LISTEN
Fall Out Boy From Under the Cork Tree
images courtesy www.amazon.com
Jiminy Jillickers Radioactive Man! Yes, Fall Out Boy, the boy wonder side-kick from a running Batman parody on The Simpsons, is back with another album. From Under the Cork Tree basically carries on in a guitar heavy, sweet and melodic, but still chock full of screaming and tight drum beats.
At first listen, it sounds like more of the same, but when fully appreciated it actually poses some rather meaningful pop culture satire. The band jeopardizes its own reputation frequently for the sake of some jokes and references that most listeners probably won't get anyway. For instance, every song name is either extremely long, has alternate titles, or contains some sort of pun: "I've Got a Dark Alley and a Bad Idea that Says You Should Shut Your Mouth (Summer Song)" or "A Little Less Sixteen Candles, A Little More Touch Me."
They are edgy enough to separate themselves from being compared to bands like Simple Plan or Good Charlotte, but maybe not mature enough to make it past the CD players of adolescent Warped Tour clientele. It was noble enough of them to sabotage themselves enough to make a spoof on screamo-emo ("I Slept With Someone In Fall Out Boy And All I Got Was This Stupid Song Written About Me) and '80s hair metal (7 Minutes in Heaven (Atavan Halen)) while still maintaining some musical integrity, but it still wasn't quite enough to get through to most, even to those who "get it."
Grade: C
—Joe Sibinski
Tori Amos The Beekeeper
In 20 years on this planet, I had never heard a Tori Amos record before this week. Also prior to this week, I never thought that was such a bad thing. But after listening to The Beekeeper, Amos' latest addition to her ample catalogue, I realized life without Tori Amos is no life at all. The album is
both heart-achingly fragile and inspiringly powerful; Amos peppers her mind-melting instrumentation with gorgeous imagery, evoking emotion at will like some sort of primordial fiery haired sprite.
Amos' honeyed, boundless vocals document a number of shifting perspectives on The Beekeeper: seductress, victim, patriot, mother, feminist. She finds liberation in each and there is a sense that all are united by common thread. Each role flows seamlessly into the next, overlapping and connecting.
Joined by the London Community Gospel Choir on "Sweet the Sting" (who sound too much like the Dandy Warhols to be simple coincidence), Amos wanders through a cloudy, sexual haze accompanied by a man with a "hat cocked sure, defiantly." "Ribbons Undone" features a delicate piano and celebrates the relationship between a mother and a daughter who "runs like a fire does, just picking up daises / Comes in for a landing, a pure flash of lightning." On "Original Sinsuality," Amos ruminates on the possibility that sexuality pre-dates sin, thereupon questioning the whole of conservative dogma.
At 19 tracks, though, The Beeekeeper is bound to stumble. "Cars and Guitars" is hokey nostalgia and wouldn't sound all that out of place on a modern country compilation, stuck between Toby Keith and some other dude who likes to fish and change his motor oil. "Hoochie Woman" clearly suffers from the use of a lame, anachronistic term such as "hoochie," and the ominous piano riff sounds about as fresh.
Nearly 80 minutes long, The Beekeeper challenges the concept of time and the attention of those crippled with ADD. After all, in 80 minutes, you could prepare a nice flan or do at least 3,000 sit-ups. But I wasted 20 years of my life in a pre-Amos stupor and I'm better since emerging from it. Forget the flan and the sit-ups; listen to The Beekeeper instead.
Grade: A-
—Dave Ruigh