a game or something, but not for anyone else. Superchick is a Christian "girl" band (the main vocalists are girls, anyway) that "blends" several styles ranging from straight pop, pop-rock, pop-punk and hip-hop. I use the term "blend" loosely because the record is extremely inconsistent in that each song represents a different style completely and characterizes only that style for the particular song. This is opposed to blending the different genres into their own
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The goal is of course (as is that of most Christian rock bands) to rip off popular styles of secular music to get the kids to listen to it and then infuse it with a positive Jesus message, resulting in unoriginal boring music that just makes you just want to listen to the band that they sound like anyway.
Grade: D
Superchick churns out sugary sweet, spunky, energetic pop music with an upbeat message. They do show some musical talent and they would have had a chance at empowering a generation of young girls if it weren't so cheesy. If you want something fun and cute, maybe download "It's On" (from iTunes of course, stealing is bad); that track should sum up the overall feel of the album. In closing, *Beauty and Pain* consists mostly of the latter as it spends most of its time trying to cram a freakin' rainbow up your ass.
Joe Sibinski
E Double Cold in May
Spending those late nights staring at a computer screen, you often drift into dreams of stardom that would take you away from the paper due in hours and school in general. Well, in 2001 four guys who met in Lawrence achieved what many can only dream about with the release of their debut album, From Here To Now. Four years later, E Double is back with their long-overdue sophomore album, Cold in May.
It's evident the band members are from the Midwest. Their vocals give them an edgy country sound, but the music is not country. With up-tempo guitar playing, the sound E Double creates rivals that of Maroon 5 and Ryan Cabrera, a couple of
the artists they have performed with since the release of their debut album.
The vocals harmonize unbelievably well with the music, allowing the listener to hear both at any given time with neither being overpowering. The flow continues from track to track, making it difficult to tell where one ends and the other begins. This ability seems to be taking a back seat to CDs that sound as if they are 12 singles on one disc.
For a person who is not that into rock music, this is one CD that has definitely earned a spot in the CD changer.
Grade: A
—Jonathan Millstein