Album Reviews

They’ve been out of commission for 22 years, but you’d never know it listening to Mission of Burma’s powerful, bracingly-fresh, time-warp of a post-punk/art-rocking noise assault, recorded last year. It sounds more like someone lowered the stylus on a record that’s been spinning silently for decades than the premier effort of a re-formed trio of middle- aged geezers who sound as youthfully exuberant as they did in 1979.

Hard to believe, but the legendary Rastapunkspeedmetal band Bad Brains began life in the late 1970’s as a Washington, D.C. based jazz/funk group called Mind Power. Then one of them heard The Sex Pistols’ Never Mind the Bollocks and the first black punk-rock group was born. You’ll hear the influence of The Clash and maybe The Stooges, but these guys invented their own sound, adding a fluidity and precision to the genre’s usual breakneck speed that no other band that I’ve heard managed to duplicate. The Sex Pistols may have inspired them, but Bad Brains demonstrated punk’s micro-groove musical possibilities because they could really play.

Deerhunter opens Microcastle with a Pink Floyd-like grand musical flourish taken at midtempo lysergic trail speed. The floating, vibrating textures give way to an insistent, deliberate, Wire-like beat that the group rides for a while before switching to dream-like reverie resplendent of Eno’s ambient projects merged with moodiness the late Syd Barrett might be proud to call his own.

For some reason, audio enthusiasts have a need to latch onto female vocalists with a passion that borders on the fanatical. Once they find her, they never let go. The careers of Amanda McBroom, Jennifer Warnes, Diana Krall and Janis Ian have all benefited from this compulsive/obsessive behavior. I have nothing against it. I just find it fascinating.

A nice return to form has been achieved. While I thought their last album, Hello Nasty, was lacking compared to the groundbreaking holy trinity of Paul's Boutique, Check Your Head and Ill Communication, To the 5 Boroughs brings back some tasty examples of why the boys will go down in musical history as Rap-Rock trailblazers.

Sea Change, Beck's late-afternoon, mid-tempo reverie of an album, harkens back to the great old days of painstaking production, carefully drawn arrangements, and a concern for--and love of--sound and musical textures for their own sakes. Tempi are languid, notes are caressed, and gaping atmospheric spaces welcome listeners willing to be drawn in.