THE BIG CATCH-UP… In which the wearied webmaster of this here site gives some quick capsule reviews to recent albums he’s liked but hasn’t gotten around to writing about.

I usually don’t like to do capsule reviews. In my view, they tend to be written by lazy hack writers who only seem to skim through the promotional copies of CDs they obtain for review before piling them up in a box somewhere for them to sell off at a used CD store somewhere – if they bother to listen to them in the first place. But since I’ve been doing a whole lot of listening but no blog-related writing over the past few months – thanks in part to all of the preparations I’ve been going through for my wedding this Saturday – this particular format will have to do. After the honeymoon and once I’ve gotten settled in, I’ll go back to my regular reviewing style. This’ll be part one. Part two I’ll be completing and posting after the honeymoon.

AKB48 – Kami Kyokutachi (You! Be Cool/King) – While there’s a whole pile of albums out there with the AKB48 name on them, they’ve all been, with the exception of the Set List – Greatest Songs 2006-2007 compilation, basically “original cast albums” of all of the separate teams’ shows – lots of good songs and good singing, but nothing that could cohesively be called a studio album. Fortunately, although billed as a “best-of album”, Kami Kyokutachi comes off as close to a coherent studio album as the group has ever come. All of the band’s King A-sides plus their interim digital-only indie single “Baby! Baby! Baby!” get supplemented with a few random B-sides (no Undergirls/Theatre Girls material or Erena Ono’s beautiful solo cut “First Kiss” though) and some new tracks and make for the most cohesive – and long overdue – long-playing experience to be released under the AKB48. Now if they could put out a single A-side that is a hell of a lot more exciting than the last couple of singles they’ve released since the year started…
Rating: Available on CD/DVD combo and on iTunes Japan.

DEVO – Something for Everybody (Warner Bros.) – When it was first announced that Devo had gotten back together full-time, resigned to their original American record label Warner Bros., and started working on a new album, I saw a couple of skeptical tweets from people who wondered why anyone would want a new Devo album in the first place. Well, not only have Devo debunked Thomas Wolfe’s old yarn about not being able to go home again by returning to Warner Bros., they’ve also followed in the tradition of the Stooges, New York Dolls, Mission of Burma and Ace Frehley and handed in an album that was worth both the multi-decade wait (two decades, in the case of our beloved spudboys), but they’ve made their finest album since 1983’s Oh No! It’s Devo. Simply put, they’ve redeemed themselves after the debacle of their Enigma Records period and made an album that stands up as tall as their classic back catalog (most of which has been very nicely remastered and reissued by Warner Bros.). (Also, in my opinion, Warner Bros. should surprise the hell out of casual listeners and service the ballad “No Place Like Home” to radio.)
Rating: Available on CD, LP, and in three different iTunes/Amazon MP3 editions; this review is based on the highly-recommended 16-track deluxe edition.

HANK WILLIAMS III – Rebel Within (Sidewalk/Curb) – This is the last album Hank III is doing for Curb Records, and once it was announced earlier this year that he had completed the album and handed it in to the label, people wondered how much of an effort he’d put into it, given his open disgust with how the label handled his music. Given his intentions to continue as an independent artist for all future albums onward, III could not certainly squander his hard-earned fan base for the sake of kissing off his soon-to-be-former-label. Thus, Hank hands in a set of mostly country material closer to Lonesome Broke and Driftin’ than his seminal Straight to Hell, but changes gears in a few places with the title track’s touches of Assjack-style hollering in the chorus, the eerie “Karmageddon” with its lyrical allusions to the plight of Native Americans, and – the true highlight of the album – a raucous country/punk/metal hybrid in “Tore Up and Loud”, where III’s “Hellbilly” style gets kicked up several notches with personal lyrics, power-metal double-kick drumming (done by III himself – like “Punch Fight Fuck” on Damn Right Rebel Proud, anytime you hear Slayer-style drums behind country guitars, III’s sitting behind the kit), and Pantera-esque electric guitar riffing, culminating in a blatant, obvious, and long-overdue Declaration of Independence capped with a “Fuck all y’all” to the Curb Records staff. Fuck Curb, indeed – and a big “fuck, yeah” for Shelton Hank Williams.
Rating: Available on CD, LP with bonus CD, and on iTunes and AmazonMP3.

Again, part two comes after the honeymoon… see you then! Until then, one can follow our exploits via Twitter.

WE ARE THE FALLEN
Tear The World Down
(Universal Republic)
Rating:

To a lot of people, it probably sounded promising but likely to fail. Three former Evanescence members hook up with a former American Idle contestant and make a song that sounds almost exactly like early Ev. Great tune, many said, but a whole album of this stuff?

The reality of the situation, as reflected not only in the wake of Evanescence’s second album (2006’s The Open Door [Wind-Up]) but in the end result of We Are The Fallen’s first album, speaks volumes. Without guitarist, songwriter and Ev co-founder Ben Moody involved, The Open Door was less of a follow-up to Evanescence’s first album Fallen and more of the debut of the Amy Lee Project. Talk in the Fallen days of diva-like behavior on Lee’s part intensified in 2007 when, without warning or reason and with a co-headlining spot on that summer’s Family Values Tour looming, Lee summarily fired guitarist and founding member John LeCompt. Ev’s drummer, Rocky Gray, quit in disgust in the wake of LeCompt’s seemingly uncalled for dismissal, joining his fellow ex-Ev in a project called Machina, which self-released a CD EP several months later.

Yes, We Are The Fallen’s Tear Down The World sounds remarkably like Evanescence did on Fallen. Then again, given that four of the people primarily responsible for that album’s sound (one-time Ev keyboardist David Hodges contributes to the album as a session keyboardist) are involved and in the same studio for the first time since the sessions for Fallen ended, it’s a no-brainer. Without a note or a song wasted, Tear Down The World proceeds to be the true follow-up to Evanescence’s Fallen. Amy Lee’s imitations of Tori Amos are long gone, allowing the Moody/LeCompt/Gray triumvirate and new bassist Marty O’Brien to get down to rocking. A few faster tempos are thrown in, Moody and/or LeCompt even throw in a couple of guitar solos (the CD’s liner notes don’t identify who is lead and who is rhythm) and, capping it all off, Carly Smithson provides a much more fully-bodied voice to fit the music, making Amy Lee’s own vocals seem weak in comparison.

Simply put, this is what The Open Door should have been like.

Five out of five stars.

AYUMI HAMASAKI
Rock’n'Roll Circus
(Avex Trax)
Available on CD, CD/DVD, and limited edition collector’s set.
Rating:

Actually, I’m merely endorsing how good this album is. There’s no review I could write of this that could do as much justice as Vee’s review at her new site, Microphone Fiend. Go there. I’ll be back later with a few other reviews.

MORNING MUSUME
10 My Me
(Zetima)
Available on CD. CD/DVD and from iTunes and JapanFiles.com
Rating:

If there’s one thing for sure about Morning Musume, it’s that they’re markedly consistent – and then some. Equally at home dishing out solid studio albums as well as top-5 singles, it’s the one constant in the career of a band whose lineup used to change from one album to the next. I know that when I get a new Morning Musume album out of my PO Box and put it in my CD player and iPod that I’m going to get a good album. Eleven studio albums (yes, I count the unnumbered Cover You) in, I wasn’t expecting to get surprised, but I did – not only did they live up to their artistic reputation, but with 10 My Me Morning Musume put their balls (OK, ovaries) on the line.

An unexpected sample – an English-speaking voice with a European accent saying “Electro-convulsive therapy, part one” – splices into the final seconds of an orchestra playing the final bar of a piece. A sudden shift of gears, and driving analog synths kick off “Moonlight Night ~Tsukiyo no Ban Dayo~” before the group makes with mock-operatic vocalizing and then back into their more recent group harmonizing. Musically, the song goes all over the place in an indescribable manner but makes perfect sense from section to section and as a whole. I want to keep scrolling the music file in reverse on my iPod to try to identify the different elements, but I can’t because the song compels me to listen to it as a whole.

Their final single with Koharu Kusumi, “Kimagure Princess”, follows – and the high-register vocals that the group starts off with serve as a delayed reminder that it’s not going to be business as usual all the time this particular go-round with Morning Musume, emphasizing the experimental tone that permeates 10 My Me’s core.

“Genki Pika Pika!” finds the group mining 80’s pop influences again, this time around delivering a vibe reminiscent of Sheila E’s “The Glamorous Life” by way of The Jets’ “Crush On You” – a perfect musical arrangement to accompany some beautifully breezy vocals from the group.

“Namidacchi” starts with some George Winston-esque piano and gentle bass, acoustic guitar and percussion before another sudden musical shift, whipping out punk guitar powerchords and some drum fills worthy of Flipper’s Steve DePace in the choruses. A little DJ scratching (something used to sublime percussive effect in their classic ballad “I Wish” way back when) slips in during the second verse as well. The song’s bridge goes further forward and backward (backward in a good way, of course), as the members trade off some rapped couplets a-la “Do it! Now” over the punky guitars.

After the band’s brilliant 2010 kickoff single “Onna ga Medatta Naze Ikenai” – which proves that you can play powerchords on acoustic guitars and have just as much of an impact on an uptempo rock song, “Ookii Hitomi” – the first of only three splinter-group efforts on this album, here highlighting 6th gen members Reina Tanaka, Sayuri Michishige and Eri Kamei – delivers a great match of European house rhythms and chugging electric guitars. A little AutoTune vocoder effect pops up in the verses, but, like some more tasteful, creative and honest uses of the effect (reference points again: Cher’s “Believe”, Bob Mould’s “Shine Your Light Love Hope”, and more recently Somaya Reece’s “Tramp” – the first truly good pop single I’ve heard from an American artist in close to a decade, by the way), it’s done to serve the song; In other words, it’s there for decoration, not for a burial. (Late bloomer Sayumi already proved she could sing on Platinum 9 DISC’s “It’s You” and Cover You’s “Ringo Satsujinjiken” – she has nothing else to prove to anybody but herself.)

The band’s leaders, Ai Takahashi and Risa Niigaki, take the spotlight on the second splinter track, “Anohi Ni Modoritai”, over a musical style that Morning Musume has been pretty much owning of late: urban contemporary R&B in the style of TLC, Mary J. Blige and early Destiny’s Child. “No Scrubs”-style acoustic guitars, G-Funk synth bass and a string quartet provide the musical setting for Takitty’s and Gaki’s mutli-layered harmonies.

The band’s 40th single, “Nanchatte Renai” (with the much-missed Koharu delivering the most mature vocals she ever did… to date) provides the album’s next recap moment, setting up the listener unawares for the next track. “Osaka Umainen” – the last of the splinter tracks, featuring 8th-gen members Aika Mitsui, Li Chun and Qian Lin – starts with a simulated 78RPM big band “sample” before some 8-bit synth blips kick off the song proper and compete with 60’s soul horns and plinking early rock’n’roll piano. The song itself comes off like a cousin of earlier MoMusu album tracks that provided what some bloggers referred to as some of Koharu’s more “cracktastic” moments like Platinum 9’s “Guru Guru JUMP” and Cover You’s “Ping-ping Pan Taisou”. This time around, without Koharu being around to throw into the mix, the song actually comes off more mature, especially when LinLin gets some solo lines.

“Loving You Forever” is a great power ballad in the “I Wish” tradition. Classic MoMusu harmonies and Beatlesque strings are propelled by an arrangement that recalls The Raspberries’ “Overnight Sensation”. The next time some armchair critics complain that Morning Musume hasn’t been the same since the departures of longtime members like Kaori Iida and Natsumi Abe, play them this cut.

The album closes with a great one-two punch: The band’s chart-topping Summer 2009 single “Shouganai Yumeoibito” followed by a version of Platinum 9’s “Ame no Furanai Hoshi de wa Aisenai Darou?” sung in Chinese (Longtime fans will recall that the closing of the original version has JunJun and LinLin singing in their native tongue.) The recording is not a complete port of the original recording’s backing track; instead a slightly extended intro of nylon-string acoustic guitar and strings leads into the group accompanied only by piano and strings at first, before a variant on the original arrangement takes over. Hearing the entire band sing in Chinese seems to add a noticeable degree of delicacy and fragility to their vocals. “Shouganai Yumeoibito” itself would have been the perfect closing track to the album; the addition of this “alternate version” of the song makes for a great encore.

I concluded my review of Platinum 9 DISC last year with the statement, “The streak of solid Morning Musume albums continues.” That statement, while it holds true for 10 My Me, isn’t enough. More to the point, 10 My Me is Morning Musume’s equivalent of Pet Sounds or Double Nickels on the Dime – an instant classic album to many, and something that will grow in stature as the years go by to many others.

KODA KUMI
BEST ~third universe~/8th AL “UNIVERSE”
(Rhythm Zone/Avex)
Rating:

I am of the suspicion of late that a couple of years ago, Lady Gaga had to have caught find of some Koda Kumi videos on YouTube, because in what few Lady Gaga songs I’ve heard, I’m swearing she’s snuck traces of recent Kuu-chin tuneage like “FREAKY” and “TABOO”. And I am certain that Kuu-chin knows this as well, as while Gaga leans heavily on programmed arrangements in her work, Kuu-chin has pretty much gone organic [save for the reliance on drum machines throughout – there’s nothing wrong with having precise beats behind you!] with her instrumentation on much of 8th AL “UNIVERSE”, the studio portion of her new double-disc set. [Quick side note: I won’t be reviewing BEST ~third universe~, the "greatest hits" portion of the package, outside of saying it’s a highly recommended compliment to your collection if the only Koda long-players you own are her previous BEST compilations ~first things~, ~second session~ and ~Bounce and Lovers~. In fact, if you can swing it, go for the edition that also has the DVD of video clips from both portions of the album.] Perhaps we should have seen this coming – her 3 SPLASH EP, released last summer, was primarily guitar-oriented, save for the cut “ECSTASY”.

“UNIVERSE”’s opening cut, “Step Into My World”, doesn’t give much of a hint as to this direction, as it starts off the album much like her most recent LP’s, Black Cherry, Kingdom and Trick kicked off. After those potboiling three minutes, Kumi grabs herself a rock band and kicks into “Can We Go Back”. Between this, Black Cherry’s “Ningyao-hime” and Trick’s top-notch cover version of Shocking Blue’s “Venus”, Kuu-chin seems quite comfortable with Marshall-amped guitars behind her. This shouldn’t be much of a surprise, however – Kumi has always been a vocalist who doesn’t hesitate to slip into any musical arrangement that serves the song. Much of the first half of “UNIVERSE” is dominated by organic instrumentation, and her vocals float like butterflies over those arrangements.

Halfway through “UNIVERSE”, Kumi glides back into digital keyboard territory, but that is OK. Koda Kumi is a vocalist who has never been married or completely linked to one particular set of instrumentation, whereas someone like Gaga would probably seem out of place singing over anything not synthesized or without any AutoTune filtering on her voice.

Not counting the bonus live version of “Moon Crying” on some copies, Kumi closes out the album with “Alive”, yet another classic Kuu-chin ballad. Kumi always shines on her ballads (and someone at Avex must have thought as much to devote an entire compilation, BEST ~Bounce & Lovers~, to them a couple of years ago) and while that’s nothing new, it’s also always welcome, and you can’t ask for more than that.

5 out of 5 stars.

LIL WAYNE
Rebirth
(Cash Money/Universal Motown)
Rating:

When I first heard that Lil Wayne wanted to do a rock record, my immediate reaction was, I wanted to hear the end result just so I could bear witness to a train wreck of epic proportions. Considering that around the time news of this project broke, Chris Cornell had just released a pop record produced by Timbaland, one had to wonder what kind of Bizarro world they had walked into. “The tattooed guy that used to run with Juvenile and B.G. making a rock record? Why the fuck are you doing this, you asshole?” Surely all of the badly typed/written/spelled ‘reviews’ posted on iTunes since the “Prom Queen” single dropped can’t be wrong?

Here’s the kicker: He got away with it.

It’s not entirely a “rock” record in the purist sense – “On Fire” sounds more like pre-Purple Rain Prince than rock, “I’ll Die For You” (one of two bonus tracks on the deluxe edition of the album) is more of a pop/rock song than the more hard rock-oriented material on the album, and there is at least one track in Wayne’s old style (“Drop the World”, performed with Eminem). But Wayne’s vision/version of rock as at least guitar-oriented music with sung rather than rapped vocal parts is there, and it is obvious through his performances that he is enjoying what he is doing and putting his heart into it.

A producer whose name I’ve forgotten at the moment commented that plug-ins like AutoTune are meant to make a 98% perfect, rather than a 20% perfect, performance sound 100%. In other words, the idea of a computer program making anyone off the street sound like Robert Plant or Kelly Clarkson is ludicrous. Yes, Wayne’s vocals are being very noticeably run through AutoTune. But, it becomes even more obvious as one listens to the album that he using the technology not to cover up his (self-admitted) shortcomings as a traditional singer but to make his voice sound weird. On a couple of the tracks, the AutoTune is not as immediately evident, making one wonder how his vocals would have sounded had they not been deliberately enhanced. (There are a few instances in his rap back catalog of him singing his own hooks – “Get Off the Corner” from The Block Is Hot comes to mind.) Rock is full of great vocalists who couldn’t outsing a Robert Plant or an Ian Gillian, but could at least sing in tune and/or put a song over from the heart, so in that sense Wayne’s rock vocals aren’t much different from what, for example, Lou Reed, Handsome Dick Manitoba, and Henry Rollins have done in the past.

If anything, Rebirth proves to be a successful experiment for Lil Wayne. It’s not perfect – His attempt at punk, “The Price Is Wrong”, is a shade weak (and not because it’s one of the few songs where his vocals aren’t enhanced) but still fun to listen to. And his working habit of not literally writing his lyrics and vocal parts down on paper sometimes has his shortcomings (Refining his ad-libbed lyrics on paper and then finalizing the results on the finished master couldn’t hurt). However, if he alternated between his more traditional rap recordings like The Carter and albums like Rebirth, I don’t think anyone would have many complaints, save for the OMGWTFBBQ “armchair critics” who hang out on iTunes’ comment boards.

4 stars out of 5.

AKB48
RIVER
(King Records)
Available on CD/DVD, CD, and on iTunes Japan
Rating:

I’ve been enjoying AKB48’s singles output in the wake of “Oogoe Diamond”, with that song and this past summer’s “Namida Surprise” being personal highlights. Their new single may have broken that streak somewhat.

“RIVER” starts off in an unusual way for a J-pop single. Unison chants from group are accompanied by the sound of stomp dancing. This introduction is different, but at over 40 seconds, it is also a tad overlong. Had this tack been done by an American pop group, the length introduction would have been excuse enough for listeners to reach for the radio dial and change the station – not a good idea when you’re trying to attract new listeners. When the song proper comes in, we do get a good AKB48 song. The problem is, it’s only good enough for an album track – and not as an opener, but more like at the halfway point of an album (where Side Two would traditionally start on a vinyl record) – it doesn’t seem to work as A-side material.

“Kimi no Koto ga Suki Dakara” (credited to the “Undergirls”, although not the same line-up as on “Tobenai Agehachou” – there’s no Meetan to be found), on the other hand, is more worthy of being the single’s A-side, with the verses recalling the band’s DefSTAR-era material and the choruses being in a similar vein to the band’s more recent singles. Had this song been the A-side, it would have made for a stronger single.

“Hikoukigumo”, credited to the “Theater Girls”, was originally a stage song from Team A’s 5^th Stage that was recorded with an entirely different lineup. While the intent behind having three different lineups on the single – highlighting members that haven’t gotten much exposure on past single releases – is worthy, the fact that producer/lyricist Yasushi Akimoto is recycling material for B-sides (“Shonichi”  from one of Team B’s stages was one of the “Namida Surprise” B-sides) should be some cause for concern. Could this be why we haven’t seen an actual studio album (that wasn’t a soundtrack to one of their stage shows) from the group yet?

For what is probably going to be (if past discographical history is any indication) the last AKB48 single of the year, this three-song disc is unfortunately their weakest of their releases since they switched labels from DefSTAR to King. Hopefully, AKB48 and their creative team can use the next couple of months to recharge and get some stronger material out on the market.

3½ out of 5 stars. (Ouch – looks like AKB just found something in common with Kiss besides being on my iPod.)

KISS
Sonic Boom
(Kiss Records [North America]/Roadrunner [elsewhere])
Available as a 2CD/DVD set in North America and as a single CD elsewhere.
Rating:

Kiss fans have had every right to be skeptical over the past decade or so. The band’s last studio album, Psycho Circus, was really a “reunion” album with Ace Frehley and Peter Criss that had very little Ace Frehley and Peter Criss on it. They embarked on a “farewell tour” at the turn of the century that turned out not to be a farewell after all. And – most damningly – after the reluctant-to-repeat-himself Ace Frehley chose to depart the band in order to decompress before resuming his solo career, Gene Simmons made the controversial decision to replace the influential guitarist with ex-Black & Blue guitarist and sometime Simmons lackey Tommy Thayer without initially telling the public. (Peter Criss, “the most miserable man on the planet” according to Simmons, was already on the shitlist of his ex-bandmates during the so-called farewell tour and was replaced by Eric Singer.) Follow all that up with Simmons claiming in his autobiography that there was no longer a market for a new Kiss studio LP, and it’s understandable to think why an album called Sonic Boom might easily be dismissed – like some fans who heard a leak of the album on the heels of the release of Frehley’s Anomaly album already did – as sonic bunk.

But in the wake of Paul Stanley recording a follow-up to his 1978 solo album (and touring behind it) and Frehley working on Anomaly since 2007, it probably doesn’t take an Einstein to presume that Simmons was full of shit when it came to the Kiss Army wanting new material rather than another repackaging of back catalog.

In advance press when the album’s recording was announced, Stanley – who took the producer’s chair for the project – boasted that the album would have no ballads or outside writers, and would hark back to the band’s “glory days” both musically and sonically. Similar claims (sans the no-ballads comment) had been made about Psycho Circus. Here we go again?
Read the rest of this entry »

ACE FREHLEY
Anomaly
(Bronx Born Records/RED Distribution)
Available on CD, 2xLP, iTunes (with bonus track), and AmazonMP3.com
Rating:

I picked up the guitar because of this man back in 7^th grade. There were a few others that were pushing me in that direction (Rick Nielsen and Pete Townshend come to mind), but Ace Frehley and his smoking guitar (onstage, literally, thanks to his fertile imagination and the breeding ground KISS’s early stage shows provided) lit the fuse. Granted, that guitar stayed in my hands a couple of years down because of the likes of Johnny Ramone, Steve Jones, Greg Ginn, etc., but by that time (1982), Ace was already walking away from the band.

Ace’s self-titled 1978 solo album is an underrated, five-star classic that has never gone out of print. His post-KISS output – two albums and a live EP under the Frehley’s Comet moniker and a “second” solo album, Trouble Walking – were welcomed by fans happy to hear from the “Space Ace” but were not as consistent as they should have been. Still, even though he didn’t record anything since 1989, he still kept playing, touring on a regular basis to the delight of diehard fans and being an almost regular presence in Guitar World magazine and its then-sister publication Guitar School. (At one point during this period, Ace rebutted some comments Gene Simmons had inaccurately made to the same magazine about Frehley’s guitar skills in his post-KISS work).

Of course, Ace participated in the reformation of the original KISS lineup, making the band one of the biggest concert draws for the next five years. But the band only did one studio album in that time (Psycho Circus, which only really had Ace on two songs – Tommy Thayer played the rest of the solos). The group then stayed in back catalog land with their set list, something that didn’t completely please Ace. He left KISS for the second time after what was supposed to be their farewell tour, taking a little time off to recharge, explore a few other artistic avenues (including acting), and get sobered up (insert smartass remark incorporating the phrase “being driven to drink” and the name “Gene Simmons” here if so inclined).

When talk of a new Ace Frehley solo album, twenty years after Trouble Walking, came to pass, fans had reason to be skeptical. Ace had been talking about putting out a new solo album for years, especially after walking away from what was rapidly becoming an oldies act (albeit one that puts asses in arena seats rather than state fair bleachers). There was also talk that the album was going to “go back” to the style and attitude of the ’78 album. Thankfully, none of it is talk.

Anomaly is indeed everything it has been promised to be. Much of the album is the same five-star quality rawk and then some that Ace delivered 21 years ago: Out-of-the-box rockers (“Foxy and Free”, first single “Outer Space”), generous helpings of Frehley brand humor (“Pain in the Neck”, “Sister”, iTunes-exclusive track “The Return of Space Bear”), an Ace-ified cover version (Sweet’s “Fox on the Run”), and a closing instrumental in Frehley’s “Fractured series” (“Fractured Quantum”). Added to the mix this time around are a couple of introspective tracks and two more instrumentals. On “Too Many Faces”, Frehley appears to address with his lyrics the kind of second thoughts he was having near the end of his second tenure with KISS, while on the acoustic-based “A Little Below the Angels” he references his bouts with alcohol and (for the second time, counting “Rock Soldiers” from Frehley’s Comet) his related DWI and reckless driving incidents. He delivers a bit of lyrical inspiration with “Change the World” and “It’s a Great Life”. The two instrumentals, “Space Bear” and “Genghis Khan”, are two fine excuses for Ace to stretch out with his much-lauded guitar skills. His vocal skills, once a self-admitted weak point, sound much more confident than ever.

Ace didn’t miss a beat with Anomaly. Like the recent return-to-action albums from the Stooges, New York Dolls, and Mission of Burma, it was worth the decades-long wait. Five out of five stars.

(Special side note: Check out a podcast interview with Ace about the album from PodKISSt.com here!)

MORNING MUSUME
“Nanchatte Renai”
(Zetima)
Available on CD, CD/DVD, and through iTunes and JapanFiles.com
Rating:

Let’s get a few things straight. I can’t ever badmouth a Morning Musume single or album. I’d be lying to everyone that reads this blog, and I’ll leave the lying to Fox News. I’ll nitpick MoMusu’s efforts when need be, yes, and I’ll praise them to the heavens when the record deserves it, most definitely, but I’m not one of those “fans” that starts going all OMGWTFBBQ1111!!!!eleventyleven online just because a new Morning Musume record doesn’t sound like something from the so-called “Golden Era” (the occurence of which seems to vary with some really picky fans and tends to lead to really spirited debates).

Now, I like the mature, serious direction that Morning Musume has taken with their last three A-sides (this single included). Like “Naichau Kamo” and “Shouganai Yume Oibito”, “Nanchatte Renai” is an uptempo song whose tone leans minor-key – only more so than the previous two singles. Takitty, Koharu, and Reina are all in fine voice – Koharu surprised the hell out of me especially with her parts on the record. The song seems to turn from minor to major key during the final chorus and coda – nice little composing/arranging trick. This one will take a couple of listens to get into, but it’s worth it – the band’s vocals are spot-on and Tsunku’s songwriting skills are still as sharp as ever. (I still don’t like the hats in the PV, but that was at least one post ago, and I’m writing about the actual music right now.)

“Aki Uhara”, the “main” B-side, whips out the serious disco. Gritty rhythm guitar and a non-clichéd dance rhythm (lots of great interplay between the piano, strings, and analog synth here) back up some great MoMusu harmonies; it’s a surefire winner as far as MoMusu B-sides go. “Subete wa Ai no Chikara”, the alternate B-side on the 40th Single Anniversary Edition, mines a Prince-esque 80’s electro-pop direction for its arrangement – something I don’t think the band has explored before, making this a nice surprise for the ears. (The digital version from JapanFiles contains both B-sides.)

If there’s a problem with the single, it’s probably because, for that is the band’s 40th single release, some fans may have been expecting something other than this. While issuing 40 singles is a hell of a milestone (this will no doubt go top 5, at the very least, on Oricon’s daily and weekly charts), I do admit that maybe a more upbeat A-side would have been more fitting. But it should also be noted that the band had just gotten back from their American performing debut – an even bigger milestone in the band’s career. An upbeat A-side along the lines of “Koko Ni Irusee!” and “Mikan” can’t hurt for single #41, though, but still, come on – with three songs to choose from on this single this time around, certainly at least one of the songs has to hit you over the head right away while the others mature like fine wine. Just get it.

5 out of 5. Here’s to 40 more singles.