Neil Young - Live at Massey Hall 1971 (2007)

The second in a series of vault releases, Live at Massey Hall 1971 captures Young at a definitive point in his career as singer/songwriter. Enjoying substantial popularity in the wake of his successes with Crazy Horse, CSNY and his solo albums, Massey Hall provides a glimpse of a musician and songwriter who is confident, yet still possesses a certain amiable naïveté. As he rambles through the catalog of old standards (“Old Man,” “Tell Me Why,” “Ohio”), stripped-down acoustic versions of the Crazy Horse material (“Cowgirl in the Sand,” “Down By the River”) and a few particularly dusty chestnuts (“Bad Fog of Loneliness”), Young, ever sweet and awkward in spite of himself, demurely banters with the Toronto audience: regaling them with anecdotes about his ranch and instructing them on when to take photographs.

Massey Hall presents a musician who, despite his flight to California and immersion late-60s counter-politics, seems somewhat unchanged. As he describes the perils of heroin in “The Needle and the Damage Done” and confuses Chicago and Detroit in his preamble to “Love in Mind,” there is a sense that Young’s prairie sentimentalism absolves him from the licentious commercial sins of American popular music. The venue, and the bursts of applause during the namedrops of Young’s home & native land, further attest to the audience’s perception of Young as the homegrown native son of folk-rock. Massey Hall is a homecoming concert—one which has Young at his most exposed and unassuming. An outstanding portrait of the musician’s acoustic era.

Verdict: 4.5/5 (great)

Electric Wizard - Dopethrone (2000)

There is a murkiness to Dopethrone which stands as the very quintessence of the word HEAVY. Gloomy, harsh and gritty as hell, here Electric Wizard—self-proclaimed as “the heaviest band in the universe”—reaches what is perhaps the apex of stoner-metal, and certainly the band’s opus. The over-driven bass, down-tuned guitars and the general air of foreboding which looms over Dopethrone faithfully builds on the foundations laid by proto-metal riff-monsters like Black Sabbath (pre-Dio) and Deep Purple. Electric Wizard has always been about the attitude of ‘heavy’: deliberately-paced, apocalyptic tunes that sound as though they were produced by instruments sopping with sludge so fucking black that light itself cannot escape.

From the album’s opening admonition that “Once you get into one of these groups, there’s only a couple ways you can get out: one is death, the other is mental institutions,” Dopethrone fastens you into barbed-wire straightjacket and sends you on a doom-bound journey through the realms of swords, sorcery, and assorted terrains of wonderfully bombastic wickedness. “Funeralopolis” is definitive heavy metal, with simple riffs building tremendously until they break under their own weight. The “Weird Tales” trilogy, clocking in at a formidable fifteen minutes, proves that extended instrumentation and maverick musical experimentation are not just the terrain of feel-goody jambands. The 2006 re-release may expurgate a solid ten minutes of the album’s title-track, but it does so in the interest of including the outstanding “Mind Transferal,” which showcases some of lead-guitarist Jus Osborn’s most fanatical playing committed to tape.

Verdict: 4.6/5 (classic, total classic)

Kings of Leon - Because of the Times (2007)

Like Modest Mouse, the White Stripes and Sgt. Pepper’s, I’ve always enjoyed Kings of Leon, but have never been able to give myself over to them unfalteringly. As much as I enjoyed Youth & Young Manhood, my allegiance weakened with release of their sophomore album, 2005’s Aha Shake Heartbreak. The Nashville-based group has always posed some problematic dilemmas. After all, their raucous, southern-fried roots evoke the likes of Lynyrd Skynyrd, ZZ Top and the Allman Brothers, but after a few repeated listens, I tend to turn back to the bands that influenced Kings of Leon, instead of revisiting the band’s repertoire. Because of the Times solves this problem quite nicely.

More sprawling, unfastened and at-times experimental than previous releases, Because of the Times reveals a Kings of Leon which sounds and feels like more than just a bundle of influences. “Black Thumbnail”, “My Party” and “Charmer” are taught rockers, laden with loose drum fills and guitar feedback which mark them as distinct and not merely derivative of bands like the Black Crowes. The slack laments of tracks like “Arizona”, “Camaro” and the album’s incredible opener, “Knocked Up” reveal a band that has grown into their backwater Bible-belt britches and whose talents now surpass clever derivation and quaint novelty. All of this would mean little if not for frontman Caleb Followill’s incredible and distinctly rock ‘n’ roll vocals. Like a pubescent Howlin’ Wolf, Followill believably bemoans starr-cross’d romance and spits unsullied Southern sentimentality like it actually means something. A great album.

Verdict: 4.4/5 (great)

Arcade Fire - Neon Bible (2007)

I can’t pretend to understand all the fuss over the Arcade Fire. I liked Funeral as much as the next person, but after a few faithful spins I mostly reverted to Neutral Milk Hotel for my intermittent ‘indie’ fix. Largely, I felt the critical fawning the band received was pretty unsubstantiated. I mean, Time magazine called them “Canada’s Most Intriguing Rock Band.” Earnestly, many of the bands on Montreal’s Constellation label, most dependably Silver Mt. Zion & Do Make Say Think, are working with rock music in ways both more inspired and compelling than Win Butler and Co.

That said, I feel like the Villain saying that I found Neon Bible thoroughly unimpressive. I was hoping for an album that would build on the sweetly melancholic maladies of Funeral and abet the potential of the Arcade Fire’s admittedly unique instrumentation. Not so much. Neon Bible is track after track of contrived crescendos, most of which fall short of the runaway freight-train chord progressions of the more uplifting dirges found on Funeral. The album peaks in the middle, with “Ocean of Noise”, “The Well and the Lighthouse” and “Antichrist Television Blues” providing momentary glimpses of just why the Arcade Fire are so immensely popular in the indie-pop junket. Sadly, three songs does not a good album make. Following Butler’s final rousing chorus of “Tell me Lord, am I the antichrist?”, Neon Bible buckles and the whole affair crumbles into a bland sonic pile that sounds like too much of the same.

Verdict: 3.2/5 (mediocre)

Ween - All Request Live (2003)

An album like All Request Live is, as its title underscores, one that is aimed at hardcore fans. Unabashedly so. Thankfully, in the past few months I have been guzzling down Dean & Gene like so many hardcore Weeners raised on Pure Guava, Chocolate & Cheese (with a dash of White Pepper?...ugh). Shitty puns notwithstanding, I hesitantly waited until I comfortably celebrated Ween’s entire catalog (or most of it anyways) before delving into the once-intimidating territory of All Request Live.

Unlike 1999’s Paintin’ the Town Brown which, while at times capturing the intensity & general hullabaloo of Ween’s live show, suffered in mixing bits from different concerts, with the resulting audio (& performance) quality differing greatly, All Request Live renders the live Ween experience more transparently & thus more faithfully (even though it is ‘live in studio’ or whatever). The highlight of the album is a 5:45 version of the infamous never-used Pizza Hut jingle, “Where’d the Cheese Go At?” An excellent “Demon Sweat,” a turbulent “Mononucleosis,” a beautiful “Stay Forever” (one of those ‘serious’ Ween songs), gloriously thrashy renditions of “Cover It With Gas & Set It On Fire” & “Reggaejunkiejew” and an epic “The Stallion” (a trilogy, apparently in five parts) round off this first-rate release. While its appeal is aimed at diehards, and though it falls short of the band’s superlative live release (2002’s Live At Stubb’s), All Request Live succeeds in capturing the spontaneity, assorted esoteria and, perhaps above all, the endearing good-humor that is Ween.

Verdict: 4.2/5 (better than good)