MeDiA RevieW
ALBuM
Duran Duran
All You Need Is Now
Tapemodern
For 30 years now,
Duran Duran has
been one of the few
unabashed purveyors
of synth pop to also
make guitar and bass
guitar crucial elements
of its sound. Andy Taylor’s chorused, funky/
neo-punk chord stabs added indispensible bite
and adventure to every one of the band’s ’80s
hits, from 1981’s “Planet Earth” to “Girls on
Film,” “The Reflex,” “Wild Boys,” and “A View
to a Kill.” Likewise, John Taylor’s slinky, galloping bass lines were probably the funkiest on
radio that whole decade. Andy left the band
in the ’90s, and former Frank Zappa guitarist Warren Cuccurullo came aboard to shake
things up for several years. Andy returned for
a couple of albums in 2004 and 2007, but
he’s now out again. You’d never know it from
All You Need Is Now, though. Session guitarist
Dominic Brown has been filling in since Andy’s
second departure in ’07. And though Brown
is far more adventurous, toneful, and adept
than Andy Taylor, anyone hoping he’d add the
same sorts of earthy grit he’s been adding to
Duran live shows—search You Tube for “Duran
Duran – Skin Divers (Private Sessions)” for a
sampling—will be disappointed. Brown’s lines
sound exactly like Taylor circa 1981. In fact,
the whole album is a return to the sound that
put the band on the New Wave map. The first
single, “All you Need Is Now,” takes a stab at
being more cutting edge with its industrial
synths, semi-sneering verses, and danceable
chorus, but the rest of the album is filled with
so many nods to the past that it comes across as
cynical. It’s not that they can’t pull it off—it is
their sound—and there certainly are some nice
songs, including the bittersweet, acoustic-driven
“Leave the Light On” and the catchy, upbeat
“Blame the Machines.” It’s just a shame Brown
is left to so slavishly cop the sound of a player
that he obviously blows out of the water.
—Shawn Hammond
ALBuM
Social Distortion
Hard Times and Nursery Rhymes
Epitaph
With original Social
D frontman Mike
Ness also filling the
producer’s role on the
SoCal punk veterans’
first studio album in
seven years, Hard Times
and Nursery Rhymes recaptures the musical direction lacking in some of their more recent efforts.
For the avid Social Distortion listener, most of
the tried-and-true elements are still there—gritty
guitars through overdriven tube amps, Ness’ storytelling lyrics, and high-octane rhythms—but
they’re more refined and polished. Welcome new
elements in the band’s sound include the soulful, Merry Clayton-esque background vocals on
“California (Hustle and Flow)”—which hearken
to the raw emotion of the Stones’ “Gimme
Shelter”—and the more pronounced use of
piano and keyboards to drive melodies like those
in “Still Alive.” In all, there’s a great mix of hot-rod rollers like “Can’t Take It with You” and
“Machine Gun Blues,” as well as slower numbers
like “Bakersfield” and “Writing on the Wall”
where Ness showcases his ability to sing about
heartbreak with rugged tenderness. Although
the full-throttle cover of Hank Williams’ “Alone
and Forsaken” is a definite high point, the album
mostly takes Social D’s biggest influences—the
Stones and Johnny Cash—and pays homage to
them with an affectionate tip of the cap rather
than full-on covers. It all sounds as fresh as it
did in 1978, and it further solidifies Ness and
company’s place as one of the leading cowpunk
bands of all time. —Chris Kies
ALBuM
Group Inerane
Guitars From Agadez, Vol. 3
Sublime Frequencies
In many ways, the
nomadic Tuaregs of
the Sahara remain
stubbornly immune to
modernity—a small
miracle in these days of
hyper-connectivity and
viral culture. But over the last 30 years or so, the
barriers to cultural homogeneity (brought about
by geography, politics, and tradition) enabled
a unique musical bouillabaisse to brew among
the Tuareg—an electric guitar-based mélange of
traditional Arab song and the sounds of Hendrix,
Dylan, James Brown, and John Lee Hooker
gleaned from cassettes carried on foot and camel-back between Saharan trading posts.
