WRUV Reviews

Thieves Like Us

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Shelf life/fantasy memory

Electro Pop-ish, male vox. trancey blips and beats, good snyths, building athem like beats… kinda Euro.

Try: 1, 2, 3, 8, 10

Jan Wayne vs. Raindrop

Numb, the Mixes

CAPP

Sounds like the guy from Coldplay or similar “sensitive male rock” ahhem… Sounds like a movie soundtrack. Some of the beats on the mixes are good, but the voice… always the voice.

Don Diablo, Life is a Festival

Sony Records

Kinda like Outcast or a heavy Justin Timberlake. Fun and danceable!

Mellow, relaxed European electronica & solo piano. First release from this French composer, originally published in 2000. This is the remastered 2009 release.

I think my former neighbors are heard on track #10.

Original movie soundtrack features a variety of genres (Afro-pop, surf rock, J-Pop) with Southeast Asian vocals and stylings.  FCC clean  Try 1,5,7,8,16

This talented  DJ & Producer draws heavily from World musical traditions here. Individual tracks feature African, Latin, Gypsy, Middle Eastern, and Indian artists and themes.

Live recordings of musicians from five continents were combined to produce covers of 10 well-known songs. Videos featured on YouTube were very well received.

This album came into the station and though it’s likely that it won’t be played on the air, I feel that it at least deserves a review as it’s too good of an album to simply ignore.

Green Day has made another album that harkens to more of a rock opera with the main characters of each “act” being a man named Christian and his girlfriend named Gloria.

The title track, 21st Century Breakdown starts off with a few low notes and the drumming of Tre Cool starts to pick up and it ends up with a good pop-punk vibe and sounds like something that would be at home on their Warning album. Billie Joe Armstrong is no Mike Ness but it also has a later Social Distortion feel to it. Know Your Enemy is one of the radio singles and honestly, it’s not one of the more impressive songs. Standard formulaic Green Day here. I should note that the album is broken down into 3 parts like a play or rock opera of sorts. !Viva La Gloria! starts off slow and soft and picks up in the middle much like the title track and has a standard pop-punk feel to it. The songs tend to feel a bit deeper and they try to steer Green Day away from predictability.  The beginning of Before the Lobotomy has an early-Green Day feel to it and seems like it would be at home on the Kerplunk album. The middle picks up and fits more in with Insomniac. Christian’s Inferno has a Misfits vibe to it because of the pacing and it’s basically a simple song with lyrics like I got under the grip between this modern hell/I got the rejection letter in the mail, it was already ripped to shreds/Seasons in ruin and this bitter pill is chased with blood/There’s fire in my veins and it’s pouring out like a flood! There’s a lot of depth to it.

I could go on and on about describing these songs. However, you should at least listen to this album before you pan it. I actually like it more than American Idiot but for me, I prefer the stuff they did from 1990 to 1995 the most. I like my Green Day cheap and easy and not full of depth. Still a worthy listen and before you know it, it’s all over MTV and the airwaves. It’s a testament to the depth of this band but for me, it’s more of an acquired taste.

FCC: 17, 8 (kind of vague though), 14, 15
Recommended Tracks: All except for the FCCs and the radio singles
RIYL: Green Day, The Misfits, Social Distortion, Rancid, Dropkick Murphys

Recorded in front of audience in Bennett Studio w/veteran players including Randy Brecker. Lynne(p) is an arranger, composer & leader in the best way. Much musical cooperation between all.

Afro-pop meets jazz. Born in Israel, now living in NYC, Etkin’s ensemble is a mix of Malian & US musicians. Lionel Loueke(g) guest. Recommended for world DJs.     PLAY