Staff Picks for November 2015
November 30, 2015
Third and -- sadly -- final album from Brody Dalle and her boys. A blend of the best of Courtney Love and Exene Cervenka, Dalle's ferocious, throat-shredding banshee scream propelled the album over pogo-drums, chugging riffs, and a whole lot of shouting. It's feral, madcap, breakneck -- and yet, at times, absolutely beautiful and harmonic. Fans desperate to hear more Brody can check out Spinnerette, but this major label alpha/omega release is near perfect.
November 29, 2015
Though it doesn't contain the international hit "Wouldn't It Be Good" from his debut, the underrated English songwriter's sophomore album is filled with memorable, well-constructed synth pop gems for those who can withstand the era's tinny keyboard production. A must for fans of the lighter side of new wave à la Howard Jones and Nick Heyward, it hit the Billboard 200 and U.K. Top 10 in 1985.
November 28, 2015
The fourth long-player from the gutsy roots rockers-turned arena-ready alt-pop spellcasters, Into the Wide is Delta Spirit's most cohesive (and television and film ready) collection of songs to date, due in large part to the band's clever and often subtle arrangements, and front man Matt Vasquez's increasingly commanding vocal prowess.
November 27, 2015
The Colours of Chloë helped to define the ECM sound -- picturesque, romantic, at times rhythmically involved, at others minimalistic and harmonically abstruse. Weber at various points combines strings, choir, synthesizer, and small jazz ensemble. It's a brew that can bring to mind some of the progressive rock and fusion of the era, although Weber's vision is a good deal more idiosyncratic than that.
November 26, 2015
Chet Baker recorded at every opportunity during the last decade or so of his tragic life, with widely varying results due to his drug addiction. But this surprising duo session with pianist Paul Bley is one of his better efforts from this period, focusing primarily on standard ballads by top composers. Bley's playing in the mid-'80s usually was freer in nature, but he willingly plays more mainstream backing for the trumpeter.
November 25, 2015
The Australian group's 1967 album, produced by Shel Talmy and recorded in England, captures the Easybeats at just about their peak, combining all of the best elements in the evolution of their sound under one cover.
November 24, 2015
Michael Penn's fourth and final major label effort may not have made his case for greater mainstream success, but it's chock full of the clever, Beatlesque songwriting, wry lyrics, and wicked guitar chops that made him a respected cult figure in the first place. Brendan O'Brien's tight, meaty production helps streamline MP4 into one of Penn's best albums.
November 23, 2015
After bringing drum'n'bass to the mainstream with his classic 1995 debut Timeless, Goldie's sophomore outing began with an hour-long symphonic piece called "Mother." Naturally, this over-ambitious album was received terribly, and the press decided to adopt Roni Size as their new drum'n'bass posterboy, because less-is-more probably sounded a lot more appealing. I will always stand by Saturnz Return, though; even if he's disowned the album after its failure, he certainly put his heart and soul into making this astonishingly confessional, introspective album, and tracks like "Dragonfly" and "Chico - Death of a Rockstar" are some of his best work.
November 22, 2015
Rammstein care not for "good taste," but that never deterred critics from taking them more seriously than the band take themselves. Was-ever... And yet, this follow-up to their US breakthrough (that one with "Du Hast") may be their classiest affair of all. They took a few steps away from the Euro-rave trappings of their first two albums and created their best work: a mix of beautiful orchestration, bonkers synths, and polished intensity. Even the ballads destroy with supreme power. Ja!
November 21, 2015
A pretty good example of the type of slightly psychedelic mid-'90s dance-pop that barely anyone listens to anymore. Make no mistake, the Waterlillies were also-rans compared to the likes of Opus III, Ultramarine, or One Dove, but their second album (particularly its sublime title track) is a nice mix of rave pianos, light breakbeats, and vaguely operatic dream-pop vocals. This album screams "1990s", yet it doesn't sound like any iconic '90s album, so it gets points for that.
November 20, 2015
Filled with sneaky, circuitous melodies, and poetic yet evasive lyrics that culminate into a rich stew of psych-pop goodness, the third studio long player from the enigmatic Welsh pop purveyor offers up a quietly intoxicating and austere set of angular psych-folk confections that sound like they arrived via a Harvest Records time capsule.
November 19, 2015
While created almost solely without benefit of live instruments, Hats is nevertheless an immensely warm and human album; Paul Buchanan's plaintive vocals and poignant songs are uncommonly moving, and his deployment of lush synth washes and electronic percussion is never gratuitous, each song instead crafted with painterly precision. It's an intensely cinematic experience as well as a masterpiece of musical obsession.
November 18, 2015
The Orb's first two albums are usually regarded as their masterpieces, but the darker, weirder Orbus Terrarum is my choice for their best work. The album's ambitious, extended tracks (most of which are 10 minutes or longer) drift away from the dancefloor and occasionally into noisy territory, but their sense of humor is as loony as ever, with 17-minute "Slug Dub" being a goofy highlight. Not to mention the outright lovely "Oxbow Lakes."
November 17, 2015
Inspired by Jekabson's visits to San Francisco's DeYoung Museum, the thoughtful, layered tracks on Anti-Mass are meant to reflect the trumpeter's love for art and architecture -- an admittedly high-concept aspiration. But while the nature of a string-based ensemble naturally encourages a ruminative, classically oriented sound, Anti-Mass is at its core a jazz album.
November 16, 2015
Five years after the award-winning Invisible Fields, one of the greatest living practitioners of the sean-nós ("old-style") tradition of Celtic singing, returns with this set produced by guitarist Leo Abrahams. For the first time in the singer's career, he presents more original than traditional material, though with sean-nós so deeply embedded in his DNA, even these pieces carry that legacy.
![Old and New Dreams [1979]](https://fastly-s3.allmusic.com/release/mr0000275906/front/400/-yzWSCFEAb6Q7kA3-4dUfT6KsMttLlyBmmVTZ6_CLs0=.jpg)
November 15, 2015
Trumpeter Don Cherry, tenor saxophonist Dewey Redman, bassist Charlie Haden, and drummer Ed Blackwell made for a mighty team, performing high-quality free bop in the tradition of the Ornette Coleman Quartet (of which they were all alumni). In addition to two of Ornette's tunes, the musicians each contributed an original of their own. Stirring music in a setting that always brought out the best in each of these musicians.
November 14, 2015
When he passed away this week, Motörhead drummer Phil "Philthy Animal" Taylor left behind a massive legacy in the world of rock drumming. Though the band always bristled at being called "metal," the pummeling patterns of "Overkill," "Stay Clean," "No Class" and many more paved the way for decades of skinsmen looking to play faster and hit harder. Those songs and plenty of others are present on this charmingly chaotic and fittingly loud live album from the band's classic lineup.
November 13, 2015
Though unintended, this is a four-movement solo guitar suite cut in a French studio; it reveals the iconoclastic musician at his most vulnerable. No matter how lean his earlier recordings were, they always bore the signature trace of his physicality. His playing here is sheer, translucent, almost spectral. His phrases are so full of longing, they shift mid syntax to explore new emotional depths.
November 12, 2015
A fiery, campy, and insanely rockin' album, Reform School Girl sounds like something along the lines of Little Richard backed by the Misfits with Phil Spector recording the proceedings in his garage. Which isn't to say that the album sounds sonically "gross" -- raw, for sure, but ain't that the point?!
November 11, 2015
Sound designer Joseph Fraioli's shining moment was his second album, 2000's We Are Always Well Thank You, which combined frenetic, distorted-to-a-crisp drum programming with twinkly, naive melodies. He was associated with the type of drill'n'bass that Kid606 and Lesser were putting out at the time, but his work seemed less anarchist and more geared toward dredging up childhood memories and blowing them into jagged smithereens.
November 10, 2015
The worldly duo's typically esoteric sixth outing was inspired by the 1964 art house film Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors by the Soviet filmmaker Sergei Parajanov, and finds multi-instrumentalists Jeremy Barnes and Heather Trost at the top their game, effortlessly weaving the past into the future (and vice-versa) with undeniable skill and refreshing amounts of empathy.
November 9, 2015
Various Artists
A fascinating grab bag of vintage jazz, instrumental pop and comedy that defines Trunk Records' sophisticated mischief perfectly, this collection underscores why the label is the gold standard for obscuro music. Spanning electronic pieces so old that you can almost see the lab coats and punch cards, to readings of fan mail sent to label founder Jonny Trunk's glamour model sister, it's another feast for those who like their music weird.
November 8, 2015
Love Is All's third album is just as thrilling and energetic as their first two, overflowing with post-punk experimentalism, twee pop sweetness, and punk rock energy, but adds a new level of songcraft and production values.
November 7, 2015
Featuring a typically strong cast of supporting players including Aimee Mann, Bill Frisell, and M. Ward, the third solo outing from the enigmatic former pro-surfer, male model, and recovering Pentecostal, Drill a Hole in That Substrate and Tell Me What You See preens like an alley cat with a bellyful of chicken scraps, offering up a master class in southern gothic-fueled Americana.
November 6, 2015
Hell's Winter gets in the head of a troubled MC. Drug addiction, a broken family, and other heavy problems fill the songs, but Cage frames it all with dark humor, so consider Jello Biafra's guest appearance here a perfect choice. El-P, Camu Tao, and RJD2 offer dense productions that are perfectly suited to the album's angst, and the whole affair is tight with no tolerance for filler.
![The Blonde Bombshell [Living Era]](https://fastly-s3.allmusic.com/release/mr0000916171/front/400/VWmN-8soKy8OtLUW6VepO1WnbEN5fCjifro6xhIBuB4=.jpg)
November 5, 2015
This collection offers 26 tunes by the '40s box office star and film-musical triple threat best known for her enthusiastic comedic performances. Also an underrated balladeer, here she delivers a tender "I Wish I Didn't Love You So." Gen Xers and Millennials unfamiliar with Hutton may recognize "It's Oh So Quiet," covered by Björk in the '90s, and "Stuff Like That There," performed by Kelly Clarkson on Season One of American Idol.
November 4, 2015
The band's charming second album suggests that Imitation Electric Piano will try anything at least once, whether it's pairing energetic rock with keyboards that were last heard on a '70s kids' TV show, philosophical chamber pop or heavy prog with Krautrock underpinnings. If you don't like what they're doing on any particular song, stick around for a few minutes, because it's bound to change.
November 3, 2015
The beguiling solo debut by the Moody Blues frontman offers plenty of his signature sound framed in a more chamber-sized setting, but the album's brilliantly mystical anchor track, "Nostradamus," is worth the price of admission alone.
November 2, 2015
For a hot minute in 2002, these guys were pegged to save rock from the clutches of the evil nu-metallers. Their debut was a feral blast, but this one was a shaky attempt at growth, rocking both harder and prettier than ever ("TV Pro," "Animal Machine," "She's Got Something to Say to Me," and "Winning Days"). Though they never did recapture their debut's spark, this album is more satisfying than most modern rock today.
November 1, 2015
Facing incarceration on a federal gun charge, the MC they call "Beans" got to work and quickly finished the album he had long promised. Here, he's the master of bitter and provocative lyrics, like "So blind, I didn't see the Robin Givens in you", plus the production is masterful with the Neptunes, Just Blaze, Buckwild, and the late great Heavy D supplying the beats.