Category Archives: Album reviews

The ceaseless roar of a rock legend

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The return of the rock god

Out of all the charismatic frontmen who rose to fame during hard rock’s golden age, Robert Plant stands out as one of the most significant and influential figures. His tenure as Led Zeppelin’s lead singer and lyricist earned him near-legendary status, while his unique singing style had a tremendous impact upon subsequent generations of rock musicians and vocalists. Besides, it was largely Plant’s looks, flamboyant appearance and powerful stage presence that gave birth to the “rock god” archetype.

Robert-Plant

Robert Plant in the 70s

But even more remarkable than Plant’s mythical stage persona has been his enduring desire to expand his musical horizons and explore new ways of expression. Throughout his solo career, Plant has experimented and recorded with several different bands (e.g. Priory of Brion, Strange Sensation, Band of Joy), while also collaborating with musicians from diverse backgrounds such as Irish folk songwriter Moya Brennan and American country singer Alison Krauss.

A sensational lullaby

Plant’s latest album Lullaby and… The Ceaseless Roar is not so much a solo effort as a group project with his new band The Sensational Space Shifters. In some ways, it represents a recap of his musical wanderlust over the years, bringing together Plant’s eclectic influences ranging from bluegrass and Depression-era blues to Celtic and Malian music.

Echoes of Led Zeppelin can be heard throughout the album, from the playful allusion to the riff of Nobody’s Fault but Mine in Little Maggie (performed on the one-stringed African instrument riti with its characteristic high-pitch sound) to Pocketful of Golden, which shares its opening line with Thank You (the very first Led Zeppelin song Plant wrote lyrics for). Other album highlights include Rainbow with its driving rhythm and Embrace Another Fall, where guest vocalist Julie Murphy gives a beautiful treatment of the ancient Welsh song Marwnad yr Ehedydd.

With this exciting and inspired new record, Robert Plant proves once again he’s got far more to offer than worn-out, unoriginal repetitions brimming with nostalgia. The image of the long-haired, bare-chested, blond rock god may persist, but those who have been following Plant in his sensational post-Zep shift through time and space will no doubt find Lullaby to be a truly delightful stop in this long and unpredictable journey.

Old, slow and popular

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Just a couple of years after the release of Old Ideas, Leonard Cohen (who recently celebrated his 80th birthday) is back with a new album. It’s been almost 45 years since the legendary Canadian songwriter and poet embarked upon his musical career – one with much to reflect upon.

New songs for the old ceremony

'Popular Problems' was release in September 2014Popular Problems is Cohen’s 13th studio album and though the total length is just under 36 minutes, the album’s 9 tracks more than make up for its short duration.

Cohen has always liked to take his time the album’s opening track (Slow) reminds us, setting the tone for what is about to follow. Track after track, Cohen’s mature, relaxed and confident voice takes us through a musical journey of introspection and confession in what ultimately becomes a cathartic experience for both singer and listener.

Popular themes

Some of the principal themes Cohen has dealt with over the years such as love, religion, and politics are all present and treated with sincerity, humour as well as profound feeling. In some of the album’s best moments, as in the last verse of Almost Like the Blues, self-reflection, existential agony and sarcasm intermingle:

“There is no God in heaven / And there is no Hell below / So says the great professor of all there is to know / But I’ve had the invitation that a sinner can’t refuse / And it’s almost like salvation; it’s almost like the blues.”

Most of the songs feature discreet -at times almost imperceptible- orchestrations, while Cohen’s distinctive singing is surrounded by angelic-sounding choruses and female background vocals that strike a sharp contrast to his deep, hoarse voice. Besides, and not surprisingly, the album’s lyrics are of high literary quality. In fact, the words to some of the songs (e.g. A Street and Nevermind) were previously published as poems before finding their way into the album.

With Popular Problems Leonard Cohen offers us one more token of his seemingly exhaustless creative urge and spiritual yearning. And judging from You Got Me Singing, the album’s closing track, it appears the Canadian troubadour’s quest isn’t drawing to a close quite yet:

“You got me singing / Though the world is gone / You got me thinking / I’d like to carry on.”

Singing it like it is

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Meet Lara Eidi and the band

Lara Eidi is a singer-songwriter of Lebanese-Canadian-Greek background. She first got involved with music the moment she “learned how to mimic” through trying to sing and recreate any sound she happened to hear. She started with classical piano at the age of 8 and also had harmony and theory lessons at the conservatory. Next to her piano and singing skills she is also an accomplished guitar player and the founder of Lara Eidi Band, a small jazz-folk-pop trio comprised of Lara, Stavros Parginos (cello, loops) and  Giotis Paraskevaidis (guitars, loops, beatboxing).

Tell it like it is

The band just released their second EP  Tell it like it is to an amazing crowd at Athen’s Numismatic Museum, and it seems like the musical adventures of the promising trio are only beginning to unfold.

So how did Lara Eidi Band come about? Here’s the story in Lara’s own words:

It came at a point when I was close to packing it all in, music wise, after being disheartened by how little one could accomplish in the music scene in Greece. I had just returned to Greece from Scotland naively thinking I could achieve something. So after being a session singer, piano player and songwriter for a multitude of bands I retreated from the music scene thinking: ‘What can I do to change this course I’ve chosen?’ And then it hit me: 2 years ago I stayed at a friend’s house in Athens, locked inside a beautiful musical basement, writing tons of songs and feeling like a kid discovering toys for the first time. After that I called Stavros Parginos, a wonderful cellist and multi-instrumentalist who I had worked with before, and asked him if he would like to work on some of my songs with his cello. He said yes with a smile. So a year ago we started gigging around Athens, traveled abroad to Beirut, Lebanon, and Edinburgh , and recorded my first EP, “Little People” (Irida Studios). Then we met the third member of our band, guitarist Giotis Paraskevaidis. I heard him play at a gig, not knowing who he was, and approached him to ask if he would like to play my music. He was super positive about it – and also turned out to be a very good friend of Stavros! All of a sudden the music was reborn with this incredible energy. After doing a few cover songs on YouTube (incl. Nina Simone’s Be my Husband, filmed on a rooftop in Athens by videographer Dimitris Stamatiou and our sound guy Iraklis Vlachakis), we were eventually inspired to create “Tell it like it is” (Sierra Studios, In a Jam Studios) which is about just that: My personal way of saying that the music I write, and the way it’s developed together with the guys, doesn’t really fit into an roster and that’s OK. And so we found ourselves going from a singer-songwriter to a band formation. I told the guys I wanted to call the band LSG (laughs) but they insisted on Lara Eidi Band!

A beautiful challenge

Music for Lara is a “life force”, a kind of challenge that “needs to be embraced in its fullest and most beautiful forms”. And it seems she is indeed taking up the challenge – Lara will be going to London to follow a Masters in Jazz Voice Performance at the Guildhall School of Music, while at the same time keep performing with her band in both UK and Greece.

And what if Lara’s record collection was on fire? Here’s what she would save first:

I would save my Woodstock Full Two Volumes CD. I have to zone out to this more times than I care to mention! I’m a girl. I also have to save Sheryl Crow, Sarah Ann McLachlan and Alanis Morissette .

You can find Lara Eidi Band on:

Facebook – Spotify – SoundCloud – ReverbNation

A whiter shade of black

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Sailing between Finland and San Fransisco

White Sails is the project that sprang from the collaboration between singer Leigh Gregory (ex-Mellow Drunk) and multi-instrumentalist Ville Vilpponen (ex-Dora Flood, The Bias), along with Ville’s brother Jaakko on drums.

The three met in San Fransisco, but as Ville and Jaakko moved back to Helsinki during the summer of 2012, White Sails became a bi-continental endeavor.

Their self-titled debut album, which was released earlier this year by Ruska Records, is characterized by slow-paced tunes where the atmospheric music blends smoothly with the thick, suggestive vocal lines. Firmly rooted in the ’70s classic/prog-rock tradition, the album still manages to sound refreshingly modern.

New White Sails EP

A new EP by White Sails is scheduled to be released in August by Fruits de Mer Records, including new material along with two covers of the early Black Sabbath instrumentals ‘Laguna Sunrise’ and ‘Fluff’. Listening again to these forgotten gems played with a brand new, polished sound is a real treat and a perfect complement to Sabbath’s own spectacular comeback earlier this summer.

More info/music

Dark, outspoken and outworldly

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The new EP by Joalz Hello Darkness My Friend is exactly what its name suggests: An intriguing invitation to explore dark, otherworldly soundscapes.

Cover

Sharing their time between Greece and Germany, Joalz decribe their music as “a weird kind of obscure indietronica.” Recorded in Berlin and Athens between March 2011 – June 2012, Hello Darkness My Friend is influenced by the sound of early Krautrock, psychedelia and progressive rock (think of Amon Düül, Can or Aphrodite’s Child).

Each song has a completely unique atmosphere; the opening track ‘Oh darling Margaret’ is haunted by the sound of the theremin, whereas in ‘Outspoken you are’ Mary Tsoni’s powerful reciting soars against a dazzling sonic background (the song’s B&W video was shot in Manhattan’s Chinatown).

I found particularly interesting the band’s rendition of ‘Alligator Wine’ (originally recorded by Screamin’ Jay Hawkins in 1958), where Tsoni’s theatrical performance and the fuzzy guitars blend into a peculiar kind of post-apocalyptic blues with dark overtones.

Next to a remarkable new wave of Greek artists, Joalz with their Hello Darkness My Friend offer yet another example of how creativity and experimentation can spring up amidst such grim times for Greek society.

More music/info:

http://www.joalz.net/