Word: albums
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...casually concealing the fact that he himself was just such an oddity). With this potent blend of self-deprecation and arrogance, Dylan has managed to keep us laughing at his jokes without quite grasping the crux of the punchline for decades, making his latest musical endeavor, an album of holiday standards entitled “Christmas in the Heart,” just as puzzling as it is entertaining. Nostalgic descriptions, like on “Silver Bells,” of how Christmas “shoppers rush home with their treasures” may seem a bit incongruous...
...Dylan takes on “Do You Hear What I Hear?” posing the question repeatedly as he recounts the story of the nativity in song. Aside from the religious significance of the query, the song also serves as an apt metaphor for the album itself. In the past, Bob Dylan has often taken issue with critics’ and fans’ attempts to weed out the hidden meanings within his extensive catalog of songs, attempting to hear what isn’t there. “Christmas in the Heart,” with...
...Earthly Delights,” the duo’s fifth LP, reflects the completion of Lightning Bolt’s transition from grasping at their elusive live sound to crafting a full-fledged studio album. The differences from 2005’s “Hypermagic Mountain” are small but significant, taking the band beyond mere reproduction of a live show. The wider sonic range afforded by proper mic placement and high-end recording equipment gives bassist Brian Gibson’s densely layered effects a bit of breathing room, revealing a textural intricacy that is lost...
This is what made the band’s 2004 release, “At War With The Mystics,” such a frustrating album. Anyone familiar with the band’s two previous albums—“The Soft Bulletin” and 2002’s “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots”—will be able to point to the myriad recycle tropes that propped that record up. “Mystics” attempts to craft simpler, theoretically catchier—and typically somewhat monotonous?...
...balance, the Flaming Lips deliver their latest effort in the nick of time. “Embryonic” challenges in a way that nothing of their latter-day output since 1997’s “Zaireeka”—the infamous 4-CD album whose simultaneous playing allegedly replicates quadraphonic sound—had ever aspired. It’s also the first since that album to lack a substantive point of reference in the band’s earlier catalogue. “Embryonic” is an anomaly, and while its uniqueness alone...