With Halloween on the horizon, there’s no need for smashing pumpkins; the new releases below are all killer, no filler. Purchase links are in the album title; streaming embeds follow the review.
The Beatles, Rubber Soul Special Edition: What more is there to say about the umpteenth reissue of an album that changed my life almost 50 years ago? Well, it’s nice to have a new stereo mix that sounds like a band — bass & drums in the center, guitars and singers deployed in a stage layout instead of instruments panned hard left and vocals pinned hard right. While the mono mix and US version (less soul, more folk-rock) are included in the super deluxe box, they’ve already been available for more than a decade; the double-disc version with the new mix, the classic single “Day Tripper”/”We Can Work It Out” and selected outtakes should satisfy most. And John Lennon’s previously unreleased worktape of sweet-and-sour fragment “Little Girl” can be heard online easily enough (for example, in the playlist below!). But while new revelations are thin on the ground, the album itself — freshly sophisticated and eclectic music, mature and bracingly unflowery lyrics, a great leap forward for pop if ever there was one — still astounds. And if you’ve never heard Paul’s chipper kiss-off “You Won’t See Me”, George’s gruff homily “Think for Yourself”, Ringo’s twangy heartbreaker “What Goes On” and John’s ruminative flashback “In My Life” (his finest song IMHO, and apparently the most-streamed tune from the album) — what are you waiting for?
Can, Live in Arles 1975: From the spacey modal funk of opener “Dizzy Dizzy” to the mad Bach-meets-The-Who gallop of finale “Chain Reaction”, Can’s 7th archival live album sourced from bootleg tapes reaches through the speakers, grabs the listener by whatever appendage is handy and never lets go. Not that such a fluid set of players sticks with actual compositions for very long; improvisation aimed for the outer limits is what this German quartet was always about, as opposed to playing “the hits”. Constant dialogue between various permutations of Michael Karoli on singing, searing guitar, Irmin Schmidt on studied yet stylish keys, Holger Czukay on throbbing bass and Jaki Liebezeit’s robotic percussion (including more cowbell!) drive the five untitled parts of this set down an endless autobahn, flashing through generous dollops of reggae, floating Mellotron interludes, extended gamelan goodness, and a gigantic lysergic meltdown to set up the flameout coda. Throughout, musical peaks plunge into valleys where Can searches for a collective way forward – yet even at their most static and tentative, the results connect and engage. The initial release of this series, Live in Stuttgart 1975 is still its highlight to my ears, but as long as Schmidt (the only surviving member) keeps the bootlegs coming, I’ll be a happy camper.
Elvis Costello, My Aim Is True 49th Anniversary Edition: Every bit as sarcastic and passive-aggressive with his marketing as he is with his announcements in concert, E.C. is nevertheless onto something here. After all, there’ll be plenty of punk and New Wave golden anniversaries in 2027; why not jump the gun instead of the shark? And this is a CD set that fully delivers the goods, far beyond the punchy remaster of the groundbreaking debut album itself. A disc of demos (“The Blue Print”), chock full of unpolished melodic and lyrical gold, that Costello assidously mined for his first decade as a recording artist. A sessions disc (“The Stranger in the House”) that displays his country and soul influences locking in with American backing band Clover’s swinging West Coast lope. A live disc (“Becoming the Attractions”) where Elvis and his white-hot new band blaze through the best of My Aim Is True and the nascent This Year’s Model (another life-changer for me), picking up speed and ferocity as they rampage through the UK and crawl to the USA. And “Covered in Clover”, a 2007 reunion set where older, wiser songwriter and older, wiser players come together in concert, unearthing the gravity and heartbreak lurking within these confessions of a young avenging dork. Add an encyclopedic essay from the artist spiced with recollections from Nick Lowe, Steve Nieve, Pete Thomas, Clover’s John McFee and others, and you’ve got a package essential for Costello fans – and possibly an eye-opener for folks who know him best as Diana Krall’s husband.
Rhiannon Giddens, Hope Is the Thing with Feathers: a contemporary eclectic after the Fabs’ and Costello’s own hearts, Giddens heralds her new album as a return to her roots in acoustic string band music, “making art with my chosen family”. Collaborating with producer/multi-instrumentalist Dirk Powell and a stellar yet unshowy supporting cast, she shines on minstrel banjo and fiddle throughout And as always, Giddens’ simultaneously operatic and down-home voice makes protean magic aplenty, whether on the timeless modal mysteries of “Angel Fire”, the funky acoustic rock of “Step Away Blues” and “Carolina Ruin”, the proto-bluegrass of “Cluck Old Hen” or covers of cultic icons Ola Belle Reed, Elizabeth Cotton and Pura Fe (not to mention the title track, an effortlessly artful setting of Emily Dickinson’s poem). Though the lyrics on Hope are frequently elliptical in their subject matter, Giddens’ evocations of core emotions — grief, empathy, resilience and determination — cut to the heart of what’s common to us all. An album about the things that matter most in this life, it will get under your skin.
Peter Hammill, Tears in Time: From his earliest days at the helm of Van der Graaf Generator, Hammill leaned into the existential and the dramatic; now 77 and fresh from a guest shot at the BBC’s first Prog Proms concert, he gathers his long experience, curiosity and craft to summon a cyclone of sound and fury on his 37th (!) solo album. Musically, Hammill seems everywhere at once, conjuring both a portentous overture and a classic pop song structure on “For a Rainy Day”, chanting over ominous drones for “Tabula Rasa”, falling in with his punkish alter ego Rikki Nadir on the bleakly funny “Red Flags (in the Sunset)”. Across all this and more, PH ponders, deliberates, declaims on the rush of time and the fading of memory, reckons with an unchangeable past (“So Much Water”), frustrated stasis (“The Wheels”), desperation in the face of unforseen conflict (“Heavy Weather”, a tribute to Ukraine). Sound like a downer? Well, it’s not sunshine, lollipops and rainbows, but there’s an impassioned moral seriousness to both Hammill’s rhetoric and soundscapes, a courageous acceptance that all creatures pass, whether human (“Oh the End”) or otherwise (affecting closer “And When He Ran”, written in memory of a faithful pet). A unique voice in prog takes stock of what’s behind him and what’s in store for us all, calling the listener to live in the present with a remarkable, compelling gravity and grace.
Pure Reason Revolution, Terrifying Angels: Never mind the dreamy Floydian vibe of their breakthrough album The Dark Third; PRR’s latest lives up to its title, hitting hard and often in the manner of their lesser-known follow-up Amor Vincit Omnia . Opener “Spin Like Fire” startles with big blastbeats, metallic riffs, and abysmally deep bass; “Black Arrow Acrobats” grooves with jazzy harmonies floating over trip-hop rhythms – until it doubles tempo and the guitars get heavy! “Haywire Heart” is a quick and dirty emo rush; “Rumination Ruin” pumps up the drum’n’bass. To be fair, the title track and the extended finale “Hold Your Wrath” spend substantial time in David Gilmour euphoria mode; but even their soothing ambiance is disrupted by a speed metal bridge and sawtooth synth coda (in the former) and driving detuned guitar sludge (in the latter). Still, even as guest bassists like Mariusz Duda (Lunatic Soul) and drummer Ravi Kesavaram pummel your ears on the low end, Jon Courtney and Greg Jong’s guitars chime and jangle as often as they body slam, while Courtney and Annike Shireen harmonize like — well, like the celestial creatures namechecked above. All in all, a thrilling ride – but please strap in and keep your arms, legs and ears inside the vehicle at all times!
— Rick Krueger
