Six disillusioned British kids provide a whole lot more volatility than can fit inside one functional rock band. Given some unsuccessful love interests, a violent tour schedule and way too much alcohol, they lose control—and, naturally, start setting stuff on fire. On their second album, Kick up the Fire, and Let the Flames Break Loose, the Cooper Temple Clause capture this incendiary chaos while forging a fascinating, if imperfect product.
Into TCTC’s sonic hearth go Pink Floyd’s manic magnificence, Radiohead’s electronic imagination and Oasis’ lyrical sensibility. The album reaches full force at the moments where these elements combine most finely; “A.I.M.” (not related to our favorite electronic pastime) begins with a coarse industrial beat, develops with Yorke-like, dreamy lyrics and peaks with a driving, distortion-saturated chorus and sweet lyric hook. “Promises, Promises” expands from a straight-ahead power riff, introducing altered chords and electronic ambience to achieve a more engaging result, and, along with “New Toys,” has real FM radio appeal. The album’s worst moments occur when the genre-synthesis feels most contrived. “Into My Arms” is a static ballad that unnaturally shifts to a psycho chemical groove, and the ten-minute “Written Apology” makes electronic clutter of a promising rock song.
Clearly, TCTC is experimenting, and one can only hope that future albums will match the group’s superior songwriting with more clarity and cohesiveness.
—Mickey A. Muldoon
Keb’ Mo’
Keep It Simple
(Sony)
Keb’ Mo’s new CD is called Keep It Simple, but he fails to keep his promise. Keb’ Mo’ is considered one of the foremost modern jazz guitarists, an assessment that continues to be accurate-—but in this context, it is both laudatory and critical.
His appreciation for the delta blues is impressive and Keb’ shows a commendable dedication to presenting those often depressing tunes in a fashion that can be understood by a new generation reared on top forty radio, but, sadly, this process sacrifices too much of the essential force behind the music. The dichotomy is clearest in the sensations he evokes; listening to his CD is not the emotional experience of the classic blues artists’ records: Simple simply doesn’t have the raw power of strong blues. Partly, the problem is a lack of trust in the audience: the record is overproduced with backgrounds that give essentially strong songs the disposable feeling of Kenny G’s nonsense.
The album works best when Simple reflects the simplicity of its musical antecedents. In lines like “Don’t try to hide your natural looks / Forget about the cover let me read the book,” there is an essential honesty, albeit a cutesy one, that brings tinges of Bessie and Sarah. However, there are too many lines like, “I found two cheap tickets / on the Internet,” that seem so anachronistic they distract from the blues feel Keb’ seemingly tries to emulate.
To Keb’s credit, however, his music keeps enough of the essential intelligence and emotion to power his songs beyond pop and easy listening radio’s usual fluff. His album is a successful version of blues for people who don’t like real blues.