Permanent Waves #11

Neologism, imperialism, cleverism, criticism!

The chilly winter slow season is steadily melting away, hooray! We've got lucky number seven album on the docket this week, and starting off with a real big shot to boot. Let's mindset.

Billy Joel - Glass Houses

If I were a more committed cynic, I’d call Billy Joel the American Paul McCartney— in that he’s a pompous, greedy bastard, and a pandering sap, and not as sharp a lyricist as he thinks he is. That wouldn’t be fully honest, though: I love Macca to bits, and despite his punchable American-ness I can’t really bring myself to hate Billy Joel. Glass Houses brings in a little power pop zing to freshen up Joel’s hoary core of influences (another trait he shares with Sir Paul), so I should be as in the tank for it as I was for Back to the Egg, but ehh, the hooks just aren’t there for the most part. I do mostly like the singles, though: “You May Be Right” has such a prize of a main riff that I forgive its assholeish narrator, and I haven’t heard a single track this year as thirsty for a mindset of the week lyric quote as “Still Rock & Roll to Me”, to the point that I’m giving it to “Sleeping With The Television On” out of spite. I don’t know if he needs to try harder, or if he’s already trying too hard. Mindset of the week: Your eyes are saying talk to me / But your attitude is “don’t waste my time” / Your eyes are saying talk to me / But you won’t hear a word ‘cause it just might be the same old line

VERDICT: FINE

Red Rider - Don’t Fight It

Pretty bog-standard AOR from this Toronto quintet, but suffering through that Bryan Adams album a few weeks ago went a long way towards me appreciating how digestible this is. The opener, title track, and most obvious bid for a hit is likable little ditty about a crackerjack bad-girl, “How’s My Little Girl Tonight” has a nice choogling pulse to it… and that’s about it, really, the rest is just really generic. I struggled to pay much attention to it, but it also didn’t itch me too bad as background noise, and that’s enough to save ‘em from a SKIP for now. Better come correct next time, boys: south of the border, bands like Red Rider come a dime a dozen.

VERDICT: FINE

Def Leppard - On Through the Night

The debut album from these English heshers at least manages to deliver a handful of headbangable riffs, but as with Heart, I can’t help but ask: Isn’t there more to metal than just riffs? However, where Bebe Le Strange just felt overly safe, On Through the Night is outright blockheaded: We’re the rock brigade!! Sorrow is a woman!! Hello America!! I don’t like singer Joe Elliott’s voice that much, and it’s not happy or party-hardy enough to get away with being so, uh, dumb (They may want to consider a song about a positive emotion being a woman?). For anyone uninitiated enough to be truly impressed by the axe-work on this thing, go buy a few Deep Purple or Blue Oyster Cult records instead and thank me later.

VERDICT: SKIP

Plasmatics - New Hope for the Wretched

I’m not totally sold on this whole “hardcore” thing, partly because I don’t really think the way to keep punk rock from being co-opted by ‘The Man’ is by slashing your wrists onstage and singing in a way that destroys your vocal chords, but mostly because I like noise best when it’s in service of melody. But lo and behold, here come the Plasmatics to shake up my status quo and take a LITERAL chainsaw to my pansy-ass melody fetish! Frontwoman Wendy O. Williams has one of the most wretched, upsetting-sounding voices I’ve ever heard, grinding out every other syllable like she’s on the verge of vomiting, sneering and taunting the rest, but it’s exactly what the music calls for, all buzzsaw guitars and spastic drum fills. They fare better than a lot of punks on slower numbers, too, by locking into a threatening, filthy trudge on “Concrete Shoes”. It’s not my thing, and a handful of tracks overstay their welcome any way you slice it, but I gotta respect this album’s sheer commitment to flying its freak flag. Their next one should be a live album; “Squirm” is the best thing here.

VERDICT: NICE

Robert Fripp - God Save the Queen / Under Heavy Manners

I promise, I’m not actually biased against artsy-fartsy or “weird” music, even though my first and truest love is the pop song. Robert Fripp’s main band King Crimson has certainly made music that’s a little too dense and abstruse for my simple country tastes, like Starless and Bible Black, but they’ve also made plenty of wondrous fantasysonics and frippertronics that delight my ears and mind, like their iconic debut In the Court of the Crimson King, and Fripp has made some pretty interesting forays into ambient and electronic music in his collaborations with Brian Eno. God Save the Queen sticks to this lattermost mold for the most part, patiently building placid soundscapes from looping, phasing guitars, but Under Heavy Manners mixes things up with a hot David Byrne guest vocal over an appropriately frantic dance beat, and follows that with an extended fretboard workout that runs the full gamut from shredderific mania to zen stillness. Every minute of it is absolute ear candy.

VERDICT: ZAMN

Stiff Little Fingers - Nobody’s Heroes

Right off the bat: No, it’s not as good as Inflammable Material, but it’s damn close, which is more than most punk records can boast. My beloved Belfast rockers return with a sophomore album that adds a pinch more melodic sugar and a sprinkle of Jamaican jerk spice to the piss and vinegar they’ve already made their trademark. Jake Burns, man, talk about destroying vocal chords! This man’s voice is rebellion personified, a raw wail of furious anguish for a world gone mad, and he still somehow carries a tune with all the soaring power of that sellout from U2. The highlights are mostly concentrated on the A side, sure, but oh, what an A side it is: “Gotta Gettaway”, “Fly The Flag” and “At the Edge” are all rippers par excellence, and “Tin Soldiers” closes the B side with aplomb. These guys are still everything great about punk; If their star is already fading a bit, we should all count ourselves lucky to have seen the light at all.

VERDICT: ZAMN

Tuxedomoon - Half-Mute

Sheesh, I wish this album was full-mute, heyo! Thank you, thank you, I’ll be here all week. Seriously though folks, the vocals here are a big-time letdown. At its most tranquil and minimal, Half-Mute is really rather affecting: album opener “Nazca” had me cautiously optimistic for a more ambient take on post-punk’s sour melodic sensibilities. Then “59 to 1” hit, and that asshole started squawking, and ol’ Tuxedomoon never really won me back over from there. Credit where it’s due for some nice haunting synth atmospheres and disquieting saxophone, but the tuneless yawping and weak, pittering drum machines make this a chore to listen to. Abrasive, yet amorphous— pick one, I say!

VERDICT: SKIP