Lets face it, Gregory Porter is all about superlatives. With his impressive appearance and magnificent voice Porter is among today’s top jazz vocalists. Since the release of the debut album Water (2010) everything he touched turned into gold. Water was enthusiastically welcomed by the press and received a Grammy nomination in the Best Jazz Vocal Album category. In 2012 his sophomore release Be Good proved to be just as successful as its predecessor. Be Good was a number-one debut on the iTunes Jazz Album Chart and reached top ten positions on various other charts. Moreover Porter was honoured with another Grammy nomination for the single ‘Real Good Hands’. Recently I saw Gregory Porter perform on the North Sea Jazz Festival with the Metropole Orchestra and, to throw in another superlative, it was breathtaking. Porter is on a high, so there´s no surprise a new release in 2013 was on the stocks. Beforehand there was no reason for fans and critics to worry about quality of Liquid Spirit, for Indeed the brand “Gregory Porter“ already stands for high quality jazz and soul. I However am obliged to uphold a critical attitude to all that´s hyped and hip and therefore question if the towering achievements of Porter
don´t lead to a case of the Midas touch. Continue reading
Goldfrapp – Tales of Us (2013)
On several occasions Goldfrapp left fans of old empty handed. For those of you who don’t know, Goldfrapp once was famed for their darkish, icy and cinematic breakthrough album, Felt Mountain that was released more than a decade ago. A few years after this success Alison Goldfrapp and Will Gregory decided to radically change their focus to glam electronics and combined this with a ‘Lady Gagaish’ look and feel on stage. Personally I was startled by the contents of the successor Black Cherry (2003) but also secretly accepted this album to be my guilty pleasure of the year. That year I also noticed that I wasn’t alone in this. Black Cherry was sold in very large numbers and picked up by Coca-Cola, Nintendo and Armani who used Goldfrapp’s tunes for commercial purposes. Obviously this popularity led to a follow up album in 2005. Supernature was meant to be an extension of the previous success and flourished on many hot and sweaty dance floors around the world. Next up was Seventh Tree (2008), an album that slightly reassured me because its rationale was of a more delicate and tranquil nature. Did this foreshadow a return to the early years of Goldfrapp? Alas it didn’t, for on their fifth album was neglectable. On Head First (2010) Goldfrapp reverted themselves to catchy dance music. When you try and sum this up in one sentence one can only conclude that Goldfrapp’s discography is not one you need to aline chronologically. This summer he latest scion from the duo was released on Mute Records and to be honest, I don’t know what to expect anymore. Yet after more than a decade, my devotion to Felt Mountain is still strongly present so I’m willing to give it another shot. Continue reading
Turisas – Turisas2013 (2013)
Your first thought upon having listened to Turisas2013 in its entirety for the first time, might very well be, “what the bloody hell just happened?” Then again, if you’re familiar with the Finnish folk metal band, chances are that it’s a feeling you have come to expect when listening to a Turisas album for the first time. I know I have, and I’m still flabbergasted whenever I first lay ears on what Mathias “Warlord “ Nygård and his band have in store for us. The only thing is, with Turisas2013 it started sooner than normal, with the announcement of the album title, which is, we can fairly say, crap. When the band released For Your Own Good as a streaming track in advance, however, I was quite ready and set for disappointment. Continue reading
Earth Mk. II – Music For Mammals (2013)
Even when the name of your best friend is Jacco Gardner it’s kind of a bold decision to quote from Pink Floyd’s debut, The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn (1967) to grace your own debut album. Overconfident or not, Hugo van de Poel at least shows that he’s got a fine taste in music. From an early age he and Gardner listened to Syd Barett, The Zombies and Billy Nicholls. This eventually led to the band The Skywalkers that was a small hit in the Dutch freak scene. Hereafter both chaps decided to focus their attention onto their solo projects. Gardner’s Cabinet of Curiosities (2013) proved to be very successful leaving van de Poel outside the spotlights. That is, up until now. Because this month under the alias Earth Mk. II he released Music For Mammals on Excelsior Recordings. And guess what, Gardner acts as the album’s producer, so there is no surprise that Music For Mammals is all about sixties psych pop. Also Music For Mammals is the umpteenth psychedelics record this year and some courage is needed when entering this already full market. Yet courage is not the only prerequisite for success. Earth Mk. II needs to find a way to be distinctive from the others bands in this genre. And I wonder if there is any space left to do so. Continue reading
Powerwolf – Preachers of the Night (2013)
After peaking at number one in Germany’s album charts, and having heard a few snippets here and there, I was quite curious as to how Powerwolf’s brand new album had turned out. I’ve been following the band since their sophomore effort Lupus Dei and was blown away by both Bible of the Beast and Blood of the Saints after that, so the prospect of a new Powerwolf album was already an exciting one. So, is it as good as the last two albums? Let’s find out. Continue reading
Bed Rugs – Rapids (2013)
You don’t have to be a Dudeist Priest to accept the fact that The Big Lebowski is rightfully one of the best cult movies ever made. The Big Lebowski is great on many levels, but most of all its terribly hilarious. The Belgian hard rock band The Porn Bloopers (consisting of Yannick Aerts, Stijn Boels, Arne Omloop and Noah Melis) would fully agree to this because a few years ago they decided to concurrently to change their style and band name. Musically they chose a more retro path towards sixties and seventies psychedelics pop. Also they changed their band name into Bed Rugs, as an ode to the pissed on rug that is regularly discussed in the movie. Without any doubt all of this would be much appreciated by The Dude. Bed Rugs ‘debuted’ with 8th Cloud in 2012 and blended the aforementioned psychedelics with a flavor of nineties indie rock. 8th Cloud was successful on a small scale. During the last months of 2012 the band withdraw themselves to an abandoned church to record a follow up EP. Businesswise this is a smart move because sixties psychedelics is once again hot among the public. However, today bands such as Deerhunter, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Tama Impala and Jacco Gardner dominated this genre. With Rapids, Bed Rugs tries to grasp a piece of this cake. Continue reading
[Live Review] King Diamond at 013 Tilburg
It’s been a while since we last saw King Diamond in the Netherlands. Of course, the master of metallic horror has been out of the game for quite a while, following back pains and finally multiple heart attacks back in 2010. Last year though, King finally made a triumphant return to the stage, frequenting the bigger festivals out there and apparently making a huge impression. An appearance in a Dutch venue was also long overdue, and August 6th saw King finally return to the stage in the Lowlands (not counting the Belgian Graspop festival), in a quite fully packed 013 in Tilburg. Continue reading
Orphaned Land – All Is One (2013)
It took Orphaned Land eight years from El Norra Alila to get to 2004’s masterpiece Mabool. After that, they took another six years to arrive at The Never Ending Way of ORWarriOR in 2010. When you do the math, you might come to think there is something off with this three year gap between ORWarriOR and the brand new album All Is One. I’m glad to announce that All Is One is a great album, although I definitely have some niggles about it. Let’s talk about those for a minute. Continue reading
[Live Review] Roger Waters – The Wall in Gelredome Arnhem (2013)
You’d be hard pressed to leave an integral performance of Pink Floyd’s The Wall and not be impressed. Not only by the music, which is of course excellent, but perhaps even more by the sheer spectacle of the show and the ultimately very left-wing, anti-war statement that it is, or at least has become over the years. Because The Wall, both as a concept (the idea of building a huge wall between the audience and the band famously sprouted when Waters spat a fan in the face out of annoyance) and a narrative, is as relevant today as it was back in 1979. Continue reading
Friska Viljor – Remember Our Name (2013)
I have to admit that I walked out on my first Friska Viljor show in 2008. As far as I can recall I did so because I was filling up a half hour of dead time within the festival schedule. Furthermore my harsh judgment was that the band did not impress at all and seemed uninspired. At the time, many were cyced up for this indie rock formation from Sweden who had just released their catchy debut album Bravo! (2007). Bravo! was about lost love, drinking and nightly escapades. It got a great deal of positive reviews from around the globe that justified the aforementioned buzz. In the years that followed the band proved to be very energetic, producing three full albums that I , honestly, didn’t brother to listen. It took me five years bump into the band for the second time. And yet again I was standing in on a sunlit festival field. Only now the difference was that I stayed and discovered that their live performance very energetic. Also I discovered that earlier this year Friska Viljor released their fifth album with the title Remember Our Name. That’s quite a coincidence, or isn’t it? Continue reading
soundsfromthedarkside 