Word: albums
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...ALBUM: LADY GAGA, “THE FAME MONSTER?...
...sophomore album, The Headless Songstress, Tika and her band - the aptly named Dissidents - file slow-burning postcards from the Jakartan edge. Recorded in a mix of English and Indonesian, these are songs of cynicism ("My midlife crisis was at its peak that Friday night"), urban ennui ("My dad's religious, my mum's a bore/ Can we talk about something else?") and modern manners ("Harry loves Betty .../ But daddy wants Betty to marry Eddy/ But Eddy loves Larry"). Classic jazz scoring - for piano, acoustic bass and drums - steeps the work in an atmosphere of late nights and darkened rooms...
Homme’s Queens of the Stone Age, once viewed as the band who would save hard rock in the 21st Century, have continued to produce impressive albums. His other projects, from leading the satirical Eagles of Death Metal to producing the most recent Arctic Monkeys album, have all sought to bring out the dark side of rock music. Grohl, meanwhile, has never managed to reattain the heights he reached in the early 90s with grunge legends Nirvana, contenting himself with creating Foo Fighters’ radio-friendly rock. Grohl’s greatest success this decade may have...
...aggression of TCV’s music does not mean that the album lacks its accessible moments. The album front-loads its two catchiest songs immediately after the opener. “Mind Eraser, No Chaser” features vocals by both Grohl and Homme, although this serves only to reiterate the superiority of the latter. Grohl’s over-enthusiastic and humorless singing pales by comparison with Homme’s sophisticated sneer, and fortunately most of the album sees Grohl consigned to his natural place, behind the drum kit, providing successfully muscular, if surpisingly understated, beats...
Aside from these highlights, the quality of most of the songs is consistent, even if they are less essential. Late album cuts like “Caligulove” and especially the danceable “Gunman” successfully channel the album’s aggressive spirit into well-crafted tracks. However, the album’s biggest weakness is the band’s tendency towards indulging themselves a little too much. Containing three songs close to or longer than seven minutes, and at over an hour of consistently hard and loud rock music, the album...