Music review”The Scorpion King” Soundtrack, various acts
The soundtrack for “The Scorpion King” is a who’s who of the re-emergent hard-rock genre. It’s a little surprising to find so many critical and commercial successes together, especially on a soundtrack for the third installment of “The Mummy” series of movies that included 2001’s dreadful “The Mummy Returns.”
Yet here they are – Creed, P.O.D., System of a Down, Godsmack, Nickelback, Rob Zombie … Bypassing ballads, dialogue bits, instrumentals, women performers, oldies and anything else that isn’t status quo in today’s hard rock, this is continuity unheard of in a soundtrack.
Just because it’s uniform, however, doesn’t mean it’s consistently engaging.
The bigger names justify their accomplishments, for the most part. System of a Down’s complex arrangement and emotional vocals make for an invitingly complicated “Streamline.” Godsmack’s gritty “I Stand Alone,” Nickelback’s careening “Yanking Out My Heart” (which includes the great line “Let’s rip out yours instead of mine”), Sevendust’s hefty “Corrected” and Drowning Pool’s melodically nervous “Break You” are all excellent cuts.
And while Creed (“To Whom It May Concern”) and P.O.D. (a “Tweaker Remix” of “Set It Off”) travel well-worn ground, they at least do it with gusto.
Then there’s the mystifying contribution from Zombie, “Iron Head.” This track, ruined by weak and distant guest vocals from Ozzy Osbourne, was the low point of Zombie’s otherwise-solid 2001 album, “The Sinister Urge.” “Iron Head’s” faux sinister tone is echoed on the soundtrack by Mushroomhead’s “Along the Way” and Coal Chamber’s “Glow” – a goofy mood that unfortunately might be appropriate for a film starring The Rock (aka Dwayne Douglas Johnson). Apart from “Injected,” which embeds pure musicianship in the firepower of “Burn It Black,” the lesser knowns on the 16-cut soundtrack rely on generic angst and bravado, pulling down the overall quality of the compilation. But at least half of the tracks are winners.
Rating (five possible): 3It’s not about the cello or the corset, it’s about the attitude.
Rasputina front woman Melora Creager is a punk at heart, and despite her group’s Gothic imagery and tragicomic lyrics, she’s all about rebellion.
What could be more anarchistic than a band without guitars, bass or live drums? Or the spellbinding variety of sound these three cellists concoct?
Many rock fans would greet “Cabin Fever!” with derisive scoffs if they happened across it (which isn’t altogether likely). In the past, Rasputina partly deserved such a reception: 1996’s “Thanks for the Ether” and 1998’s “How We Quit the Forest” were fitfully engaging, and erratic eccentricity is one of the worst kinds of disappointments in music.
Rasputina is on the mark with “Cabin Fever!,” however. Inventively austere, Creager and fellow cellists K. Cowperthwaite and Nana Bornant saw away on their instruments, producing fetching, albeit unsurprising, tracks such as the mournfully subdued “Sweet Water Kill,” “Remnants of Percy Bass,” “Our Lies” and “A Quitter.”
But when spiced by Creager’s chameleonic singing and her dulcimer, piano and drum programming, “Cabin Fever!” gets more interesting. Take the high-voltage go-go sounds of “Rats” and “AntiqueHighHeelRedDollShoes,” for instance, or the Celtic-feeling “Thimble Island” and the staticky wobble of “Crosswalk.”
Plus the lyrics are frequently fascinating and often hilarious. Busting through the electric fuzz of “State Fair,” Creager sings about a guy who “was never like the other guys selling curly fries.” The women bury a doll on “Gingerbread Coffin” and await its resurrection, and the disturbing “Hunter’s Kiss” recounts the thoughts of a dying animal felled by an arrow.
Meanwhile, “Clipped” is a sad tale of a woman who metaphorically gathers her “downy pride” and vows to learn to walk now that her wings have been clipped. Or maybe it’s just the real story of a bird that has been rendered flightless.
Then there’s the “repulsive celebrity double date” track “PJ (plus) Vincent & Matthew (plus) Bjork,” which takes several clever and well-aimed jabs at oddball rock icons Polly Jean Harvey and Bjork. (“The rhythm, it moves my insides like sunshine jelly,” exclaims the cutesy “Bjork.”) Finally, Rasputina has a baroque breakout.
Rating: 4
“On,” Imperial Teen
Although similar to Sonic Youth in many obvious ways, Imperial Teen is far more approachable than the seminal New York group.
The San Francisco quartet is funny and unpredictable on its third release, “On,” an unpretentious album that manages to sound both hip and charmingly gawky. Lately Sonic Youth just sounds too cool for its own good.
Imperial Teen also dispenses with the self-indulgence that has taken the bite out of Sonic Youth. Instead, this earnest group of Roddy Bottum (guitar and keyboards), Will Schwartz (guitar and keyboards), Jone Stobbins (bass) and Lynn Perko (drums) quickly gets to its many points as it storms through a number of styles.
All four members sing lead on the urgent opening cut “Ivanka,” an accessible bit of dark pop that erupts at the end, but mostly Bottum and Stobbins trade at lead, with the women contributing backing vocals.
As the disc spins through song after song, Imperial Teen recalls a laundry list of other acts. The whooping and clapping “Baby” could be a deconstructed number by The B-52’s; “Sugar” carries the muffled warmth of old Smashing Pumpkins; the clanging retro-beat of “Million $ Man” has the same liberating feel as vintage New Order; and the Beatles never sound too far removed from the mix.
Most unlikely of all is “Captain,” a cut that crossbreeds the Mamas and the Papas (harmonies) with The Cranberries (guitars).
Any band that can pull off sounding like so many disparate acts clearly has skills beyond mere imitation.
Imperial Teen relies too heavily on the cheesy kitsch card, and there’s a vague feeling of emptiness once the epic meditation “The First” brings “On” to an end. But four quirky hearts are always pounding away at the core of this album.
Rating: 4
(Contact Chuck Campbell of The Knoxville News-Sentinel in Tennessee at http://www.knoxnews.com.)
(Contact Chuck Campbell of The Knoxville News-Sentinel in Tennessee at http://www.knoxnews.com.)