New Releases: August 5, 2008
Norma Jean – Anti Mother CD (Tooth & Nail)
Another Norma Jean album, another lineup change. This time, drummer Chris Raines steps in for the absent Daniel Davison, who exited the lineup in 2007 to pursue a career in visual art. Raines is a solid replacement, having honed his percussive thunder with Spitfire, and The Anti Mother offers up another batch of cathartic, pummeling metal. Although the bandmates still flaunt an ability to grind their audience’s eardrums into powder, Norma Jean’s hidden strength lies in their dedication to melody, which hides behind walls of sound and rears its head during key moments. “Self Employed Chemist” and “Robots 3 Humans 0″ are prime examples, mixing distortion with melodic hooks and vocal harmonies. Norma Jean’s members aren’t softening in their old age; rather, they’ve learned to add variation to the metalcore pattern, injecting bursts of melody and offering cameo spots to members of the Deftones, Mighty Six Ninety, Saosin, Helmet, and others. The Anti Mother ultimately boasts the best of both worlds: heavy riffage with manic, tortured shrieking, and aggressive melodies sung with equal parts passion and grit.
Conor Oberst – Conor Oberst CD / LP+MP3 (Merge)
Abandoning the Bright Eyes moniker he’s been performing under since his teens, Conor Oberst reverted to his birth name for his 2008 follow-up to 2007’s Cassadaga. As he not only released the record under his own name but titled it Conor Oberst, it’s hard not to think of the album as a new beginning or statement of purpose, as that’s generally the case when a singer/songwriter splits from his main band, but this is such a low-key record it can’t support such grand theories. But that subdued attitude is in fact a major difference between this and Bright Eyes albums, where every action tended to be over-amplified, a practice Oberst generally avoids here. Part of it is down to mere circumstance. Struck with one of his bursts of wanderlust, Oberst headed down to Mexico to cut the album, gathering together a collection of friends who he dubbed the Mystic Valley Band, a name bearing an uncanny resemblance to such ’70s country-rock outfits as Rick Nelson’s Stone Canyon Band. Naturally, this is a conscious move, as much of this tight 12-track album resides firmly within the confines of classic country-rock, whether it’s a mellow ramble like “Danny Callahan” or the dust-kicking “I Don’t Want to Die (In the Hospital).” These benefit greatly by the loose-limbed Mystic Valley Band, who infuse a great deal of warmth to this music, but their open-heartedness is a reflection of Oberst’s subtle shift to relying on modest gestures instead of grand ones. Although he still has a tendency to shoehorn five-dollar words into every other phrase — particularly when it comes time to write ballads — he’s not trying quite so hard here, letting his lyrics be almost as relaxed as his music. But the fact that the music does feel relaxed, even when it bears his classicist affectations, does make Conor Oberst markedly different than the music of Bright Eyes, and makes it a worthwhile project — even if it proves to be a detour instead of a new beginning.
Real McKenzies – Off the Leash CD (Fat Wreck Chords)
The Real McKenzies have been bringing out their hybrid of aggressive punk and traditional Scottish folk songs since their formation in 1992. After several lineup changes, this Vancouver-based sextet eventually settled with Paul McKenzie (vocals), the Bone (guitar/vocals), Kurt “Dirty” Robertson (guitar), Matt MacNasty (bagpipes), Brad Attitude (drums), and Jamie Fawkes (bass). By 1995, IFA Records released the band’s first full-length, appropriately titled Scotland. After the band spent four years touring throughout North America, Joey “Shithead” Keithley’s Sudden Death Records eventually funded the release of the Real McKenzies’ second album, Clash of the Tartans, in 1999. Loch’d & Loaded appeared two years later on Fat Wreck. The live album Pissed Tae th’ Gills: A Drunken Live Tribute to Robbie Burns was issued in 2002, followed the next year by Oot & Aboot on Honest Don’s Hardly. The band returned to Fat Wreck for 2005’s 10,000 Shots. Their latest, Off the Leash, finds the band in as true form as ever: drinkin’, fightin’, and cussin’… the Scottish Way!
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