Nyles Lannen comes from the Elliott Smith school of whisper-singing, and he actually pulls it off pretty well. Though his sound is mostly acoustic, he mixes in enough drum machines and fuzzy guitars to keep things interesting, sometimes invoking the ghost of Sunny Day Real Estate in his more “wall of sound moments.”
Press Play – Album Reviews
Nyles LannenPressure***
Nyles Lannen comes from the Elliott Smith school of whisper-singing, and he actually pulls it off pretty well. Though his sound is mostly acoustic, he mixes in enough drum machines and fuzzy guitars to keep things interesting, sometimes invoking the ghost of Sunny Day Real Estate in his more “wall of sound moments.” And this puts him a step ahead of most of his singer-songwriter contemporaries.
Lannen’s greatest shortcoming could be his reliance on texture over clarity (even at the best moments, his lyrics are hard to pick out), but Pressure easily offers enough dense dreamy melodies to keep you involved and maybe even happy, depending on your tolerance for liner notes.– Shane Danaher
Neil YoungChrome Dreams II****
Another year, another Neil Young album. For whatever reason, the past three years have seen a succession of albums from the rock legend–and I can’t really complain. While last year’s Living With War was a rushed effort based on a very particular political agenda, Chrome Dreams II is a nice, complete work.
It has the standard themes of working people and growing old, basically explorations of what it means to be alive. Many of the songs on this album have been gestating in Young’s songbook for a long time, and the albums title is derived from his long-lost 1977 album Chrome Dreams. Standout tracks include “No Hidden Path” and “Boxcar,” the latter of which has that great Americana guitar jingle featured in so much of Young’s best work. What it comes down to is this: Chrome Dreams II is not the legend’s masterwork, but it is a solid entry into his storied musical history.- Ed Johnson
Serj TankianElect the Dead***
Much like his band System of a Down, which is on an unfortunate indefinite hiatus, Serj Tankian’s debut solo album, Elect the Dead, alternates between being intelligent and juvenile, humorous and serious. It sounds like no other album in current release and that’s a good thing.
In a world where most heavy music is either watered down, repetitive, or overtly misogynistic (remember the Buckcherry gem “Crazy Bitch”?), Elect the Dead is a welcome change. The song structures change on a dime and the lyrics are pleasantly wacky. The album falters at a few points where the political immediacy of Tankian’s songs becomes off-putting–we know he cares about what he’s singing, but the message sometimes becomes too heavy handed to enjoy (“Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition” is one example).
Alternating between heavy riffage and gentle piano plinking, Tankian has created an album full of emotion that defies genre classification and should keep fans of intelligent heavy music happy.- Stover E. Harger III
