Aerosmith
Rockin' The Joint (2.5 stars)
Aerosmith's latest live album (their first since 1998's A Little South of Sanity and third overall) is a pretty flimsy affair. Over the course of only 11 songs and a relatively short 58 minutes, the album (recorded in 2002 at the Hard Rock Hotel here in Vegas) trots out some familiar Aerosmith chestnuts ("Walk This Way," "Same Old Song and Dance," "Train Kept a Rollin'"), some forgettable songs from their 2001 album Just Push Play, and two genuine surprises: obscure album tracks "No More No More" and "Seasons of Wither," songs the band hadn't played live in years.
While it's exciting to hear Aerosmith pull out those old gems, and they still sound pretty good, it's not worth sitting through the millionth rendition of "Walk This Way" and the cheese-tastic ballad (complete with piped-in string section) "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing" to get there. Spread out over two discs, with more oddities (there's also a serviceable cover of Fleetwood Mac's "Rattlesnake Shake"), this might have been somewhat interesting, but as is, it's little more than a footnote.
Neil Young
Prairie Wind (2 stars)
Legendary folk-rocker Neil Young is to be commended for completing his 40th album in this, his 60th year, and after suffering a brain aneurysm in March. But despite the 10-track album being a return to the sound that made the Canadian famous, it doesn't bear up to his past work and perhaps signals it's time to hang up that 12-string.
The album's tone is suitably autumnal for the senior citizen, with wistful looks back on his life and a changed world and gentle, drifting music perfectly suited for rocking on a porch—though the overproduction on several tracks is more molasses than branch water. But the passing years have done little to add depth or wisdom to the simplistic, Hallmarkish lyrics.
"No Wonder" is the stinker of the bunch, a protest to the Iraq war two years after the fact, name-dropping Willie Nelson and Chris Rock and citing "America the Beautiful" in the same breath, before moving on to 40-year-old environmental complaints. (You have to wonder if Young feels differently after reading Ayman al-Zawahiri's letter.)
Broken Social Scene
Broken Social Scene (4 stars)
Liner notes aside, nothing about Broken Social Scene's self-titled, third album suggests it required 21 musicians to record. Yet apparently, the Toronto collective has swelled to precisely those mammoth proportions. OK, technically 17 "full-timers" plus four guests, but regardless, that's a lot of mouths to feed.
Easy as it might be to mock BSS's bloated ranks, it's hard to find fault with the assemblage's sonic results. The latest disc's 14 cuts—packaged in limited edition with an EP (titled To Be You and Me) containing seven additional songs—find the indie-rock mod squad leapfrogging from idea to seemingly disjointed idea, yet retaining an effervescent overall vibe that feels consistently Broken Social Scene.
All of the familiar earmarks of sublime 2002 predecessor You Forgot It in People are here: the mechanized whirl of "7/4 (Shoreline)" and "Fire Eye'd Boy," Emily Haines' airy lead vocal on "Swimmers," and instrumental interludes so light they float away as they track out.
Only the anthemic "Ibi Dreams of Pavement (A Better Day)," Kevin Drew's apparent homage to Stephen Malkmus, feels entirely new for BSS this time around. But even if Broken Social Scene doesn't charge forward, it never slips back, holding steady as an album plenty of folks—perhaps even a few more than will actually serve in the band next time it records—can get behind.