13. May 2014
Things You Can Buy Today 13 May 2014
Thoughts From Around The Web…Click Album Cover for More Details.
Dolly Parton – ‘Blue Smoke‘ (Dolly Records)
“42 albums deep into one of the most amazing and consistent careers from undoubtedly one of the stand-out and important voice in country, bluesgrass, blues, rockabilly, swing and pop. Blue Smoke may be Dolly’s best effort in 15 years or more. Burning circles around the ‘competition’.Then again, Dolly’s ‘misses’ are above and beyond most releases in any era.” – Walter Price (The GTC)
Parton opens with the bluegrass train song “Blue Smoke,” whose color is meant to evoke the feeling of heartache and the tint of her native mountains. Just shy of halfway through the set, she extols the virtues of getting back to her pastoral neck of the woods during “Home.” A bright, buoyant number, it celebrates the bucolic lifestyle boosted by country’s current generation of hitmakers, but with an important difference: Parton acknowledges the distance she’s traveled from her humble beginnings, and describes a temporary, soul-centering retreat in an otherwise enterprising life. “I left home / I was 17 / I had a lot of ambitious dreams,” she sings. “Seen a lot of those dreams come true / I’ve had good luck.” By the end up the album, she’s urging listeners to climb their own figurative mountains during the steel-laced, choir-lifted motivational power ballad “Try.”
Between those bookends, Parton plays to her strengths and her quirks, which usually turn out to be strengths. She draws her heart right to the surface of emotionally eloquent, sentimental ballads (“Unlikely Angel,” “Miss You – Miss Me”), displays deliciously kooky wit during the French-fudging kiss-off “Lover Du Jour,” dares to re-imagine a Bon Jovi hit as flamboyant gospel (“Lay Your Hands On Me”), and brings a tone of womanly experience to Bob Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice,” which makes for a genuinely fresh interpretation of that oft-covered song. – Jewly Hight (NPR)
Killer Be Killed – ‘Killer Be Killed‘ (Nuclear Blast)
“Max Cavalera (Soulfly, ex-Sepultura), Greg Puciato (The Dillinger Escape Plan), Troy Sanders (Mastodon) and Dave Elitch (ex-The Mars Volta) have joined forces for Killer Be Killed. On paper it makes our mouths water, but what about the record? Needless to say it’s full of technicality and aggression while staying wholly melodic throughout. It’s quite far removed from all the members’ usual world and the result is a breath-taking ballbuster of a record.” – Luke Morton (metalhammer.co.uk)
Midnight Faces – ‘The Fire Is Gone‘ (Broken Factory)
The band is comprised of vocalist Philip Stancil and composer Matthew Doty of Saxon Shore, the instrumental post-rock pioneering band founded by Doty and Josh Tillman aka Father John Misty. To better understand what The Fire Is Gone is, please understand what it isn’t: No fancy producers, no big name special guests, no one wearing robot costumes, no all-analog studio, and no songs recorded live to tape.
Doty told us “We made this album by ourselves and for ourselves. We made it in my apartment on a computer one track at a time. If you dig the tunes, cool. If you don’t, that’s cool, too.” Well, we have news for you guys. We dig…we dig very much, in fact. With all of the reverb we could ever want on tracks like “Shadows” and Peter Gabriel-esque ballads like “Animal,” this record is solid from start to finish. – Josh Madden (Nylon)
Have Your Say…
NOTE: Not a single one of the other writers we excerpted from or their web-spots are associated with Global Texan Chronicles. Click the links for more on’em. Can You Dig It!