NEWSOUNDS
Emmylou Harris & Rodney Crowell Old Yellow Moon (Nonesuch) Emmylou Harris can make any song better than it was. That's a fact. She sing, it improves. But that doesn't mean every album she's ever been
Atoms for Peace Amok (XL) Imagine the waves of an electronic tide going in and out; visualize the multiple elements of Thom Yorke's rickety career; picture a supergroup of musicians whose only real need to perform is to fulfil a passion to have an impromptu experiment. Somewhere in that mix comes this new mindmelt. Taking many cues from many places—including Flea's ability to morph into robot, showing off his best Burial basslines, the wired-andglitched-out pace of a Flying Lotus brought on by longtime Radiohead
on is a great album. This duet record with former bandmate Rodney Crowell, however, is a great album. With a set of songs made up of covers and Crowell originals, and a band that never oversteps its bounds—there's not a note out of place here—Harris and Crowell are left to intertwine their voices, wringing more nuance out of the words than seems possible. The more melancholic songs stand out—"Open Season On My Heart" and "Back When We Were Beautiful" are particularly moving— but even the relatively plain, steady thumping country blues number "Black Caffeine" is elevated by the duo's playful vocal interaction. EDEN MUNRO
// EDEN@VUEWEEKLY.COM
Rachel Zeffira The Deserters (Paper Bag Records) "One day we'll meet again / One day we'll speak like we did back then," begins Rachel Zeffira on her debut solo album. With that initial farewell, Zeffira, a classical trained opera singer and pianist, as well as one half of Cat's Eyes, along with Horrors frontman Faris Badwan, sets the tone for what lies ahead on this orchestral-pop disc. With a blend of dexterous piano arrangements punctuated by woodwind and string accompaniment, The Deserters is melancholic, yet hopeful in its ethereal elegance. MEAGHAN BAXTER
// MEAGHAN@VUEWEEKLY.COM
Buckcherry Confessions (Century Media)
producer Nigel Godrich, and the layer-upon-layer of drumming pulsation inspired by what can only be described as Fela Kuti hammering out a Four Tet single—Amok might be the most expressive and untamed thing the Radiohead frontman has touched. Yorke's slickest version of himself is a calm voice over a hysterical sea at its most glorious moments. By no means a rock album, lesser than an electronic thaw, Amok frantically lands—for those who require the Radiohead comparison—somewhere between the electro trials of a sped-up Amnesiac and Kid A, and perhaps the most-agreeable-to-themost-people of Yorke's ever-changing list, The Eraser. Amok is an incredibly atmospheric creature: incredibly dark in sound, yet vibrant in character, especially as the levels reveal themselves. As spontaneous as can be imagined, as organic and unarranged as can be expected, Atoms for Peace has created a feral dance of an album.
Excess. That's what Buckcherry is all about. At least that's the song the band's been singing since its 1999 debut (remember "I love the cocaine / I love the cocaine"?). In a post-grunge world the band sunk its sonic hooks into enough ears that they've kept at it for six albums now, and on the musical side they assert themselves fairly well: there's a lot of generic hard rock throughout Confessions, but there are also some inspired solos and other bits scattered throughout. Vocally, though, the group sounds hamstrung by singer Josh Todd's limited range—intentional or not—when it comes to melodies, and his continuing efforts to out-sleaze the words of 2006's "Crazy Bitch." On Confessions he wraps it all up in an uncomfortable blanket of rock-opera pomp, meaning that Buckcherry doesn't even tap into the illusion of a good time on this record, instead wallowing in the waste of excess.
CURTIS WRIGHT
EDEN MUNRO
// CURTIS@VUEWEEKLY.COM
FOUR IN 140
// EDEN@VUEWEEKLY.COM
@CURTISTWRIGHT
Tegan and Sara Hearthrob (Warner) @VueWeekly: An album that, with any other name, by any other bubblegum pop group, would make Ke$ha's producer happy. Oh, wait.
Foals Holy Fire (Warner) @VueWeekly: 3rd album from the Brit indie band who could—veers towards the math and technical side. Many repeated listens to take this all in.
K-os BLack on BLonde (Universal) @VueWeekly: K-os takes on the double album, comes out with a lot of songs that shouldn't have made a single album.
Fleetwood Mac Rumours Deluxe Edition (Warner) @VueWeekly: Hey! The 1st song on this album is better than most entire albums. Now in deluxe edition.
30 MUSIC
VUEWEEKLY FEB 21 – FEB 27, 2013