"Family" by LeAnn RimesCynics might see LeAnn Rimes' new record as an attempt to cash in on the Carrie Underwood-fueled demand for sassy, modern country—but with 37 million records sold over her 13-year career, Rimes has no need to prove her Nashville credentials. Returning to her country roots after a foray into the pop world, Family is a refreshingly buoyant collection of bluegrass-tinged tracks that showcases Rimes' powerhouse voice and songwriting skills. Despite her long career, these relatable tales of friends, faith and (you guessed it) family are anything but jaded—Rimes has added a new frisson to her delivery that sets this record apart from her previous work. Lead single "Nothing Better to Do" is an exuberant blend of bluegrass melody and teen corruption as Rimes recounts how she "hiked her skirt" and "played around 'til dawn," while the quick-picked banjo refrain of "Upper Hand" instructs us to ensnare men with "butter in the skillet, whiskey in the glass."
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Published: 2007-10-15
Provider: Artist Direct
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Fricke’s Picks: The Octopus Project, “Murder Ballads and Disaster Songs 1913-1938? and Roy Wood Happy Machine Music Machines don’t make music — people do. And going by the bright action-packed gurgle, bam and squeak of their third album, the Octopus Project — a mostly instrumental analog-electronics dance band from Austin, Texas — are smart pop scientists and total party animals, like Stereolab with happy feet. And a stopwatch — the thirteen songs on Hello, Avalanche (Peek-A-Boo) are all tightly composed bundles of synthesized whoop and circus-calliope cheer, dotted with throaty Duane Eddy-treble guitar and powered by prancing-elephant drumming. The closest thing here to conventional club-remix electronica is the thumping near-techno of “MMAJ.” But for all of the willful yesterday in the Octopus Project’s discothèque blend of Switched-On Bach and Kraftwerk’s Autobahn, there is a delightful, disciplined modernism in the album’s brisk parade of hooks and the songs’ densely layered brevity. Compared to the purple-surf rock of “Bees Bein’ Strugglin’ ” and the mermaid-choir effect of Yvonne Lambert’s theremin in “I Saw the Bright Shinies,” the Prodigy are so 1997. Apocalypse Then American folk and blues were, in the early twentieth century, more than entertainment. They were broadcasting. Long before there was a Fox News, country pickers the Skillet Lickers, the balladeer Blind Alfred Reed, the slide guitarist and yodeler Cliff Carlisle and the prewar blues legend Charlie Patton were the “We Report, You Decide” network of their day: adapting the terrible things that happened to good people in real life — floods, murders, train wrecks, disease, crop failures — into lyrical bulletins, waltz tunes and moral hymns that long outlived the headlines and police reports that inspired them. People Take Warning! Murder Ballads and Disaster Songs 1913-1938 (Tompkins Square) is nothing but that bad mojo made poetic. You already know some of these tales, in electrified form — Kansas
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Published: 2007-11-24
Provider: Rolling Stone
Keywords: Fricke's Picks
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RT on DVD: Juno, AVP2, and Dungeon SiegeIf you're not sick of hearing Diablo Cody this, hamburger phone that, then this week's bonus-packed release of Juno should be numero uno on your list, home skillet. Otherwise, there's plenty else to keep you company --- bring home your very own Predalien, a guy with a blow-up doll, Uwe...
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Published: 2008-04-14
Provider: Rotten Tomatoes
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Scooby-Doo: The Gruesome Game of the Gator Ghoul: Season 1: Episode 3 The gang visits Ma and Pa Skillet on a down-south showboat restaurant and run into the Gator Ghoul, an alligator-headed monster.
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Published: 2008-01-31
Provider: Movielink
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