When I first heard of the San Francisco-based group Brian
\nJonestown Massacre, I imagined the group’s sound to be a rather
\nwild, even punkish, form of rock. Just the name of the Anton
\nNewcombe-led group conjured up images of uncontrolled fury – why
\nelse merge the name of the late Rolling Stones guitarist with one
\nof the worst mass suicides ever seen?<\/p>\n
Boy, imagine my surprise when I first popped this disc in the
\nplayer. The 13 songs on their latest release,
\nStrung Out In Heaven<\/i>, were hardly the uncontrolled panic I
\nexpected. If anything, Newcombe and this loosely-grouped
\ncollaborative of musicians have taken the sound of the
\nLet It Bleed<\/i>-era Stones and brought it into 1998…
\ndamn.<\/p>\n
Oh, it’s not that the music contained on this disc is terrible;
\nBrian Jonestown Massacre does capture the sound and essence of the
\nmusic rather well. Tracks like “Going To Hell,” “Wasting Away” and
\n“Love” all capture the attention of the listener in a very positive
\nmanner. The contributions from bandmates Matt Hollywood, Jeffrey
\nDavies, Joel Gion and Dean Taylor all positively contribute to this
\nproject.<\/p>\n
So where can I be disappointed in
\nStrung Out In Heaven<\/i>? Two areas, really. First, while the
\ncapturing of the Stones-like sound is admirable (especially putting
\nan alternative spin on it), Newcombe and crew rarely deviate from
\nthat formula on this album, making many of the songs blur together
\nin an almost unrecognizable mish-mash. Make sure you’re watching
\nthe CD player, or you might have a hard time keeping track of when
\n“Spun” ends and “I’ve Been Waiting” begins.<\/p>\n
Second, in their effort to capture an older sound on this album,
\nit almost feels like Brian Jonestown Massacre have given up their
\nown individuality – something I don’t think was the original
\nintention. Newcombe’s mirror of the ’60s sound, down to the vocal
\nsneer a la Mick Jagger, makes this feel more like a collection of
\nStones outtakes than a modern-day band’s most recent effort. Had
\nthe band injected a little more of their own sound to this project,
\nI think things would have been radically different for the
\nbetter.<\/p>\n
Does this mean that there is no originality on this album? I
\ndidn’t say that; you can hear glimpses of where the band members
\ninject their own flavor into the mix. All I am suggesting is that
\nmore of that flavor should have been included on this album to give
\nit its own unique style, not just a ’60s-sounding effort that
\nhappens to be alternative rock.<\/p>\n
Again, it’s not that
\nStrung Out In Heaven<\/i> is a bad album; no, it’s an enjoyable
\nlisten that should attract fans of a few different genres. But in
\nthis case, instead of looking backwards into the future, Newcombe
\nand crew would have been better suited keeping the car out of
\n“reverse”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27954,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[7553],"rating":[5614],"class_list":["post-39345","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-brian-jonestown-massacre","rating-rating-c-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39345"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39345\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39345"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=39345"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=39345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}