Heard
Here
American
IV: The Man Comes Around
Johnny Cash
A Johnny Cash album is something that you can always
count on. You know almost exactly what to expect and you wouldn’t
have it any other way — the consistency is what draws you
in. American IV: The Man Comes Around is no exception, and Johnny
Cash proves he still has the ability to write great songs and to
be as completely distinctive as everyone knows he is. Cash has the
unique ability to make a song about a prison convict’s exploits
—“Give My Love To Rose”- sound melodic and somehow
comforting in its sparse sadness. The usual Cash fare is here: songs
about prison, murder, despair and heartbreak accompanied by jangly
acoustic guitar, and not a whole lot else. But this minimalist approach
is something else that Cash does so well; he can say a lot with
only two chords and his voice.
As Cash has gotten older (he turned 70 this year) his voice has
mellowed and he seems to have used this to his advantage, delivering
his songs in a gravely spoken/sung drawl that has become his new
trademark. Cash also continues his new tradition of covering contemporary
and not-so-contemporary songs and making them uniquely his own.
On this album, covers of Sting, Hank Williams, the Eagles and the
Beatles sit alongside “Hurt” by Nine Inch Nails, “Personal
Jesus” by Depeche Mode and Cash originals.
Although the choice of songs looks like an incongruous mish-mosh,
Johnny Cash is able to integrate the wide variety into his personal
style. More random is the choice of guests on this album. Fiona
Apple and Don Henley each do a song with the Man in Black and end
up breaking the flow of the songs rather than contributing anything
valuable to them. Nick Cave puts in a good effort as he lends a
hand on Hank Williams’ “I’m So Lonesome I Could
Cry,” but overall the guests on this album seem to detract
from the sense of unity that Cash’s personality lends to the
whole thing.
The few spotty moments seem to be cases of poor judgment; the cover
of the traditional Irish song “Danny Boy” fails to inspire
the same introspective sadness of “Hurt” or “Tear
Stained Letter.” Cash undeniably is a survivor and this album
proves that he is still capable of delivering powerful and emotional
songs with attitude.
—Derek
Schleelein
Yanqui
U.X.O.
Godspeed, You Black Emperor!
If you’ve got a half-hour to spare you can
trace the lines of the illustration on the back of the new Godspeed,
You Black Emperor! record Yanqui U.X.O. deciphering the cryptic
handwriting as the diagram connects one major corporation (Sony,
for example) with their involvement in US production of fighter
jets, Lockhead missles or other weapons technologies. Or you can
leave the CD jacket alone and let the band’s dystopic epics
speak for themselves. Either way, the drama, beauty and sheer magnitude
of this Montreal ensemble gets its point across — that corporate
capital has invaded every aspect of our lives.
GYBE!, the post-modern, post-rock, post-everything community made
up of three guitarists, two bassists, a drummer and assorted string
players, have, over the course of three full albums and one EP,
mixed the Velvet Underground’s trademark drone together with
the melodic sensibilities of Black Sabbath and the bombast of a
Wagner opera. Throw in the some heavy-handed, conspiracy-obsessed
leftist politics and a few field recordings of a weapons-hoarding
poet from New England and GYBE! will have you running for the bunker
thinking the end-times to be just around the corner.
Like their 1999 double-album Lift Your Skinny Fists like Antennas
to Heaven, this Steve Albini-produced disk features more of the
same slow building, climax-intensive,10 minute-plus tunes that have
become the group’s trademark. Yanqui U.X.O., though, contains
precious few field recordings, a stark contrast with their earlier
records whose collage pieces and interview sections formed the backbone
of much of the music. Instead, Yanqui gives more than ample room
for Godspeed to flex their massive musical muscles. Take, for example,
the third track, “Rockets fall on Rocket Falls.” Here,
a lone guitar begins with a shaky, descending melody reminiscent
of some lost Bach fugue. Another chiming guitar appears, followed
by a viola mimicking the first guitar’s melody. More strings
enter with varying melodic profiles as a bass lays down the root
notes amid the steady clamor of the cymbals. Inevitably, the dam
breaks with the drums exploding into a steady gallop and the screaming
guitars rising in some wordless Hosanna for the left as the strings
strain to keep up — a climax predictable as it is absolutely
indispensable.
Though Yanqui U.X.O. never reaches the bliss of the opening minutes
on Lift Your Skinny Fists…, nor the fury of that record’s
second track, it does manage a consistency over its 75 minutes that
GYBE! failed to accomplish with its earlier offerings. Melodies
grow and mutate, fade to a near whisper and then suddenly erupt
with such conviction and power, the question of whether one seriously
accepts the band’s politics or tosses them aside as mere pretentious
rock posturing becomes beside the point. Paradoxically, for all
of GYBE!’s political hyperbole (the CD jacket urges the consumer
to steal Yanqui U.X.O.) and the uncanny ability of their music to
make their doom-’n’-gloom global vision seem very real,
their seething epics have the power to move on a purely visceral
level irrespective of their political intentions.
Pretentious or not, Yanqui U.X.O. quite simply rocks.
—John MacDonald |