Blood of Abraham - "Eyedollartree"(Red Urban Records, 2005) * * * *

Sometimes the best thing someone can do when trying to find his or her way in the industry is to take an extended break to discover inspiration. For some bands, however, taking this kind of hiatus is not by choice. Emerging with a controversial album in 1993, their careers cut short by the death of a mentor and their career revival thwarted by a label's money woes, Blood of Abraham could have died a slow quiet death. But with the release of their ill-fated 2000 album Eyedollartree (a play on the word idolatry) this August on a new label, the Jewish emcees may well lay claim to having produced the best album released in 2005. Move over, Kanye West.

Twelve years ago NWA-member Easy-E discovered rappers Benyad and Mazik, who were performing in Los Angeles as Blood of Abraham. Becoming their mentor, Easy-E helped them record 1993's Future Profits, which received mixed reviews due to the band's attacks on the rap culture for what the two perceived as anti-Semitism. Blood for Abraham missed the irony evident when two white rappers write a song called "Niggaz and Jews (Some Say Kikes)" in which they perpetuated the worst stereotypes about black people to stop black people from stereotyping them.

Expecting to become hip hop superstars, the two rappers were hit with terrible news when, in 1995, Easy-E died of AIDS. His label died a slow death, and Blood of Abraham was without any way to promote their music. Thankfully for those who enjoy solidly written intelligent hip hop, the duo re-emerged in 2000 with Eyedollartree. Unfortunately their terrible luck continued, and right as the label Atomic Pop went bankrupt. The album never saw the light of day, and a few leaked copies, widely circulated by the old Napster were the only evidence that the music ever existed at all.

Until now. Red Urban Records re-released the album this August, and it was immediately evident that Benyad and Mazik took the seven years between albums to mature their songwriting style. With the help of friends including Will.I.Am of Black Eyed Peas fame (he had appeared briefly on their debut) Blood of Abraham emerges as a bright spot in today's disappointing hip hop scene. But will any of their fans hear the album that took twelve years to release?

One would hope so. "Only The Wise," the album's second track, is a stunningly complex funk-filled beat (composed by real musicians, not through over-sampling!) that rivals anything The Roots have produced, layered with vocals that are both ear-catching and socially conscious. And "99 Cent Lighter," which features Will.I.Am" on guest vocals, has perhaps the catchiest hook not being played yet on today's hip hop saturated radio. And "Hurricane" may feature the most inventive sample ever used to create a hip hop track (anyone who's ever seen the original Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory will hear it immediately). All of this comes together to create an ear-catching blend that no one who enjoys the genre is going to want to miss.

Blood of Abraham is still rapping about what they tried to expose on Future Profits. But they've discovered that there's a way to spread their thoughts without using racism to expose racism. They manage to take on controversial subjects, including the AIDS epidemic, trying to put a face on the intense ethnocentrism that led to white Americans assuming that AIDS was the disease of homosexuals and those living in the inner city. Perhaps with the death of their mentor they found a better way of voicing their displeasure with the state of race relations in America -- that it isn't possible to bring differing sides together when hate is used to decry hate.

Eyedollartree is an album that stands up to repeated listening. It also suggests that Blood of Abraham may have career potential despite the troubles they endured to get the album out for people to actually hear. There's also the suggestion, musically speaking, that while 50 Cent may sell millions of records because he raps about drugs, sex and violence, the better hip hop albums generally come when socially conscious lyrics meet intelligently composed music.

Brandi Carlile - "Brandi Carlile"(Columbia, 2005) * * * *

See the article as it ran in the Daily News:
http://jonathansanders.0catch.com/Carlile.JPG



It might seem impossible to create a truly original sound in these days in which everyone says he's heard everything before. But Brandi Carlile has a clear grip on both her musical ambition and her influences, blending everything from Patsy Cline and Janis Joplin to Gary Jules and Rufus Wainwright. In the process she's created an album that stands on its own as an impressive work that belies her young age.

From the opening strands of "Follow" -- which opens with a simple acoustic guitar melody coupled with Carlile's rough and sultry vocals -- it is clear that this isn't an ordinary folk country pop album. "I feel the rain coming down, it reminds me of who I used to be," she sings, then her voice rises in pitch and wavers briefly on a high note before collapsing into a series of semi-controlled yodels that make the hairs on the head stand at attention. It's so ethereal a sound, one can't help but think it's been rolling around the confines of the skull forever, even if it's only really been three minutes.

The album builds from there, with few tracks that don't stand out in one way or another. "What Can I Say" sounds like it could have been an outtake from Gary Jules' album Selling Snakeoil For Wolftickets, which still stands as the best album I've heard in this year or last -- and the fact that Carlile, at 23, can tread the water of so many genres at once only makes the album more powerful. It's difficult to describe. Songs like "Closer To You" are at once familiar and new, paying homage to country greats like Cline with one note while touching on the likes of Rufus Wainwright with the delicate arrangements. No wonder Rolling Stone named her one of their Ten Artists To Watch list back in March. The music is stunning, so full of potential it's amazing.

If you've got a taste for music that is cutting edge, floating beneath the general radar, give Brandi Carlile a listen. The album is refreshingly original in a sea of Coldplay-ish sludge. Reward creativity over carbon copy music and show that musical taste does speak for something. Not since I heard Regina Spektor's album Soviet Kitsch have I heard a female talent with so much untapped potential. Even if this style isn't what's currently vogue, rest assured that Brandi Carlile's blend of country folk will be heard. The quality demands it.

No Column This Week ...

I had an emergency appendectomy last week, and am still recouperating, so there's been no time to sit down and properly hammer out a good worthwhile review. I hope to be back in business next week, but until then I recommend you all check out the latest releases by OK Go ("Oh No") and Sufjan Stevens ("Illinois"). You're sure to enjoy them.

Our Lady Peace - "Healthy In Paranoid Times"(Columbia, 2005) * * * *

See the article as it ran in the Daily News:
http://jonathansanders.0catch.com/OLP.JPG



Oh Canada, where something lacing the water seems to give artists amazing talent with only one drawback -- unless you're a band like Barenaked Ladies, Americans will virtually ignore you. Our Lady Peace fits that mold perfectly. Their sophomore album Clumsy was their only effort to go Platinum here in the United States, on the strength of the album as a whole. But the band never again saw that kind of success here. Grunge is dead, people said, and turned their ears toward rap rock.

Oh for shame!

The band has forged on, however, and should be called the hardest working band in rock. Their sixth album in a decade, Healthy In Paranoid Times, is a raging statement from start to finish that the band is in peak form, almost daring American listeners to ignore it. It is by far the band's most cohesive work since their song "Superman's Dead" was all over the alt rock airwaves. But will Americans even hear it?

Looks like the holy ghost is gone
Now you're afraid of yourself
Over your shoulder you have to watch
Heaven fall into hell ...

Boom! With that short falsetto intro by Raine Maida, the band crunches into overdrive on "Angels/Losing/Sleep" which is a fitting beginning for an album that covers such a range of sounds. With this one track the band lifts elements from all five of their previous releases to create the ultimate opening for this one.

Recorded over a three year period, the album incorporates a good deal of the non-American view of the Iraq war -- Maida and his wife Chantal Kreviazuk spent a good period of that time working overseas for the War Child charity, and his anger at the Bush administration shows through loud and clear. On songs like "Where Are You" he rages against people who sit on the sidelines and watch as the world falls apart around them, while on "Wipe That Smile Off Your Face" he spits his venom at Bush directly, though subtly: "I'm not your friend and I wont pretend that I've come here for peace," Maida sings over a stuttering synth line. "I'm not afraid, I'm gonna make you pay, gonna wipe that smile off your face. This is war!" It's the perfect anthem for the large portion of the world that would love to side with America in a war on terror, if they could only know what side we're really on, and Maida does a better job than most at articulating his argument without falling back on cliches.

It's not all angry protest music though. Maida may be sitting on his best single yet in "Boy," which blends early U2 with Coldplay and classic Our Lady Peace grunge to create the kind of single Top 40 radio clamors for. "Boy," Maida sings, "you'll be running but can't get anywhere! don't carry the weight of the world ..." The song is so well orchestrated it's bound to be popping up on stations everywhere this winter, and rightfully so. The song has something for everyone, a rarity in music.

Healthy In Paranoid Times proves once again that whoever said grunge should stay dead forever belongs in an asylum. While the band has updated its sound over the years, there's plenty of what made their early albums work to tide over the diehard fan. Success of the album in America, however, is going to depend on what Columbia is willing to do to promote it. The band rarely gets press in the likes of Rolling Stone, and the only single to get airplay recently was "Somewhere Out There" off Gravity -- and I can't think of a song further from their normal sound the band could have chosen. If Americans are going to hear Healthy In Paranoid Times people are going to have to get out there and spread the word about this great Canadian band no one's listening to. Based on what has happened with past releases, I fear without a persistent advertising force in this country Healthy In Paranoid Times will probably disappear as quickly as Gravity did in 2002.

What a shame.

Nickel Creek - "Why Should The Fire Die?"(Sugar Hill, 2005) - * * *

See the article as it ran in the Daily News:
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What happens when the most innovative band in bluegrass decides to focus on alternative pop? The short answer is that not much changes at all. The longer answer is that while nothing major changes, therein lies the problem. If curiosity killed the cat, then high expectations killed the average album.

That's not to say Why Should The Fire Die is a bad album by any stretch. It's just that the raised expectations from This Side (which turned bluegrass on its ear and made the band the subject of abject hatred from the "bluegrass community") likely made it impossible for the band to ever produce the album anyone expected from them this go-around. Songs like "When In Rome" tread the waters of above-average bluegrass, but fail to be what an alt-pop audience is going to want to hear. It just doesn't push the envelope enough for pop, and it pushes the envelope too much for bluegrass. How's that for a no-man's land?

Why Should The Fire Die? does have its very strong moments. "Somebody More Like You" and "Anthony" are both very different paeons to being spurned by love, and each track takes a different sonic angle on the whole mess. "Anthony" features Sara Watkins on vocals that remind a listener both of hippie songstress Melanie Safka and bluegrass legend Allison Krauss as she sings the uncompromisingly harsh lyric: "He's not looking back because he doesn't want anything I have or anything I am. He says he can't love me." Ouch, but definitely replayable. "Somebody More Like You" takes on the guise of a traditional bluegrass ballad, but Chris Thile's bitter vocals give it the edge: "I didn't hear you say you're sorry. I wish you all the best at finding somebody more like you." As the song progresses he gets angrier as he asks the woman who's spurned him why she couldn't live with him: "I hope you meet someone your height, so you can see eye to eye with someone as small as you!" Oh the wonderous bitterness!

Also, it's important to note that there is envelope pushing -- this ain't your granddaddy's bluegrass! "Best Of Luck" is one of the band's first tracks to fully involve non-stringed percussion, which provides the song an immediacy that few others in the genre have. The dueling vocals of Thile and Watkins also give the song a surreal touch that takes many listens to fully sink in. And "Helena" shows the band's immense range, starting as a quiet mandolin-and-vocal piece that apologizes for failures at love but ending with a full drumline to back up the band as Thile sings that he'll always be fine whether he has her or not. Excellent, and it makes the hairs stand up on the back of the neck in just that perfect way.

So why the harshness toward the band early in the review? The bottom line is that they've changed the direction their music is aiming. They're no longer promoting themselves to country radio (though they do still show up as "Bluegrass" in the music media). Rather, they want audiences to hear their music as alternative pop, with a bluegrass touch. And while Why Should The Fire Die? might be a mightily impressive album from a bluegrass perspective, the band hasn't quite figured out how far the envelope has to be pushed to be a cutting edge pop band. Which gives the appearance that they're coasting -- which judging from the content of the album isn't a bad proposition. There is plenty to hear in this album that is quite invigoratingly good. One can't help, however, but wonder what Nickel Creek could be doing two or three albums from now. With their talent, they could define a musical generation if they don't get complacent.