[Dino Rock]
Eagles
Long Road Out of Eden
**1/2
At this point, the Eagles’ reunion has lasted much longer than their original career did, but Long Road Out of Eden is the first studio album they’ve put out since getting back together in 1994. At two discs and 20 tracks, it feels like an effort to make up for lost time, and like most double albums it suffers from its share of bloat. Disc 1 starts out promisingly, with the nearly a cappella “No More Walks in the Wood” showcasing the group’s tight harmonizing, followed by three laid-back country rockers, “How Long,” “Busy Being Fabulous” and “Guilty of the Crime,” that sound like vintage Eagles (and in the case of “How Long,” a J.D. Souther-penned tune that was a staple of the band’s live shows in the ’70s, actually are vintage Eagles).
But right in the middle of those is “What Do I Do With My Heart,” a treacly ballad worthy of Richard Marx, and it’s that drippy adult-contemporary sensibility that overwhelms the album, alternating with the smug political moralizing of a band that’s selling its new release exclusively through Wal-Mart.
Head Eagles Don Henley and Glenn Frey are capable of eloquent social commentary, but songs like the 10-minute title track are so solemn and self-indulgent that their points are often lost. Disc 2 gets bogged down in such sermonizing, along with bland, interchangeable ballads and guitarist Joe Walsh’s one songwriting contribution, the repetitive, goofy 7-minute endurance test “Last Good Time in Town.”
When all of the band’s strengths come together, as on the wistful, rootsy “Waiting in the Weeds,” they sound like the wise elder statesmen they fancy themselves as. The rest of the time, they just sound out of touch. –Josh Bell
[Synth-Pop]
Dave Gahan
Hourglass **1/2
Dave Gahan is in many respects the least likely member of Depeche Mode to strike out on his own. Despite being the (darkly handsome and recognizable) face of the legendary synth-poppers, he’s mainly left the songwriting to keyboardist/guitarist Martin Gore.
Gahan’s lack of writing practice certainly sunk his first solo album, 2003’s Paper Monsters, a boring disc of glitchy grunge-pop that felt half-formed. The new Hourglass, co-written with DM scribes Andrew Phillpott and Christian Eigner, is markedly better. Heartbeat throbs and rich strings smolder on the slow-burn “Saw Something,” as Gahan’s voice aches with longing. The squelching, Ultra-reminiscent “Kingdom” and haywire “Deeper and Deeper” are just as interesting; the latter finds Gahan hoarsely singing phrases such as “I want to love you/I want your love” over clanking keyboards that feel like a buzzing factory.
The rest of Hourglass continues the sexual/sensual juxtaposition. Gahan’s distinctive voice remains high in the mix, whether snarling over crashing guitars (“Use You” gallops like DM’s “I Feel You”) or crooning over ambient, minimalist electro. In this way, the album matches the tone of Depeche Mode’s output in the last decade, an era where atmosphere and manicured sonics largely replaced tightly structured hits. It’s still a little puzzling why Gahan put Hourglass out under his own name—many of these songs, truthfully, could be DM songs—but it’s also an album worthy of carrying his moniker. –Annie Zaleski
[Indie Pop]
The Thrills
Teenager ***
It’s been pointed out many times that The Thrills are from Ireland, but they sound like they’re from California, and not just because they had a song on The O.C. called “Big Sur.” What this means is that The Thrills sound really chill—the way that bands who live near the beach and the mountains and who spend their afternoons grilling and drinking Pacifico beer sound.
But even more than bands like Grandaddy and Earlimart, The Thrills seem to be updating the calming, folky pop of The Byrds and Bread. The band’s latest album is full of breezy gems, and while there aren’t many peaks and valleys, singer Conor Deasy’s Wayne Coyne-like voice is consistently enchanting.
“Slow down/Lately lives are moving too fast,” Deasy begins on “The Midnight Choir,” and that’s pretty much the low-key vibe The Thrills maintain throughout this album. The closest The Thrills gets to rabble-rousing is on “This Year,” when Deasy proclaims that “This year could be our year,” even though it sounds like he’s not completely sure. It’s one of a handful of Thrills songs that reference small-town life and dead-end, bone-tiring jobs and the (often fruitless) battle to escape them. While the melodies and arrangements of songs like “No More Empty Words” and “Nothing Changes Around Here” are suited for a pleasant drive to the beach, Deasy is telling the story of defeated men. That’s folky pop for you. –Andy Wang
[Noisy]
Black Dice
Load Blown **1/2
Dance-noise. An oxymoronic concept, sure, but also an intriguing one, at least in theory. In practice, only a few groups—Throbbing Gristle, early Cabaret Voltaire, a smattering of Nurse With Wound—have successfully managed to create noise that humans might really consider dancing to, or danceable sounds noisy enough to make us want to dig out our eardrums and stomp about on them.
Since spending their formative years as weirdo experimentalists, Brooklyn’s Black Dice have edged their once-jarring sound toward the dance floor, first by hooking up with New York production duo The DFA, and now by releasing Load Blown, the perkiest album in the band’s 10-year catalog. In that context, it feels like a near-miss, neither deliciously grating enough to satisfy a true noise connoisseur nor locked-to-a-beat grooving enough to knock anyone else off the couch.
The tracks that try to split the difference—the industrial-lite “Roll Up,” the Afro-infused “Drool,” the voice-and-electronics-layered “Manoman”—never quite hit boogie-down pay dirt, while straight-up noise workouts “Bottom Feeder” and “Cowboy Soundcheck” don’t roll the Dice toward any brave new out-mospheres. Only “Scavenger,” an incrementally more turbulent progression of clatter, succeeds fully as a piece you’ll simultaneously wish would simply end and hope never actually does. –Spencer Patterson
[Alt-Rock]
Dan Wilson
Free Life ***1/2
Dan Wilson got a taste of celebrity in 1998, when his band Semisonic scored a massive hit with its beer-soaked anthem “Closing Time.” Unfortunately, the song was beloved by frat boys, tainting the band by association.
But “Closing Time” was a poor indicator of Wilson’s substantial singing and songwriting talents, and after Semisonic fizzled he went on to write and produce for Mike Doughty of Soul Coughing, Jewel and Jason Mraz. (He even won a Grammy this year for co-writing the Dixie Chicks’ “Not Ready To Make Nice.”)
Since 2002 he’s labored on Free Life, his solo debut, which has finally seen the light of day thanks to the efforts of executive producer and Columbia Records co-head honcho Rick Rubin. Rubin’s influence here is as remarkable as it was on Johnny Cash’s American series. He has stripped Wilson’s instrumentation down to the barest strings, piano and drums, and Wilson’s choruses—often built around his ever-vulnerable falsetto—climax effortlessly nearly every time. There are none of Semisonic’s crunchy electric guitars here, and some of these tracks wouldn’t sound out of place at Walgreens between a Jewel jam and a Dixie Chicks cut. But at his best, on songs like “All Kinds,” “Cry” and “Honey Please,” Wilson shows that he deserves the spotlight once again. –Ben Westhoff
Coming to town
Scary Kids Scaring Kids
Scary Kids Scaring Kids **1/2
It’s a step up from their over-screamotive debut, and SKSK are clearly unafraid of breaking from the self-cannibalizing post-hardcore pack. But with a new, modern-rock direction come bland ballads, moody instrumental interludes and generic (though promising) guitar riffage. It’s a baby step, but forward progression nevertheless. -Julie Seabaugh
With Chiodos, Emery, The Devil Wears Prada. November 2, 5 p.m., $13.50. House of Blues, 632-7600.
The Blakes
The Blakes **
It’s ironic that Light in the Attic Records, a label best known for reissuing archival material, has signed a Seattle trio that, for all intents and purposes, is reissuing slices of Cheap Trick power-pop and Strokes garage rock. In other words, it’ll sound all right from a bar stool, but you probably won’t remember it the next morning. –Spencer Patterson
With Late Nite Access, Atlas Takes Aim, The Skooners. November 2, 10 p.m., $5. Bunkhouse, 384-4536. November 3, 6 p.m., free. Zia Record Exchange, 735-4942.
Vanessa Carlton
Heroes & Thieves **1/2
Despite a move to hip-hop label The Inc., singer-songwriter Carlton’s third album features the same delicate, mid-tempo songs built around her expressive piano-playing and confessional lyrics. The energy exhibited on the first few tracks quickly dissipates, though, as Carlton’s accomplished piano work is drowned out by overbearing string sections, and her lyrics soften from biting to sappy. –JB
With Graham Colton. November 3, 8 p.m. $16.50. Canyon Club, 888-645-5006.