Album Review: THE SHINS

Album reviews by ACID
Artiste: The Shins
Album: Port of Morrow
Label: Aural Apothecary/Columbia/Sony Music

I’VE been listening to too much crap on the radio. That’s about the only thought that ran through my head after I had a first listen to Port of Morrow, the latest album by the Albuerquerque, New Mexico band The Shins.

Fronted by vocalist, guitarist and principal songwriter James Mercer, The Shins has had a nine year history that is sometimes meandering but has never failed to dull. The details of all that are plonked onto reference sites, but for this album itself was released through the talented Mercer’s Aural Apothecary label.

The Shins’ history has seen the entry and exits of various musicians, and this time around Port of Morrow features Jessica Dobson, Richard Swift as fellow songwriters, drummer Joe Plummer (formerly of Modest Mouse) and the Crystal Skulls’ Yuuki Mathews. Yet through it all, you still have the funniest, faintest idea that sometimes, The Shins should’ve just been called Jimmy Mercer & The Band – he dominates through the entire 10-track album that much.

Jaded and autumnal at times, wistful but never earnest, Port Morrow’s songs contain well-crafted lyrics and simple though impressionable melodies that linger with you long after the song has ended, right from the dirty-bass’ed opener The Rifle’s Spiral itself.

Together with the dark honey of Mercer’s vocals, the lyrics however, are pointed, mildly galling, which makes an interesting juxtaposition between melody and words. Here’s an example: in No Way Down, Mercer sings “Out beyond the western squalls in an alien land they work for nothing at all, they don’t know the mall or the lay-away plan”.

Over and all, this is not the kind of album that grabs you immediately but lures you and lulls you into loving them – but loving them for the long term. And why did I write  I’d been listening to too much crap on the radio? Well, when you come across material like Port of Morrow, the difference is as stark as it can be, and is a truly sweet reminder of what else is out there. This is actually my first introduction to The Shins but I think the acquaintance will be a long one.

Album Review - BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN

Album reviews by ACID
Artiste: BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN
Album: Wrecking Ball
Label: Columbia/Sony Music

WHAT do we say next of America’s favourite working class hero, Bruce Springsteen? He’s sung all the gritty tales of hard knocks, rough living, gruffer emotions for so long. Even more so in the shadow of the fading of the American dream for so many living there, Springsteen’s songs become all the more touching, all the more poignant.

Wrecking Ball opens with the unapologetic-ally jangly, prideful We Take Care of Our Own. But upon listening closely, you get the feeling that a grim layer of strength and fortitude runs through the entire album like a fine underlying thread (as they do for many of his efforts). The second track is truly the one that opens to a wonderful panoply matching lyrics of the hardy, working man and some unexpected pairings – a hearty fiddle in Easy Money and a rather down-home foot stomp-er Shackled and Drawn.

Jack of All Trades is sorrowful, moving – and all beautiful. Springsteen’s vocals lose no power and retains the full gamut of masculine emotion. “We stood the drought, now we’ll stand the flood”,” he sings, and the listener bears the weight of the full honesty of his delivery. Death to my Hometown, again, is another interesting juxtaposition – all the woes of the grittiest of the hoi polloi but put in a gruff, brave (oh, how brave) delivery that is rousing and inspiring.

The late Clarence Clemmons, the saxophonist of the E Street Band is specially featured in a heartfelt Land of Hope and Dreams as well. Springsteen also pays fond tribute to his old friend and fellow musician at the end.

Look out for two bonus tracks, Swallowed up (In the Belly of the Whale), which is not a pseudo-Jonah-esque paean but rather, almost part dirge and part hymn, of the loss of innocence and confidence, even as it clings on to the faintest of hopes.

Wrecking Ball is another winner,  and perhaps one of Springsteen’s strongest albums about modern urban Americana ever.  It’s unapologetic, grim, tough, honest. And completely gorgeous.

Album Review – REBECCA FERGUSON

Album reviews by ACID
Artist: REBECCA FERGUSON
Album: Heaven
Label: RCA/Syco Music/Sony Music

WHEN the then-legal secretary Rebecca Ferguson first showed up on the television screens via the British singing competition The X Factor in 2004, her musical debut was relatively uneventful and cut short by a lack of confidence. Six years later, she went into the competition again, this time stronger,  refreshed and with guns blazing. She impressed the judges so much with her smoky, mildly gravelly voice that she became the first woman in the show’s history to be the runner-up, losing to Matt Cardle.

Shortly after, Ferguson signed with Cowell/Sony Music (why does it seem that Simon Cowell gets his claws on just anything that remotely seems to make money before anyone else does?) and Heaven is her first full-length album.

Heaven features songs Ferguson has co-written with a host of others. Fairly stylishly executed, the first praiseworthy note is that her voice, which has been described by UK’s The Telegraph as “somewhere between a less annoying Macy Grey and less squeaky Minnie Riperton”, takes true centrestage in all its soulful, heartfelt eagerness.  Frankly, I couldn’t find any Riperton in her vocals, but thought she compared more to a weaker, sandier and younger version of Aretha Franklin though perhaps with less sonorous power.

The content of her songs deal with nitty-gritty rather than gloss – of worry, unemployment lines, complicated emotional mixes and relationships that are special in all of their messed up tangles. The third track Shoulder to Shoulder, has Ferguson keening in earnestness, “So I’m gonna drag you down, whilst you drag me down / And I’m gonna shout at you, whilst you shout at me / Until we realize that real love is free, free.”

There are also more playful musical treatments, like the relaxed, semi-disco of Fairytale (Let me Live my Life This Way), and Mr Bright Eyes, whose whimsical tempo and cleanly innocent lyrics are all about pure, joyful yearning. Fighting Suspicions is a big favourite for me, with a strong melodic line with equally muscular lyrics, archly delivered with emotion and precision by her vocals.

But then the songs themselves clearly carry a weight of meaning for her, whether it’s the punchy R&B wisdom of Glitter & Gold, the fragile optimism driving the disco groove of Fairytale or the swirling melodic confusion of Shoulder to Shoulder’s gripping portrait of dysfunctional love.

Ferguson is credited on every song, most of which are co-written with Eg White, a collaborator who helped bring out the best in Adele and Duffy. Ferguson is in the same Brit-soul terrain, a retro sound made commercially viable by Amy Winehouse, but doesn’t really sound like any of them. She sounds like herself.

All in all, not a bad first album at all.

Album Review - JOE BROOKS

Album reviews by ACID
Artist: JOE BROOKS
Album: A Reason to Swim
Label: Columbia/Sony Music

THE British singer/songwriter and musician Joe Brooks got his debut as a MySpace musician.In the manner that befits lucky amateurs who go viral online via social networks or video clips, Brooks released two independent EPs and was named UK’s top unsigned artiste by 2008. A doubtful sort of moniker, perhaps, but he also garnered an impressive 11 million song plays. 

A Reason to Swim is Brooks’ second album, following the debut Constellation Me in 2010. This one is said to be independent and fan-funded (which is always an interesting study in how far he departs from the first ‘commercial’ sound).  I always appreciated moves like this because it is a true study of how autonomous a recording artiste can be, in the songs that are crafted and the new styles that are eked out.

Musically, A Reason to Swim does have a series of hits and misses. The six-track album starts off with a pall for me, with an odd sense of repetitiveness between OK and Green Eyes (the first and third track respectively), which really don’t offer anything in terms of what is either impressive or memorable.

I Find the Light in You is a song about relationship redemption and personal salvation, and there will undoubtedly be a lot of comparisons with Coldplay’s superstar vocalist Christ Martin (in singing chops) in Holes Inside. This song, together with My Heart Will Wait, could’ve easily been mistaken for an early-ish Coldplay tune but they are also surprisingly the two most gorgeous tracks in the album.

Brooks, who managed a quietly successful transition to the United States as well, has enough of international fans in Asia that he was able to sign with Sony Music in Korea and Malaysia – I think his fans by and large won’t be disappointed. There were some which were off the mark for me, but the gems he had in this effort really shone.

Album Review - Foster The People

Album reviews by ACID
Artist: FOSTER THE PEOPLE
Album: Torches
Label: Columbia/Sony Music

FOSTER THE PEOPLE brings out shine, sparkle, pizzazz and a funny brand of street cred and emo-guy earnestness in their first album. This relatively new Los Angeles, California indie pop-rock band made up of Mark Foster (vocals, keyboards, piano, synthesizers, guitar, programming, percussion), Cubbie Fink (bass and backing vocals) and Mark Pontius (drums, extra percussion) have been making their presence felt across local and international airwaves with Pumped Up Kicks, which went viral in 2010 and catapulted the group to speedy stardom.

Overall, Torches has a style that very lightly glances over various genres. It is melodic and rhythmic but it has a soft, approachable pleasant pace and equally likeable lyrics, backed by lashes of 80s style synthesizing.

Torches is one of those albums that strikes the public oddly – and while we can all argue there is no accounting for taste – the second song, Pumped Up Kicks (which has the oddest lyrics – a shiny happy tune with lyrics that hint about bullets and a pumped up shotgun!) really pales in comparison to a number of tracks.

The third track, Call It What You Want, is far and away stronger in tone and more memorable in lyrics, aided with a disco beat. I Would Do Anything For You is gentle, lightly nostalgic ballad that show promise – that Foster the People are able to go deeper that the shiny-happy-people kind of feel they project through the majority of their songs. I also particularly loved Houdini, with synth lines, an 80s inspired introspective feel, from the croony vocals to the jouncy beat.

It would be interesting to listen to subsequent albums from this band – Foster the People is one of those you have the funny feeling may be about to embark on an interesting musical journey, despite a first album of hits and misses.

Album Review-KELLY CLARKSON

Album reviews by ACID

Artist: KELLY CLARKSON
Album; Stronger
Label: Columbia/Sony Music

I‘VE  always had a faulty tendency to just watch American Idol for its entertainment value (which is questionable at times), but after seeing the title awarded to the winner, fail to follow up with what happens post-Idol. Sometimes, it feels like Idol winners enjoy their extended 15 minutes of fame, but there are a few whose longevity withstands a short-term test of time. Chief of this, and possibly the most is the country star Carrie Underwood, followed by Texan-born Kelly Clarkson and arguably, Adam Lambert.

Clarkson has that kind of sleek muscularity to her voice that is quite taking, and suggests that she would do proper justice to a rock album, but still has yet to come up with one. Stronger is her fifth studio album, and it resonates with its strong pop melodic lines, slick yet sensitive execution and a definite sense that she has come into her own as a professional singer and most importantly, she sings like she feels comfortable in her skin, more than ever.

Stronger largely contains survival songs, most of them well-crafted power ballads, which she ably belts out, from the first two tracks, the hits Mr Know It All and What Doesn’t Kill You onwards. One gem that needs kudos is the third track, Dark Side, which she delivers with punchiness and earnest emotion that lingers in the brain and ear well after the track is done. The War is Over is another guitar-driven, rhythmic noteworthy piece.

Containing a whopping 17 tracks (four of them are bonus tracks, one featuring American Idol former judge Kara diGuardi in The Sun Will Rise and country singer Jason Alden in the wonderful duet Don’t You Wanna Stay), this should be a must-have for any Clarkson fan. All things aside, it’s a strong pop album, and much better than a lot of what her contemporaries are putting out. Don’t miss it!

Album Review - Leonard Cohen

Album reviews by ACID

Artist: LEONARD COHEN
Album: Old Ideas
Label: Columbia/Sony Music

HAVING been a longtime fan of the Canadian singer-songwriter-poet-famous Buddhist Leonard Cohen, I look forward to his work with a measure of anticipation. Cohen’s biggest strength, it is often successfully argued, is his version of the written word.

Right off the bad, the material in Old Ideas, while it almost seems to project different nuances of Cohen through the different phases of his creative career, is not a let-down. This album is also his first in seven years. Growled, whispered, spoken and sung in intervals in that scratchy, decadent baritone, the songs are about the subject he knows the best – himself. This is apparent from the beginning itself in the first track Going Home, when he starts off with “I love to speak to Leonard / He’s a sportsman and a shepherd”, all wryness, quiet and grim wit.

Present in the album, too, are familiar tools – mildly repetitive lines (which are always deliberate), found in Going Home and Amen (which sounds like that other paean Hallelujah). Darkness is a sultry ode to pure temptation, cunningly put in an organ-and-Southern blues-hook combination. Banjo, is another one of those unexpected pleasures, and you know that outright when you find yourself tapping your feet to lines like “It’s a broken banjo bobbing / on the dark infested sea”.

Whether he is sly, humorous, despairing, intimate, the songs seem to present a deeply personal side to Cohen’s life and work. And considering how he continues to fascinate critics and fellow musicians, it is wholly justified.

Anyone listening for that pleasant hook and arresting vocal ability will never truly find that in any Cohen album – he maintains that gritty and gaunt edge and slips effortlessly into the stance of the poetic, haunted, emotionally resonant troubadour. At the grand old age of 78, the one who brought classics like Song of Bernadette, Famous Blue Raincoat and Marianne still shines through the medium he knows so intimately and so well.

A real treat, this, and one worth listening to again and again.

Great Sounds from Sony Music

WHAT’s your food for the soul? For NFM’s team, it’s definitely music. And we are so very happy to share with our friends here some good news. Starting April, we will be including music album reviews in our posts. The selections we currently have are courtesy of Sony Music Entertainment Malaysia Sdn. Bhd.

Reviews of albums coming soon in NFM.

Sony’s first contribution to NFM’s music album reviews are:
1.       Kelly Clarkson – Stronger
2.       The Shins – Port of Morrow 
3.       Joe Brooks – A Reason To Swim
4.       Leonard Cohen – Old Ideas
5.       Bruce Springsteen – Wrecking Ball
6.       Foster The People – Torces
7.       Rebecca Ferguson – Heaven

Lookout for the reviews by one of our entertainment writers coming soon.