Review Tuesday: Sade, Massive Attack and Crime In Stereo

Sade - Soldier Of Love

       Helen Folasade Adu was busy making smooth jams while the majority of you were still living inside your fathers' ballsacks. From 1984 onwards, Adu (known more famously as Sade, also the name of her band, confusingly enough) has been crafting passionate ballads in search of ways to perfect her signature sound, which came to life on 1992's Love Deluxe. The reclusive artist, who comes around and hands the world an album every decade or so, continues to slowly evolve, introducing subtle electronica elements to her music. The album's title track (and first single) is classic Sade, big on drums, reverbed percussive elements and vocal melodies, indicative of the direction of the rest of the album. Though the majority of Soldier Of Love sounds eerily similar to her previous work, the record retains enough enjoyable elements of her sound that it may be forgiven. Just call her the AC/DC of smooth R&B.

-Brian Hastie

Crime In Stereo - I Was Trying To Describe You To Someone

      As Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote, "We change, whether we like it or not." In this case, I assume that by the first "We," he also meant "our favourite bands." 

      All of you who expect a punk band—a living organism comprised of living organisms—to stay exactly the same over long periods of time are kidding yourselves. Some do it, sure. But that's not art, that's a business model. Picasso went through periods both Blue and Rose in a five-year span. Why anyone would want Crime in Stereo to put out Explosives and the Will to Use Them 2.0 now, in 2010, is beyond me, though I know that some of you must harbour such a desire in your twisted title hearts. In any case, some punk bands are more into change than others (Propagandhi, Thrice, Brand New, I'm looking at you guys) and CiS, if their fourth full-length, I Was Trying to Describe You to Someone, is anything to go on, is another band in that vein. 

      The bulk of the work is done already, of course. 2008's fabulous Is Dead was a reasonably radical break from their previous sound (and I'm not just talking about the dance beats in "Small Skeletal"); a much more drastic departure from the very solid but relatively unambitious The Troubled Stateside than I Was Trying to Describe You to Someone is from Is Dead. Even so, there are still little shifts here—and seemingly all of them come at the expense of the more straight-forward melodic hardcore sound found in their earliest work. 

      There's the sonic backmasking that goes on during the climax of "Drugwolf," undoubtedly one of the standout tracks on the album. There's the, dare I say it, Nirvana-esque chorus of first single "Not Dead." There's the acoustic singalong of the heartrendingly beautiful "Young," and the re-worked "Dark Island City," a slowed-down, elongated and de-clawed version of the all-too-short little riffgasm that appeared on The Troubled Stateside, with just as many lyrics as the original. 

      The band has not, however, severed their ties with their older material. On track eight, "Republica," Kristian Hallbert twice sings "I think I'm starting to…" and it's hard not to mentally finish his lines with "relate… / To these troubled states." "Not Dead" seems as obvious a rebuttal to the title of their last album as is possible, and the aforementioned "Dark Island City" is a nod to—and update on—a song first released almost 4 years ago. The lyrics, which mix the personal with the political, the private with the public, in as beautiful and haunting a fashion as I think I've seen anywhere in punk, are vintage Crime in Stereo in their tone, but seem a like definite improvement on past outings. These guys haven't forgotten their past, but they certainly aren't wallowing in it. 

    I Was Trying to Describe You to Someone is a very strong album, and there's likely enough melodic hardcore on it to satisfy even some of the old-school HXC die-hard fans. Nevertheless, it represents a slight evolution of their sound, and a clear step towards a more diverse sonic palette, not unlike Blacklisted's wonderfully varied 2009 full No One Deserves to Be Here More Than Me. Though both records feature somewhat ridiculous album art, if this is the new hardcore, sign me up for more.

-Alex Manley

Massive Attack - Heligoland

It is refreshing to hear a new album from a duo such as Massive attack that has been around a couple of decades now.  Heligoland is an album that remains true to Massive’s approach to trip-hop. The album leaves a lot of leeway stylistically. It chooses a strangely eclectic status by featuring many guest collative vocalists (on all but two tracks). The album is rendered something more of a joint effort which partially explains the variations in style. Each song was different from the rest not only in consequence of pooled effort but because of a confusing combination of varied time signatures, ambient noise and alternative pop riffs. The music kind of catchy but leaves you with the impression that you only have a certain tolerance for Massive Attack. Because the album is downbeat it would work to see a comedy after listening, nevertheless I believe that Massive attack was considerate enough to leave any DJ with an album which has potential for further electronic interpretation.

-Reem Wehbe