CD Review

I've picked up a couple albums in the past few weeks. So here are my impressions of some newly acquired sonic pleasure.

Red Hot Chili Peppers - Stadium Arcadium
If you drop the crap songs and take the good ones and just make one best of Stadium Arcadium disc it's a little easier to listen too. Many of the songs sound the same, which I suppose after 20 albums is bound to happen. There are some tracks that take some influence from the Mother's Milk days, but mostly it's soft melodic radio crap. Dani California is definitely one of the heavier more up beat tracks on the whole album. In the end I will probably keep some and toss some. It's a Chili's disc nothing more nothing less, with an emphasize on slow melodic ballads with some upbeat funkidelics added in here and there.

Tool - 10,000 Days
If you remove the 4 tracks without words and the two 11 minute tracks you actually have yourself a pretty good Tool album. One thing I find interesting is that every past Tool album has a different sound, an evolved sound maybe, whatever it's usually has some difference. This album sounds like disc two of Lateralus, being a single disc album you get the idea. Either way you get what you get with Tool and that is a fairly decent EP with some "interesting" tracks thrown in between to qualify as an LP.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Show Your Bones
A pretty good album especially if you are any kind of fan of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. I saw them on some late show one time and acquired they're first album. It's definitely worth the listen, I do think they would be a great live band. I also really like this album much more then the last. It's much more structured musically, versus just distorted distortion and feedback. Gold Lion, the first single is currently in the top 5 list on the Charter Cable Alternative Music channel.

The Raconteurs - Broken Boy Soldiers
Probably what I would have liked the last Stripes album to sound like. It's basically a blues based garage rock band headed by Jack White of the White Stripes. It's pretty good stuff. It's noise created by talented indie musicians in a constructive manner. Isn't that what all good albums are, or maybe what they should be. If you like blues, rock, or both together you will like Broken Boy Soldiers.

Elefant - The Black Magic Show
To be honest I haven't given this a just listen, but from what I can tell it's not bad. Elefant really takes a lot of influence from Interpol or Death Cab. The are a straight up indie outfit with relatable songs, catchy riffs, and love story lyrics. Fans of the lighter side of indie pop will like this album.

Wolfmother - Wolfmother
Since the demise of 96.3 the only Alternative station in Madison, I have gone back to listening to basically 94.1 (metal) and 101.5 (classic rock), when I listen to the radio. So interestingly enough I heard Wolfmother's Woman on 94.1, however by all rights it should probably be on 101.5 as it takes influence from the greats like Sabbath, Zepplin, Deep Purple. You name a late 60's early 70's hard rock outfit and you can hear it in Wolfmother. I'm not sure what they are putting in the water right now in Austrailia, but this young outfit are growing up in the wrong decade, and I love it. It's rock at it's finest. Nothing new or over the top, but straight up rock, complete with windmill guitar strums, bell bottom pants, and mid song feedback. You can hear teenage Ozzy's wail from Iron man or paranoid, the time changing facemelting squeels of Jimmy Page's guitar riffs, the hard pounding heart stopping bass lines of Deep Purple, the gut wrenching sophisticated drumming of Kieth Moon, lastly add a touch of Iron Butterfly Organ, and thats just the first three songs. By far my favorite score in the past couple weeks, Wolfmother is one of those bands that only sound better the louder you can turn it up. So crank it up and enjoy!!!