IN BRIEF.............................................................05 FEB 2007
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Artist: JESSE SYKES & THE SWEET HEREAFTER |
We know we shouldn't judge a band's latest release against previous efforts, but with 2004's Oh, My Girl, Jesse Sykes & the Sweet Hereafter set the bar pretty darn high. In comparison, the cheezily entitled Like, Love, Lust & the Open Halls of the Soul (2007) falls just a tad short. (The name of this latest release, incidentally, combines the titles of tracks #2 and #12. Why Ms. Sykes chose to name the album after those two tracks, however, is beyond us. We'd have voted for "Eisenhower Moon"--wouldn't that have made for quite the compelling album title?)
Lest you mistake our opening comparison for a condemnation, however, let us hasten to add that Like, Love, Lust & the Open Halls of the Soul is not a bad album. It is quite listenable and, we'd submit, a bit more nuanced than Sykes' previous efforts. The band even manages to kick it up a notch on tracks such as "I Like the Sound." Unlike Oh, My Girl, however, with its stellar title track and the eerie "Winter Hunter," the new disc doesn't really have any individual standouts. "The Air Is Thin" will stick in your head, but little else left much of an impression.
As to cheeze, there is a bit sprinkled throughout. Sykes seems to be embracing some sort of retro 60s pop thing, which doesn't work all that well. The throwback album art is pretty nifty, but when it comes to the vocal stylings on "Spectral Beings," for example, the needle on our cheeze-o-meter jumped into the red zone.
Fans should appreciate this offering, but if you're new to Jesse Sykes, we'd still recommend beginning with Oh, My Girl.
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Artist: KELLY PARDEKOOPER Album: BRAND NEW BAG Label: SONIC RENDEZVOUS Release Date: 13 FEB 2007 Website: www.kellyp.net Myspace: www.myspace/kellypardekooper |
Brand New Bag is the fifth offering from Madison, Wisconsin-based singer/songwriter Kelly Pardekooper, who, incidentally, is huge in Europe. Well, okay, maybe not David Hasselhoff huge, but Kelly P's got a sizeable following o'er the pond, the support of a new Dutch label (Sonic Rendezvous) and a mini-tour of the Netherlands and Germany scheduled for early April. On the surface, Americana music seems a rather unlikely export, but what the hell: we'd like to thank the Dutch for subsidizing our starving musicians. More power to 'em.
On Brand New Bag, Pardekooper takes a decidedly more "rock-and-roll" approach than he has on his earlier alt.country-flavored offerings. The standout track on this disc, in our humble opinion, is the concert staple "Mehaffey Bridge," [REAL AUDIO CLIP] which we're happy to see preserved for posterity. We'd be shirking our duties if we neglected to mention that this new album does contain a fair amount of cheeze (that's kaas, for you Dutch types--or perhaps, if we should misspell it for consistency, kaaz), but if the ever-affable Pardekooper is playing a drenkplaats near you, get your ass off your rustbank and give him a look-see. You won't be disappointed.