LANA DEL REY
Ultraviolence
HOUSE OF STYLUS
(Interscope)
Well, whaddaya know? The pre-fab tabular rasa of Born To Die is a real human
being after all – one capable of feeling used
and abused by the Industry that she strove
so long to be a vital part of and of hating
herself for having gone along for the ride.
Not for nothing did she light up Baz
Luhrmann's soundtrack for The Great
Gatsby. In the chain-smoking interviews
that she has given to promote this followup to her overhyped debut, she expresses
the desire to die young and beautiful. This
album explains why, in grittier verbal
detail and in scarier soundscapes than you
might want to know. It's really too bad that
Lou Reed died on the day of his scheduled
collaboration with her. Edie Sedgwick
lives!
--Arsenio Orteza
7
KVELERTAK
Meir
JACK WHITE
Lazaretto
(Third Man/Columbia)
On his second solo outing, former
White
Stripes front man Jack White
wastes no time exploring a multitude of
musical styles
Now freed from the constraints of
working within his former duo, White's
recorded musical pallet seems limitless. It's
immediately apparent on the record's first
track "Three Women," which gives a modern blues update (and co-writing credit) to
Blind Willie McTell's recording from the
late 1920's. The groove gets as nasty as the
subject matter, with White asking "Yeah I
know what you're thinking/But what
gives you the right?/Well these women
must be getting something/Cus they come
and see me every night." Then he closes his
argument with a scuzzy solo.
As one might expect, the majority of the
material here is highlighted by guitar heroics. The title track is powered by a
Zeppelin-esque riff and White's vocals are
delivered as if his brain is on fire. "The
Black Bat Licorice" and the instrumental
"High Ball Stepper" are less compositions
than they are the sound of an aural street
fight in which both parties are most decidedly shooting dirty pool. Even the countryfried, honky-tonk of "Just One Drink" feels
heavier than its twang. It's part purity, part
poison with White declaring "You drink
water/I drink gasoline," a paradox that he
seems to fully embrace.
But it's the record's quieter moments
that are stark reminders of White's gift for
melodicism, a trait that usually finds itself
buried under torrents of guitars.
"Temporary Ground" is a soulful slow
burner couched on a Grand Ole Opry vibe.
Weepy pedal steel, sorrowful strings and
siren-like vocals (courtesy of violinist Lily
Mae Rische) help punctuate the song's
mournful mood.
White's ability to seamlessly meld styles
together is best exemplified on songs like
"Alone In My Home" and "Entitlement."
The former is a mix of precise balladry, Tin
Pan Alley pianos and Burt Bacharach worthy melodies and the latter, an exercise in
the beauty of simplicity.
At times, the record can feel uneven.
White's attic is so cluttered with ideas, it
seems like he's trying to cram all of them
into the recording's forty minute playing
time. In the past (and on "Lazaretto" as
well) he's never been impervious to histrionics. But then he writes a stunner like the
album closing "Want And Able" and suddenly even doubters can't help but believe.
– Curt Baran
Appearing
6
7/23 at the Chicago Theater
BROOKE CANDY
Opulence EP
(RCA)
You'd strain to find anything more quaint
than a print review about Brooke Candy
unaccompanied by visuals. A mixture of Lil
Kim, Lady Gaga, and Gwen Stefani to fit
Jabba the Hut's tastes, if she were to have
arrived before the proliferation of web access,
the tendency would be to assume she was
masterminded by a 14-year-old boy. The title
cut's boasts read like hastily paraphrased
32 illinoisentertainer.com july 2014
(Roadrunner)
This Norwegian band is at its best early
and often on this 11-track second album.
They cut their scream-o, full-tilt hardcore
with straight-up punk rock that serves as a
relatively groovy, and much needed, break
from the high-energy catharsis started on
opener "Apenbaring" and seamlessly transitioning to the blistering "Spring Fra
Livet." Get over the language barrier: it
doesn't matter that these boys wail in
Norwegian, the chorus to "Bruane Brenn"
is so damn catchy you sing the harmony
anyway. The vocals serve as an extra roaring instrument rather [