Sep 152023
 
imperial triumphant jacobs ladder

The rarely covered Rush deep-cut “Jacob’s Ladder” is the climax from side one of Rush’s seventh album, 1980’s Permanent Waves. It’s the album where they began to, tentatively, incorporate other forms other popular music into their prog metal sound. “Jacob’s Ladder” combines these competing tendencies, with some of the heaviest music of their career to date with a synthesizer interlude that sounds like it could have been written by Vangelis.

It makes sense that metal bands would be drawn to the track and it’s repetitive pummel, and the first ever cover appears to have been by metal singer Sebastian Bach. American experimental metal band Imperial Triumphant have really been jumping on the cover wagon lately. Their latest is a predictably heavy cover of “Jacob’s Ladder.”

For the heavy parts, Imperial Triumphant play it pretty straight, albeit way more metal, though Geddy Lee’s wail is replaced by lead singer’s Zachary Ilya Ezrin’s deep growl. They keep the knotty prog lead and bass guitar parts and lean into the bolero aspect. (Though they can still pull off the swingier parts, too.)

It’s basically more metal Rush until we get to the synthesizer-heavy bridge. Imperial Triumphant doesn’t really do synthesizers, at least in the ’80s sense. They add them to the track when you’d expect, but then they drop away pretty quickly in favour of abstract guitar textures and sound effects. Exrin’s voice is slowed and possibly flipped and then there is a big buildup that gets increasingly loud and knotty until it returns to the climax of the song.

Sep 152023
 

One reflection on the ravages of the Grim Reaper is that it offers the opportunity for folks to be reminded of the breadth of talent offered by those on the wrong side of the grass. And what a talent Leon Russell’s was. One of the founding fathers of contemporary American music, Russell got his start in sessions with the Wrecking Crew, that seasoned band of players, gilding the lily of any number of better remembered performers. Next, he took on the task of ringmaster for Joe Cocker’s Mad Dogs And Englishmen, thereby inventing the whole milieu of raggedy roots revues.

Thereafter, Russell cemented his reputation producing and playing for and with everyone, from Bob Dylan and George Harrison to most of the Rolling Stones. An early adopter was Elton John, much later able to repay the influence with 2009’s The Union, a record co-credited to each of them, boosting once again the standing of then then-ailing Russell. Seven years later, he was to die in his sleep, a heart attack complicating previous surgery, at 74. No more would he grace the stage in the guise of an Old Testament prophet, bedazzling in his white suit, with his mane of white hair and beard crowned usually by a hat, ten-gallon or top, white too.

A side arm of his career included a series of albums under the nom de guerre, Hank Wilson, wherein he took on the mantle of a country bluegrass rocker, with four albums of honky-tonk music, with another being his mentoring and production duties for funk outfit, The Gap Band; they also backed him on ‘Stop All That Jazz’, in 1974. Another fun fact: his 1978 album Americana was potentially the first sighting of the word, a full 21 years ahead the Americana Music Association coming into existence. So yeah, a whole lot more to him than just “Delta Lady,” “Superstar” and “A Song For You.”

With a body of work stretching to nearly 40 albums, solo or collaboration, studio and live, the problem for a Leon Russell tribute album is what not to cover, and what stones to leave unturned. A Song for Leon truly has its work cut out for it; for the most part, it does proud to both the tribute album genre and the Master of Space and Time himself.
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Sep 142023
 
stick figure boulevard

California reggae band Stick Figure went to Great Stone Studios to reinvent Green Day’s 2004 track “Boulevard of Broken Dreams.” As the tune phases in with the traditional tremolo pedal, we hear a slow pleasant swell. The band doesn’t just “start the song” they blossom into it. Stick Figure’s version of this melancholy tune is lackadaisical in diction (which is extremely satisfying given the genre’s context), and heavy on the backbeat, with a countermelody on a percussive steel pan, crisp timbales, and clean guitar hits. 

This cover will be a part of Nathan Aurora’s Pop Punk Goes Reggae collection (volume 1) and will feature other big-name reggae bands such as SOJA, Ballyhoo! And more. 

Head here for more Green Day covers

Sep 112023
 

‘The Best Covers Ever’ series counts down our favorite covers of great artists.

best covers of 2000s

Following the 1990s last week — and, before that, the 1950s, the 1960s, the 1970s, and the 1980s — our series on covers of great One Hit Wonders concludes today with a look at the 2000s. Meaning, the first decade of the 2000s. At this point, it’d be premature to conclude that an artist who had their first hit in 2022 will be a one hit wonder! (And, again, it’s not us concluding it anyway — it’s Wikipedia). Continue reading »

Sep 112023
 

Yes, Once More does and should sound familiar, it being the completion of a project started some time ago, with Jenni Muldaur and Teddy Thompson tackling the great country songbook, specifically as it relates to the duet format. Initially envisaged as a series of three E.P.s, it seemed to grind to a halt after the first two. These two second generation singers had memorably tackled the pair covering first Porter (Wagoner) and Dolly (Parton), the second George (Jones) and Tammy (Wynette). And then we waited.

This time, rather than a third EP, this release is a full-length disc, compiling the first 2 EPs and adding a further four songs. Again the mastermind behind this project is David Mansfield, veteran producer and player, responsible also for Teddy Thompson’s recent My Love Of Country. It seems pointless to repeat and rehearse the opinions around the first eight songs on this album: the songs and our view of them remain the same. But let’s give due space to the new butcher’s handful.

But who, you ask, who are the third and final set of salute recipients? Do the songs “Pickin’ Wild Mountain Berries,” “We’re Caught Between Love And A Love Affair,” “Makin’ Believe” and “After The Fire Is Gone” help? I would have to confess that unless you are reasonably old or a hardcore C&W purist, these won’t be the songs you have been humming along to much recently, but your Ma and Pa may well be able to help, as Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn (for it is they) were huge in the 1970s, probably the most successful pairing of the three sets of artists this release honors. Already stars in their own right, and an odd pairing, the suave ladies’ man and the no-nonsense women’s champion, but it gelled like a dream, with an album a year, 1971 – 1981, bar 1980, and all 12 singles going top 10 in the country charts, the first 5 effortlessly hitting the number one spot. Back then again they went to their solo careers and solo success, bar a further single finale, which fared less well, in 1988.

First of M&T doing T&L is “When the Fire is Gone,” a surprisingly, um, liberal take on romance along the lines of Stephen Stills’ “Love the One You’re With,” basically telling you to go a-lookin’ when the “fire” is gone at home: “Love Is Where You Find It.” This was the duo’s biggest hit, their conservative audience maybe missing the thrust of the song. Ted ‘n’ Jen stray little from the template, the first thing being to note that the song is set a semitone down than Thompson’s usual croon, at least in the verses.

“Makin’ Believe” suggests there possibly lingers some reticence, with the lyrical duo keeping up the pretense. Once again the rendition presented here much as the original, unlike the earlier two duos featured, if with a slightly more down-home feel. I guess this may be that they are slightly more contemporary anyway. (Slightly.) Most of the embellishment: piano, fiddle, steel, is Mansfield, and it is well measured and contained, courtesy Mansfield’s capable production.

I’m going to keep up the conceit about these four sings being connected, with “We’re Caught Between a Love and a Love Affair,” with its talk of sleeping around only when they can, as each also care for their woman and man respectively. Heady stuff! And there I was thinking Nashville looked down on such shenanigans, officially at least!

The final song shows they’re still at it, for “Picking’ Wild Berries,” that the excuse given for their turning up sweaty and stained on return to their respective homes. (I confess all this had me checking out the Twitty/Lynn real life relationship; seems they actually were just good friends, with Twitty and Lynn’s husband being also best buddies.) A chirpy little number in the original, with here the cheesiness dialed down a bit, if still the rockiest track here. Which isn’t a whole lot.

Actually the weakest of the three parts, I wonder whether that is the reason for the bundling of these four songs into the overall Once More collection, rather than letting them having a life on their own EP. Nonetheless, as a whole, it is altogether appealing enough, if uncertain who the core demographic is that it might be aimed toward. Will those drawn in by the Thompson and Muldaur names will necessarily have room for this, so soon after Thompson’s solo country disc last month? Or maybe this is aimed, fairly and squarely, at the (even more) mature audience at home, with fond memories of the original pairings, and maybe enough twinkle in their eyes to recall their own berry pickin’ days? If so, there is a further treat for such purchasers, able be to see it is on the old Sun label, with the traditional yellow design.

Once More Tracklisting:

  1. Just Someone I Used to Know
  2. Once More
  3. Just Between You and Me
  4. Put It Off Until Tomorrow 
  5. Golden Ring
  6. It’s So Sweet
  7. Take Me
  8. We’re Gonna Hold On
  9. After The Fire Is Gone
  10. Makin’ Believe
  11. We’re Caught Between a Love and a Love Affair
  12. Pickin’ Wild Mountain Berries
Sep 082023
 
crisis actor pusherman

There are many different techniques in sales, even if your product is “coke and weed”, and you are the “Pusherman”. Crisis Actor’s new update of Curtis Mayfield’s classic shows a character very different from his predecessors, where gentle persuasion is replaced with paranoia and fear.

Curtis Mayfield and his band introduced the song as diegetic music in the classic 1972 Blaxploitation flick SuperFly. At that stage of the movie, Youngblood Priest is enjoying the fruits of his profession, in his element in Harlem. Priest enters a nightclub where Mayfield and his band are completing their rendition of “Pusherman.” The song is one of a salesman who is only apparently comfortable in his world, but beginning to harbor doubts. The song’s sales technique is one of seduction and glamour, his products providing a glimpse into his aspirant milieu. The sound is enticing and warm, Mayfield’s peerless falsetto complementing the astute guitar work over a funky bassline. You don’t have to think that drugs are actually glamorous to accept that the Pusherman is presenting them that way, and his customers are buying the lifestyle. Continue reading »