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What’s In The Bag?

Having known Guster mostly through friends’ obsessions, I’ve understood their fanbase to be rabid and unwavering. Surely this new album will reach some new ears beyond the diehard loyals, songs like ‘C’mon’ and ‘The Captain’ have a unique sense of nostalgia but moving forward. Beatles guitar riffs are updated, and by the time we get to ‘The Beginning of the End,’ electric guitars are full-blown and monstrous in this one-time acoustic crew. The single ‘One Man Wrecking Machine’ is some of the most honest, downtrodden looking back I’ve heard this year, “I wanna relive all my adolescent dreams. Inspired by true events on movie screens, I am a one man wrecking machine.” This album on par with bands like Nada Surf for it’s silver-lining but still gray cloud elements.

Pearl Jam
Pearl Jam
J Records

Although it came out in May, I didn’t really hear much about this album. I saw a copy at my friend’s place, and the avocado looked so delicious, I couldn’t leave without it. This is a really good record to my ears. I noticed immediately that Pearl Jam has started to sound a bit like the junior bands that were sounding like them. Eddie Vedder’s voice became the common denominator between stuff I hate and some stuff I like, pretty much since seventh grade. Ten (Epic, 1991) freaked everyone out, and then grunge happened, and then it was like Pearl Jam was on the mega-uber level, selling out every arena there was. They kept it going somehow, even though subsequent dealings seemed to tail off in intensity for some. This new album is full of solid guitar riff-rocking and Vedder sounds more familiar this time round. The video for single ‘Life Wasted‘ is some of the scariest imagery I’ve seen from this band, including the red paint classroom scene from ‘Jeremy.’ Songs like ‘Marker in the Sand’ and ‘Comatose’ walk the line of orchestrated punk rock, with sections of guitar composition and stadium melodies, get my head nodding every time. Stone Gossard still rips a tight guitar solo, perhaps better than ever here on the eighth studio release. ‘Severed Hand’ is a treat in guitar rock, a daily special on Pearl Jam’s menu.

Thom Yorke
The Eraser
xL

This might as well be a Radiohead album, but it’s not. Released today, it’s not the breakthrough we might’ve expected from Radiohead’s mouth, gone solo. But that’s not necessarily the point here, I suppose, because Yorke has broken through plenty with that band. He might need to stay put in the atmosphere of his own design before changing it again (I hope). ‘Black Swan’ is a post-techno beat under a calm voice singing “this is f***ed up” while plenty of cool sounds swirl about. Title track ‘The Eraser’ can be seen in a particularly good solo performance on Henry Rollins IFC show here. Other songs come up short. ‘Harrowdown Hill’ lies flat throughout and ends with Yorke repeating “it was a slippery, slippery, slippery slope,” which sounds a bit tame coming from the man who’s built up an attitude and angle out of vague anger.

Red Hot Chili Peppers
Stadium Arcadium
Warner Brothers

Having just heard the Chili Peppers debut self-titled 1984 release, I’m even more convinced now that their newest offering is in line with a specific sound they came upon years ago and have been perfecting or adapting to all the years since. They sell so many records, that’s for sure, millions and millions. I hear stories about them living in hotels for months while they construct these recordings of California radio music before sending them across the globe. One thing about Stadium Arcadium is certain, it does NOT need to be a double-disk magnum opus. It doesn’t travel like Californication did for them, so it ends up an indulgent mess at times. The single ‘Dani California’ is one of their tightest productions since that 1999 release, when they seemed to achieve a specific song structure and all growns-up style. The verse chords were lifted from Petty’s ‘Last Dance with Mary Jane,’ and the chorus swells like killer moments on Green Day’s American Idiot (Reprise, 2004). ‘Hump de Bump’ is a classic Flea groove that goes back to his early days, and the hook is catchy enough to hear in clubs. The Chili Peppers longevity is based in their ability to stay themselves, and this new one is plenty of that.