{"id":7116,"date":"2015-01-27T05:30:31","date_gmt":"2015-01-27T10:30:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=7116"},"modified":"2015-01-27T05:30:31","modified_gmt":"2015-01-27T10:30:31","slug":"hundred-word-reviews-january-2015-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2015\/01\/27\/hundred-word-reviews-january-2015-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Hundred-word Reviews: January 2015, Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There&#8217;s a never-ending stream of new music, so it&#8217;s time once again for some hundred-worders to work off some of my backlog. As always, these all deserve full reviews, but with limited time and resources, 100 words will have to do. I&#8217;ll cut to the chase. Today it&#8217;s a wide assortment of music, from rock to jazz to Americana.<\/p>\n<p><center><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" src=\"http:\/\/musoscribe.com\/images\/emerson_lake.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"280\" height=\"280\" vspace=\"20\" \/><\/center><\/p>\n<p><iframe style=\"float: right; padding: 10px; width:120px;height:240px;\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" src=\"\/\/ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/widgets\/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&#038;OneJS=1&#038;Operation=GetAdHtml&#038;MarketPlace=US&#038;source=ss&#038;ref=ss_til&#038;ad_type=product_link&#038;tracking_id=musoscribe-20&#038;marketplace=amazon&#038;region=US&#038;placement=B00KI7RNH8&#038;asins=B00KI7RNH8&#038;linkId=WSW2YQE2YTYC3I3F&#038;show_border=true&#038;link_opens_in_new_window=true\"><br \/>\n<\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>Keith Emerson &amp; Greg Lake \u2013 <\/strong><em><strong>Live From Manticore Hall<\/strong><\/em><br \/>\nIt would seem that the days of <strong>Emerson, Lake and Palmer<\/strong> are gone forever; other than their one-off reunion several years ago, they&#8217;ve all moved on to other things. That said, one of those other things was a 2010 concert series featuring the <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=5950\">keyboardist<\/a> and the <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=722\">guitarist\/vocalist<\/a>. This CD documents that dinner-theatre styled tour; there&#8217;s no Manticore Hall; this show was recorded in Connecticut. Toned-down readings \u2013 with less synthesizer than you&#8217;d expect \u2013 of the many classics from the ELP catalog are showcased here, and a lovely version of \u201cI Talk to the Wind\u201d recalls Lake&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=122\"><strong>King Crimson<\/strong><\/a> days.<\/p>\n<p><center><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" src=\"http:\/\/musoscribe.com\/images\/satisfactors.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"280\" height=\"280\" vspace=\"20\" \/><\/center><\/p>\n<p><iframe style=\"float: right; padding: 10px; width:120px;height:240px;\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" src=\"\/\/ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/widgets\/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&#038;OneJS=1&#038;Operation=GetAdHtml&#038;MarketPlace=US&#038;source=ss&#038;ref=ss_til&#038;ad_type=product_link&#038;tracking_id=musoscribe-20&#038;marketplace=amazon&#038;region=US&#038;placement=B00ONA7KFG&#038;asins=B00ONA7KFG&#038;linkId=DNCAIY37JHDE36X6&#038;show_border=true&#038;link_opens_in_new_window=true\"><br \/>\n<\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>The Satisfactors \u2013 <\/strong><em><strong>The Satisfactors<\/strong><\/em><br \/>\nThis quartet plays rock&#8217;n&#8217;roll of the old-fashioned variety: power chords, shouted and swaggering vocals, songs about women, and so forth. Fans of stripped-down yet clever songwriting \u2013 think of <strong>The Romantics<\/strong>, <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=63\"><strong>Smithereens<\/strong><\/a> and the like \u2013 will appreciate the back-to-basics approach of <strong>The Satisfactors<\/strong>. An arena-rock feel is applied to songs that recall 70s punk, New York variety. <strong>Rolling Stones<\/strong> and <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=614\"><strong>Mott the Hoople<\/strong><\/a> sensibility shines through on tunes like the self-explanatory \u201cI Love Girls.\u201d Something about these guys reminds me of <strong>Donnie Iris<\/strong> (\u201cAh! Leah!\u201d) but I can&#8217;t quite put my finger on it. Either way, it&#8217;s fun stuff.<\/p>\n<p><center><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" src=\"http:\/\/musoscribe.com\/images\/dylan_howe.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"280\" height=\"280\" vspace=\"20\" \/><\/center><\/p>\n<p><iframe style=\"float: right; padding: 10px; width:120px;height:240px;\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" src=\"\/\/ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/widgets\/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&#038;OneJS=1&#038;Operation=GetAdHtml&#038;MarketPlace=US&#038;source=ss&#038;ref=ss_til&#038;ad_type=product_link&#038;tracking_id=musoscribe-20&#038;marketplace=amazon&#038;region=US&#038;placement=B00KOFWM0W&#038;asins=B00KOFWM0W&#038;linkId=KWG2UA3HNYULVRXX&#038;show_border=true&#038;link_opens_in_new_window=true\"><br \/>\n<\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>Dylan Howe \u2013 <\/strong><em><strong>Subterranean: New Designs on Bowie&#8217;s Berlin<\/strong><\/em><br \/>\nUsing music from one of <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=421\"><strong>David Bowie<\/strong><\/a>&#8216;s most fascinating periods \u2013 his Berlin years which borne <em>\u201cHeroes,\u201d Low<\/em> and <em>Lodger<\/em> \u2013 seems like an intriguing approach for a new album. But presenting those songs \u2013 most of which are quite static and impressionistic, owing to <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=636\"><strong>Brian Eno<\/strong><\/a>&#8216;s involvement \u2013 in a jazz idiom is downright odd. But that&#8217;s the idiosyncratic concept at work on this album from drummer <strong>Dylan Howe<\/strong>. The drummer&#8217;s dad (a certain <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=675\"><strong>Steve Howe<\/strong><\/a>) guests on one track, but not on guitar. My advice is to ignore the Bowie connection and instead enjoy the arrangements for what they are.<\/p>\n<p><center><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" src=\"http:\/\/musoscribe.com\/images\/psycho_sisters.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"280\" height=\"280\" vspace=\"20\" \/><\/center><\/p>\n<p><iframe style=\"float: right; padding: 10px; width:120px;height:240px;\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" src=\"\/\/ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/widgets\/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&#038;OneJS=1&#038;Operation=GetAdHtml&#038;MarketPlace=US&#038;source=ss&#038;ref=ss_til&#038;ad_type=product_link&#038;tracking_id=musoscribe-20&#038;marketplace=amazon&#038;region=US&#038;placement=B00K0NANZY&#038;asins=B00K0NANZY&#038;linkId=SWVU5W5YMUSFZTAI&#038;show_border=true&#038;link_opens_in_new_window=true\"><br \/>\n<\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>The Psycho Sisters \u2013 <\/strong><em><strong>Up On the Chair, Beatrice<\/strong><\/em><br \/>\nNear-lifelong friends <strong>Susan Cowsill<\/strong> (<strong>The Cowsills<\/strong>, <strong>Continental Drifters<\/strong>) and <strong>Vicki Peterson<\/strong> (<strong>Bangles<\/strong>, Continental Drifters) have worked together extensively, but <em>Up On the Chair, Beatrice<\/em> is the first collaborative album from the duo. Not rock a la Bangles (save for \u201cNumb\u201d), and not especially Americana-leaning as were Continental Drifters, the music here resembles a baroque, pop-centric rethink of <strong>The Roches<\/strong>. Quite varied in texture, the album is full of delights. \u201cNever Never Boys\u201d is reminiscent of the criminally-overlooked Cowsills album, <em>Global<\/em>, though it has a more countrified feel. Think of <strong>The Psycho Sisters<\/strong> as a sort of distaff <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=786\"><strong>Holsapple and Stamey<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><center><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" src=\"http:\/\/musoscribe.com\/images\/apache_relay.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"280\" height=\"280\" vspace=\"20\" \/><\/center><\/p>\n<p><iframe style=\"float: right; padding: 10px; width:120px;height:240px;\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" src=\"\/\/ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/widgets\/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&#038;OneJS=1&#038;Operation=GetAdHtml&#038;MarketPlace=US&#038;source=ss&#038;ref=ss_til&#038;ad_type=product_link&#038;tracking_id=musoscribe-20&#038;marketplace=amazon&#038;region=US&#038;placement=B00I4F0IRS&#038;asins=B00I4F0IRS&#038;linkId=UERKGFJWANAHQI5J&#038;show_border=true&#038;link_opens_in_new_window=true\"><br \/>\n<\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>The Apache Relay \u2013 <\/strong><em><strong>The Apache Relay<\/strong><\/em><br \/>\nThe sweeping, majestic strings that open \u201cKatie Queen of Tennessee\u201d will pull you in, right from the get-go; there&#8217;s a depth of emotionality that&#8217;s conveyed by the string arrangement, a sort of modern <strong>Phil Spector<\/strong> wall of sound that adds dimension to the otherwise Americana styling of this Nashville band. If they never did anything beyond that opening track, they&#8217;d be noteworthy. But their self-titled debut is filled with goodies that combine the modern folkie-ness of <strong>Fleet Foxes<\/strong> with the studio-as-instrument aesthetic of <em>SMiLE<\/em>-era <strong>Brian Wilson<\/strong>. They&#8217;ll play Asheville February 28; look for more about them closer to that date.<\/p>\n<p>More capsule reviews to come.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.twitter.com\/the_musoscribe\">Follow \u201cthe_musoscribe\u201d on <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/musoscribe.com\/images\/icon_twitter_small.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"18\" height=\"18\" border=\"0\" hspace=\"1\" vspace=\"0\" \/> Twitter<\/a> and get notified<br \/>\nwhen new features, reviews and essays are published.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There&#8217;s a never-ending stream of new music, so it&#8217;s time once again for some hundred-worders to work off some of my backlog. As always, these all deserve full reviews, but [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,39,42,49,51,62,65],"tags":[217,589,650,737,779,945,1236,1750,1916,2096],"class_list":["post-7116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ambient","category-indie","category-jazz","category-new-release","category-pop","category-rawk","category-review","tag-apache-relay","tag-cowsills","tag-debbi-peterson","tag-dylan-howe","tag-emerson-lake-palmer","tag-greg-lake","tag-keith-emerson","tag-psycho-sisters","tag-satisfactors","tag-susan-cowsill","cat-5-id","cat-39-id","cat-42-id","cat-49-id","cat-51-id","cat-62-id","cat-65-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7116","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=7116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7116\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}