Randy Newman - Harps and Angels
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A savvy storyteller with an acid-tipped language, Newman packages yarns in a voice that is the sonic equivalent of an Emmett Kelly clown face, naturally hangdog while subtly playful as he reminisces about life's rough patches on Potholes. Folksy yet cerebral, he's deadpan as he snipes at the moneyed elite on the clarinet-lined Dixieland lilt of Easy Street, and uncorks a cautionary tale with sharp edges alongside the title track's swaying piano flow. A button-pushing conversational manner is his most incisive tool, one he wields past the boundaries of comfortable discourse to spin a farcical hoot of a proposal in Korean Parents. He pours derision upon artistic compromise and ingrained societal inequities in A Piece of the Pie. Less outraged than analytical on the cool, country-style rumination A Few Words in Defense of Our Country, he offsets his suggestion that modern America is the end of an empire with amusing asides, but never weakens the impact of those darker contemplations. Essential download: A Few Words in Defense of Our Country — Thomas Kintner OXFORD COLLAPSE
BITS
SUB POP After graduating from Strokes-y newbies on Some Wilderness to Feelies-influenced art-rockers on A Good Ground, Brooklyn's Oxford Collapse jumped to Sub Pop for 2006's immensely likable Remember the Night Parties. Album 4 finds them shelving that trademark tangle of guitar for noisier yet sharper anthem-making. Some songs rocket forward like vintage Buzzcocks or Superchunk, while others, such as the cello-kissed A Wedding, are quieter and prettier. But the trio still traffics in grabby, half-shouted refrains — mostly coming from guitarist Michael Pace — starting with the memorable opener, Electric Arc: I can't remember things / I just don't know what to do. Oxford Collapse reportedly wrote 30 songs for this record, keeping most of them short and not finishing the lyrics on many until right before they were put to tape. That would explain the more straightforward feel of BITS, and why the band can't quite match the heady, smart-acre highs of Remember the Night Parties. With that said, by this point Pace has an incredibly tight musical bond with bassist Adam Rizer and drummer Dan Fetherston — each of whom...
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