Soft and Music

While writing their third album, N.E.R.D. watched a Discovery Channel show about synesthesia, a neurological disorder that causes people to experience sounds as colors or as objects in their minds. Superproducers the Neptunes (Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo) and their rapping buddy Shay Haley were inspired to create music you could envision as a live show. Does that creative concept work? Hard to say, but the results are experimental and expansive: Specked with ostentatiously weird grooves, “Spaz” and the speedy, jazzy single “Everyone Nose” are destined to go down as some of 2008’s most interesting hip-hop cuts. The album also dips into Sixties soul (the sweet “Sooner or Later”) and chugging, riff-driven rock (“Kill Joy”), and tosses in big New Wave choruses. But some melodies feel tossed-off (is Pharrell spending too much time writing for other artists?), and you don’t learn much from Pharrell’s lyrics except that he’s horny. The Neptunes don’t necessarily need guest MCs to make a great album of their own, but if they want their rhymes to keep up with the strength of their tunes, they need to dig a little deeper than this. Share Email AIM Del.icio.us DiggThis Fark It! rolling_stone126:http://www.rollingstone.com/reviews/album/20949346/review/20961630/seeing_sounds

It's a bit sad to always feel the need to reintroduce a band like Elbow. With a release by any number of other Brit-rock bands, you can assume a certain level of familiarity from readers and get on with the songs themselves. But Elbow, despite a string of impressive and critically acclaimed albums, seems to continually fly under the radar. Perhaps that's a positive, as they seem disinterested in modifying or catering their sound to better fit into the land of radio and commercials. It's the real deal. It's Coldplay that you don't grow tired of after a couple of listens. And it gets better with age. The group's newest release, The Seldom Seen Kid, finds them self-producing for the first time, and fortunately nothing gets missed in the process. Their sound, from moody piano-driven ballads, up to full band rockers, retains the immediacy and weight of British rock, but always with either a slightly cheeky or sinister edge. And the rich, unique vocals of Guy Garvey see to it that no one can accuse them of having anything but their own distinct sound. Things open up with "Starlings," which alternates between moments of near reverie and jarring bombast of horn stabs. But the main thing it does is set the bar. Both lyrically and melodically, it's a stunner, and captures Elbow at their best. Likewise, the dual forces of "Mirrorball" followed by "Grounds For Divorce" showcase some of the album at its finest. The former floats along on the more gentle side of things, while the latter lets loose with a jangly and raw blues-rock number. Elbow keeps variety evenly paced throughout the album, but proves the members are adept at dialing in to several stylistic bents. "The Fix" finds the group teaming with crooner Richard Hawley on an almost vaudevillian number that would (or should) make Kurt Weill proud. The soaring strings of "One Day Like This" have anthem written all over them, while the gentle lead-out of "Friend Of Ours" gives a delicate close to a stellar record. If there's any change from previous albums to this one, it's a tendency toward an overall happier tone. It's not overly smiley, but perhaps just content. The slower tracks are more peaceful, the faster ones more up, and overall the lyrics find the group in a mostly positive headspace. The entire album is solid from start to finish, and delivers some of the best and catchiest songs of their career. It has the immediacy of Cast of Thousands mixed with some of the experimentation of the band's debut. It might be a bit presumptuous to think that this will be the album when Elbow finally get their due. But if not, it won't be for lack of quality material. The Seldom Seen Kid showcases the group at the height of their powers, and hopefully they will hover just near enough to the radar to be with us for several more albums to come.