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Disc of the week |
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 Die Mannequin Unicorn Steak (How to Kill/Warner) In the male-dominated world of punk rock, female artists are all too often cast off as Courtney/Siouxsie clones, but in this case, the comparisons between Toronto-based Die Mannequin frontwoman Care Failure and the Distillers’ Brody Dalle (who was once pegged a Love acolyte) are unavoidable. Failure can similarly provide a good bloodcurdling screech, and has a deft touch for writing melodic pop-punk with a rougher edge. This album combines two previous EPs, and features production work from MSTRKRFT (likely channelling his DFA1979-side). A quick, energetic burst of modern party punk, definitely skewed towards the Foufounes crowd. 6/10 (Erik Leijon) With Sum 41, Social Code, Sound and Fury at Metropolis, Wed., March 12, 8 p.m., $29.50, all ages  Bauhaus Go Away White (Bauhaus/Sonic Unyon) Recorded over 18 days, “first takes taken as finals,” Go Away White finds these pioneers of goth in solid form. Although there are some missteps, they’re negated by the band’s momentum, their push and pull and stark, overwhelming bravado. Opener “Too Much 21st Century” seems to be the anthem for these Bela Lugosi disciples, waking up from the studio-album deep freeze they’ve been in since 1983’s Burning From the Inside. Not as much dub as I would have liked, but the restless desolation and hope, the light and the dark still rustle under their lurch and swing. The band’s last offering before fading to black, Go Away White is a fine farewell to a career that’s spanned generations and genres. 8/10 (Lateef Martin)  OcrilimAnnwn (Hydra Head/Sonic Unyon) Ocrilim, the on-his-own moniker for Mick Barr of Orthrelm, is over an hour of relentless solo metal shredding that is not for the faint of heart, to say the least. Knowing full well that an hour of unaccompanied shredding can test the patience of even the most devoted gourmets of metallic frenzy, Barr keeps things interesting with a slant towards classical composition underneath the Marshall stack ballast. Barr is technically top-shelf, brilliantly complex and can pick at warp speed, and by the end, you will hardly miss the blast beats. 7.5/10 (Johnson Cummins)  No No Zero Rough Stuff (Signed by Force/Fusion III) Thick and brutish but displaying dangerously quick reflexes, the crude but effective punk rock music of Toronto’s No No Zero matches the feral monomania of band mastermind Pius Priapus. Yelping and warbling in a manner recalling Biafra and Bators, Priapus shoves the listener through the triage tent of his sexual obsessions—morbid, minimalist meditations on blue balls and black eyes, retro-chic porn queens and rectal intrusions. An opprobrious affair but, the clumsy lounger “Uschi” and slug-ugly “Brown Shower” aside, an entertaining one. 7/10 (Rupert Bottenberg) CD launch with Starvin Hungry, O-Voids, Catl at Club Lambi, Sat., March 8, 9 p.m., $7  Amanda Mabro Red Rows EP (Bitchin’ Empire) With a versatile vocal style ranging from a coquettish coo to a milk-curdling brassiness, Montreal’s Amanda Mabro shines on this six-track disc, a departure from the Cabaret Band stylings of old. Backed by fluid arrangements of piano, guitars, percussion, violin, accordion and synths, and deftly produced by her right-hand man, Cozmos Quazar, Mabro & cie fuse what were once evident influences into something more modern and unique. A cover of Jolie Holland’s “Old Fashioned Morphine” is an umbilical cord to the blues, but their timely tune “Nuit Blanche,” in French and coated in pixie dust, sounds like a key to the future. 8/10 (Lorraine Carpenter) CD launch at Cabaret Just pour rire on Fri., March 7, 7:30 p.m., $10  Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band 13 Blues for Thirteen Moons (Constellation)First off, kudos for the gorgeous artwork adorning this gatefold package, but this monstrous record deserves no less. On the opener “1,000,000 Died to Make This Sound,” harmony vocals set the mood before a majestic psych-rock blowout sends this through the stratosphere. The title track expertly grinds some gears before lashing at the jugular in the end. The record is chock full of adventurous moves, but Silver Mt. Zion don’t get mucked up in proggy endeavours and deliver it right from the gut on all four tunes. These songs are guaranteed to draw blood in the live setting. Just phenomenal. 9/10 (Johnson Cummins)  DJ Rekha Presents Basement Bhangra (Twisted/Koch) For over a decade now, New York City’s Rekha Malhotra has been bringing banging bhangra to the masses with the Desi disco nights after which this, her long overdue debut mix CD, is named. Her selection is as deft as one might expect, and her mix comfy and unassuming, as she rifles through her crates of bhangra jams—pneumatic Punjabi funk built on a foundation of juggernaut drums, high-pitched and hypnotic string-plucking, and urgent, expansive vocals—and digs out a highly varied fistful of gems, many of which borrow gleefully from Caribbean sounds (Wyclef Jean cameos on Rekha’s own opening anthem) and elsewhere. 8/10 (Rupert Bottenberg) With DJs Khiasma, Masala, Jay Watts III at Club Lambi, Fri., March 7, 10 p.m., $7  Autechre Quaristice (Warp/Fusion III) The Mancunian IDM juggernaut’s ninth is certainly no less complex or indulgent than previous symphonies. The painstakingly refined garble and hyper-industrial themes, though no longer the aesthetic curiosity they once were, continue to be refined, through new technologies, far beyond the point of any pedestrian listener’s comprehension. But, as is insinuated by the group’s oft-professed indifference to public opinion, this is not a record that meets you halfway. Either you jump right in and wallow in the surrealist conglomeration of sounds, or you hear an inaccessible aggregate of vaguely related percussion and heavily filtered buzzing. Take the red pill on this one, mate. 8/10 (Jack Oatmon) Pete Rock NY’s Finest (Nature Sounds) I never thought I’d be saying this, but producer/MC Pete Rock actually outshines a few of his featured MCs on this, his sixth album. While trying to bring some shine back to New York, the Chocolate Boy Wonder booked Dipset dudes Jim Jones and Max B, as well as Papoose, Sheek Louch and Styles P to represent. Other guests include Fushnickens MC Chip Fu on the tough “Ready Fe War,” and Rell on the piano bump “That’s What I’m Talkin’ About.” Despite puzzling guests, this record is a testament to the versatile production style of the legendary Pete Rock, who apparently still has a few tricks up his sleeve. 8.5/10 (Scott C)  KRS-One Adventures in Emceein’ (Duck Down/Koch) KRS-One is clearly one of the greatest MCs of all time, but having said that, I wasn’t expecting this album to contain quite so many booty beats. Like the Teacha that he is, KRS makes his way through all of them, flipping styles, storytelling and dropping knowledge non-stop. Most of the record sounds like KRS is trying to build bridges with young producers on tunes like “Watch This,” “Our Soldiers” and the comical “Over 30,” where KRS drops all kinds of old school names over a synth-laden stepper. In the end, the always dynamic and outspoken KRS-One is still the star of this show, with everything else taking a backseat to his heavyweight rhymes. 7/10 (Scott C) With the Narcycist, D-Shade, K6A, The Almighty Flight, DJ Blaster at le National, Sun., March 9, 8:30 p.m., $28.50  Raheem DeVaughn Love Behind the Melody (Jive/Sony BMG) The self-professed “R&B hippie/neo-soul rock star” hits the ground running with his sophomore effort, once again using strong lyrical content as his calling card. Case in point, lead single “Woman,” with its all-round praise for everything female, is the type of timeless song that’s too rare nowadays. Not everything here’s as durable, but there are some other highlights: “Love Drug” is as memorable as the lead single, while the acoustically driven “Butterflies” shows DeVaughn capable of more than one type of groove. “Friday” is one of the few party jams that works in his favour—DeVaughn is clearly more effective when he lets love inspire his melodies. 7.5/10 (Gerard Dee) Samuel Blais Where to Go (Effendi/Fusion III) François Richard Nouvel Orchestra (Effendi/Fusion III) This important Montreal jazz label passes the 80-release mark with this pair. Blais, an alto player, was a star of the McGill Jazz Ensemble in recent years. He’s joined here by three other important young players, Paul Shrofel, Morgan Moore and Robbie Kuster, in a program of nine originals by band members. Richard is a veteran flute player in a country where you can count the important jazz musicians who play that instrument on one hand. He leads a large ensemble that includes strings, Yannick Rieu, Geoff Lapp, Guy Boisvert and Michel Lambert in a program of 13 originals, including Lapp’s “Sand Castle.” Both 9/10 (Len Dobbin) Mini CD ReviewsBullion Pet Sounds: In the Key of Dee (independent) Acton, England producer Bullion takes a hatchet to the Beach Boys 1966 classic, Pet Sounds, with J Dilla’s Donuts in mind. Bonkers! 10 (SC) |
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