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| Mazzy Star - She Hangs Brightly Paid - $3.99 Skulls - 2 1/2 out of 5 |
I spent the majority of my awkward school days digging Mazzy Star's So Tonight That I Might See, so I was pretty pumped to see this little fella' with his paws on the window. She Hangs Brightly, their 1990 debut, finds Hope Sandoval's trademark sleepy-head voice melting onto some 90's Doors revivalist jamming. The songs are mostly unmemorable, especially the open-mic blues ones, and the playing is just accompaniment to Sandoval's run of the mill lyrics. Overall, pretty unmemorable. It would be a few years before they settled into the post-absinthe trudging beauty of So Tonight. The great news about She Hangs Brightly? That voice. Mmmm.
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| Beck - Mutations Paid - $4.99 Skulls - 3 out of 5 |
Pretty much in the dark about what to expect when I bought this one. You can't ever tell with Beck, though his t-shirt on the cover tipped me off that he'd be playing some acoustic. And he does. The opening strums of the album, those of "Cold Brains", reveal a sea change from its weirdly awesome predeccesor, Odelay. Unlike the actual Sea Change, however, this one took a few listens before I started nodding along. To me, nobody does sublime like Beck, knocking it out of the park on the second track, "Nobody's Fault." "Who could ever be so cruel, blame the devil for the things you do?" For real, dog. The rest of the record treads the line between incantatory ("We Live Again") and unstable ("Oh Maria"). "Canceled Check" is probably his first actual country song, and it sucks big time. In the end, though, it's charming, it's a little silly, it's thoughtful. It's Beck, and it was worth the trip uptown.