18 illinoisentertainer. com july 2025
ENUFF Z’ NUFF Xtra Cherries( Cleopatra) Chicago glamsters, Enuff Z’ Nuff, return with another sugary-sweet, pop-rock record with its 18th studio album, Xtra Cherries. Its 11 tracks are decorated with the band’ s trademark soaring vocal harmonies, hooky choruses, and memorable melodies in the vein of Cheap Trick and The Beatles, who happen to be vocalist / bassist Chip Z’ Nuff’ s two biggest musical influences. Enuff Z’ Nuff exploded onto the“ hair metal” scene in 1989 with its critically acclaimed selftitled debut album, which reached No. 67 on the Billboard Albums chart and spawned two gigantic hits in“ New Thing” and“ Fly High Michelle.” Kicking off the record with a piano-led ballad is a surprising choice, but Z’ Nuff’ s raspy croon and poppy melodies are the highlights on album opener“ Heartbeat,” while the infectious melodies and sweet vocal harmonies on the feel good follow-up track“ No Cold Feeling” is in line with the current vibe and sound of the band’ s past few releases. More Beatles and Cheap Trick-esque harmonies permeate throughout“ Sanibel Island( It’ s Outta Control),” while“ Heavy Metal”— which isn’ t metal at all – displays a rocking riff and infectious vocal harmonies.“ Take It Or Leave It” consists of poppy vocals combined with sweet mellotron melodies, while“ Back To The Wall” gives a sly little nod to Queen’ s“ We Will Rock You” melody at the end. Quite a few of the tracks here run a bit on the longish side, which may challenge the listener’ s attention span. However, the cherry on top of Xtra Cherries is its flavorful lineup of stellar guest artists, including Cheap Trick’ s Robin Zander, ex-GnR’ s Steve Adler, Billy Idol guitarist Steve Stevens, Gunnar Nelson, and others. Album closer,“ Shine,” welcomes back former original Enuff Z’ Nuff vocalist Donnie Vie, along with original Journey vocalist Robert Fleischman and current Journey axeman Neal Schon. If you’ re already a fan of the band and have welcomed Z’ Nuff’ s lead vocals since Vie left, then this will be right up your pop-rock alley. Appearing 8 / 14 at Live Wire, Chicago
– Kelley Simms
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GARBAGE Let All That We Imagine Be The Light( BMG)
When Garbage first made their presence felt in the mid- ' 90s, the corpse of grunge was still warm, while the major label signing frenzy had begun to cool. Where every band with a flannel-clad singer had been given a record deal in the wake of Nirvana’ s success, the music industry was starting to feel that, like every huge musical trend of the past 50 years, there was a sell-by date quickly approaching. Enter Garbage, the studio project featuring producer of the moment Butch Vig, his Madison Wisconsin bandmates and a young Scottish singer named Shirley Manson. Uninterested in copying the grey-scale, woe-is-me grunge sounds of their contemporaries, Garbage decided to dive headfirst into technology. In 1995, the World Wide Web was beginning to take hold, and Garbage’ s colorful techno-rock mirrored the early days of the Internet, where possibilities seemed endless. The group’ s self-titled debut album and the follow-up Version 2.0 were both soundtracks to the tech boom and dot-com bubble of the late 90s, scoring several worldwide hits in those glorious years before file-sharing became rampant. Fast forward a quarter of a century, and that optimism has slowly been vanquished. Social media turned the internet into a brutally competitive credit score machine, turning what was once a community into a sea of me’ s. All the horrors of global war and corruption are now at our fingertips with our smart phones turning the 24 hour news cycle into an inescapable soul-crusher. On their 2021 album No Gods No Masters, the band addressed these concerns to wildly successful results. On Let All That We Imagine Be The Light( the album title possibly conceived while Manson was on painkillers following a recent hip replacement surgery), the group tries to find the silver linings of this era. Though by no means a walk in the park, the album maintains a constant forward momentum and upbeat propulsion that envelops the listener throughout its relatively succinct runtime. While the first single,“ There ' s No Future In Optimism,” opens the album in a torrential downpour of dystopia, the seductive chord
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