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Stone Temple Pilots, Joe Henry do it again
By Robert Duffy
Arts Editor
and Travis Robinson
Staff Critic
Stone Temple Pilots
Tiny Music ... Songs From the Vatican Gift Shop
Stone Temple Pilots continue to impress me.
After a mediocre debut album followed by a superb sophomore release, STP hits the jackpot with their latest release, Tiny Music ... Songs From the Vatican Gift Shop.
This album is full of a variety of sounds, styles and energy levels. Songs such as "Big Bang Baby" and "Tumble in the Rough" offer enough punch to keep the intensity wheels turning while "And So I Know" and "Lady Picture Show" calm things a bit on the musical side but still give a good slap in the face via the lyrics.
STP also journeys into the light side of lyrics and music with "Art School Girl."
"I gotta girlfriend, she goes to parties/Underground parties, Andy Warhol everywhere/She wears the leather, I wear the makeup/We'll never break up, been together for a month." The song starts off with a funky beat but is abruptly thrust into an angry guitar assault.
Perhaps the greatest STP song to date is "Adhesive." This ballad, which is a sweet journey into depression, offers more thought-provoking lyrics than you can shake a stick at.
"Comatose commodity the superheroes dyin'/All the children cryin'/Sell more records if I'm dead" sings Scott Weiland as the rest of the band coat the lyrics with a menacing, brooding musical background. "Have a listen and lend an ear/Here's a song now if ya care/We can all just hum along/Words don't matter anymore..." Right on, Scott, right on.
-R.D.
Joe Henry
Trampoline
Joe Henry's latest album, Trampoline, is like a whisper; a tumbleweed traversing the highway as you, in your air conditioned car, only swerve out of it's path to let it go it's own way.
This album is a tribute to simplicity at it's finest. Rarely does Henry stray from the two or three chords that he began with, preferring rather to examine the possibilities inherent in those chords through repetition and textured layering of tremolo and acoustic guitars and a wide variety of other instruments and musicians.
That overwhelming simplicity also highlights the heartfelt lyrical and vocal work of which Henry is well known. I'm not completely clear as to what happened to this guy but it seems that he was involved in a plane crash not too long ago and this album came after that experience.
The second track, "Ohio Air Show Plane Crash", describes the event and, along with the first track, "Bob and Ray", seems to want to build up to a crescendo but -- like that tumbleweed -- they merely roll by, making their way to the dry, parched land on the other side.
The watering hole is only a song away though, and it delivers in psychedelic, countryfield, refreshment. Not too surprisingly it also happens to be the title track (it is the most "pop" song of the album), "Trampoline", which also eludes to weightlessness.
Other songs complement and build on that whisper that defines this album and never quite lets you feel content (or is it that it makes you feel too content?). In fact this album is a success because it makes you "feel". My only gripe is that it ends too soon. -T.R.
Photo: BIG BANG BABY Stone Temple Pilot's latest album, 'Tiny Music ... Songs From the Vatican Gift Shop,' is now available in stores. The band expects to go on an extensive tour this summer. Photo furnished
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