{"id":20182,"date":"2021-01-18T05:30:52","date_gmt":"2021-01-18T10:30:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=20182"},"modified":"2021-12-17T11:10:30","modified_gmt":"2021-12-17T16:10:30","slug":"hundred-word-reviews-january-2021-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2021\/01\/18\/hundred-word-reviews-january-2021-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Hundred-word Reviews: January 2021 #2"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here\u2019s five more brief reviews; this time we\u2019ve got progressive rock, powerpop, indie chamber pop, goth rock and one album that\u2019s simply beyond easy classification. What they all have in common is that they\u2019re new, they\u2019re indie, they\u2019d be likely to escape your notice if you didn\u2019t visit Musoscribe, and they\u2019re all quite, quite<\/i> good.<\/p>\n

\"\"The New Empire \u2013 Second Lifetime<\/i><\/b>
\nI won\u2019t waste precious word-count going on about how prolfic Fernando Perdomo is. This is his latest, an ambitious progressive collaboration with drummer Mark Murdock and vocalist Marisol Koss. If your tastes run toward Yes, Flash, Renaissance and Curved Air, you may enjoy this album. The project is spearheaded by Murdock, who was in a band called Empire with original Yes guitarist Peter Banks. Occasionally the material seems to try a bit too hard to evoke the Yes universe, yet the songs\u2019 hookiness rarely equals their ambition, and Koss\u2019 vocals are an acquired taste. Still, an admirable and worthwhile effort.<\/p>\n

\"\"Louis Philippe & the Night Mail \u2013 Thunderclouds<\/i><\/a><\/b>
\nIf you can imagine a cross between The Style Council and Martin Newell, that might begin to approximate the aesthetic of Louis Philippe. This French artist is all but unknown in the U.S., and he deserves better. I discovered his music more than two decades ago via a pair of best-ofs. This, his latest, serves up more of his particular sophisticated pop. If you like Pet Sounds<\/i> and don\u2019t have to rock out 24\/7, this is for you. His work is highly melodic, and his voice is lovely. Highly, highly recommended … along with anything else you can find by him.<\/p>\n

\"\"Rosetta Stone \u2013 Cryptology<\/i><\/b>
\nUnless you\u2019re a serious aficionado of \u201880s and \u201890s goth rock, chances are good that the name Rosetta Stone doesn\u2019t mean much to you. The project of Porl King, Rosetta Stone nonetheless released four albums and a whole bunch pf cassette-only collections between 1988 and 2000. This new release perfectly captures the classic goth vibe, which is to say that it doesn\u2019t sound like it was made in 2020. If The Cure had Ian McCulloch on lead vocals (along with Echo the drum machine, renamed Madame Razor) and played early Psychedelic Furs songs without saxophone, they\u2019d sound like Rosetta Stone.<\/p>\n

\"\"Bruce Moody \u2013 Forever Fresh!<\/i><\/b>
\nRemember the earnest, freshly-scrubbed powerpop of bands like The Romantics, The Records, The Producers and such? Each band had its own identity, but what they shared was an emphasis on melody and hooks, and a grounding in the Beatles end of rock, which is to say neither jagged nor grungy. That\u2019s very much what\u2019s on offer with this collection of jangly numbers recorded between 1976 to 1986. Are they dated? Sometimes, yes. Are they appealing? You betcha they are. If you require grit with your powerpop, move along: this is generally cheery stuff with just the right balance of melancholy.<\/p>\n

\"\"Douglas Lee \u2013 Themes for Falling Down Stairs<\/i><\/a><\/b>
\nI\u2019ve already referenced Pet Sounds<\/i> once in this run of reviews; here I go again. Cross that aesthetic with a pinch of Esquivel exotica and a dash of \u201890s space age bachelor pad music a la<\/i> Combustible Edison. Now add a splash of Van Dyke Parks eclecticism, and wipe away even the faintest trace of dilettantism, cynicism or artifice. What remains will sound not quite like anything else you\u2019ve heard, unless you’ve already discovered Themes for Falling Down Stairs<\/i>. There are no vocals to disturb your reverie as you immerse yourself fully in this weird and wonderful album. Simply stunning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here\u2019s five more brief reviews; this time we\u2019ve got progressive rock, powerpop, indie chamber pop, goth rock and one album that\u2019s simply beyond easy classification. What they all have in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20187,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,28,39,40,49,51,55,56,65],"tags":[4400,4403,3239,4401,4399,4402],"class_list":["post-20182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chanson","category-exotica","category-indie","category-instrumental","category-new-release","category-pop","category-powerpop","category-prog","category-review","tag-bruce-moody","tag-douglas-lee","tag-fernando-perdomo","tag-louis-philippe","tag-rosetta-stone","tag-the-new-empire","cat-14-id","cat-28-id","cat-39-id","cat-40-id","cat-49-id","cat-51-id","cat-55-id","cat-56-id","cat-65-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20182","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=20182"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20182\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22198,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20182\/revisions\/22198"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}