Review: Hyperstory - Hyperstory

Hyperstory - Hyperstory
2009, Pureland Records

Hyperstory is the brainchild of Los Angeles musician C. Scott Blevins; a loop-driven mix of organic and electric/electronic rock crafted brick by brick. Blevins recorded in numerous spaces with varied personnel and setups to bring sonic variety and an old school feel to Hyperstory, his debut album. Brooklyn, NY's Julian Cassia contributed vocals to the project, and instrumental support came from Joey Waronker (Beck); Deron Johnson (Seal, Miles Davis); Chris Chaney (Janes Addiction) and a host of other friends and acquaintances. Blevins aimed to not only make a collection of great songs, but a great album in the classic sense. Hyperstory will be available on November 10, 2009.

After a brief Prelude, Hyperstory gets things moving with A Happening, a plodding mellow pop tune full of a melancholy angst that closes with something akin to Gregorian Chant. As an opener it's quirky enough to get your attention yet just bland enough to make you hunger for a bit more. Something Good takes a more vibrant tune, sounding something like The Moody Blues might if they were starting out today. Something Good has the right hooks and sound to break the radio wall with the right push. Will It Ever Change is a post-ambient rock tune with Chicago-style horns and an impassioned flair that flows from the previous, spoken word track, Mandate. Ascension gets a legitimate dance beat going and brings in the funk early and hard. The horns are here again, this time sounding a bit more like Tower of Power. This is a great instrumental track. Hyperstory closes out with two pleasant but essentially innocuous instrumental entitled A Reckoning and End Story, respectively. Both continue to vein established on Will It Ever Change and Ascension without really providing anything to the conversation.

Hyperstory is ultimately an album I walked away from with mixed feelings. There were a couple of great moments (Ascension, and to a lesser degree Something Good), but the rest just really didn't move me one way or the other. Hyperstory is a pleasant listen, but not something that compels me to come back. Perhaps it's all just a little too lush and a little too well produced; good songwriting but no risks. Risks are essential.

Rating: 3 Stars (Out of 5)

You can learn more about Hyperstory at http://www.hyperstory.com/ or www.myspace.com/hyperstoryofficial. Hyperstory drops November 10, 2009. Keep checking Hyperstory’s website for availability.

Review: Paul Turner - Clear Blue

Paul Turner - Clear Blue
2008, White Lotus Records

Sydney, Australia's Paul Turner took the circuitous root to a music career. While backpacking across America, Turner happened to hear Mason Williams' Classical Gas while staying in a San Francisco hotel. Falling immediately in love, Turner vowed to learn to play the song on guitar (he'd not played before). Returning home to Australia, he started guitar lessons. Upon conquering Classical Gas, Turner realized he'd found an avenue of expression he'd not imagined before. Soon Turner was touring as an opening act for bands like Midnight Oil and getting airplay from outlets such as Philadelphia's WXPN. In October of 2008, Turner released his debut album, Clear Blue, in the United States. One word: Wow.

Listening to Turner play guitar is revelatory. He dresses his brand of singer/songwriter rock with incredibly intricate and complex guitar parts, constructing songs that are epic short stories set to amazing guitar-based arrangements. Clear Blue opens with City Lights in a gorgeous finger-pick arrangement. Turner's voice is strong and clear and soars over the music like a bird over the ever moving streets his music seems to portray. Be Happy is a love song of sorts. It’s not your typical romantic ballad but much deeper, expressing a much deeper meaning of love that tends more to the universal than the individual. Turner delves deep again on Angels Cry, a lushly arranged song with deep philosophical roots. This might be the loveliest arrangement on the album, although it kept making me think of Seal's Don't Cry for some reason.

Love Meteorite is a must hear. The complex guitar work, amazingly memorable medley and intelligent lyrics make this song an absolute keeper. This is mix-tape material, but there may also be a religious sub-text here that's quite deeply planted if intentional, or perhaps quite telling if it is not. Room is my personal favorite on Clear Blue. The vocal is haunting on a par with Chris Isaak's Lady In Red, and the guitar/cello/voice arrangement is perfectly conceived and delivered. Other highlights include Come With Me, Carcassonne and the instrumental, Clear Blue.

Paul Turner is a distinctive talent. His writing and guitar play may take a musical background to fully appreciate, but are accessible to anyone with the time and space to listen. Turner's voice is hauntingly beautiful and soars over his songs in unrepentant fashion. It's really hard to think of contemporaries for Turner, because there aren't many writers/performers with the level of virtuosity that Turner shows on Clear Blue. Names like Paul Simon and Sting come to mind, but Turner also calls up folks like William Ackerman for his out-of-the-box guitar style. However you choose to classify him, you'll be happy you listened. Clear Blue is a Wildy's World Certified Desert Island Disc. Don't miss it.

Rating: 5 Stars (Out of 5)

Learn more about Paul Turner at www.myspace.com/musicbypaulturner. You can purchase a copy of Clear Blue at Amazon.com.

Review: Boney James - Send One Your Love

Boney James – Send One Your Love
2009, Concord Records

Boney James is prolific. Thirteen albums in seventeen years, including four RIAA certified gold albums, four #1 albums and three resulting Grammy nominations is quite a track record. James cut his teeth touring and doing session work for the likes of Morris Day, The Isley Brothers, Randy Crawford, Ray Parker Jr. and Bobby Caldwell. Boney James is for all intents and purposes the founding father of urban jazz, and has influenced an entire generation of jazz musicians. His latest release, Send One Your Love, is a theme record based on the sort of music Barry White and Marvin Gaye made their own.

Send One Your Love opens with the smoothe sounds of Wanna Show U Sumthin’. Breaking down the barriers between jazz and pop with a slow jam vibe, Wanna Show U Sumthin’ makes a great listen. Send One Your Love is a bit lighter, set in an exquisite arrangement full of layered sounds. Stop, Look, Listen comes back to an acoustic base that seems to work best with Boney James’ sax. Don’t Let Me Be Lonely Tonight is pure soul, featuring newcomer Quinn (Atlanta, Ga) on vocals. Quinn has pipes that rank up there with Seal, and this arrangement works to feature his distinctive voice perfectly. City Of Light is one of my favorite tracks here. Boney James is inspired on this one, dancing in and out of the arrangement like the life of bees.

Boney James has been around for a long, long time, and continues to please old fans while making new ones with each release. Send One Your Love will not disappoint existing fans and is accessible enough to spread the gospel of Boney James to a new generation. Send One Your Love is great listening.

Rating: 3.5 Stars (Out of 5)

You can learn more about Boney James at http://www.boneyjames.com/. You can pick up a copy of Send One Your Love at Amazon.com or wherever music is sold.

Review: El Dorado - En Busca De Eldorado

Eldorado – En Busca De Eldorado

2008, Eldorado

Madrid has a secret, and it’s one that won’t keep. Madrid might just be home to the best new classic metal band around. Fans of Rainbow, Deep Purple and even Whitesnake will want to take note, Eldorado is the real deal. Combining a killer rhythm section with soaring guitar riffs, big choruses and a charismatic lead vocalist in Jesus Trujillo, Eldorado has found a winning Rock N Roll formula. Their debut album, En Busca De Eldorado, was produced by Richard Chycki whose worked with such august artists as Rush, Seal, Aerosmith, Sum 41, Kid Rock, Def Leppard, Pink and Dolores O’Riordan.

Eldorado mixes heavy blues, rock and classic 1970’s metal sounds into a musical patois that is both comfortably familiar and at the same time new and edgy. En Busca De Eldorado is eight tracks deep, with seven in Spanish and one in English. Even if you don’t speak Spanish, the musical language here is universal. En Busca De Eldorado opens with Abril, which has a real Def Leppard feel to the verse. Crushingly melodic guitars drive this song home while Trujillo goes soul-metal in a performance that is highly memorable. Guitarist Nano makes the point that he’s a force to be reckoned here with some incredibly hot soloing. Whereas Abril has a brooding core, El Final springs out of the gates with a lively beat and takes to the open road. Eldorado is a well-oiled machine here, rocking for all they’re worth. The harmonies on the chorus will hearken back to a time when most hard rock acts could really sing.

Un Mal Presentimiento sounds like something you might have seen on MTV in the hair band days of the mid-1980’s. Eldorado doesn’t skimp on the quality here, building a layered sound that is both melodic and edgy. Dejame Decirte sounds like a big rock ballad, fairly typical for the genre, but Trujillo’s vocals keep it more than interesting. En Busca De Eldorado goes for the big, soaring guitar sounds you might expect from Ronnie James Dio, although the song itself is a bit more polished and commercial than Dio might end up with. My favorite song here is El Jugador. Eldorado reaches down and grabs hold of an infectious blues core on El Jugador and refuses to let go. The result is a song that just won’t get out of your head. Mistreated is the only English Language song on the album, dealing even more keenly in a blues-heavy hard rock sound. You can tell the band is having fun on this one, waltzing into Prog territory with the song structure and even stepping on the toes of Led Zeppelin in a musical dance you won’t want to miss. The album closes with Identidad, the most ambitious rocker on the album; sure to be a concert favorite.

Eldorado is one of the most resilient and hardest rocking classic hard rock bands on the scene today. The fact that most audiences in the new world have never seen them aside, Eldorado is a band to watch. With a growing Latin American population and the addition of a few more English language songs, Eldorado may be on the precipice of jumping of the EU and taking over the rest of the Western Hemisphere. En Busca De Eldorado is amazing.

Rating: 4.5 Stars (Out of 5)

You can learn more about Eldorado at www.myspace.com/enbuscadeeldorado or http://www.enbuscadeeldorado.com/. You can purchase a copy of En Busca De Eldorado at www.cdbaby.com/cd/eldoradomusic.

Review: Kirsten Price - Guts & Garbage

Kirsten Price - Guts & Garbage
2008, KPI

Female vocalists who can sing soul music are all the rage again. Names like Christina Aguilera, Amy Winehouse, Macy Gray and Joss Stone sell CDs, MP3s and concert tickets by the boatload, but all have surrendered something of themselves to the music industry and its producers. London born and New York City based Kirsten Price brings the same kind of presence and big voice to the table, but Price eschewed the major label path to maintain total creative control over her material. Her debut album, Guts & Garbage is the true test of whether it's worked. Early returns suggest Price did the right thing.

Price worked with producers Frederick Sargolini, Raphael Saadiq (Tony! Toni! Tone!) and Danny Saber (David Bowie, Madonna, Seal) in the process of creating Guts & Garbage, but all on her terms and in her own way. The end result is one of the most daring and hottest records to be released in 2008. Price mixes Soul, R&B and Rock with ambition and raw sexuality that will melt speaker wires, warp amplifiers and probably require a cold shower when you're done listening. Opening with Magic Tree, Price sets to tone quickly with a sultry vocal against minimal instrumentation just to show she's got the vocal goods. Pop and R&B music hasn't seen an opening so sultry in a generation, and Price is just getting warmed up.

All Right dances on a reggae beat and Price's meaty alto sound. Price will remind folks of Fiona Apple right off the bat, but Price can sing rings around Apple. She's got that low, husky alto that turns heads but she can also break out into an upper register with complete clarity and a glorious sound. Fall mixes spoken word French and sung English in a dark and mysterious love song that resonates in transformation through the major chord chorus. Crazy Beautiful is set to be a major pop and dance hit for Kirsten Price. It has the same infectious energy as Lou Bega's Mambo #5 but with real attitude. Don't be surprised if Crazy Beautiful is a major international hit. Ten years ago it would have been guaranteed. With today's fractious music business and one-note radio wasteland it might take a bit longer, but this song is huge.

Let Me Go opens with a gorgeous orchestral prologue that morphs into an electronic play land in which Kirsten Price can let her voice play. Price makes the most of it here in a piece that is vaguely reminiscent of Milla Jovovich's esoteric The Divine Comedy. Let Me Go mixes elements of R&B, rock and electronic ambience into a rough and beautiful soliloquy that is absolutely unforgettable. Possibilities allows Price one more opportunity to turn your speakers to mush with a vibrant and sensuous performance that will leave listeners more than a little unsettled. Other highlights include 5 Days Old, Freedom and Red Hot.

Kirsten Price isn't the next in a line of Soul/Pop vixens; she's the new face of Soul influenced rock music. Guts & Garbage is more than its name, offering one of the most moving most exciting musical performances I've heard in some time. Kirsten Price is the sort of iconic voice and character the music industry's been waiting for. It's easy to imagine her, twenty years from now as the new Queen of Soul Music. For right now, she's creating on the most vibrant and exciting mixes of Soul, R&B and Rock we've heard in many years. If you don't believe us, consider that some of her tracks have been featured on The L-Word, CSI and Cashmere Mafia even before the album came out! Guts & Garbage is a Wildy's World Certified Desert Island Disc; an instant classic.

Rating: 5 Stars (Out of 5)

You can learn more about Kirsten Price at http://www.kirstenprice.com/ or www.myspace.com/kirstenpricemusic. You can buy a copy of Guts & Garbage at StretchTheSkies.com or at Amazon.com.