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50 Foot WaveGolden Ocean 4AD/Remote Contol/Inertia Monade A Few Steps More Too Pure/Remote Control/Inertia Laetitia Sadier and Kristin Hersh are both immediately recognisable: the former as the icily cool voice of Stereolab, the latter with the throat-tearing bellow of Throwing Muses (and, more recently, as a solo artist). Both are marvellously idiosyncratic, both are fronting new bands, and both have been the victims of reviewers claiming that their new efforts sound just like their old stuff.  Frankly,
those reviewers are looking for a fight. The truth is rather more
interesting: Monade (Sadier) and 50 Foot Wave (Hersh) do sound like
they've been influenced by their parent bands, and at first listen
one could be forgiven for thinking "Lordy, but that sounds like Stereolab/Throwing
Muses!" However, anyone still thinking that after a couple of listens
is just being lazy: play 'A Few Steps More' next to Stereolab's 'Margarine
Eclipse' and you're more likely to think "why, this Monade outfit
is a damn sight more organic sounding; the playing and production
has little of the meticulous perfection that has long characterised
the 'Lab, not to mention the fact that Sadier is writing her own songs
rather than adding melody and colour to Tim Gane's completed works."
The playing is more rudimentary and a few tracks seem written solely
to showcase Sadier's trombone playing, but it has a quiet, charming
humanity that sometimes gets buried under the 'Labs layers of sound.
Things get more complicated with 50 Foot Wave. The trio also features bassist Bernard Georges, who's played with Hersh in Throwing Muses since 1995, meaning that only obvious difference between the bands is the replacement of powerhouse drummer David Narcizo with powerhouse drummer Rob Ahlers. Yet 50 Foot Wave is a very different beast to the Muses: for one thing, they rock a damn sight harder (no mean feat in itself), and there's something distinctly unhinged about the band that's utterly intoxicating to listen to. Songs like Dog Days swing with a furious joy absent from the last few Muses records, while Hersh has never roared like this before. In fact, they occasionally verge on thrash but Hersh's sure grasp of a melody and a memorable lyric always saves them from noise-for-noise's-sake. So there you have it: two excellent new albums from two very different mid-career singer/songwriters that both transcend and enhance their already-impressive musical legacies. If you like their other stuff, you'll like these; but if you didn't, now might be the time to try again.  |
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