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Creative
Differences
The
Apex Theory
Topsy-Turvy
(Dreamworks)
As a Southern California-bred band featuring three members
of Armenian ancestry, the Apex Theory won’t be able to avoid
instant spot comparisons to System of a Down, the band who
first put Armenia into the collective musical consciousness
of today’s modern metalheads, even if many of them still think
it’s a really cool neighborhood somewhere near Hollywood.
And, to be fair, such comparisons are certainly understandable,
since the Apex Theory mine some of the same Middle Eastern,
Mediterranean and Central Asian melodic motifs that make System
of a Down’s music so stunningly original—and they produce
music of consistently high quality and creativity, just like
their better-known brethren.
But there are important differences between the two bands,
too. Singer Andy Khachaturian’s voice, for starters, which
is closer in tone and timbre to the Red Hot Chili Peppers’
Anthony Kiedis at his least cock-rocking than it is to the
hair-raisingly operatic stylings of System’s Serj Tankian.
The Apex Theory’s sound also features a far more experimental
bent when it comes to guitar and keyboard figures, while their
tempos and rhythms tend to be a bit less tortured than System’s
favored start-stop, fast-slow, up-down assault style.
And a final difference: The Apex Theory’s new album doesn’t
quite capture the fascinating intensity of the band’s
live performances, while System of a Down have only built
upon their live reputation by releasing records of equal brilliance
and power. But if you can force yourself to stop making those
comparisons (which I can’t do), then Topsy-Turvy stands
a good chance of sneaking up and surprising you with its fresh,
original take on modern rock music. Even if others have done
it all before them.
—J.
Eric Smith
Trey
Anastasio
Trey
Anastasio (Elektra)
Good-time
grooves with a pinch of soul characterize a decent solo debut
by Phish front man Trey Anastasio. Whether the material lends
itself to live performances is hard to gauge, however; like
many Phish songs, these go on too long, particularly “Push
on ’Til the Day,” “Ray Dawn Balloon” and the quasi-funky,
granola-retro “Night Speaks to a Woman.” Anastasio’s defiantly
rhythmic band are the kicker more than the tunes. Sparked
by Burlington, Vt., bass legend Tony Markellis (he cofounded
Kilimanjaro, the state’s ’80s answer to Weather Report) and
drummer Russ Lawton, they’re capable of textural variety and
surprising sophistication. The good tunes span “Alive Again,”
the bucolic “At the Gazebo,” the windswept “A Flock of Words”
and “Cayman Review”; the last is a likely candidate for a
set closer. The lyrics are less memorable than the music,
but that may not matter. Music like this aims for good times,
and on Anastasio’s first official step away from Phish, it
hits the mark most of the time. It would have been more accurate
to call this an album by the Trey Anastasio Band, because
the collective spirit shines through more than any particular
individual. At worst, this is Parrothead funk. At best, it
evokes the dynamism of the group who backed Janis Joplin on
Pearl, her last, and best, album.
—Carlo
Wolff
 Warren
Zevon
My
Ride’s Here (Artemis)
Warren
Zevon’s first disc for Artemis Records, 2000’s Life’ll
Kill Ya, was a brilliant, career reinvigorating and redefining
record, filled with strong, personal songs and lovely, lean
arrangements. A tough act to follow, you bet, but My Ride’s
Here’s opening track, “Sacrificial Lambs,” is such an
ass-kicker that it seems, for four minutes or so, that Zevon
is up to the challenge.
But then there’s the little problem of My Ride’s Here’s
other 35 minutes, which disappoint in most of the ways that
Zevon’s usually capable of disappointing. Gone are the raw,
self-reflective ruminations of Life’ll Kill Ya, replaced
by all sorts of smarmy yuck-yuck-yuck material, often co-penned
by such smarmy, yuck-yuck-yuck lyricists as (among others)
Hunter S. Thompson, Carl Hiaasen and Paul Muldoon. Or Mitch
Albom, who collaborates on the album track most likely to
replace “Werewolves of London” as Zevon’s most famous novelty
tune, “Hit Somebody! (The Hockey Song).”
It’s a bad, stupid song, made badder and stupider by a lowest-common-denominator
play-through by The David Letterman Show’s house band,
whose slick, middle-of-the-road sheen colors most of this
album’s performances. Just plain forgettable blah,
for the most part. As, alas, are many of Zevon’s compositions
here, not to mention the fact that they are uncomfortably
self-derivative, with “Basket Case” evoking Life’ll Kill
Ya’s “Porcelain Monkey” and “Lord Byron’s Luggage” marred
by a pennywhistle melody lifted from “Roland the Headless
Thompson Gunner.”
And that ain’t the only pennywhistle on the album either,
since that lazy (or poor) man’s token nod to Irish music appears,
annoyingly, pointlessly, on several other My Ride’s Here
songs. I keep waiting for Celine Dion to pop up and warble
every time one of them starts playing, and that sure ain’t
the mental image that I want when I listen to Warren Zevon.
So, yep, I’m disappointed as hell by this album, since Life’ll
Kill Ya was my record of the year in 2000, and this one’s
easily a contender for 2002’s worst. Pity that “Sacrificial
Lambs” wasn’t just released as a single.
—J.E.S.
John
Vanderslice
Life
and Death of an American Fourtracker (Barsuk)
As
with last year’s Time Travel Is Lonely, the new album
by John Vanderslice offers up its dozen songs under one conceptual
umbrella. The tunes relate to one another as a song cycle,
rather than carrying the narrative thread of a musical or
an opera. There are glimpses of loss and death, as in “Nikki
Oh Nikki,” in which the narrator sings to a friend who lost
a girlfriend to someone else in the mid-’90s, assuring him
first that “he’s going to die,” then “she’s going to die,”
and finally that everyone will die.
Throughout the work, there’s a stately classicism that sounds
like what Procol Harum might’ve been had they been born 30
years later, without any R&B leanings, in America during
the era of portable home-studio setups. Only time will tell
if Vanderslice’s penchant for poetic obfuscation ultimately
will blur his equally resilient gift for songsmithing and
inventive pop musical arrangements.
—David
Greenberger
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