Article #3 in the Best and Worst Music of 2006 series
Bands changing or experimenting with their sound is always a hazardous endeavours (just look at DJ Shadow). You might risk your established fan base and brand identity. You might become a laughing stock. You might lose record deals.
On the other hand you might be lauded for being forward-thinking, creative and may even start the next big thing.
Risk change for artistic integrity? Heavens.
I do believe that good artists evolve, some more so than others. Some choose to restrict their palette and focus on a particular style of music and do that very well. Others hop wildly from one genre to another (I don’t want to bring up The Outsider again, but…) This list of releases however is from a group of five bands that I think are making good music, albeit music that is from a limited spectrum. They do what they do well, but it’s much like their last album.
5. To All New Arrivals (Faithless)
A mainstay on the hip-hop/trip-hop/dance scene this is the Faithless album that we thought we’d never see after rumours of the band splitting up. Thankfully that wasn’t the case. After the symphony concept album No Roots (2004) the band return more to more traditional territory. All the usual Sister Bliss’s melodies power the tracks with Maxi Jazz laying down his usual rhymes along with an assortment of guest vocalists. An enjoyable listen, with two stand out tracks, Bombs and the title track, To All New Arrivals.
4. First Impressions of Earth (The Strokes)
Irregardless of some press crying that The Strokes haven’t had a new idea since Is This It (2001) they forge ahead. Technically a very competent band, their greatness is hampered by Julian Casablancas’s songwriting ability. But for a crowd-pleasing rock band I’m not sure if this is such a great liability, I’d much prefer my rock bands to rock than write insightful lyrics. And rock they do. There are a whole lot of good hooks in this album, but they seem front-loaded, the first six tracks of noticeably better quality than the remaining.
3. Scale ((Matthew) Herbert)
Herbert takes his stripped-down oddball-sampled house aesthetic and lifts it higher. Less dancey and more jazzy , Scale features a large amount of string and wind arrangements which altogether makes it less quirky than the excellent Bodily Functions (2001). Being Herbert, it sounds interesting on account of his use of everyday objects in his sampling whilst still maintaining his distinctive sound. While an excellent album, I feel that Herbert has done better before.
2. Broken Boy Soliders (The Raconteurs)
Being a super-group and all, you’d hope The Raconteurs would be greater than the sum of its parts. However none of the tracks on the album are surprising considering their progenitors. So even though it is a new band it has a somewhat tired, familiar sound, perhaps also due in part to their heavy “inspiration” of the classics.
1. Black Holes and Revelations (Muse)
Fans initially freaked after the first song from the new album surfaced, Supermassive Black Hole a glam rock tune with Matt Bellamy singing falsetto. When the full album arrived though, it was clear that Muse were back to their bombastic space-opera-rocker sound. It would be nice however for Muse to turn their amps down from 11, as they can produce some great rock that’s not necessarily speaker-blowing or has constant drum fills as demonstrated Showbiz (2000).
Article #3 in the Best and Worst Music of 2006 series
