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.

Most of the songs will sound the same when you first hear them. Unless this is the sort of music you listen to all the time, you probably won’t be able to name each song when you hear it, but a few songs do stand out enough to keep most people interested. The songs vary in length more than they do instrumentally; “Turn On Your Weakness” comes in at just under two minutes, while “Without Your Love” passes the five minute mark.

Two songs from this album, “Your Enemy’s Asleep” and “5/4“, have some brass sections in them which are the most soothing use of that type of instrument I have heard produced in modern music. While Young And Sexy is a much more popular group, they are musically very much like Cold Sides, the main difference being the mood and vocals.

Some people will absolutely love this music; It didn’t happen for me, but the talent is surely there. Give Young And Sexy‘s third album a full listen and you might find yourself putting the whole thing on repeat next time you feel like doing nothing at all.

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.

Some of their songs were more effect laden, like “Francophile“, which suffered from quality-hindering voice effects and the occasional digital “Wah, wah” voice. I can see this song either being a favorite or least favorite, depending on if this type of music is what you can enjoy frequently. Other songs weren’t composed with a bad synth track, but in songs like “Stately Homes”, the synthesizer in the mix was overpowering.

It wasn’t that they didn’t know how to use electronic sounds in music, though. They mixed “Carly (Goddess of Death)” and “First Base” very well, keeping the synthesizer notable when needed and not dropping the guitar off the mix radar.

Another notable characteristic most of the songs has was a very tinny guitar sound, similar to that of many Franz Ferdinand songs. They did use a variety of guitar tones, but the sound only made the song more catchy and hard to listen to; catchy in the way they played it, annoying in the note progression.

The most notable and pleasing song on the album was the final track, “Sun Roof“, where they didn’t try too hard to be catchy, overwork the synth, or use any fast-paced lyrics which barely caught my attention. It was soothing, slow, and a great way to finish an album. I only wish they had tried that with more of their songs.

The guitar playing was decent, and the vocals didn’t stand out in any way. The Capes aren’t bad musicians, it just didn’t work out on this record.

The songs, starting with “Slow Night, So Long”, were all in that same vibe of Dixie pop-punk, but within the album, there were two acoustic ditties: “Milk” and “Day Old Blues”. A different sound for the band, I was not used to something resembling “MTV Unplugged Featuring Four Brothers from Nashville”, so I breezed through them, trying to find a hook in them but failing to do so. Despite that flaw, Aha Shake Heartbreak makes itself up with a sound that seems more like Lynyrd Skynyrd crashing into a blink-182 concert, complete with Prince’s lyrics about sex. The highlights of the album are “King of the Rodeo”, which serves as a guitar duel between Jared and Caleb Followill, and the swagger-heavy “Taper Jean Girl”, which became the first Kings of Leon song nationally recognized through the 2007 film Disturbia.

The only thing, other than the acoustic ditties, I have to complain about are the repetition of the lyrics. At first, it seems like random mumbling from Caleb, but when taking a look at the lyrics, his mumbling turns into something a little less innocent. Most of the lyrics range from suicide (“The Bucket”) to sex (“Taper Jean Girl”, “Pistol of Fire”, “Velvet Snow”, etc.). Because Caleb Followill is not much of the lyricist type, most of his songs are either amateurish or about what rock music is mostly about. Such familiarity with a topic can make music seem like it is bland lyrically; most songs are about Caleb’s penis (his “PISSTAWL OF FYE-UH”) or having sex with a chick. It can only be compared to the shock that one gets when entering the 18+ fanart section at the Furthia High website. Is constant lyrical human intercourse always a good thing?

I know people are going to get pissed at me because I’m not promoting the Kings of Leon album with “Sex on Fire”, but to be fair, I have not listened to Only by the Night yet. I have listened to the Kings’ first two, yet I don’t know if I want to venture into commercial territory. From my observations I can hear the Kings get progressively more bland every album they do, a result of commercializing and assimilating their sound into the alternative rock mainstream. However, they aren’t the Dixie Coldplay. They’re a throwback to the good old days of Heartland rock and bar bands playing covers horribly. They’re the result of a painful family schism and assimilation into mainstream society. They’re the result of torturing their cousin. The result is quite artistic and original.

I give this album my full approval, as it is a good mixture of songs despite the below-paw acoustic ditties and the constant yiffing of Caleb Followill. This album serves as a blueprint for later albums to come and ultimately led the Kings to gain a minor chart position with “The Bucket”. How “Taper Jean Girl” failed to get on astounds me, but enough of that. The Kings of Leon thank this album for mainstreaming them into the alternative rock scene and I do too. I should have bought this album when I first heard it because it would stay with me due to the hooks. I wouldn’t think too heavily of the sexual entendres, though; I wasn’t too aware of colloquial terms for “penis” back then.

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 Hands of Caravaggio is a dark and surreal Alice-in-Wonderland soundscape where the only sound you think you recognize is the piano, and even that, you have surely never heard played in such way.

The album is the product of a collaboration between M.I.M.E.O., the “Music In Movement Electronic Orchestra”, and John Tilbury. This album consists of a one-take performance in what sounds to be a large music hall. The twelve members of M.I.M.E.O. were situated with their instruments around the piano in a Last Supper formation, as an echo to some of the art that inspired this performance. The thirteenth member, Cor Fuhler, is credited as playing “inside piano,” or manipulating the acoustics of Tilbury’s piano in real-time, by damping, plucking, striking, and desounding the piano strings directly.

This is definitely an avant-guarde album. It is abstractionist. There is no narrative. You will not find yourself anticipating what the next note will be, if you can even call anything on this album a note. The most striking and surprising thing about this album is how good it actually sounds. The sounds mix and resonate seemingly against what could actually be possible, given the selection of sounds. There is the barely discernible human mumbling, the overlapping sine waves, the abrasive string scraping. There is the sound of white noise, a large piece of sheet metal being wiggled, and one sound which I can only imagine as the sound of a thousand-eyed worm monster screaming from underground depths… and then there is the ubiquitous jazzy-sounding piano play. It is a meeting of the acoustic and the electric. They do not seamlessly blend together, but they rather complement and strongly contrast each other. Although it is clear much thought has been given into what some of the electronic parts would sound like, the piano part consists of only spur-of-the-moment decisions. John Tilbury’s hammer strikes give the concerto an overwhelmingly human sound that cuts through all of the bleeps and drones and “noise” of the electronic orchestra.

Caravaggio, 1571-1610

For someone who’s ears are custom to mainstream or classic rock, pop, hip hop, or any instruments deemed “traditional,” or “common,” this album will be a change of scenery. Scratch that, it’s more like traveling to another dimension. But this dimension will captivate and surprise you, and it will calm you and scare you. When the album is over, you may just ask yourself if you really just did that.

If you’re wondering where the album title came from, yes, it means something. Caravaggio is (early photographic technology has brought us the image to your right) was a 16th century Italian painter whose dramatic pre-Baroque art is said to have inspired this album into existence.