IRT Magazine

Out of the ashes of the fiery Brit-pop troupe—The Libertines—two resilient embers still burn: Dirty Pretty Things and Babyshambles. Babyshambles makes the more compelling story, as Pete Doherty makes his triumphant return to music after his grapple with heroin and crack cocaine addiction, which originally caused The Libertines to disband. Seemingly unfettered, though, the Babyshambles debut begins with a pick strut which is soon coupled with a seductive bassline as Doherty prophesies broodingly, “I tell you a story but you won’t listen, it’s about two nightmares steeped in tradition.” With allusions to William Blake’s portrait of tortured lovers in the album title, La Belle Et La Bete (The Beautiful and the Foolish) dances fancifully on the stage of literary precedent. A’Rebours continues with the French theme as well as the preoccupation with literature—A’Rebours (Against the Grain) being the turbulent, landmark novel by J.K. Huysmans. The song, meanwhile, tickles the listener’s aural nerves with another alluring bass hook while articulate guitar work shimmies in charged bridges. By the time the album’s best song, Fuck Forever, ushers in at song three, a listener expects the album to achieve the brilliant consistency of a Clash record. Doherty even alludes to the epic song from London Calling, “So what’s the use between death and glory?” By the sixth song, 8 Dead Boys, the record achieves great reliability, but that regularity costs the group their listeners’ interest. The LP wanes on the extraneous track, In Love with a Feeling, but is picked up by Pipedown. They have you begging for a change of pace by the time Sticks and Stones and Pentonville bring in a little reggae. But the silly, overly stated, almost laughable refrains and contrived reggae guitar shakes have you clawing at your ears. The album drifts off from there, with two obligatory songs, Albion and What Katy Did Next dedicated respectively to Blake’s work Visions of the Daughters of Albion and Doherty’s ravishing temptress, Kate Moss. On the whole, the record comes as a remarkably average album from a new band you’ll wanna keep an eye on. –Michael Montesano

Irving Plaza
NYC
4/23/06

I haven’t hung out with my man Cameron, the artist formerly known as MC Cheese reincarnated in the new millenium as King Catalyst, in about two years due to some silly beef that was squashed at the top of 2006. On my last night in Arizona this past week, I get a call from the guy, who the last I heard was neck deep in the grimiest, most underground hip-hop Long Island has to offer with the now sadly-defunct Antisocial crew, stating he’s got a pair of tickets to see the Eagles of Death Metal at Irving. Now, I’ve known this kid for what’s coming on 16 years, and he’s notoriously known for this dangerously eclectic taste in music. But I never expected him to come through with tix to the Eagles. I took him up on his offer and fought the jet lag of what seemed like an eternal flight back from AZ to Newark to catch former video store clerk Jesse “The Devil” Hughes’ premiere cock rock revue live and in effect. I always found the concept of EODM to be a bit corny. Why would I wanna hear some guy posin’ to the oldies when I have perfectly good copies of Mountain’s Climbing! and Deep Purple’s Fireball to rock out to at home? But Hughes and co. play it like they mean it, and their show Sunday night was no exception. Yeah, I could’nt help but roll my eyes at all the corny ass hipsters wavingthe metal horns in the air in fits of ironically good fun. However, when they started pelting the audience with classic cuts from their first album, Peace Love Death Metal, particularly their wild version of Stealer’s Wheel’s “Stuck in the Middle with You”, you couldn’t help but get lost in the flavor. They even broke out with a pretty faithful version of the Stones’ timeless ode to young black women, “Brown Sugar”, which was pretty cool. Even stuff on their otherwise boring new album, Death By Sexy, sounded pretty good in the live setting. Josh Homme was a no-show on the drums, but in his place was former Hole and Motley Crue drummer Samantha Maloney, looking hotter than ever and hitting harder than she ever has in her entire career. Opening act Rye Coalition sucked, by the way. -Ed.

Six Demon Bag is Man Man’s sophomore album. Since their murderously good debut, The Man in a Blue Turban with a Face, Man Man have replaced half of their band; drummer Tyberius Lyn and bassist/multi-instrumentalist G Clinton Killingsworth left to form Whales and Cops. The void left is palpable on Six Demon Bag. Gone are the splashes of percussion and odd rhythm shifts. Gone are the songs that constantly threaten to careen beyond singer Honus Honus’s control. Six Demon Bag is a much more controlled affair, with dark romps about damned love and doomed lust, dank alleyways and dangerous footwear. But what Man Man have lost in gusto, Honus Honus has done an admirable, if not completely successful, job in mitigating with lucidity (he does have the sense to ape a great (smog) line). There are real songs here, with real lyrics– a whole new bag, a Six Demon Bag! I for one never cared what the lyrics were on their debut; songs like “Against the Peruvian Monster” could have been about, uh, a Peruvian Monster for all I cared. It wasn’t about the words. It was about the expressiveness of the music & vocals, the stomp, the commitment, the howl. But judging by Six Demon Bag’s discernable vocals, and coherent lyrics, I wasn’t allowed to play by those rules this time around. So I listened on Man Man’s terms and I heard a good record, not quite the revelation that the debut was but certainly no sophomore dump. I heard a record on which the wondrous and naive children’s chorus from the debut was regrettably replaced by the grating sound of men trying to sound like a children’s chorus. I heard a record that packed the end with many of what I consider to be definitive Man Man songs. Songs like “Tunneling Through the Guy” that have a real rhythmic tenacity to match its lyrical menace. Six Demon Bag shows that Man Man, over the course of an entire album, can still capture lightning in a bag, but they used to do it in a single song. –Adam Silverman

Neil Young
Living With War (Reprise)

Pearl Jam
Pearl Jam (J)

The greatest performance I’ve ever seen on the MTV Video Music Awards came about in September of 1993, when Pearl Jam and Neil Young got together to blow the collective minds of Viacom’s mainstream demographic with a righteously savage version of “Rockin’ in the Free World.” Young was fresh off his groundbreaking summer tour with Booker T. and the MG’s as his back-up group plus opening acts Soundgarden and Blind Melon. Meanwhile, Pearl Jam were riding high on the success of what is widely considered to be their most successful album since Vs. (p/k/a Five Against One). Fans knew the two parties shared a mutual appreciation for one another, but to see them on stage together pounding out what could’ve arguably been the most definitive rendition of Neil’s immortal Bush Sr.-era anthem ever performed was something to behold to say the least. The album from which the song arrived, 1989’s Freedom, marked Young’s valiant return to Reprise after a string of misunderstood albums on Geffen, and saw the California Canadian with a message to the Republican party in stark contrast to the hopeful Reganite who appeared on 1980’s classic Hawks and Doves. Now, with a new Bush in office creating a new heap of trouble on the public, he comes back with his most opportune album since Freedom. Just like that record stands today as an audio snapshot, timely as a Walter Cronkite newsreel, Living With War will equally serve as the most vivid portrayal of the current American struggle to be depicted on a rock album to date. Even more so than 2003’s Greendale, this classic Neil Young rocker he’s termed “metal folk” calls out names, both in support (the Powell and Obama-endorsing “Lookin’ For A Leader”) and revolt (the obvious bull’s-eye “Let’s Impeach the President”). And when he conducts a 100-voice gospel choir through a powerful, tearful rendition of “America the Beautiful”, it makes you proud to be a child of the purple mountain majesties and fruited plains in spite of the yellowing tint soiling our Red, White and Blue. Although it probably would’ve sounded a hell of a lot more ragged had he recorded it with Crazy Horse, it’s great to hear to hear him plug in “Old Black” and crank out the sleepless rust all over again. Needless to say, Living with War stands as Young’s toughest album since 1995’s Mirror Ball, which he recorded with Pearl Jam, who’ve got a lot to live up to on their eponymous label debut for J Records. I’m sorry, but both Binaural and Riot Act were average at best, and Yield would have made an outstanding EP. And upon first listen, you might be led to believe, “Oh jeez, there they go again. The same boring shit.” But repeated spins of the black circle reveal it might’ve been worth buying after all. The second half of the album absolutely kills, especially the Brill Building-flavored “Come Back” and the 7-odd minute lite psyche roller “Inside Job”, which vaguely recalls shades of Mother Love Bone. And you can’t deny the power and glory of “World Wide Suicide”, the best rock song commercial radio has heard in years. And while it doesn’t come close to breaking their trifecta of Vs., 1994’s Vitalogy and 1996’s unappreciated No Code, Pearl Jam the album does in fact witness a most fiery return to the Jam we once knew and loved. Let’s just hope they get back together with ol’ Neil again soon for some more of that Mirror Ball magick. –Ed.