Arizona Daily Wildcat
Thursday January 16, 2003
Phish
Round Room
"Trey & Co." have finally returned to revitalize the sagging auditorium parking lot black market economics of ganja goo-ball exchanges for Tatty Porter Stouts and beaded hemp clothing.
Weeks before a monstrous return to live performance on New Year's
Eve in Madison Square Garden after a two-year hiatus, Phish released their first studio album since 2000's Farmhouse.
When a band comes off hiatus, a person has certain expectations that new time spent will make previous downtime seem worthwhile. This album does not completely satisfy.
Admittedly, Phish is a live band first; there are few bands that can touch the electric energy of their live shows. But this band has delivered many quality studio albums in the past: Lawn Boy, Rift, Story Of The Ghost and Billy Breathes to name a few.
Round Room is more unfocused than their previous attempts, even though at its lowest points ("Mexican Cousin" and "Friday") it is still new Phish to a famished fan base.
There is a feeling that they made this album to satisfy financers of the impending tours this year: Room was recorded in just four days last October.
Question for industry observers: What other band could release an album this disheveled, tour the rest of the year behind it and still end up as the single largest grossing touring act of 2003?
-Kevin Smith
t.A.T.u
200 km ...
Somewhere inside Wrong Lane there is a quality album yearning to be released. Unfortunately, that glimmer of hope is lost in a too short, too self-important effort.
It seems as if musicians and record producers have a theory that if you like a song once, by golly, you'll like it twice as much a second time. The creators of Wrong Lane not only follow this theory, they take it to the extreme.
Three separate tracks are repeated, constituting half of the entire album. Sure, the songs that are repeated, including the radio hit "All the Things She Said," are the best three on the album, but to take up 50 percent? The songs are good, but not that good.
But wait. There is a twist to two of the repeats. The ladies of t.A.T.u. are Russian, so when they repeat "All the Things," and "Not Gonna Get Us," they do it, all together now · in Russian!
All annoyances aside, t.A..T.u. really has potential. They cover the Morrissey hit "How Soon Is Now," which has an edge to it that would be awesome if kept up. Additionally, "All the Things," and "Not Gonna Get Us," have what can best be described as a bubblegum punk sound that is all the rage on MTV nowadays.
The marketing machine behind these two singers is an impressive one. It's just too bad that their "Are they lovers or not?" act will become a moot point if no one listens to their music. If they continue to release lazy albums like, that time will come sooner than they think.
÷ Paul Iiams
Troubled Hubble
Penturbia
Frat rock is dying.
It's not a quick, painless death either. No, unfortunately, it's being dragged out slowly; album after album of the same boring "look at us, we're cool," lyrics and music that only Weezer is able to pull off anymore. It's this style of self-effacing pop/punk that Penturbia attempts, and ultimately fails.
It's not quite clear what Troubled Hubble is trying to accomplish with Penturbia. They alternate sounds, moving back and forth from a band trying to appease the masses to a jam band getting together on the weekends to practice and dream about the big time. Unfortunately for Hubble, they don't really excel at either form.
The first two songs on the album highlight this problem perfectly. Track one, "Understanding Traffic," has radio eagerness oozing from it and track two, "Airplanes," may or may not have lyrics. The seemingly endless opening sequence can cause the listener to zone out and not hear the two lines of lyrics that eventually follow.
Of the twelve songs on Penturbia, at most three have the seeds of potential. "Migraine," "I Love My Canoe," and "Paper/Stone" would be passable B-sides on an album by a better band, but to be the best songs on an album is not a good sign.
Apparently, there still is some sort of market for albums like Penturbia and bands like Troubled Hubble. Small local clubs will hire such bands to perform every Saturday night. But to make it to the big time, they will need to decide what type of band they want to be.
÷ Paul Iiams
