Word: basses
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Techno beats? Funky bass lines? Crazy sampling and distortion? How could this possibly be the same Better Than Ezra that made their smash debut in 1995 with "Good" and "In the Blood"? With their innovative third major release, How Does Your Garden Grow? the group has branched into new directions of synthetic sounds and vocal distortion while also continuing in the tradition of soft ballads and often teary-eyed lyrics. The result is an eclectic, although sometimes confused, mixture of past successes with fresh and promising new sounds complemented beautifully by Kevin Griffin's passionate vocals. Yet with...
...bassist Tom Drummond and drummer Travis McNabb. In "One More Murder," the first single off the new album and on the X-Files summer movie soundtrack, Griffin's vocals are restrained and the guitar is absent for much of the song. Drummond and McNabb combine for some funky bass lines and techno beats, which are also prevalent on the first track, "Je ne m'en Souviens pas." More than ever, Better Than Ezra is more than just a playground for the diverse and profound talents of Kevin Griffin, upon which the previous two albums relied heavily...
Whereas the songs on Tuesday Night Music Club could only be called "folksy pop" and those on Sheryl Crow "rock," there is no simple label for the diverse sounds of Sessions. Crow tries out a country, bluegrass style on a few songs, a rocking, bass-heavy sound on others, and experiments on some tracks with new instruments such as the harmonica and violin...
...Favorite Mistake" starts the album in classic Crow style. Sounding a little tipsy but always determined, Crow laments a bad relationship against the background of a catchy bass line that she plays herself. Things turn hyper with "There Goes the Neighborhood" (first line: "Let's party, let's get down"), but slow down with the gently acoustical "Riverwide", two examples of the wide rhythm and tempo variations that Crow infuses into the album. Crow's idol, Bob Dylan, originally recorded "Mississippi" but was displeased with the result. He gave the song to Crow to record...
...proof of Harvey's talent is that, despite an expansive range of pitches and moods, her craft always combines precision with personality; like a jeweler or carpenter, she preserves the integrity of each song with specific and taut strokes, but incorporates enough elements of personal style--distorted vocals, plodding bass or cavernous echo--that the artist cannot be misidentified. "My Beautiful Leah," in which a phlegmy and diseased voice seeks clues to track the route of an aban-doing lover, lumbers thick and ungainly as a sauropod; "The Garden," by contrast, lilts and whispers like a dryer, spindlier version...