Amph What Album Did You Just Hear?

Kind of a bouncy bossa nova feel?

 

Sort of.

I'd seriously recommend it though. Ron Jarzombek, the guitarist here, is up there with the likes of Allan Holdsworth.

 

It was also the first ever album I owned which not only had the Coarse Language sticker on the front but actually had the infamous F word in the name of one of the tracks. I asked for this album as a birthday gift and there were some very awkward stares from my parents toward the young nerd at the time - but I asked Dad to buy it for me so that's how I got around that. Mum bought me Santana's Supernatural.

 

Yoshiko Sai - Taiji no Yume

 

Let Them Fall in Love (2017) – CeCe Winans

There’s always something of interesting going on with a CeCe Winans record. Her voice remains incredibly evocative and effortless, very different from most of her black gospel successors. As far as I’m concerned, she’s the best gospel singer of the last, well, let’s say since Aretha. On this album, she goes for a very interesting retro aesthetic on the first half, which is the strongest part of the album. The retro aesthetic goes beyond the warm, familiar cover art. The music here is obviously going for a kind of Motown, Phil Spector tone and it nails it really well. When Winans layers her vocals, she sounds for all the world like a sixties era girl group. On the stomping Hey Devil, maybe the best track on the record, the Clark Sisters guest above a bopping drum beat and a deadly organ riff. Peace from God is a beautiful lament in a slower, but still retro style. Run to Him is obviously a girl group take-off; you can tell from the title which is worked into the song in a really perfect way. The album kind of splits down the middle and the last half is more traditional contemporary gospel and it’s not as interesting or as compelling. Though there are still really beautiful songs here. Lowly is a fantastic gospel choir rave dedicated to, of all things, humility. And the Grammy winning Never Have to Be Alone is Winans’ voice at its very best, clear, smooth, with the kind of simple phrasing that elevates her above her so-called peers. Most of the tracks, even those that aren’t superlative, are still pretty good. There’s only a couple of weak tracks. The weakest is a rather ill-conceived cover of Kristofferson’s country prayer, Why Me? It’s an interesting choice, but sometimes those are also poor choices and in this case I think it is. Winans doesn’t really mesh with the style, even though they give it some soul flourishes. But on the whole, this album is really strong. It’s not going to join the ranks of her classics; Alabaster Box & Everlasting Love are both pretty perfect and this one simply isn’t. I’d love to hear her do a whole album in the retro style she experiments, and succeeds, with here, but probably the material here will scratch that itch for her and we won’t get it. But it’s still good to get this album; it’s been a really shocking nine years since her last record and it’s good to know that she still hasn’t really lost a step. Some of the material may be a little weaker than I wanted it to be, but that voice and that sweet, sweet spirit is still the same. 3 stars.

tl;dr – retro aesthetic evokes the sixties and elevates this album above the typical gospel fare; some of the material isn’t as good as we’re used to, but Winans’ voice and style remain untouched. 3 stars.

 

Trent's email to his record label clearly contained a typo when he described the thirty minute Bad Witch as an LP:

 

Excellent debut.

 

deafheaven, Ordinary Corrupt Human Love (2018)

Deafheaven, whose name and seemingly overall perspective comes from Shakespeare no less (Sonnet 29; "When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes/I all alone beweep my outcast state/And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries/And look upon myself, and curse my fate"), were unlikely contenders for the most critically acclaimed album of 2013, but there you go. The album, with its pink hued cover, was designed to look like the impression on your eyelids as you close your eyes and stare at the sun. The songs were musically soaring with a temporary joy that threatened at any second to tip into depression; the lyrics were poetry screamed through a black metal shriek.

Following up such an album in 2015 would not have been easy, so deafheaven doubled down on defying expectations by releasing New Bermuda, which wasn't a Sunbather part 2. 2 albums can't be a trend so what does 2018's album - their fourth - bring?

EVERYTHING.

There's not much point trying to describe the soaring brilliance and fragility here, underpinned at points as it is by lyrics that sound like they should be read and not sung. I mean, from the amazing song Honeycomb:

shadows extend east and Cortazar stares at women shuffling by who blot their lips from violent men and say "god bless you"
I sulk with pause and loving mariachi soars against the red and yellow tents of strangers gifting geese the ends of bread.
8, 12, 13 hours and the people keep fighting for sleep, for rest...

i'm reluctant to stay sad
life beyond is a field of flowers
my love is a nervous child lapping from the glowing lagoon of their presence
my love is a bulging, blue-faced fool hung from the throat by sunflower stems

It's like they're written by or for @Rogue1-and-a-half... and I mean that in the best way.

This is my album of 2018. 9/10. Stunning, stunning effort.

 

HELL YEAH

 

Well, it's very flattering to say that lyrics that beautiful seem like they could be written by me, but they are quite beautiful so the latter seems right.

That said, I do really want to know what would you say is like it was written by me or for me . . . and mean it in the worst way? That's a really fun question actually.

 

I love you.

 

What about John Zorn + Mike Patton?

 

Well, I like his lyrics but I'm sure some could call them pretentious so I was avoiding any suggestion you're pretentious.

 

Everyone knows Rogue's more of a Torture Garden guy.

 

That's what she said.

 

Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom OST

 

The Times They Are a Changin by Bob Dylan

I consider the title song to be probably the best song ever written (in a short list with Born to Run, Respect, Wish You Were Here, What's Goin On, Like a Rolling Stone, Another Brick in the Wall, Blowin' in the Wind, Billie Jean, etc) but the whole album is a staple for me.