CD Review: Bl'ast! – Blood!

CD Review: Bl’ast! – Blood!

Southern Lord

All Access Rating: A-

Bl'ast! - Blood! 2013

As was made abundantly clear while waxing nostalgic about Sound City in his feel-good documentary film about the place, Dave Grohl plans to put the famed studio’s grand old Neve console – the one that brought to life the magic of Fleetwood Mac’s Rumors and Nirvana’s Nevermind – to good use.

Breathing new life into some long-lost vintage master tapes of Santa Cruz hardcore heroes Bl’ast was one of his first orders of business, and he takes a flamethrower to material that was already highly flammable, his remastering and mixing work enhancing the already concentrated violence and red-eyed fury of these unpredictable punk-rock seizures. And he’s just a bit player in this drama, as was William DuVall – now plying his trade with Alice in Chains.

Blood! is reportedly the only document of DuVall making sweet fiery hardcore with Bl’ast. Industrious rhythms and rampaging guitars that are thicker and wider than one would expect are what cause the sudden impact of Blood!, but don’t mistake activity for a lack of musicality. Still, raw power and unbridled fury course through its veins, as the aptly titled Blood! packs enough explosives into these combustible tracks to attract the unwanted attention of the ATF. From the first bruising, urgent rumblings and building momentum of “Only Time Will Tell” to the sharp turns negotiated throughout the blazing “Something Beyond,” the high-octane action of Blood! is breathtakingly fast, aggressive and relentless.

Even while Bl’ast cultivates a resonant, animalistic growl in guitar tone, something most old punks cared nothing about, on Blood! they engage in dizzying shifts of dynamics in “Ssshhh,” “Sometimes” and “Winding Down” while driving impossibly fast, but never recklessly, as they brake and stomp on the accelerator through the stop-start traffic of “Sequel.” Knowing exactly what direction they want to go, Bl’ast feverishly tears through the 1:38 “Poison” – tied for the shortest song on Blood! – as if they have three strikes against them and they’re being chased by California cops, but they never seem desperate or self-destructive.

Then again, jail might be preferable to the unsettling psychology of “Your Eyes,” made even more deliciously disturbing by heavy, almost sludgy, metallic riffs that rise up and look to the heavens for deliverance. If Minor Threat took more of a liking to Black Sabbath and explored slightly longer forms and staged more angular sonic ambushes, all while maintaining its muscular torque, they might have made the tempestuous, biting and brawny Blood! As it is, there are only a few hardcore acts with this kind of DNA, Black Flag being one of them. If Henry Rollins needs a transfusion, he might want to give Bl’ast – these raging sonic contortionists of the highest caliber – a call. http://www.southernlord.com/

– Peter Lindblad

Movie Review: Sound City

Movie Review: Sound City

Director: Dave Grohl

Roswell Films

All Access Review: A

Sound City - Dave Grohl 2013

The inner sanctum of Sound City never appeared in Better Homes & Gardens. Interiors with walls covered in brown shag carpeting and beat-up furniture that even a college fraternity would leave out on the curb would certainly offend the delicate sensibilities of its readership. From the outside, the place looked like a dump. Inside, it was even worse. But if you were a musician stepping into the studio for the first time, those record awards hanging in the hallways certainly made you overlook the shabby accommodations.

Such was the case for Dave Grohl, who made the trip down to Los Angeles in the early ‘90s with his Nirvana band mates, Kurt Cobain and Krist Novaselic, to bring their vision for Nevermind to life in the same studio where Fleetwood Mac had recorded Rumours. Understandably, Grohl has a soft spot in his heart for Sound City, and so do the numerous artists who did some of their best work there. It’s gone now, but not forgotten, having closed as a commercial studio in May 2011, and Grohl is making sure everybody understands what a special place it was with his wonderfully nostalgic tribute “Sound City.”

In his directorial debut, Grohl, in his own inimitably casual and yet excitable manner, does the next-to-impossible, making a dirty, run-down recording studio that had never seen better days seem magical. And it was. How else do you explain the existence of a room that produced absolutely perfect drum sound, even though it had none of the characteristics that drummers want in such a facility? In fact, by all rights, it should have yielded terrible drum tracks, as the producers, engineers and drummers interviewed by Grohl are only too happy to tell you. And then there’s that custom-made Neve 8028 board, the one Grohl saved when Sound City went under for good. There were only four like it in the world, and the care that went into building one helped sound men become studio legends – like Butch Vig, who produced Nevermind. 

Even going so far as to interview the maker of that very board, Grohl – playfully playing dumb while listening to Rupert Neve explain in great detail how it works – practically creates another character for his movie with that console, its wires and buttons having played such a huge role in committing some of the greatest studio performances in rock history to tape. If only that board could talk. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Metallica, Rage Against the Machine, Fear, Dio, Barry Manilow, Rick Springfield, Neil Young – all of them made records at Sound City, and in the right hands, that Neve board did God’s work. In the end, Grohl rescues it and puts it back to work, as he and the rest of the Foo Fighters record tracks with a number of artists, including Paul McCartney and Springfield, who as it so happens, provides the most poignant moment of the film.

While most the movie is a parade of warm memories and funny anecdotes – Fear’s Lee Ving providing some of the comic relief, while others talk glowingly about recording albums the old way – there’s a clearly emotional Springfield, openly expressing regret over treating Sound City owner Joe Gottfried, a man who’d dealt with him as if he were his own son, badly after he’d made it big. Gottfried’s kindness is remembered by many in the movie, as are the risks he and fellow owner Tom Skeeter took while running the studio and waiting for that big break that would rescue it from certain ruin.

As much as “Sound City” is a lively and enthusiastic study of the creative process and a not-too geeky exploration of music’s “digital vs. analog” debate, it’s also sheds light on the invaluable contributions of those behind the scenes who gave Sound City its family atmosphere. And that’s the charm of “Sound City,” an unstructured, freewheeling film that’s more of an Irish wake than a somber eulogy, where Grohl interviews practically everybody who ever set foot in Sound City and they all toast its shambolic charms with unguarded commentary, speaking of it as they would a long-lost friend. And Grohl’s preternatural skill as a filmmaker – who knew he had it in him? – shines through, as he collects all the engaging elements of this tale and pieces them together, somewhat chronologically, in a way that makes sense, even though perhaps it shouldn’t. Just like the best rock ‘n’ roll.

-        –    Peter Lindblad

CD Review: Foo Fighters - Wasting Light

CD Review: Foo Fighters - Wasting Light
RCA Records
All Access Review: A-

Aside from the bizarrely theatrical exorcism Nicki Minaj’s performed in debuting the song “Roman Holiday” to a quizzical national TV audience that still hasn’t quite figured out what in the world it was watching, the 2012 Grammys were memorable for three things: Adele, Paul McCartney’s extravagant closing number, and the Foo Fighters’ total and complete dominance in any category that had anything to do with rock music. And wouldn’t you know it? For once, the Grammys … well, they got it right.

Released almost a year ago, Wasting Light, the Fighters’ triumphant seventh studio album, finds Dave Grohl and company perfecting their tried-and-true formula of balancing big-hearted emotions with crashing, screaming, hook-filled hard rock that’s as therapeutic as burning an ex-lover’s mementos in a blazing bonfire. But, why is now the right time to reassess an album that’s been dissected and probed thousands of times by now? Four Grammys – that’s why. Well, that and perhaps it’s time to see if Wasting Light can provide any clues as to just where the Foo Fighters go from here and whether they now deserve a place at the table with rock’s greatest luminaries.  

As for the back story to Wasting Light, it was purported to be a throwback, an analog answer to today’s more artificial musical output, hatched with Pro Tools and other digital cleansers. And in many ways, Wasting Light does turn back the clock. Recorded in Grohl’s Encino, California garage using nothing but analog equipment Wasting Light was produced by none other than Butch Vig, who, of course, shepherded Nirvana’s legendary Nevermind album to immortality. One of Grohl’s old bandmates Krist Novoselic also showed up during the Wasting Light sessions to help out – playing bass and accordion – on “I Should Have Known,” and for the dramatically wistful “Dear Rosemary,” Grohl enlisted the assistance of punk hero Bob Mould to bomb away on guitar and lend his grizzled voice to a powerful duet. With the exception of Vig’s propensity for clean production and mushrooming volume and the grizzled character Mould’s vocals add to “Dear Rosemary,” none of that really mattered. In the end, it was the Fighters’ insistence on a return to a warts-and-all recording approach that favors furious energy and primal band chemistry above antiseptic, bloodless production that brought Wasting Light to a rolling boil. Of course, Grohl has had a lot to say lately about how the recording industry’s emphasis on digitally washing every song to a gleaming, spotless shine is killing music, and he’s probably spot-on about that.

Though there’s nothing on Wasting Light that approaches the awe-inspiring majesty of the gathering storm that is “Everlong,” without a doubt the most artfully arranged and affecting song in the Foo Fighters’ catalog, tracks like “Arlandria” – with its building tension and a chorus full of tricky little hooks – and the angular hit “Rope” – its aggressive stop-start dynamics taking full advantage of the band’s three-guitar attack as Chris Shiflet’s careening leads almost plow through the guard rail – speak to the album’s delicate balancing act of riding barreling grooves, torrential riffs and crashing drums roughshod over, around and through tough, indestructible melodies that refuse to be overwhelmed by any of it. As with “Arlandria,” “A Matter of Time” and “Back & Forth” surge with amplified power and roiling emotions, only to ebb slightly and reveal those gripping melodies that grab hold of your throat and don’t let go. But, as Stephen Thomas Erlewine notes in his review of Wasting Light for AllMusic.com, it’s about time that Grohl embraced the hot-wired pace and haunted desert weirdness of Josh Homme and Queens of the Stone Age – who worked with Grohl on their modern classic LP Songs for the Deaf – and he brings all of it to bear in “White Limo” and “Bridge Burning,” two songs full of horsepower that seethe with rage and practically froth at the mouth.

Top to bottom, Wasting Light is the Foo Fighters’ most consistent album. Whereas previous efforts boasted a number of memorable hits and a maddening amount of filler that fluctuated greatly from record to record, Wasting Light is surprisingly free of waste. And if the intention was to capture more of a “live” sound, which it seems like almost every band talks about doing when they’ve hit a plateau somewhere along the way, the Foo Fighters nailed it and in the process, they’ve unleashed an album that can actually be called a “classic.” It’s the record we’ve been waiting for since that eponymous debut way back in 1994 that introduced us to Grohl the songwriter and front man, roles few thought he was capable of playing. Not at all content with growing old gracefully, the Foo Fighters have proven they have plenty of life left in them, provided they focus on bringing intensity and passion to the studio and are not seduced by the siren song of Pro Tools.

What holds them back from being considered among the true giants of rock and roll is a tendency to put blinders on and charge straight ahead into the fray, while also indulging in somewhat predictable quiet-loud-and-then-louder means of song construction. Wasting Light finds the Fighters deviating ever so slightly off the beaten path – the vocals are occasionally a little more dream-like, the dynamics a little more interesting and acrobatic. Having Pat Smear’s bold and loud rhythm guitar back in the fold can’t hurt either. In all likelihood, more of the same is going to come from the Foo Fighters. They’re too far along in their career to drastically change their personality, with Grohl, Shiflet and Smear all coming from a fairly puritanical punk background. Still, if they can find different ways to experiment with tempos and make their sound as thick and intense as possible, while never losing their melodic sensibilities, the Fighters will keep be the band that couldn’t be killed. If they simply fall back on old habits, eventually the world will tire of them.

- Peter Lindblad 

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