{"id":15041,"date":"2018-08-22T05:30:19","date_gmt":"2018-08-22T09:30:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=15041"},"modified":"2022-05-24T07:40:53","modified_gmt":"2022-05-24T11:40:53","slug":"hundred-word-reviews-august-2018-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2018\/08\/22\/hundred-word-reviews-august-2018-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Hundred-word Reviews for August 2018, Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

Time for some more hundred-word reviews. These days, I\u2019m busier than I\u2019ve ever been, so the only albums to make the cut for review are ones I consider remarkable, special in some significant way. So please consider all of these as recommended titles.<\/p>\n

\"\"Oytun Ersan \u2014 Fusiolicious
\n<\/i><\/b>When a release explicitly advertises itself as fusion, I respond with high expectations. The first moments of the opening track, \u201cOh, That Butterfly\u201d concerned me, as they\u2019re not especially fusion-y. But as the track \u2013 and the album as a whole \u2013 unfolds, Fusiolicious<\/i> reveals itself as just what I had hoped for. The seven instrumental tracks showcase knotty quicksilver guitar runs, corkscrew synthesizer runs, and a kinetic, constantly changing yet assertive and muscular foundation. There\u2019s a slick New York City vibe about the whole thing, but this all- (or at least some-) star session ultimately delivers on its promise.<\/p>\n

\"\"Jan Hammer \u2014 Seasons Pt. 1
\n<\/i><\/b>If you’re of a certain age, you know Hammer from his work with Jeff Beck. A bit younger and you might think of him as the guy who did some Miami Vice<\/i> music. There\u2019s a subtle connection between his work in those eras and the music on Seasons Pt. 1<\/i>, but you have to listen closely for it. These are 13 nicely arranged instrumental tunes that hover around the melodic pop end of the smooth jazz subgenre. At its weakest it\u2019s Weather Channel \u201cLocal on the 8\u2019s\u201d fodder, but most of the disc is substantially better than that label suggests.<\/p>\n

\"\"Three Hour Tour \u2014 You Never Know
\n<\/i><\/b>This relatively little-known Wisconsin power pop outfit is responsible for \u201cLove Sick Trip,\u201d one of the best songs on the now hard-to-locate Yellow Pills<\/i> various-artists collections. That was a quarter century ago; what has Three Hour Tour done for us lately, you may well ask. The answer is here, and it\u2019s encouraging and surprising. The group \u2013 led by Darren Cooper \u2013 sounds almost exactly like it did in \u201893, but with new songs. There\u2019s a sharp-edge musical aesthetic that fits loosely into the power pop genre, but with grit and muscle like Smithereens or the best Matthew Sweet rockers.<\/p>\n

\"\"Obscured by Clouds \u2014 Thermospheric
\n<\/i><\/b>Thinking (as I was three reviews up) about heightened expectations, if you name yourself after a stellar yet underappreciated Pink Floyd album, you\u2019d better be prepared to bring some interesting music to the discussion. Obscured by Clouds is the project of William Weikart, and Thermospheric<\/i> is a live album. But it doesn\u2019t sound like one; it features the crystalline fidelity and flawless playing of studio recordings. As with Joe Jackson\u2019s Big World<\/i> or Todd Rundgren\u2019s 2<\/i>nd<\/i><\/sup> Wind<\/i>, you won\u2019t hear the audience. Midtempo modern psych\/space rock is Weikart\u2019s metier. But does he sound at all like Pink Floyd? Alas, no.<\/p>\n

\"\"Rob Bonfiglio \u2014 Trouble Again
\n<\/i><\/b>Imagine Raspberries with a less \u201cproduced,\u201d more immediate vibe, but with every bit as much chiming, ear candy melodic sense that you came to expect from them back in those days. Guess what: that\u2019s what you\u2019ll find on this wonderful set of memorable rockers. The sentiments are often standard power pop tropes, but there\u2019s a real depth to Bonfiglio\u2019s songwriting, one that transcends genre. The backing vocals on this album are simple yet glorious. If you dig Wings, Elton John, Stories and the rocking end of classic \u201870s AM radio, run — don\u2019t walk — to wherever you can acquire Trouble Again<\/i>.<\/p>\n

\"\"Jeremy Porter and the Tucos \u2014 Don\u2019t Worry, It\u2019s Not Contagious
\n<\/i><\/b>If Lannie Flowers had a more pronounced southern\/country character to his material, he might sound a but like Jeremy Porter. Porter and his band the Tucos are from Michigan, so perhaps it\u2019s a Midwestern vibe I\u2019m detecting, but there\u2019s definitely twang here. But it\u2019s twang of the rocking kind, not miles away from Jason and the Scorchers\u2019 best work. The beats are solid and big, the melodies are strong, and there\u2019s a distinct sense of fun in these eleven original tunes. At times Porter rocks in a manner that recalls the Posies\u2019 Amazing Disgrace<\/i>. A solid album start to finish.<\/p>\n

<\/a>\"\"Amoeba Teen \u2014 Selection Box Vol 1 \/ Appleyard Sessions<\/i><\/strong>
\nDid you happen to have bought copies of Rhino\u2019s early 1990s D.I.Y.<\/i> series of CDs? They released two collections of UK power pop, and two more by American acts. If you own and treasure those, you will want this 2CD set (a pair of distinct albums, it would seem). My guess is that you\u2019re wholly unfamiliar with Amoeba Teen; I certainly was. But Dawn Eden Goldstein\u2019s liner note essay assigns a kind of historical relevancy to the music. And while you may or may not buy into that argument, the music is ambitious (the Klaatu-like \u201cDear Rosa\u201d) and consistently enjoyable.<\/p>\n

<\/a>\"\"The Stan Laurels \u2014 Maybe
\n<\/i><\/b>I\u2019m convinced it\u2019s nothing more than an odd coincidence that several of the albums I\u2019m reviewing in this batch strongly recall music from another specific era. This one sounds very, very<\/i> much like Crashes<\/i>-era Records (especially the vocals), with a bit of Shoes tossed in for good measure. A one-man project, the Stan Laurels are\/is John Lathrop. His influences \u2013 worn proudly on his sleeve \u2013 are tasteful and unassailable, and his original songwriting builds on that foundation. Lathrop has a predilection for twin lead guitar lines (see also: Thin Lizzy, Boston) that gives an added punch to his songs.<\/p>\n

\"\"The Bottle Kids \u2014 Let Me In on This Action
\n<\/i><\/b>Crafting chiming power pop that recalls the glam-pop of Sweet and T. Rex, the Bottle Kids are another solo project; this one is from Indiana-based Eric Blakely. He has a winning way with a hook and a melody; the 13 tunes here are catchy, if a tad familiar. Blakely\u2019s lyrics aren\u2019t deathless prose; he expresses more garden variety sentiments with titles like \u201cTell Her That You Mean It\u201d and \u201cHer Heart Is Much Worse than Her Bite.\u201d He occasionally tries to write anthems; witness \u201cLet\u2019s Put Some Power Back in Pop\u201d and \u201cShe Put the Rock in Roll.\u201d Alrighty then!<\/p>\n

\"\"Jeremiah Johnson \u2014 Straitjacket
\n<\/i><\/b>There\u2019s blues, and then there\u2019s blues rock. Not a thing in the world wrong with either, but one shouldn\u2019t ever masquerade as the other. To my ears, Jeremiah Johnson make blues rock. He builds his songs on a high energy, r&b-flavored blues foundation, but the rock aesthetic is always in evidence. The songs add up to more than mere excuses for guitar solos, though Johnson\u2019s solos do indeed sizzle. If your idea of blues has room for acts like the Fabulous Thunderbirds, then you\u2019ll enjoy Straitjacket<\/i>. The album scores bonus points for effective use of saxophone as a lead instrument.<\/p>\n

More shortly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Time for some more hundred-word reviews. These days, I\u2019m busier than I\u2019ve ever been, so the only albums to make the cut for review are ones I consider remarkable, special […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15049,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,39,42,49,55,62,65],"tags":[3532,389,3527,3535,3531,3534,3529,3526,3530,3533,3528],"class_list":["post-15041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blues","category-indie","category-jazz","category-new-release","category-powerpop","category-rawk","category-review","tag-amoeba-teen","tag-bottle-kids","tag-jan-hammer","tag-jeremiah-johnson","tag-jeremy-porter","tag-kool-kay-musik","tag-obscured-by-clouds","tag-oytun-ersan","tag-rob-bonfiglio","tag-stan-laurels","tag-three-hour-tour","cat-9-id","cat-39-id","cat-42-id","cat-49-id","cat-55-id","cat-62-id","cat-65-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15041"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15041\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23034,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15041\/revisions\/23034"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15049"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}