Album Reviews

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Album Reviews
The Enigmatic Foe's   The Original Plan
Evan Toth  |  Sep 14, 2021  |  1 comments
The Enigmatic Foe’s new album The Original Plan (S/R) offers up contemporary rock and roll in the vein of Real Estate with other jangle pop influences, including distant echoes of primordial U2 with some mid-80s leanings via occasional electronic drums and synth-pop production. Tight, yet airy, the band creates a satisfactory wall of sound - mostly via the shimmering guitars of Josh Dooley (Map, Fine China) and Jared Colinger. Colinger - writer, guitarist and vocalist of the group - explains the topical nature of his tunes, “Sometimes we go to great lengths to be miserable and stay miserable. I once heard a story about a musician who purposely created strife with their spouse to have song fodder. I certainly thrive on creating songs out of misery. Anything else outside that topic seems a novelty.” Colinger, however, camouflages these sorrows with chipper, sparkly production and plenty of guitar chime. Frank Lenz’s (Headphones, Richard Swift) drumming provides a tight, propulsive groove to the whole affair.

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Album Reviews
The Final Chapter Of One of America's Greatest Musical Stories
Michael Fremer  |  Dec 01, 2006  |  0 comments

Johnny Cash’s final album is a tender and moving tribute to the resilience of the human spirit. The power and fascination of folk music is that the story is in the telling not in the technique.

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Album Reviews
The Final Chapter's Written To The Arthur Alexander Story
Michael Fremer  |  Jan 01, 2009  |  1 comments

The late Arthur Alexander�s story is reminiscent of Roy Orbison�s. Like Orbison, Alexander passed away on his way to a resurrected career, though Orbison got to see his rebound while Alexander didn�t. He�d quit the music business and was driving a bus whenElektra A&R exec Danny Khan saw Alexander perform in 1991 at New York's Bottom Line in one of the clubs famous "A bunch of song writers sitting around singing" shows and convinced him to go back into the studio.

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AAA VinylAlbum Reviews
The Flying Burrito Bros' "The Gilded Palace of Sin" Finally Reissued Correctly
Michael Fremer  |  May 03, 2017  |  12 comments
Characterizing The Gilded Palace of Sin as a “country-rock” album or “the first country-rock album” or as it’s incorrectly called by some Sweetheart of The Rodeo Part 2 sells short an album that transcends genre or for that matter “dash-genres”.

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Album Reviews
The Gospel According to Bob Dylan Reissued By Light In the Attic Records
Michael Fremer  |  Nov 03, 2014  |  9 comments
Producer Lou Adler, best known by 1969 for co-producing The Monterrey Pop Festival and for producing The Mamas and The Papas on his Dunhill Record label (and that really doesn't begin to cover his comings and goings back then or now) had this idea to re-imagine Bob Dylan's music in a gospel setting.
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Album Reviews
The Grateful Dead’s Plangent Processes-Restored Boston 5.7.77 180g 5LP RSD 2023-Exclusive Box Set Completes One of Their Essential Live Trilogies
Mark Smotroff  |  May 12, 2023  |  10 comments

On Record Store Day 2023, Rhino Records issued another entry in their fine series of super-deluxe multidisc vinyl box sets celebrating the road trips of the Grateful Dead, a 180g 5LP box set titled Boston Garden, Boston, MA 5/7/77 (a.k.a. Boston 5.7.77). This new edition is an important historical puzzle piece in the band’s storied legacy, effectively completing a trilogy of live releases culled from their epic spring 1977 tour peak. AP’s resident Deadhead Mark Smotroff got his hands on one these new limited edition collections, so read on to see his reasoning as to why it’s an instantly essential entry in the Dead’s live legacy on vinyl. . .

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Album Reviews
The Great Sadness Makes a Great Noise
Michael Fremer  |  Apr 02, 2018  |  3 comments
Indie records arrive more often than you might imagine from musicians giving vinyl a shot at reaching a new audience and possibly providing an additional revenue stream (though as most find out, it’s neither cheap nor easy). Unfortunately, vinyl doesn’t transform lackluster into exceptional music.

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Album Reviews
The Greatest Artist Resting Or Alive? Kanye’s JESUS IS KING Revisited
Malachi Lui  |  Jul 01, 2020  |  189 comments
No matter your (likely misguided) opinion of him personally, Kanye West is indisputably one of the greatest artists of all time. While in certain occupations others come close, only Kanye has the wide scope and collaborative energy to succeed in everything. Whether it’s music, fashion, or film, he enlists world-class multimedia artists’ assistance, precisely executing most media (except opera). As the man himself said in “Kids See Ghosts,” “[I] don't like being less than any a competition in any of my professions/So I gotta guess then, I gotta stay the best man/What else you expect from, uhhh, Mr. West man?” He lives up to his word; despite the often delayed and cancelled album releases (through online groupbuys the material eventually leaks), within a matter of time he accomplishes everything he talks about. Currently, he’s working on a budget clothing line with Gap (fulfilling his 2015 promise to make YEEZY garments affordable), IKEA-type affordable housing developments, and creating American jobs through prison reform systems. His wide range of artistic disciplines and personal achievements make him without question “the greatest artist resting or alive.”

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Album Reviews
The Ground Shifts But Spoon Returns to Hard Rock
Michael Fremer  |  Jul 01, 2010  |  0 comments

Spoon’s latest is an introspective affair that trades the group’s usual tuneful exuberance for something more contemplative. But don’t be aFreud! It’s got all of the group’s signature moves, from deep, behind the grooves beats to catchy melodies set against vast empty spaces punctuated by exclamatory soundscapes.

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Album Reviews
The High Llamas' Sweet Harvest
Michael Fremer  |  Jan 01, 2004  |  0 comments

By now Sean O’ Hagan must be tired of music critics writing about him having a Brian Wilson/Pet Sounds fixation (I just did it too), so on the latest High Llamas album O’Hagan de-emphasizes the Wilsonian percussion and electronica in favor of “acoustica.” The sense of floating, of well being, of whimsy that his other albums exude ensues though, and what he’s ended up with here is 21st Century chamber music that resembles Brian Wilson less and Van Dyke Parks more (one of the tunes offers “…a toast to V.D.P.").

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Album Reviews
The Jamie Saft Quartet's Blue Dream Steps Back in Time Moving Forward
Michael Fremer  |  Aug 30, 2019  |  6 comments
I've referenced this record in a few Stereophile equipment reviews but somehow neglected to give it the deserved full review. The adventurous pianist Jamie Saft steps back in time here to produce an album that on "Vessels", the opening original tune, should immediately remind you of the classic '60s Coltrane quartet, though I'm not suggesting the players are in any way trying to copy Coltrane, Tyner, Garrison and Jones.

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Album Reviews
The John Lennon "Imagine" Box Set On Deluxe Blu-ray (Also Double LP)
Michael Fremer  |  Jan 24, 2019  |  14 comments
Former N.Y.C. Deputy Mayor Edward Morrison's obituary appeared in today's New York Times. Morrison was instrumental in helping John Lennon remain in America at a time when Richard Nixon was trying to deport him. Lennon's anti-war political agitation bugged Nixon. The deportation was going to based on an old pot bust. Morrison intervened and helped Lennon to remain in America by having him declared a "valuable cultural asset to New York City".

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AAA VinylAlbum Reviews
The Judee Sill Cult Continues, This Time at 45rpm
Michael Fremer  |  Oct 09, 2017  |  8 comments
The turbulent and tragic Judee Sill story provides the ingredients from which musical cult followings are made: two critically acclaimed Asylum albums (she was the first artist David Geffen signed to the label) that despite great expectations sold poorly, a fight with Geffen over lack of support after which the label dropped her, a return to heroin addiction, and a drug overdose death in 1979 at age 35.

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Album Reviews
The Kills Dish Out Plenty of "Wow"
Michael Fremer  |  Aug 01, 2005  |  1 comments

Red Norvo and Mildred Bailey, Les Paul and Mary Ford, Karen and Richard Carpenter, The White Stripes, The Fiery Furnaces and The Kills. Husband/wife, boyfriend/girlfried, brother/sister duos have been with us for as long as there's been recorded music.

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Album Reviews
The Late Shirley Horn's "Best of" Set Includes Bonus Live Tracks
Michael Fremer  |  May 01, 2006  |  0 comments

Will there ever be another jazz singer with the elegance, clarity, and emotional depth of the late Shirley Horn? I don’t think so. Horn put more into, and got more out of her pauses than many singers get of the notes they actually sing. Her piano playing was equally sophisticated yet economical. Everyone from Joni Mitchell to Diana Krall has been influenced by Shirley Horn.

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