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Been Up to the Devil's Business
Highway 13
(Get Hip)
Of related interest: Guana Batz, Stray Cats and beer backs Look, it's very simple: a few choice chords, four-on-the-floor drumming and some drunkenly walking bass lines. But many rockabilly bands seem too slow, too sober or too style-centric to get hair grease on their strings and let the music do its thing. Thankfully, Highway 13 makes no such wrong turns. The Pittsburgh trio starts with the proper instrumentation (stand-up bass, hollow-body electric guitar, spare trap set). It then selects the correct lyrical themes (hot rods, hot bods and cold beer). Finally, with the addition of fashionable shirts and a few squirts of machismo--boom!--the formula for room-filling rockabilly is complete. Of course, knowing the ingredients is one thing. Having chemistry and energy is a different story, but one Highway 13 knows well. Starting with the town-rocking rumble of "Dead Broke Drunk," the band swaggers and staggers through 16 songs as if on a quest to get messed up. Down the road, there's an ode to Granny's cool car ("Stepside Chevy") and tales about chicks who kicked 'em out ("Hillbilly Heartache," "Don't Want You Back") and ones they want to take 'em in ("Cool Rockin' Baby," "Hey Bettie"). Twist off the nearest bottle-top and see what the Devil's Business is all about. John Graham 5
Lenny Kravitz
(Virgin)
Of related interest: Prince, Terence Trent D'Arby, Maxwell Musicians frequently pay homage to their influences, covering a song here and there or performing renditions in concert. But Lenny Kravitz has made a career of sounding like the soulful, funky '70s-era artists he no doubt worships. Each Kravitz album has been a variant of this formula; his 1996 record Circus sounded too much like Prince. 5 introduces the world to a new Kravitz, one who has finally departed from recording on analog tapes and embraced digital technology. Hip-hop engineers perfected such recording, and their sway is noticeable on the 13 tracks Kravitz produced, wrote, arranged and performed on 5. He layers dense bass lines around sampled drum tracks, transforming "I Belong to You" and "If You Can't Say No" into legitimate Jeep bangers. A solemn Fender Rhodes underlies the wicked snaps on the snare in "Thinking of You," beautifully expressing Kravitz's grief at losing his mother. A fictional tale of a black superhero ("Supersoulfighter") and a bugged-out vision of a cloned woman ("Black Velveteen") carry the force of an RZA-produced song. Had 5 been released a few years ago, critics would have said that Maxwell was imitating Lenny Kravitz. Being a step behind is the mark of Kravitz's career, however, and he wouldn't be himself if he didn't remind us of someone else. H.V. Claytor Jr. Fuzz Is Verse
Radiolaria
(Twist Top)
Of related interest: His Name Is Alive, Unrest, the Ropers While sun-worshiping minions are out living up to America's stringent requirements for summer fun--grilling skewers of salty meats and driving around with the top down--a lesser-known population busies itself with finding the more ominous tones of the Stepford-like season. Cincinnati's Radiolaria is at the forefront of this anti-nostalgia. Its buzzing, disheveled pop songs pinpoint tragic summer flings and the omniscience that three months will never be enough to achieve a carefree, Disney- and solar-powered joy. Fuzz Is Verse ponders this unsettling dissatisfaction in passive/aggressive washes of distortion, first in the caressing, unleaded guitar rhythms of "Fizzle," then by employing woozy keyboards and rich trumpet for "Cellophane." Co-vocalists Marc Meizer and Korin Wulkowicz (both ex-Sukpatch) stay up front, albeit modestly: The album's most piercing track, "Sextant," is cloaked in the same slow, viscous glory of an old Red House Painters' drowner. Meizer wobbles amidst ashen brushes of tambourine and percussion, dreaming of the day he'll be better off than sitting around his lover's kitchen naked, sketching and drinking tea. The songwriters have spent their time on the less tropical island of Anglophilia, but they avoid becoming Brit-pop poseurs by utilizing the genre's less ostentatious elements and plumping up the songs with their own subversive dreams. Kristy Ojala |
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