Audio Files

By Times staff

© St. Petersburg Times,
published June 17, 2001

Let's hear it for the boys: Rock'n'roll has always been a man's, man's, man's world, but lately we're hearing a lot from the guys. Whether they're whining like sensitive artistes or ranting and raving like testosterone-enriched lunatics, they are our rock stars, by golly, and they deserve our caring, unbiased ears.

RADIOHEAD, AMNESIAC (CAPITOL) Why not call this one Kid B? Released just eight months after Kid A and culled from the same recording sessions, Amnesiac sounds like a little sibling in hand-me-downs.

Amnesiac is a record of remoteness. It's more of Thom Yorke's navel-scrutinizing and ennui, but that's not necessarily a turn-off. In fact, Amnesiac is a rare work of art in pop music. Both it and its predecessor are fragmentary, sonic collages, akin to the kind of writing James Joyce mastered with Ulysses, or the Cubist paintings of Picasso. And no, I'm being hyperbolic. Pop music can be art.

"Get out of my face," Yorke murmurs, zapped of energy, on the austere opener Packt Like Sardines in a Crushd Tin Box. What's wrong with Yorke, for heaven's sake? I've listened now to both albums and I still don't know how to help him. He rallies against capitalism on Dollars & Cents, but for the most part, his demons seem internal. No matter, Yorke's troubles are his listener's treasures.

Amnesiac offers stark minimalist drum-and-bass beats, then symphonic flourishes, some blues, and not one hit single (though I Might Be Wrong has actual chord changes.) Bravo. Radiohead has pulled it off: success outside of the tired pop formula. (After all, Kid A debuted at No. 1 on U.S. charts.) For several years, the band has been in a position to do whatever it likes creatively. Applaud Radiohead for following its aloof muse, even if she continues to lure the band farther outside the mainstream. A-

- GINA VIVINETTO, Times pop music critic

THE CULT, BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL (LAVA/ATLANTIC) In a blindfold test, can anyone really tell the difference between the Cult's Ian Astbury and Ethel Merman? Both have such big voices, so scary and commanding. Voices you wouldn't want to meet in a dark alley. Each has the same delivery, over the top. You can as easily imagine ol' Ethel screaming Love Removal Machine as you can Astbury wailing a dark goth rock version of There's No Business Like Show Business.

Well, fans of both legends need no longer be sad. Merman may be gone, but the Cult has released its first album in seven years. And though it covers not a centimeter of new ground, it rocks.

Beyond Good & Evil opens on a tear with cruncha- cruncha guitar and big fat power chord riffs. Things stay at that speed for the whole raucous ride. Except for the disarming Nico. Yes, the Cult gives us a ballad about the late Velvet Underground chanteuse. It's lovely to hear Astbury, usually so spooky and demonic, actually singing. Unfortunately, the song is marred by a horrendous bridge and a cheezoid fade-outro. Fade-out? The Cult? Yuck!

Best cut: Rise will make you wanna spin your hair around like Astbury would back in the days when he looked more like Morticia Addams than Angelina Jolie did at last year's Academy Awards show. B.

- G.V.

MONSTER MAGNET, GOD SAYS NO (UNI/INTERSCOPE) Who knew that they can press testosterone straight onto disc nowadays?

God Says No opens with two concussive tracks, Melt and the anthemic Heads Explode (check out the stuttering guitar), full of the aggression, strength and slashing hooks that burst from every track on the disc: Listen to Dave Wyndorf snarl, "It's doomsday, it's doomsday" just once and Doomsday will reverberate in your head for hours; hear his series of attempts to be happy, followed by "and God says no," and you will understand why the disc bears that title.

Best of all, Monster Magnet's sound has continued to evolve: The metal rush has accelerated, and the band has shed many of its old space-rock trappings while losing no complexity; even the quieter tracks muscle their way out of the speakers, sometimes, as on Queen of You, through sheer force of Wyndorf's exasperated contempt.

By the time My Little Friend roars into the room, you'll be ready to daub on some face paint and dash into the night to steal the neighboring tribe's horses and humiliate its warriors.

You can't ask more of rock than that. A-

-- DANIEL PUCKETT, Times staff writer

TOOL, LATERALUS (BMG/VOLCANO) This isn't background music. This isn't a compilation of radio-ready hits (in fact, with most tracks lasting 6 to 10 minutes, it's difficult to see how they would fit most radio formats).

This is 77 minutes of rococo sonic architecture that demands concentration. Lateralus is 13 tracks that can't be thought of as completely separate songs, for they are bricks in one dark, savage edifice: sometimes obviously, as on the Parabol and Parabola pair, sometimes more subtly, as with the surge in intensity that leads to the maniacal metal of Parabola and Ticks & Leeches.

This is a disc that pays off more with every listening. Peel away each layer and examine it: Pay attention to Maynard James Keenan's vocals, so much more complex than even on Aenima (his time in A Perfect Circle has paid off, but oh, the man can still scream); follow Danny Carey's frenzied drumming; do the same with Adam Jones' intricate guitar and Justin Chancellor's pounding bass, which like the drums is unusually far forward in the mix. Each time through, the mathematical recursiveness of the composition becomes more apparent, like viewing fractals at greater and greater magnification.

This isn't just another album. This is a way to spend the summer. A

- D.P.

FENIX TX, LECHUZA (UNI/DRIVE THRU) The latest from Houston-born quartet Fenix TX kicks off with the cutesy Phoebe Cates, an earnest and bawdy tribute to the actor during her Fast Times at Ridgemont High glory days. But besides the quirky tribute, the formula of three-chord rock, predictable rhythm breaks and boyish vocals lacks the snot-nosed charm that has carried bands such as Blink 182 and Green Day so far.

Perhaps it's the band's earnestness on tracks such as Tearjerker, but the album comes off as blah rather than bombastic. In the simple structures of punk, it's hard enough to make something semi-good, much less something original. While Fenix TX succeeds at the former, for all the hard-hitting guitars and yowling it fails at the latter. C

- QUINCEY D. VIERLING, Times correspondent

Classical file

FOR THE STARS: ANNE SOFIE VON OTTER MEETS ELVIS COSTELLO (DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON) -- Elvis Costello has never been one to limit himself to a single genre. Twenty years ago, when he was the coolest rock star around, he recorded a tribute to country singers like George Jones and Charlie Rich, and he has gone on to collaborate with everyone from Burt Bacharach to the classical Brodsky Quartet.

Costello now has teamed up with Swedish mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter, one of her generation's (born in 1953) most sublime performers of baroque opera and lieder. At its best, this classy crossover album is thrilling, as in luminous covers of the Beatles' For No One, Kate McGarrigle's Go Leave and even ABBA's Like an Angel Passing Through My Room.

Unlike many classical singers who dip into pop, von Otter is more than just the sum of her vocal technique. Her interpretation of Brian Wilson's You Still Believe in Me is one of the finest versions of a Beach Boys song ever made, not just because she has such a beautiful voice, but because she communicates a sense of vulnerability, allowing a few cracks and some breathiness to season the richness of her tone.

Costello, who also sings on several numbers, leads a combo in impeccable arrangements full of nice touches like the bluesy flugelhorn solo on his own Baby Plays Around. Three songs feature the electric-acoustic string group Fleshquartet.

But even a rocker as smart as Costello can succumb to the terminal tastefulness that tends to plague such projects. For the Stars goes wrong in annoyingly arty treatments of some of his songs, such as Rope and Green Song.

In a way, the Costello-von Otter duo is reminiscent of a pair of popular partnerships in the 1950s and '60s, those of Jackie Cain and Roy Kral and Cleo Laine and John Dankworth, both of which moved from jazz to pop to classical with eloquent ease. B+

- JOHN FLEMING, Times performing arts critic

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