This Week: Buckcherry breathes life into L.A. glam metal, Guided By Voices hones its craft, and a critic selects a Celtic punk gem.
Buckcherry
Time Bomb (Dreamworks)
Hallelujah! Rock ain't dead, at least not if Buckcherry have anything to say about it. The L.A. band's second full-length album, Time Bomb, wreaks havoc with concepts of heavy rock circa the new millennium, infusing hard-slammin' party-rock anthems with just the sort of explosive potency the album title implies.
The group emerged in 1999 with Buckcherry, a volatile collection of odes to hard living and lost love ruminations. Time Bomb sees the band jack the intensity level on its implosive din another level, yet still expand on its repertoire.
Maybe you remember "Lit Up," the rocket-fueled cocaine celebration that was the band's first single off Buckcherry. Bomb continues in that visceral, hedonistic vein with cuts like "Frontside" and "Ridin'," adding an element of hurtling hardcore punk to the trademark Angus Young-ian grooves.
But there's also a discernible hint of soul amongst all that hellbent riffage (kinetic lead-growler Joshua Todd often gives props to Smokey Robinson, as well as Bon Scott). Accordingly, the 'cherries spice slower and mid-tempo numbers like "Helpless" and "You" with sultry Stax licks and Motown beats. It's all about the rhythm, man; bassist J.B. and drummer Devon Glenn forge the band's groove underpinnings with the same sort of half-drunken, beat-strong elasticity that made forebears like 'smith and the Stones jive, swing, and rock all at the same time.
But what's most striking about Time Bomb is the contrast between the band's damn-the-consequences party ethos and its not-infrequent manifestations of heart. Time Bomb is loaded with several potentially offensive lyrical depth charges, including an N.W.A.-derived discourse on "bitches and money" (on the title cut). How can this be the same singer responsible for the likes of "You," a wistful plea for the salvaging of a relationship rent by mutual neglect, or "Open My Eyes," a piano ballad that's at once tender and sap-free? I dunno, but damned if it doesn't work.
—Mike Gibson
Guided By Voices
Isolation Drills (TVT Records)
Guided By Voices' frontman Robert Pollard has a reputation for heavy beer drinking, prolific songwriting, silly absurdist lyrics, and quirkiness. All of which has put GBV in the upper echelon of hip indie bands.
One thing that's always marked the band's music is Pollard's infectious pop, even if he deliberately buried his melodies with lo-fi recording techniques, obscured their meanings with nonsensical lyrics and cut the songs off just as they gained steam.
Isolation Drills works on two of those complaints.
The paean to free-loving party gals, "Glad Girls," is a strong candidate for pop song of the year (even if Courtney Love has already penned an irrefutable rebuttal with "Boys on the Radio"). On the first listen you'll find yourself singing "Heyyy, Glad Girls only want to get you high..." by the end. The guitar riff on "The Enemy" immediately grabs you and doesn't let go as it becomes a symphonic crescendo.
Idiosyncrasies and lo-fi charm still abound, though. As does Pollard's characteristically clever (if sometimes cryptic) lyrics: "Wooden heads on the chopping block/ And other hearts pumping ink/ That spills out over dreams of antiquity."
Mastering the art of guitar pop is no small feat. And like those glad girls who only want to get you high, Pollard's songs might get under your skin for a few weeks. But eventually they skip away giggling, not leaving you much to remember them by.
—Joe Tarr
Critic's Classic: The Pogues
Rum, Sodomy, & the Lash (WEA)
Produced by Elvis Costello, the Pogues' second album—a boozy, bruised slab of Irish folk-punk released in 1985—was gloriously out of step with everything else of its day. With the ramshackle nine-piece band playing their banjos and penny whistles and uillean pipes like they were instruments of destruction, the album is a dark, bloody and hilarious yawp of Celtic longing.
As on their debut, Red Roses for Me, they mix traditional tunes with the grizzled romanticism of singer Shane MacGowan's original material. Of the former, the standout is "A Man You Don't Meet Every Day," the sole vocal contribution of bass player Cait O'Riordan (who married Costello and quit the band after recording the album). It's a strangely sinister ditty, with the narrator bragging, "Well I took out my dog/ And him I did shoot" before inviting you to "be easy and free/ When you're drinking with me."
Still, MacGowan was the heart and soul of the Pogues. His best song isn't on here (that would be "Fairytale of New York," on 1987's If I Should Fall From Grace With God), but this was the album where he established himself. From the rampaging "Sick Bed of Cuchulainn" to the surreal gloom of "A Pair of Brown Eyes" to the elegiac junkie narrative "The Old Main Drag," he is a riveting presence, both lyrically and vocally. The album's closer, a cover of Eric Bogle's Australian WWI lament "And the Band Played Waltzing Mathilda" is the definitive version of a great tragic song. MacGowan's blurry, beaten-down growl doesn't hit notes so much as deliver glancing blows at them, and the songs are all the better for it.
Although there's not an electric guitar anywhere, it recently made Spin magazine's list of the "50 Greatest Punk Albums." It's not hard to hear why.
—Jesse Fox Mayshark
April 19, 2001 * Vol. 11, No. 16
© 2001 Metro Pulse
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