Metal iconography is always a tough sell. The best always erect an alternate world where battles are fought and won.
However, what if the alternate universe was a dark, doom-laden channel where the experiences of life made you feel as if you were completely separated from reality? The Iowa-based nonet returns with a tough, yet thought-provoking album that takes a look at an unkind world as a means of a new shocking primal scream therapy.
All the tenets of the past remain, but what has changed about Slipknot. They have served a form of consciousness raising on a vast swath of outcasts in an album that is brutal and yet beautiful. While as a whole it is one rollercoaster ride that is hyperreal, their gut-tightening melodies and sharp, yet studied lyrical epithets serve notice – as long as there are moments that make us feel light years away from the rest of the herd, rock will be that release.
MARIKA HACKMAN
Any Human Friend
(LP/CD)(SubPop)
With so many fellow writers exploring that threadbare place where grief and confusion lead to a righteous anger, English folkie Marika Hackman subverts the entire formula hiding her biting, overtly sexual commentary behind a wall of 80s/90's alternative production.
Bookended by the soothing "Wanderlust" and its complementary title cut, the nine songs between roll on danceable beats, labyrin-thian harmonies and plucky bass lines. The very Psychedelic Furs-ian "I'm Not Where You Are" and unadulterated pop of "Conventional Ride" could easily be hits. While the remainder of the album explores a darkly humorous and brazenly honest glimpse of the perils of modern relationships.
TORI KELLY
Inspired by True Events
(CD)(Schoolboy/Capitol)
After a gospel sojourn brought her two hits and two Grammies, Tori Kelly returns to her pop home with an album of universal love songs that bear her stamp.
“Inspired” breaks no new ground except to showcase that Kelly’s elastic and powerful voice can sing nearly anything in music. As the co-writer of all of these songs, they are personal (“Change Your Mind” on the high end and “Sorry Would Go A Long Way” on the quiet side) accounts of a breakup. While glad she survived it and is better from that, here’s hoping that next time out Kelly eases up on the obvious rhymes and tropes.
REISSUE OF THE WEEK:
Ennio Morricone
Morricone Groove
(Beatball)
Albums of score excerpts are a daunting task to many. However, the haunting scores of the great Italian composer Morricone say so much about his craft and the art of scoring films.
You are familiar with his most famous works – whistles and reverbed guitars on “The Good, The Bad and the Ugly” and the wistful Romantic compositions that frame “Once Upon a Time in America.”
As a busy composer in the ’60s and ’70s, his scores for Giallo Horror and light romantic comedy always bear his signature. Listening to theme-after-theme revisited so quickly, allows you to even unveil the small shocks in the comic scores and the underlying current of romance that makes his horror scores stand out and remain timeless.
