REVIEWS

Tony Allen

The Source (BLUE NOTE)

Drummer Tony Allen has already gifted the world at least one lifetime’s worth of rhythmic innovation, working both solo and with legendary collaborator Fela Kuti to alchemize the sinewy, slithering grooves of Afrobeat. With The Source , Blue Note is trying to make a fuss about Allen bringing his monstrous dexterity back around to the jazz which inspired him in his youth, but that’s honestly a bit of a misnomer: this album is as much an Afrobeat record as anything else, and little of the music feels all that indebted to early heroes like Art Blakey. The line between genres is smeared a bit, though, and the lack of a bikini briefs-clad firebrand holding court out front might make it easier to get confused about what to call it. Regardless, Allen is playing to all his strengths here, flanked by a battery of European musicians (plus, on one track, Damon Albarn) who keep it loose, yet focused. The resulting wiggle waggle, all told, is mighty as hell; one could say Allen is like a fine wine, but few wineries have the horse sense to have someone rip an earth-rending trombone solo on their product, so really, Allen is actually better than that.(www.tonyallenafrobeat.com)

By Dustin Krcatovich

Arcade Fire

Everything Now (COLUMBIA)

For almost the last 15 years Arcade Fire have been the torchbearers for indie rock, a rollicking collective of multi-instrumentalists who created a love affair with the early blogs of the new millennium. They had the records to back it up; from 2004’s larger-than-life debut Funeral to 2010’s Grammy winning ode to the small town The Suburbs , Arcade Fire simply could not be touched critically. Even 2013’s double disc dance floor opus Reflektor , while not as immediately grabbing, can be easily read as a slow-burner that acts as a major influence 10 years down the line (much like Kanye West’s 808’s and Heartbreak or Yeezus ). Arcade Fire were growing and maturing into a band that could seemingly do no wrong. However, much like 2017 in a nutshell, that went to hell pretty quickly.

Enough has already been written about the messy rollout for Everything Now , the band’s fifth studio album and first for Columbia. The preemptive review on fake blog “Stereoyum,” the heinous dress code for their secret show, the overpriced and overdone Everything Now Fidget Spinners, all were a part of a gross pursuit to show the music industry and fans what a crock social media vanity is. Perhaps they were a little too clever, as most of if not all of the shtick fell completely flat. Yes, album rollouts can be ridiculous and are ripe for mocking, but the irony is completely lost when the one’s doing the mocking are actually trying to sell a record.

It seems Arcade Fire spent just as much time on the actual songs on the record as people have spent talking about them, seemingly none at all. Vapid, dry lyrics keep the listener disengaged throughout; never once reaching anywhere close to the heights we are used to as Arcade Fire fans. “Peter Pan,” a wonked out dub mess asks a woman to “be my Wendy, I’ll be your Peter Pan,” a hollow if not creepy sentiment. “Creature Comfort” finds the band as millennial heroes, saving suicidal teens with their first record. These are nice sentiments, but the self-righteous back-patting loses any real meaning. Then there’s “Chemistry,” a song that should never have happened in any universe. Never have I felt more insulted as a listener than towards the end of the song, when the band breaks out into an “I Love Rock n’ Roll” audience sing-a-long drum breakdown. For a band that wrote “Afterlife,” it becomes fairly infuriating.

This isn’t to say there aren’t good songs on the record, because there are if one sticks around. The title track follows a disco bassline into the stratosphere, with the chorus leading the track from good to great. “Put Your Money on Me” contains the perfect balance of simplicity and sustainability, with chugging drums and a synth line that hovers over some of the most earnest lyrics on the record. Penultimate song “We Don’t Deserve Love” sees Win Butler as something of a road-weary rambler, where a fuzzed out synthesizer keeps pace with Butler’s soaring falsetto. These moments are few and far between, as Everything Now becomes lost in it’s own message.

Arcade Fire are a great band, spurning a generation of indie listeners and have influenced countless groups. Which is what makes listening to Everything Now that much more painful. This is the band as a shell of themselves, an uninspiring slog of half-baked ideas following a “trying-by-not-trying” attitude. The grandiose heights of Funeral seem light-years away. (www.everythingnow.com)

By Ryan Meaney

Black Grape

Pop Voodoo (UME)

Just when you think Shaun Ryder, he of Happy Mondays and Black Grape fame, has finally retreated into permanent music retirement, he audaciously turns up with new material. Twenty years since the last offering from Black Grape—arguably a more musically realized project than the Mondays—comes the Youth-produced Pop Voodoo . Don’t let the predictable political rant that kicks off the album in “Everything You Know Is Wrong” put you off. What sounds like a drunken bluster near closing time at the pub—punctuated by the sound of a dial-up modem, oh dear—is not indicative of the rest of Pop Voodoo , which is, shockingly, pretty damn great.

Clichéd song refrains aside, the musical part of is strong. Fluid grooves and flirty funk interludes lace the Motown