|
 Timeless
Passages
Frank
Bango
The
Unstudied Sea (Sincere Recording Company)
Frank Bango tends bar at a club in Manhattan’s Lower East
Side. But by night—or day, I guess—he is a pop songwriter
of the highest order. The 12 songs that comprise his latest
record, The Unstudied Sea, supposedly were written
underwater, perhaps as a result of watching strangers through
the bottoms of empty glasses every night. Hopefully this will
pique your curiosity, because, sadly, this stuff just ain’t
gonna get played on the radio. Bango’s songs have what critics
often call a “timeless” quality, meaning they could have been
hits 30 years ago, but don’t stand a chance in the age of
nü-metal. So the kids probably won’t go crazy over this record,
but fans of the recent Burt Bacharach-Elvis Costello collaboration—anyone
who appreciates strong pop songcraft, really—should leave
themselves a Post-it Note to check it out first thing in the
morning.
As on 2000’s excellent Fugitive Girls, Bango cowrote
all 12 of Unstudied’s tracks with lyricist Richy Vesecky.
Vesecky writes from an original point of view while tackling
unusual subject matter, for instance, objects in a young girl’s
bedroom (“A Clear Eye for Daisy”), and a fish that wanted
to be a pet but ended up a meal (“Out of the Water”). His
lyrics are sharp and concise, and his knack for vivid imagery
is second to none.
As for the music, melody is job one for Frank Bango, and he
delivers service with a smile. The songs are built around
acoustic guitar or piano, with Bango’s voice mixed front-and-center,
and gorgeous string arrangements woven into several tracks.
“Are You Now or Have You Ever Been” employs an aggressive
strum, à la Billy Bragg, with just an occasional electric
guitar flourish, and manages to rock without the benefit
of bass or drums. When the rhythm section does kick in on
“The Ugly Version,” it serves to complement rather than propel
the song. Augmented by Beach Boys harmonies and analog synthesizers,
“Ugly” evokes Costello circa Imperial Bedroom, complete
with sarcasm worthy of Mr. MacManus himself (“You once told
me that you couldn’t live without me/Now I can’t help noticing
that you’re still breathing”). “Ugly” also contains one of
this record’s many wonderful bridges—have we forgotten about
the concept of a bridge, people? Check out the stunning middle
section on “Museums” for another example.
Like a collection of great short stories, each song on The
Unstudied Sea follows a very unique narrative path, and
the music ebbs and flows accordingly. The underlying aquatic
theme (don’t ask me, I just work here) ties the record together,
lending a—ahem—timeless feel to this work. Don’t expect to
see Frank Bango shooting up the charts anytime soon, but take
my word for it: This is near-perfect pop, folks.
—John
Brodeur
The
Haunted
One
Kill Wonder (Earache)
There’s something about Swedish metal that’s just downright
scary. I think it’s because the bands don’t actually say much
in the metal magazines or any other forum. Silence scares
us Americans, especially when accompanied by a kind of glowering
countenance through stringy hair and yellow eyes, a ghostly
demeanor indicative of centuries of shitty weather and strong
ale. A natural environment, of course, for the Haunted, whose
third release on Earache swoops down upon you like a condor
who keeps a naked head to prevent the rotting flesh from spoiling
its plumage.
These guys sprang up in 1996 after brothers Jonas and Anders
Björler left the unbelievable At the Gates, who some argue
created the greatest thrash album of the 1990s with Slaughter
of the Soul. I happen to be one of those people. Who cares
if every single song was about offing yourself? I was hard-pressed
to think of a band who could match At the Gates’ over-the-top
progressions, seamless breakdowns and hypnotic melodies. That
is, until their fury was reshaped into the Haunted’s debut
in 1998. With each new Haunted release I tell myself that
they will never top the one that came before, that it is inconceivable
to be any more goddamn heavy. Wrong again.
One
Kill Wonder is evil even further transfigured, seeming
slightly more experimental in respect to tempo and layering
(“Privation of Faith” for example) than previous releases,
but thankfully with full retention of what is certainly their
greatest asset: absolutely searing riffage, by which all elements
of each tune are driven. In fact, the songwriting boggles
the mind as it reaches for the throat—Marco Aro’s throat to
be exact, his death wail a pain wave crashing through impossible
drumming. “Everlasting” and “Downward Spiral” come to mind
in particular, but listen for your own bad self. This disc
is particularly useful for clearing out bad parties and keeping
the dogs in check—plusses in my book.
—Bill
Ketzer
Elvis
Costello
North
(Deutsche Grammophon)
Last year, Elvis Costello re- leased When I Was Cruel,
one of his best recordings since the ’80s. This year, the
mercurial, pop-besotted Costello seems to want to be taken
seriously, and North is serious, indeed. It also sounds
like a collection of love songs memorializing his engagement
to Diana Krall, the Canadian chanteuse (and Universal Music
colleague) who’s made jazz sexy all over again.
Paced—make that rolled out—by the pretty, string-drenched
“You Left Me in the Dark,” North boasts ornate arrangements
and unusually careful vocals by Costello. This album sounds
like money; if nothing else, it attests to the clout befitting
an artist in his third decade of genre-hopping and -influencing.
“Someone
Took the Words Away,” the coy “Let Me Tell You About Her”
and the unexpectedly dramatic (or is it bombastic?) “Can You
Be True” speak to Costello’s maturity. Wordplay, a Costello
signature, defers to direct expression here. If North
is a love letter, it’s plain-spoken and decidedly well-tempered.
Unfortunately, North is monochromatic. Even though
the instrumentation spans solo piano and a 48-piece ensemble,
the tunes blend into one another and are resolutely slow.
Perhaps that’s part of Costello’s strategy: Corral “serious”
music lovers with albums like North and collaborations
with Burt Bacharach, classical singer Anne Sofie von Otter
and the Brodsky Quartet, then cater to an audience that used
to be new-wave like he was with albums like Cruel.
Maybe next year, Costello will choose invention over craft,
and grace his patient fans with an album that’s serious and
playful at the same time.
—Carlo
Wolff
 The
Powerpuff Girls
Power Pop (Rhino)
Plop a song by Shonen Knife onto a CD and drop it into my
mailbox, and I’ll check it out, OK? Though Rhino most likely
knew not of my personal directive, the end result is the same.
Powerpuff Girls: Power Pop is a 13-song collection
that mirrors the feisty bright colors of the world-saving
animated trio. It’s full of contemporary pop laced with hiphop,
girl-group and soul vocal styles, and the tunes, with the
exception of the show’s end theme, are inspired by the cartoon
heroes. Shonen Knife’s punkish “Buttercup (I’m a Super Girl)”
is the rawest tune on board. What it has in common with the
rest of the set are hooks, hooks, hooks. From the opening
“That’s What Girls Do” by No Secrets, to the harder-rocking
“Baby I Don’t Care” by Jennifer Ellison and the pop smarts
of Leslie Mills’ “Rocket Candy,” the songs are, for the most
part, catchy at the outset, though the cloy factor lurks around
the corner on much of this. But hey, I’m not the target market
for this disc. As music for the family goes, this is actually
a fine entry, appealing to the young without repelling their
parents out of hand. It can actually promote dancing in the
family room, and head-bobbing sing-alongs in the car.
—David
Greenberger
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