October 28-November 3, 2004

music

cd reviews

neighborhood pop

Happy Accident
Participation Award
(10 GeV)
The latest volume of Happy Accident's family album finds Blake and Yael Lehmann contemplating extraterrestrial visitors, animal sanctuaries and the plight of the nonprofit worker. Participation Award is nothing if not good-natured, and — for the most part — the Lehmanns' self-aware humor and amiable arrangements keep their songs from crossing the line from cheery to cheesy. "I want the aliens to abduct me," Blake sings in the upbeat "Aliens," and you suspect the aliens would be well-pleased with such a cooperative specimen. (Unless they hate horns and xylophones.) Likewise, if all zoos were suffused with the poppy spirit of "Pray for the Zoos," they'd feel less like jails and more like interspecies meetinghouses. And who wouldn't be happy with that?
--M.J. Fine

Unnatural/anthem

Wolf Eyes
Burned Mind
(Sub Pop)
This Ann Arbor trio had to put on pants and collared shirts for their big Sub Pop debut here, a huge change of pace for a bunch of corn-fed pleasure-haters who usually just shit out industrial noise releases like they're Summer Ibiza box sets. So let's dance: The label's changed, the track names are written with actual words instead of smudged splotches of blood and cassette-tape booger-snot, and the "songs" run a little shorter and get to the point quicker, too. Other than that though, Burned Mind writhes and howls and bitches and hisses and squeals like the rest of its older lupine brethren, and if you like art, or pain, or just plain bullshit, you probably already own Burned Mind anyway. Biggest knee-slapper of them all here? These freaks are on the same label as The Postal Service! And the Shins!
--Nick Sylvester
Fri., Oct. 29, 8 p.m., $10, with Buck-65 and Rubber O Cement, Vox Populi, 1315 Cherry St., 4th floor, 800-594-TIXX.

captain's log/supplemental

William Shatner

Has Been
(Shout Factory)
William Shatner's 1968 The Transformed Man LP occupies its own special level of vinyl hell, with Shatner offering overwrought readings of "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" and "It Was a Very Good Year." Anyone who's heard his primal scream of "Mr. Tambourine Maaaaaaaan!" will long for the relative subtlety of Zell Miller. The Transformed Man was very much a product of its time, so news that Shatner was working on a new CD, with Ben Folds no less, sounded cringe-worthy. Instead, Has Been is one of this year's more pleasant surprises. Shatner contributed lyrics to nine of the 11 songs here, most of them bluntly autobiographical. And while he remains reliably over-the-top in some of his vocalizing, he also attempts to show a softer side. "What Have You Done" is Shatner's plea to his third wife, who drowned in their pool, and "That's Me Trying" finds him trying to reconcile with a grown daughter. The country/western title track has Shatner confronting his couch-potato critics: "Has been implies failure/Not so/Has been is history/Has been was/Has been might again." Accompanied by Folds' superb music and backed up by all-stars (Henry Rollins duets on the funny rant "I Can't Get Behind That"), Shatner is trying to go legit as a lyricist and performer. And — dare I say it? — he ain't half bad.
--Andrew Milner

Retro/tenor

Rolando Villazôn

Italian Opera Arias
(Virgin Classics)
With all due respect to all of the Pavarotti wannabe tenors, there is another Italian tenor tradition that is more interesting, and more elusive. Martinelli, Gigli, Bjoerling and even South Philly's own Mario Lanza sang with a dynamic range and expressiveness that almost seems like a lost art. Here comes Rolando Villazín, a young Mexican singer who sounds like he has walked out of a time warp. This is your grandfather's tenor, and oh my, does it sound delicious. Villazín caresses every word and, get this Pavarotti fans, sounds most beautiful when he is singing softly. Make no mistake, Rolando Villazín is a major vocal phenomenom. Be the first on your block to own this CD.
--Peter Burwasser

Country/Lecturn

Steve Earle

The Revolution Starts Now
(Artemis)
W's gold-plated longhorns notwithstanding, the best country has always been little man's music, which is why Steve Earle's plainspoken portraits hit home and his passionate polemics don't. The title of The Revolution Starts Now is an invitation not to buy, as are the dual title tracks and the tinhorn "F the CC." (Who would've imagined Earle would be outmaneuvered by Eric Idle?) But "Home to Houston" and "Rich Man's War" make the political personal, and the smarmy "Condi, Condi" works even though you don't want it to: The impossible image of Condoleezza Rice skankin' to the beat reminds you it's better to have a president who can't control his libido than one dead below the waist.
--Sam Adams