Category: Music

“You ain’t fucking with them Jake One beats” blasts Freeway on his opening to forthcoming single The Truth, taken from Jake One‘s new album White Van Music and, quite frankly, Freeway knows what’s up.

Jake One has produced across the entire spectrum of hip hop, from G Unit to I Self Devine, even chucking in John Cena’s entrance theme for the WWE. So when he decided to make a record and show just how far he could cast his line, guest spots from the underground’s finest with MF Doom, Slug, Blueprint and Brother Ali to the commercial brightlights with Young Buck, Busta Rhymes and Keak Da Sneak, prove Jake One caught one this big.

Throughout the album, the beats bang but always fit the lyricist on each track, never falling into the trap of cut-and-pasting an accapella over a beat to save time – Slow jams, club bangers, soulful winders, he has laced them all on this record. The track you can hear is the aforementioned single featuring Freeway and Brother Ali, so get to clicking. Hearing a line about the ROC being replied to with a line about the RSE sums up just what Jake One has achieved on this record – Nooks and crannies to lights on Broadway, he brings them together with ease.

Plus this record has MF Doom rapping about steak and you just can’t you fuck with that.

Abjekt.

Let’s face it, as cunning plans go, this was a good one. Having not made a really essential album since 1988’s ‘And Justice For All’ (even though 1990’s ‘Black’ album had it’s moments, it was generally a step too far in the commercial direction) the band hit an all time low with the truly abysmal ‘St Anger’ record and the cringe-worthy ‘Some King Of Monster’ documentary.

There are, however, conspiracy theories that the band intentionally recorded an album so bad that whatever they did after it would be seen as a glorious come-back and a return to the magical days of their first four albums. The dirge of ‘St Anger’ surly can’t have been an accident, they must have done it on purpose. And it worked. The release (and inevitable early internet leak) of ‘Death Magnetic’ has been met with wildly enthusiastic reactions from all and sundry claiming it to be a return to the glory years. And for once, believe the hype ‘cos it really is.

It feels so good to have Metallica back on track after they’ve spent so many years trying to run away from their classic sound in search of other styles and moods that rarely worked. Metallica were an incredibly important band to me personally. Not only were they the first truly heavy band I saw live (when my father took me to Monsters Of Rock in 1985), they shaped my musical word and opened up a whole world of heavy music from The Misfits to Exodus and back again.

‘Death Magnetic’ is everything you could hope for from a Metallica album in 2008. Just for starters, the production is fantastic. Rick Rubin has done an incredible job in guiding the band back to the energy and sound that made their initial records so exciting. The sound, from beginning to end, just goes KRUNCH KRUNCH THUMP. Pure heaviness all of the way without ever resorting to the sludge of ‘St Anger’. They manage a sound that is both crystal clear yet totally down-tuned and heavy.

With ten songs in over seventy minutes there’s a hell of a lot here to digest and it takes a few spins to crack it but once you’re in it will get it’s claws into you and never let go. I’m not even going to single out the tracks. Listen to the whole album from beginning to end. See if you can handle that ipod shuffle generation.

James Sherry

Album #2 from Melbourne, Australia’s ECSR, and another fine, fine collection of stripped down and basic raw hook laden PunknRoll from these fellas.

Opening number “Memory Lane” is loaded with the kinda simplistic and disconnected swagger and attitude that The Stooges dreamed up in Ann Arbor all those decades ago, and the likes of The Saints and Radio Birdman tapped in to in the mid-Seventies. Clearly, nothing new then about Australian bands being influenced by Iggy and the boys, but the ECSR have taken a well worn formula and given it a super-fresh injection, and produce mighty joyous and incredibly catchy music.

And whilst their debut LP had a slightly more Garage vibe to it, “Primary Colours” is loaded with a darker artier edge, with Wire getting a lot of reference. No bad thing, you’ll agree. I’ve had a copy of “Primary Colours” pretty much glued to my turntable for almost a week now, and it sounds better, and better on each consecutive spin.

It’s no wonder Eddy Current are such a hit at home, with their concerts and limited run records selling out instantaneously. Their popularity (including a recent run of supports to Devo) is clearly an issue of debate though with a buncha guys from the punk underground, which gets questioned in “Which Way to Go”… “and I weighed up the positives, and compared them to the negatives”. There’s no doubt in my eyes they could be huge, but as Bon Scott lamented… “I tell you folks, it’s harder than it looks”

Pete Craven