Shadows Between the Sky is so good. My heart skipped listening to “Sled Ride”, and a little piece melted clean off during “Sunken Statue”. Shadows Between the Sky is a work of ambience and slow emotion. The quality of recording and mastering is superb, with all the detail of a cymbal tap or plectrum pluck preserved in impressive clarity.

The title track is probably the most recognizable of any track on the album. I don’t know exactly what technique he uses on the guitar when the song picks up, but it’s distinctive Buckethead and sounds really cool.

“Sled Ride” and “Wax Paper” are the quickest tempo tracks on the album, while “Walk on the Moon” sounds much like a track off Acoustic Shards, or Electric Tears.

This album is notably clean. If he has a distortion or gain knob on his amp, he definitely didn’t touch it. There are never more than three instruments playing at once, but adding any more layers would seem to only muddy up the track.

One more thing about this album is that it flows really well. Even though all the tracks end in silence, and they don’t intentionally merge into one another, if you’re not paying attention, it really feels like the music is just going on and on.

Ultimately, this album deserves its spot among the list of Essential Buckethead, along with Electric Tears, Enter the Chicken, Decoding the Tomb of Bansheebot, and Colma. I can’t wait to see what he’s got in store for us next in 2010.

To purchase Buckethead’s music straight from friend Travis Dickerson’s label, go to TDRSMusic.com.

When you look at the first song, “Zombies Ate My Neighbors“, before you listen to it, you’d probably think “That’s just one of those dumb song titles that have nothing to do with the song.” and consider giving the record back to the chump that gave it to you. On the contrary, the lyrics in the song are actually about a zombie attack, and they somehow manage to not be too corny. The chorus is quite catchy and there’s a slight story to it.

“Velcro” starts off with about five seconds of studio banter that the band thought would be great to hear every time you listen to it. This song is a lot less impressive than the opening track, but it’s the only other song with a really catchy chorus. The lyrical content of this song makes it hard to connect to unless you’re around the age of 16 and regularly listen to this sort of music. It’s not strictly dedicated to that, but it would really help to fit into that category if you want to fully enjoy the song.

The next song is the softest on the EP. “Melody of You” is one of the better semi-acoustic tunes from this genre, and fits well on this point of the EP. There’s and interesting use of stringed instruments, including a somewhat jazzy stand-up bass. Despite being the slowest song in the set, it also ended up being the shortest.

If all of these songs had the lyrics removed, “September Skyline” probably would have sounded the best. The lyrics and vocals aren’t bad, but they distract from the guitar and drum playing. The ending of this song seems too abrupt to be an and to any set of songs, but they only had four songs to work with, and the order was great as is. The drum playing stood out quite a bit for this band. Not like, say, that of Alex Van Halen, but none of the songs had simple beats that tend plague this genre and a lot of modern rock in general.

No More Stories starts off with a very strange, interesting, and confusing piece of production fun. A song which sounds as if it were composed backwards. Turns out this song has another hidden song called “Nervous”, layered over it in reverse. This effect gives this track an interesting (albeit difficult to listen to) effect, but the fact that there is a hidden track layered over it fascinates me. Some amazing band work and production went into making this/these track(s), so it’s a shame that this track is such a difficult listen in it’s entirety. A bad idea for an opener if you ask me, but clever enough to make it on the album. I believe it should have been one of those hidden tracks that you have to rewind from track one to hear, but it is still an amazing piece of engineering that deserves to make the record, there was apparently just no real comfortable place to put it.

The second track “Introducing Place Players” is the first “real” song on the album, and it is indeed amazing, with off beat guitar and drums channeling the memories Fugazi, or Shudder To Think. When the vocals kick in the song pushes you into the deepest depths of beauty, begging you to drown (and you’ll want to, it’s lovely). This song left me with much excitement, “Mew DID do something different for this record…” I thought, “…and it’s great!”. However, as the album played on, I felt most of the songs were just filler. Though they are all lovely in their own right, most of the tracks are easily ignorable until you come to the final actual song on the album, “Sometimes Life Isn’t Easy” which is a great closer, and wonderful song in it’s own right, calling back the feel of their third album Frengers. It really stands out on it’s own, with an interesting clap track in the background that is so unpredictable, I couldn’t possibly see a crowd clapping along to it properly during a concert. Since most of the songs on the record don’t have poppy hooks, and lots of the tracks tend to sound the same, this is one of the few songs on the album that I could see becoming a single.

Anyone who has been following these guys for sometime know that their first three records were very poppy and brilliant, and their fourth And The Glass Handed Kites was an epic masterpiece. This album takes the epic style they found with And The Glass Handed Kites but dismantles it and rebuilds it into something a little uglier. The songs don’t bleed together like the last album and while this one seems to try and have a concept to it, (there are two interludes on the record, a closing instrumental reprise, and the song “Hawaii” has an intro track called “Hawaii Dream”, the lyrics of which gave birth to the album’s title) the concept seems to fall short by lack of any real story telling, or musical theme. There is still plenty of experimentation with interesting time signatures, something Mew has always done, but they all seem to muddle themselves together on this record, with most tracks lacking in power and effectiveness, and focusing more on ambiance and beauty.

It is really hard to say everything about this record that needs to be said. I am probably making this album out to sound worse than it really is. IT IS NOT A BAD RECORD, IT IS A GOOD RECORD! I guess I had convinced myself it would be something even more powerful and amazing than their last album, and in all honesty that is an impossible attempt. A good example of this would be when Smashing Pumpkins followed Mellon Collie with Adore. Many fans were confused and disappointed, but that didn’t mean Adore was a bad record, it’s just not possible to top a masterpiece.

All in all it is still a wonderful record, with really good songs vaguely hidden between beautiful filler, and even though it is an enjoyable listen, as a Mew fan I found it to be a bit disappointing. Other fans of the band are sure to enjoy it, but not to many will consider it there favorite, and it will probably take quite a few listens to appreciate if you are new to their style. If you are a fan of dreamy bands like Jeniferever, Ride, or Mazzy Star, then give it a spin. I don’t see why anyone couldn’t enjoy this record, but it is still not Mew’s best. If you have never heard this guys before, I’d recommend listening to the Frengers album or And The Glass Handed Kites before this one.

Captain Beefheart: who in the hell is that man, anyhoo? Is he just the brainchild of abstract artist Don Van Vliet, who wanted to play free-form saxophone over disjointed blues-rock rehearsed under harsh conditions? Or is he his own entity, aging at an unhealthy rate from his chubby youthful demeanor of the Trout Mask Replica era to his middle-aged visage at the end of his career? To me, none of that matters; he’s not even a student of Frank Zappa for that matter. To me, Captain Beefheart is Captain Beefheart, nothing else, not even the mentally-unwell man who made a masterpiece out of abstract poetry and the mature fanatic of David Lynch who made the aforementioned director star in his profile, “Some Yo-Yo Stuff”, in 1994. Captain Beefheart is something different every album, even if his personalities are just derivatives of the straightforward alternative blues-rock in Safe as Milk. Yet, I should not focus on his well-known albums, much to the chagrin of every music critic in the business who compares his Reprise-era recordings to the jazz-punk of David “D.” Boon’s Minutemen. Instead, one of his bleakest and more radio-friendly albums, Ice Cream for Crow, is the focus.

The album starts off with the title track, which made a negative impression on me the first time I listened to it. At that time, I wanted to laugh more at Beefheart’s antics than I did his musical prowess, so I dismissed the song as tepid cowpunk and discovered the alternative boogie of “Electricity”, from his first album. However, subsequent listens made me realize that “Ice Cream…” was, in fact, a very Beefheartian song, containing abstract lyrics about Don’s childhood and having a hypnotic slide guitar played by Gary Lucas to hook me in. I thought this would be the only shining track from the album until I went to the second track, “The Host, The Ghost, The Most Holy-O”, which blew my mind that Beefheart could make his typical brand of psychotic blues-rock in a commercial style, more free than his Clear Spot recordings. The lyrics, which were about Don’s re-imagining of Homer’s Greek epic poetry, also intrigued me to listen to the song and go to the next track. What lay in store for me was shocking; “Semi-Multicolored Caucasian” was Captain Beefheart’s greatest tune, yet his most readily-available, despite the off-tune ascending bass line that added more variety to the song. The fact that his growl and abstract poetry really helps the song, as it shows the band in full force.

I was disappointed when I heard “Hey, Garland, I Dig Your Fur Tweed Coat”, which was more or less a typical Beefheart jam that was ultimately forgettable except for the lyrics, which kind of hinted at anthropomorphism and the furry movement to come. The next track, “Evening Bell”, was just Garry noodling a Don-style piano piece on guitar, performing some amazing finger work yet not enough to save this track from the forgettable pile. However, “Cardboard Cutout Sundown”, a perverted look at the Western through Sergio Leone’s eyes, was a return to form, reminding me that Beefheart always shines out to overshadow his filler. As Side One ended, I switched my cassette tape to Side Two and, turning to my comrade Rudy, asked him if he had heard possibly my favorite song of all: “The Past Sure is Tense”. He replied no, but smiled when it came on, as it was not only Beefheart in form, it was Beefheart at his most commercial. Forget about Tragic Band and Clear Spot. “Past…” is where it’s at. It kind of disappointed me to hear the next tracks, ranging from Don talking about his used car (“Poop Hatch ’81″) to comic tales about witch doctors (“The Witch Doctor Life”), as they could not shine up to the greatness of “Past…”. However, “The Thousandth and Tenth Day of the Human Totem Pole”, a song probably about human sacrifice in Native American tribes, pulled us back in and “Skeleton Makes Good”, an Oriental-flavored Beefheartian jam, ended the album on a grand note.

Despite pointing out its flaws and peaks, Ice Cream for Crow remains one of my favorite albums of all time, simply because it’s not anything you’d expect for Beefheart. It’s more cohesive than Trout Mask Replica; more commercial than Lick My Decals Off, Baby; more original than Bluejeans and Moonbeams; and more interesting than Shiny Beast/Bat Chain Puller. However, when compared to albums like Strictly Personal and Doc at the Radar Station, Ice Cream for Crow cannot hold much of a light to those albums. Why? Despite its peaks, Ice Cream… is riddled with filler, albeit interesting filler. It suffers from a lot of the problems of Chicago Transit Authority and Shiver, but it still pulls together through the more memorable tracks to make Beefheart’s last stand to the music business his more victorious stand.

And where is Don now? Living off of paintings, (possibly) wheelchair-bound, and watching a DVD of Inland Empire on his TV in California. His wife was reported as owning her own business, signaling to us that he might not be so well-off as we thought he was. We also found a death file for a Donald G. Van Vliet (born 1940, died 2003) and also for his parents (Sue and Glen Alonzo, who died in 2007 and 1989, respectively), but is Don really dead? Is he? I’d like for him to reply to this and see that others are approving of his other albums other than Trout Mask Replica. Sure, he’s not the greatest musician in the world, but he didn’t need that. He had a dream and it came true: he became God of the music world. An underrated god, but still a god.

The Red Sparowes have the first and last track on this compilation. They have longer song titles than Fall Out Boy, but at least they’re not corny. “Alone And Unaware, The Landscape Was Transformed In Front of Our Eyes” and “Buildings Began To Stretch Wide Across the Sky, and the Air Filled With a Reddish Glow” were both live tracks, but you could hardly tell because they were mixed without an audience track (and since they have no vocalist, they didn’t have a microphone to capture even the slightest bit of audience sound). They are the most progressive songs from the set, and offer the listener quite the musical journey.

The second and third songs were by Battle of Mice, a female fronted alternative, progressive, heavy rock band. The songs “Sleep & Dream” and “The Lamb & The Labrador” are both studio tracks, but are listed as edits; probably shorter versions of the tracks found on the album. Both songs feature some unusual dark lyrics, vocals, and interesting drum patterns. There is a nice variety of guitar tones that really round off the songs well, and could not be pulled off by many bands.

Made Out Of Babies has the same lead singer as Battle of Mice, but there were some considerable differences. “Proud To Drown” and “Gunt” still have the flavor of Julie Christmas’s unique vocal styles, but the band uses less guitar effects. There are occasional backing vocals and a little more distortion on the guitars than Battle of Mice.

It was a good set of songs overall. At times it would get droning, but due to the lack of repetition in the songs, you wouldn’t hear the same dull part in the song again. It reminded me of The Mars Volta at times, but these bands have surely made musical innovations of their own. Triad offers a collection of dark progressive rock samples that doesn’t confront you to too many bands at once and could introduce someone to the sub-genre without overwhelming them.

The Midway State, like many bands before them, released an EP with a sampling of what to expect from their upcoming album. Met A Man On Top Of The Hill is their first official studio produced release, offering that glimpse into their music. There are four songs on the EP, and the title track would be the only song on that EP to not be released later on their 2008 album Holes. The song “A Million Fireflies” would undergo a title change when released on the album.

The songs on both the EP and the album are a refreshing new take on popular piano rock. The lyrics from the EP’s four songs are emotional, and each song has a different theme. While their peer bands are singing songs about how their relationship ended, The Midway State tackles the less approached route: Nathan Ferraro, the band’s lead vocalist and piano player, sings about being with someone at their potential death bed, or chancing upon someone that just happens to know how to help him, or the character he represents in the song. The vocals are not what you’d typically get from a rock band, but they compliment the sound and lyrical content quite well.

They have done quite well with their lyrical content, but Met A Man On Top Of The Hill‘s tracks have exceptional instrumental sections with varying emphasis on certain instruments, depending on the feel of the given song. The variety of playing styles the band used is sure to keep you listening for a long time, and it prevents the EP from being something that you’ll delete from your computer in a month.

Although most of the Met A Man On Top Of The Hill EP ended up on Holes, the song set works well as a whole, and the title track isn’t like anything that ended up on Holes. Definitely something that both fans of pop and indie label music could appreciate.

As “Careful”, the opening track to Brand New Eyes played, I braced for another Paramore style album; an album full of young female pop vocals that sell a sub-par pop-rock band’s studio tracks. Throughout their career, their album material has mostly just bored me. Their B-sides and some demos have been the only thing that have kept me coming back when they put some new music out.

The next two songs didn’t improve my opinion of the band’s creativity, but Hayley Williams certainly improved her songwriting and singing. For example, there’s an anger in the vocals that hasn’t been heard from her before, and it’s not just coating the entire song; it comes in at the right points, which tells me she’s writing songs with more emotion now.

“Brick By Boring Brick” and “Turn It Off” actually had more experimenting in the instrumental tracks than I had expected to hear at this point. It was refreshing to hear that, sort of. They were clinging on to their distortion-driven riffs, and that has always plagued their songs. “The Only Exception” was a first as far as songs on Paramore albums go; a fully acoustic track. It sounded very nice and like something they should do with their music more often.

“Feeling Sorry” brought an end to the instrumentally creative cluster of the album. “Looking Up” was another average fan pleaser song, and although “Where the Lines Overlap” had some chimes or some high synthesized notes that accented the song well, it just wasn’t enough to break away from the “average Paramore sound”.

The last two songs on the album, “Misguided Ghosts” and “All I Wanted”, were quite a surprising way to end the album. They are almost what I had been hoping the band would produce for quite a while now. “Misguided Ghosts” has some excellent acoustic guitar playing, and “All I wanted” had some amazing vocals coupled with guitar work that had some nice tone to it, and it steadily grew as the song progressed; something I don’t recall them ever trying out until this song.

Overall, it probably won’t be getting Paramore any new fans that hated them before this album, but it’s a step in the right direction for the band. Their music is starting to mature, and it looks like their fans will have a band to grow up with.

Their B-sides for this album mostly consist of acoustic versions of songs on the album. “Decode”, however, was an original song, and it had a better guitar tone than all the songs on the album; that sort of “hiding the more experimental music” seems to be typical of Paramore. Most of the tracks were more musically diverse when recorded as an acoustic version, and they seem to have much more replay value. The band seemed to have spent more time on this album’s acoustic tracks than on previous albums. They still retained the structure of their originals, and possibly even the tempo and some vocal tracks. They probably could have thrown in a demo or two like they did for the MVI version of Riot!, but five studio acoustic tracks is quite a feat for most bands. It’s a decent set of tracks.

Hopefully, this will help you find new music to enjoy that you probably wouldn’t any other way, or maybe reunite you with a long lost favorite.

Until next time,
- Steve