Thievery Corporation's latest is yet another conglomeration of styles from all over the place, a little bit of hip-hop, some reggae, but mostly a downtempo trip-hop. A Yoshida Brothers album finds its way into the collection, the Deadly Sins are a punk rock outfit, and a compilation of Russian Gypsy music, most of which is guitar work. I love guitars.
New Additions:
Thievery Corporation - Culture Of Fear
Label: Eighteenth Street Lounge Music
Released: 6/28 2011
Genre: pop-techno (mixing in many styles)
The latest release from Thievery Corporation is as world-traveled as previous releases, pulling styles and genres from around the globe into a single cohesive whole of an album. The opening track is fairly downtempo, but the next track picks up with a solid hip-hop beat and rhyme from Mr. Lif. The trip-hop vibe carries the album in a kind of low key downtempo style through most of the rest of the album. A little bit of dub-reggae sneaks in towards the end. Despite continually coming back to a theme of modern world invasion of privacy it's not an album that feels like it has a political statement.
Adding To The Collection
Deadly Sins - Selling Our Weaknesses
Label: Durty Mick Records
Released: Sept 2008
Genre: Punk
There's actually nothing stand out or particularly spectacular about this album. Which makes it a really great punk rock record in my opinion. The whole thing is just a solid delivery, sans attempts at rock-anthems or even ballads. From front to start everything about the Deadly Sins first album is pure punk-rock trucking along without pausing. Female lead vocalist Stephanie Dougherty neither screams nor does she sound like a classically trained pop-singer dropped into a mix of guitars. She's solid, straight forward, and sounds like the vocalist of a punk rock act, sometimes rough, sometimes smooth, always listenable. Really, this a fucking great record.
Yoshida Brothers - II
Label: Domo Records
Released: 2004
Genre: Shamisen, Classical
The Yoshida Brothers are famous for making the traditional Japanese Shamisen a modern instrument, by fusing the old world with the new. The second album has a lot of classical instrumentation here, with a little modern jazz as well. They let their Shamisen's do most of the work, however, and never let the old world get buried under the new. It's almost acoustic rock'n'roll.
Rough Guide To Russian Gypsies (w/ Bonus Album 'Kolpakov Duo')
Label: World Music Network
Released: 2010
Genre: Gypsy Guitar
Russian Gypsy music is much more guitar focused than any other Gypsy music I've heard. Even when vocals are included they become just another instrument with which to backup the guitar work. And some of the guitar work is fantastic. All of it acoustic. Sometimes a violin or similar sneaks in a lead performance, but most songs concentrate around some amazing string work.
The bonus CD hilights this even more, as the Kupalov Duo are two guitarists, and the whole album is The Art Of Russian Guitar, so they use even less of the other instruments than the compilation does. All of it is good uptempo music to dance to as well, very little slow music is here, all of it feels like they're trying to throw a party around each song. One of the better World Music Rough Guides I own.
Bonus Track:
Anthrax - Fight 'Em 'Til You Can't
Label: Megaforce, Nuclear Blast
Released: 6/24 2011
Genre: Thrash Metal
Anthrax finally put out some new music, not since 2004's "We've Come For You All" have the fans been able to hear anything really New. And this single track they released for free with the new-old lineup with Joey on vocals again is killer. It's all the true aggression of the 90s John Bush era, plus the amazing vocals of Joey belting out a thrash metal track that's sure to become a standard. It's fucking awesome, and available as a free download from the band or their labels websites.
[Next Weeks Audio-Bomb will be late because I'll be out of town, hopefully it'll go up late Sunday night, otherwise early Monday morning.]
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