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MuSIc: The summer concert season is finally here. Before you head out to the festival, warm up with one of these new live albums
Live and Def
Darryl Sterdan
CDreviews
Def Leppard
Mirrorball: Live & More
Pop-Metal
HHH1/2
Surprise: It’s the nine-armed
Brits’ first live outing. No
surprise: It’s jammed with arena-
rock crunch and power ballad
singalongs. Bonus: Three decent
new studio cuts and a 50-minute
DVD.
Download: Rock! Rock!
(Till You Drop); Pour Some Sugar
on Me
Levon Helm
Ramble at the Ryman
Roots
HHHH
The shape he’s in? Impressive.
Roots icon Helm leads his band
and some VIPs (including Sheryl
Crow and John Hiatt).
Download: Back to Memphis: The
Shape I’m In
Galactic
The Other Side of Midnight:
Live in New Orleans
Funk-Rock
HHH1/2
The Crescent City crew bring
the fat funk with another sweaty
set taped at hometown haunt
Tipitina’s. In true NOLA style,
Cyril Neville, Trombone Shorty,
Big Freedia and more stop by to
jam.
Download: Gossip; Boe Money
Willy DeVille
Come a Little Bit Closer:
The Best of Live
Soul-R&B
HHHH
Criminally underappreciated
during his lifetime, the stylish
Music on DVD
Death Cab
for Cutie
Live at the Mt. Baker
Theatre
Indie-Rock
HHHH
Turns out you can go home
again. At least for a visit.
In 2009, the men of Death
Cab did just that, returning
to their old stamping
grounds of Bellingham,
Wash., for two theatre
shows. This 90-minute DVD
gets up-close and personal
with the band onstage and
off, combining a career-
spanning 17-song set with
footage of the musicians
reminiscing about the good
(and bad) old days.
Arctic Monkeys
Suck it and See
Indie-Rock
HHHH
Cheeky? Aye. But immature?
Decidedly not. Four albums into
their career, singer-guitarist Alex
Turner and his Sheffield lads
are no longer just a bunch of
hyper smart alecks. So, on these
tracks they temper all that wiry
energy and mischievous wit with
more deliberate pacing, stronger
melodies and plenty of laid-back
sha-la-la pop smarts. Will it grow on
you? Well, if you have to ask ...
Download: Brick by Brick; Don’t Sit
Down ’Cause I’ve Moved Your Chair
Clockwise from left: Def Leppard, Levon Helm and Eric Bibb release live albums this week.
soul man with the romantic rasp
gets a little posthumous attention
with this career-spanning comp of
concert highlights. More, please.
Download: Love & Emotion;
Savoir Faire
Dave Matthews Band
Live at Wrigley Field
Jam Rock
HHH
Some people want to hear the
umpteenth epic live double-album
from singer-guitarist Matthews
and his freewheeling combo.
Some don’t. You probably already
Death Cab
for Cutie
David Byrne
Ride, Rise, Roar:
A Live Concert Film
Art-Pop
HHH1/2
For his 2008-’09 tour,
eternal quirkster Byrne
enlisted a trio of modern
dancers to animate
his funky grooves and
idiosyncratic art-pop
with equally eccentric
steps. Nothing wrong with
that — nor with a set list
that blends Talking Heads
classics and cuts from his
most recent collaboration
with Brian Eno. Even so, it’s
hard not to wish he’d put on
the big suit and reteam with
the old gang.
Atari Teenage Riot
Is This Hyperreal?
Digital Hardcore
HHHH
ATR are bringing the noise again.
A dozen years after their last disc,
these German digital terrorists
have not weakened. This comeback
picks up where they left off,
blitzkrieging your eardrums and
torturing your cerebellum with
a fierce, relentless bodyslam of
industrial jackhammer beats,
dentist-drill synths, feral female
vocals and agit-prop lyrics. If it
doesn’t hurt, it’s not loud enough.
Download: Activate; Codebreaker
canoe.
know which group you’re in.
Download: Tripping Billies; Corn
Bread
Bruce Hornsby
& The Noisemakers
Bride of the Noisemakers
Jam Rock
HHH
Singer-pianist Hornsby and
his band get points for flitting
between lush rock, jazz and
classical on this jam-packed
double album. But nobody needs
160 minutes of it. That’s just the
way it is.
GARAGE BAND IDOL
Let us listen to your original song, and we’ll tell you if it sucks or not
myspace.com/miasmataband
Sure, their name sounds like
a new model of hybrid car. But
maybe that’s a good thing; this
proggy Hamilton power trio
is definitely firing on all
cylinders. Of the five
tunes on their MySpace,
four are solid and one
is outstanding. What
they have in common:
Song structures and
arrangements that
are distinctive without
veering into self-
indulgence; guitars that
sizzle and sear; rhythms
that are complex but still
rugged and hypnotically
tribal; and vocals that wail at
the heavens. Take ’em for
test-drive.
Bela fleck &
The flecktones
Rocket Science
Bluegrass Jazz
HHHH
OK, it’s not as big a story as a
Soundgarden reunion. But banjo
god Fleck’s first album in 18 years
with the original Flecktones —
thanks to the return of harmonica
and piano whiz Howard Levy — is
good news to fans. Here’s better
news: This instrumental CD
delivers more than an hour of
nimble, virtuoso musicianship that
finds the sweet spot between jazz
and bluegrass. Dig it, y’all.
Download: Gravity Lane;
Life in Eleven
Download: Levitate;
Gonna be Some Changes
Made
Rory Gallagher
Live in Europe
Blues-Rock
HHH
Rory’s reissue train rolls
on with this 1972 gem —
the late blues-rock guitar hero’s
first, rawest live LP. As usual, the
charismatic Irishman balances
electrifying boogie and
rustic acoustic fare.
Download: Messin’ With the Kid;
Miasmata
Hamilton, Ont.
Want Darryl Sterdan
to review your homemade,
original song? E-mail us
an online link where he can
hear it. If he chooses yours,
he’ll tell readers if it sucks or
not. Send the link to
darryl.sterdan@sunmedia.ca
DARRYL’S
VERDICT
HHH1/2
“I’m sold.”
The Black Lips
Arabia Mountain
Garage-Rock
HHHH
Back to Black Lips? For their sixth
disc in eight years, retrophile
Atlanta garage-rock hooligans
The Black Lips recruited Amy
Winehouse producer Mark Ronson.
Smart move. The like-minded
studio rat doesn’t make them go
to rehab — but he does polish up
their choppy, sloppy delivery and
smooth out their rough edges just
enough to make this their most
accessible disc to date.
Download: Modern Art;
Mad Dog
Down
Stream
3 Picks. 3 Clicks.
3 Cool Online Tracks
Radiohead
20 Best Cover Songs
Over the years, Thom Yorke and Co.
have occasionally taken a break from
reinventing music to indulge their
inner cover-band yearnings. And now,
someone with too much time on their
hands has compiled 20 classic-rock
gems — everything from Can’s The
Thief to Glen Campbell’s Rhinestone
Cowboy, along with a handful of Neil
Young numbers — for your perusal and
downloading.
stereogum.com
Weezer
Paranoid Android
Turnabout is fair play. So after
you’re done listening to 20 Radiohead
covers, flip the script and bend an ear
while Rivers Cuomo and Co. — along
with Josh Freese on drums — recreate
the OK Computer classic in a studio.
Not only do they play it straight,
they manage to pull it off pretty
impressively. Should the audio not
be enough for you, there’s also a full-
length B&W video version.
youtube.com
Arcade fire
Speaking in Tongues |
Culture War
Montreal’s art-rock darlings are
reissuing their Grammy-winning album
The Suburbs with bonus cuts and a
Spike Jonze movie. You’ll have to wait
until August for that — but you can
sample two tunes from the CD now.
The hypnotically chiming Speaking in
Tongues features vocals from David
Byrne; Culture War is a lazy acoustic
shuffler closer to Neil Young than
Month of May. Nice.
hypem.com
Bullfrog Blues
Eric Bibb
ChARTS
Troubadour Live! Nielsen SoundScan Singles
Folk-Blues
HHH1/2 1 Rolling In The Deep
Adele
Not hip to second-generation
2 E.T.
troubadour Bibb? No problem;
Katy Perry feat.
this warm, winsome set of
Kanye West
acoustic, gospel-tinged folk-blues
makes a fine introduction to 3 On The Floor
the singer-guitarist’s extensive Jennifer Lopez feat. Pitbull
catalog. 4 Just Can’t Get Enough
Download: Troubadour Black Eyed Peas
5 Till The World Ends
darryl.sterdan@sunmedia. Britney Spears
f---ed up
David Comes to Life |
David’s Town
Punk
HHHH1/2 | HHH1/2
FU always offer bang
for the buck. But even
for Pink Eyes and
Co., this is above and
beyond. The Toronto
punks go epic on this third CD with
an intensely propulsive, densely
layered, strikingly melodic rock
opera about a factory grunt who
may have killed his soulmate. Want
more? Companion CD David’s
Town presents faux ’70s post-punk
nuggets from 11 musical alter egos.
Phew.
Download: Running on Nothing;
Serve Me Right
flogging Molly
Speed of Darkness
Celtic-Punk
LisTEN
HHH1/2
You say you want a
foR youRsELf revolution? Join the
club, bub. Detroit-
based singer-guitarist
Dave King, his fiddlin’
wife Bridget Regan and their crew
myspace.com/ supply rabble-rousing anthems
miasmataband for the uprising and the afterparty
on their fifth disc, railing against
Coming up greedy CEOs and lamenting the lot
of the working stiff over a gritty,
vibrantly urgent landscape of
Next week Celtic-tinged punk, folk and blues-
rock. Solidarity!
It’s All True Download: Revolution;
Junior Boys The Power’s Out
Wild & Free
Ziggy Marley Ralph stanley
All Things Bright
A Mother’s Prayer
& Beautiful Bluegrass
Owl City HHH1/2
A Treasure Fads come and go.
Neil Young
Artists arrive and
depart. Empires rise
Two weeks away and fall. But Ralph
Stanley remains Ralph
Eleven Eleven
Stanley. The 84-year-old gospel
Dave Alvin
bluegrass legend sticks to his guns
Bon Iver on his umpteenth disc — crisply
Bon Iver picking Appalachian-style melodies
on his banjo and gracefully but
Whatever’s on Your Mind
forcefully raising his weathered,
Gomez
high-lonesome voice on a catalog
Alpocalypse of rustic hymns and mountain
“Weird Al” Yankovic music. Comforting.
Download: It’s Time to Wake Up;
All release dates subject to change John the Revelator