The Strokes have always been a band that I’ve appreciated more than I’ve enjoyed for the most part. At least, their landmark debut album, 2001′s “Is This It” has been. I’ve always preferred its follow-up, “Room on Fire,” and found their third and most recent album, “First Impressions of Earth,” to be largely hit-or-miss. So it was with very few expectations that I approached “Phrazes for the Young,” the 2009 solo debut from the New York band’s frontman, Julian Casablancas. However, much to my surprise, the album is a thoroughly enjoyable and shockingly replayable little synth-pop album that’s a sharp contrast from the Strokes’ jagged riff rock.

On first listen, it may seem as though “Phrazes” is nothing more than “Strokes plus synth,” but this is not a fair assessment of the album. While it does contain traces of the Strokes’ gigantic choruses and driving guitar riffs, most of the songs on “Phrazes for the Young” are memorable in more of a sneak-up-on-you kind of way. The standout track, “11th Dimension,” rides a slithery, ’80s-style synth riff that woms its way into your head. Elsewhere on the album, tracks like “Glass” and “Tourist” are defined by subtly catchy keyboards and stop-start rhythms that take on the character of much of the best ’80s synth-pop.

The Strokes have been either on hiatus or in a creative holding pattern for a while, and “Phrazes for the Young” is a breath of fresh air. While it is unclear whether this more keyboard-friendly sound is a direction Casablancas wants to take his main band or whether it is just a solo fixation, the Strokes could do a lot worse than to adopt some of the album’s tricks.

by Sean

Billy Corgan has never understood subtlety. He’s always been about making grand gestures. What separated the Smashing Pumpkins from every other band in Alternative Nation was the fact that they were the only ones who actually wanted to be rock stars. Forget the Pixies and the Melvins – Corgan wanted to be as big as Led Zeppelin, and he very nearly got his wish for a few years in the mid-‘90s.

So it only makes sense that the first album from the reunited Pumpkins (who originally called it a day in 2000) is heavy, direct, melodic, and uncompromising. But for an album called “Zeitgeist” that features drowning-Statue-of-Liberty cover art and song titles like “Doomsday Clock,” “United States,” and “For God and Country,” there’s surprising little political content. In fact, lyrics seem, for the most part, to be an afterthought on “Zeitgeist,” and Corgan’s airy, unmistakable voice sounds surprisingly restrained. No new musical ground is broken, but “Zeitgeist” does a solid job of simulating the musical grandeur of vintage Pumpkins.

Ever the studio perfectionist, Corgan creates fuzz-drenched walls of guitars that are massive but also precise, with an absurd attention to detail that rivals Trent Reznor. The only musicians credited on “Zeitgeist” are Corgan and original Pumpkins drummer Jimmy Chamberlin (whose playing is as solid and propulsive as ever). Guitarist James Iha and bassist D’Arcy Wretzky are nowhere in sight, but they never really were originally – Corgan famously replaced their parts on the 1993 classic “Siamese Dream” with his own. As such, I take no issue with calling “Zeitgeist” a reunion album, because it basically is. Strip away Corgan’s vocals, which have admittedly lost some of their old fire, and songs like “Tarantula,” “Bleeding the Orchid,” and “Starz” could sit comfortably on “Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness.”

Corgan has always had a world-class knack for hooks, and the poppier material on “Zeitgeist” – like the genial “That’s the Way (My Love Is),” the “Zero” rewrite “(Come On) Let’s Go,” and the marimba-driven “Neverlost” – stands up best. The ten-minute “United States” was clearly intended to be the album’s epic centerpiece, but instead finds Corgan repeatedly chanting “Revolution/revolution/revolution blues” without sounding like he’s particularly invested in fighting against anything at all. It’s got a pretty sweet guitar solo, though.

Quibble all you want about this reunion only featuring half the band. For all intents and purposes, this is Smashing Pumpkins v2.0. “Zeitgeist” is a solid new beginning: only a couple of songs truly achieve the transcendence of Corgan’s prime work, but it’s never embarrassing either. How many reunion albums can you say that about?

by Sean

Def Jux founder El-P’s sophomore album, “I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead”, was released about a month before Nine Inch Nails’ “Year Zero.” And while his work isn’t as overtly conceptual as Trent Reznor’s end-of-the-world opus, the two records are strikingly similar, even beyond Reznor’s guest spot on “Flyentology.” Both came down very much on the conspiracy-theory side of the wave of Bush-bashing music, although El-P’s album dealt much more strongly with current issues, rather than “Year Zero’s” futuristic totalitarian nightmare.

In a lot of ways, El-P’s sound is an update of classic Public Enemy. He eschews the soul samples that are common in underground rap in favor of a dark, abrasive, almost industrial-leaning sound that perfectly complements the bleak lyrical themes. “I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead” almost sounds like the kind of record Rage Against the Machine would have made if they were actually a hip-hop group rather than a metal group fronted by a rapper. It’s a little bit more toned-down than his 2002 debut, “Fantastic Damage,” but it’s also musically and lyrically stronger. The blaring synths and choppy, menacing mechanical drums are molded effectively into songs that are actually memorable for their melodies.

As an MC, El-P is at the top of his game, from the hyperspeed flow of opener “Tasmanian Plain Coaster” to the slower chanting chorus of the Reznor-assisted “Flyentology.” This is not a party album, but it is accessible enough that it can appeal to the rap fanbase beyond just the underground fringe.

by Sean

I don’t pretend to be a huge Scorpions fan. Most of their more well-known, “Rock You Like a Hurricane”-era material I could take or leave, and I don’t own any of their albums besides their 1978 live album “Tokyo Tapes.” I don’t recall exactly how this disc came into my possession—it was either a gift or a radio prize, many years ago—but over time it’s become an album that I feel compelled to spin once or twice a year even though I haven’t been actively into metal for ages. As it turns out, the pre-‘80s pop-metal version of this German band was one of hard rock’s best-kept secrets.

The mid-to-late 1970s marked the unquestioned peak of the live album. “Frampton Comes Alive” was megaplatinum, and many hard rock bands were putting out career-defining albums, from Deep Purple’s “Made in Japan” to Rush’s “All the World’s a Stage” to KISS’s “Alive.” Perhaps the most influential concert recording released during this time was Cheap Trick’s “At Budokan,” which has some strong parallels with “Tokyo Tapes.” Teenage Japanese girls were clearly ahead of the curve in both cases, because both bands got the kind of rapturous responses in the Land of the Rising Sun that they weren’t getting anywhere else on the planet at the time.

It’s hard to understand why the Scorpions weren’t more popular in the Western world at this time, because the material on “Tokyo Tapes” is really, really good. Certainly as strong as anything Deep Purple or Blue Oyster Cult ever put out. Well, at least the first half of the concert is. These shows are the last guitarist Uli Jon Roth would play before leaving the band, and his impressive playing on “Fly to the Rainbow” and “We’ll Burn the Sky” make the case that he should have been looked at as an equal to Brian May and Ritchie Blackmore.

And for that matter, why isn’t Klaus Meine universally regarded as a top-5 rock vocalist? On “Tokyo Tapes,” he sounds like Robert Plant of 1972, if Plant had Freddie Mercury’s vocal range. And from the (admittedly limited) exposure I’ve had to the group’s later work, he hasn’t lost much over the years.

The album drops off after the first half, with questionably-chosen covers of “Hound Dog” and “Long Tall Sally” (not terrible, not particularly worthwhile) and a mediocre drum solo from Herman Rarebell (as underrated as the other Scorpions may be, Neil Peart this guy is not). But the first half is incredibly good, the kind of stuff that there’s no reason more people shouldn’t have known about at the time but that they just didn’t for some reason. The Scorpions would go on to have substantial commercial success in the US during the ‘80s and beyond, but this is their apex.

by Sean

Rush fans are extremely divided about the band’s mid-to-late ‘80s work. Following 1981’s landmark “Moving Pictures,” the Canadian trio moved sharply away from the prog-rock arrangements and sci-fi lyrics that had defined their work to that point, and adopted a more modern, synth-oriented sound. A lot of older fans resented this switch, which they perceived as a pop move that betrayed the group’s progressive roots. But a closer examination of this stage of Rush’s career, and in particular 1985’s overlooked “Power Windows,” shows that Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson, and Neil Peart were developing a constantly maturing melodic sensibility that complemented, rather than detracted from, their formidable instrumental chops.

On Rush’s previous two albums, “Signals” (1982) and “Grace Under Pressure” (1984), the band made heavier use of synthesizers, but this change in sound came virtually at the total expense of Alex Lifeson’s guitar. On “Power Windows,” the trio finally managed to find a balance between their fixation with new technology and the tricky instrumental interplay that defined earlier albums such as “2112” and “Hemispheres.” “Marathon” is straightforward new-wave pop, until about the three-minute mark. At that point, the song shifts abruptly into a breakdown in 7/4, with the kind of stop-on-a-dime precision that comes with Rush’s years of honing their technical ability.

One of the most common knocks on this band is that they are all technique and no hook. “Power Windows” disproves this with gusto. Neil Peart has never been the kind of lyricist who spends a lot of time looking inward, so the subject matter here ranges from capitalism (“The Big Money”) to the creation of the atom bomb (“Manhattan Project”). But these oblique subjects are delivered with some of the most immediate melodies of their career. Geddy Lee had long ago abandoned the Robert Plant wail that had drawn criticism since the band’s inception, instead adopting a smoother tenor perfectly suited to these upbeat songs. The album’s trump card is “Middletown Dreams,” a near-perfect paean to small-town America with one of the best choruses Rush has ever written. Even songs such as “The Big Money” and “Grand Designs” that layer on the ‘80s synthesizers are powered by indelible melodies.

Rush has always occupied an odd place in popular culture—they’re one of the most commercially successful bands in rock history (with more consecutive gold and platinum records than anyone except the Beatles, Rolling Stones, and KISS), and have a few songs (“Tom Sawyer,” “The Spirit of Radio”) that are nearly as ubiquitous on classic-rock stations as “Stairway to Heaven,” but they are almost nonexistent in the critical pantheon of great rock bands of the ‘70s and ‘80s. Even when they are given mainstream props, it is always somewhat backhanded. Albums like “Power Windows,” a winning mix of prog-rock chops and new-wave melodies, that exemplify why Rush’s middle- to late-period work deserves a serious critical reappraisal.

by Sean

It’s common knowledge that Kurt Cobain resented Nirvana’s level of popularity. In fact, it’s safe to say that no musician has ever made as much money off of hating to be famous as he did. This being the case, it’s more than a little weird to hear Nirvana presented as stadium-rock heroes, as they are on “Live at Reading”, Geffen’s long-overdue official release of the band’s legendary, oft-bootlegged 1992 set at the UK festival.

But in spite of the contradictions that would seem to come with a performance this high-profile by a band like Nirvana, Reading does Cobain’s legacy more good than almost any product that has been released since his suicide (the obvious exception being the band’s peerless 1994 MTV Unplugged session, to this day the finest collection of Nirvana music out there, not to mention possibly the best live album in rock history). Nirvana was a notoriously inconsistent live act, particularly in the last year and a half of their career, as Cobain’s heroin addiction spiraled out of control. But Reading captures the band at its absolute peak, still riding Nevermind’s astronomical success and delivering a jaw-dropping display of ragged fury.

The 90-minute set leans heavily on “Nevermind” songs, with a handful cuts from the band’s debut, “Bleach”, as well as the legendary singles “Sliver” and “Aneurysm,” and two basically-finished songs from “In Utero”, which was still almost a year from being released at the time. Cobain’s stage banter, which was intact on bootlegs of this show that had been circulating previously, is almost all cut from this new release, which has the effect of making the performance feel like a club gig, with the songs starting one after the other with nary a stop to catch your breath.

From Cobain’s personal diaries to the mammoth outtakes box set “With the Lights Out”, there have been more unnecessary posthumous Nirvana releases than anybody could possibly have use for, but “Live at Reading” is the only one that feels absolutely necessary. There is no shortage of books and analysis of Nirvana, but they are not often enough talked about as one of the great live acts of their era, and until now the only official document of the band’s concert work (not counting Unplugged, which was certainly not typical of the band’s raw, high-energy shows) was the enjoyable but patchy 1996 compilation “From the Muddy Banks of the Wishkah”, but that album is now The Song Remains the Same to Reading’s How the West was Won.

by Sean