Robin Mookerjee - "All By Myself"

The music industry has always released music by singers with an "interesting" vocal styles. Throughout the history of rock and roll there have been some very strange sounding vocalists, (Bob Dylan, Robert Smith, Tom Petty), but these artists were able to sing in key and present their songs with passion and energy.

Even though this critic tries very hard to find a positive side to every review, Robin Mookerjee does not offer much to be positive about. Oh, the recording is crisp and clear, thanks to modern digital equipment. But Mookerjee doesn't provide even a hint of vocal melody or passion on his songs. His digital release, "All By Myself," contains twenty tracks of drum machines, totally strange guitar work, droning keyboards, and Mookerjee's bizarre singing.

If you like music that completely lacks melody and song structure, then give Mookerjee a spin in your browser. Somewhere in Internet land, there has to be an audience for Mookerjee's music.

Freedom People: "New (R)Evolution"

It's a damn shame that there really hasn't been a powerful musical protest movement against the Iraq war. Ever since the Dixie Chicks were vilified for daring to challenge the Bush administration, other modern recording artists seem to be afraid to get overly political. While important artists like Steve Earle have dared to speak out against the war, the vast majority have decided that it's best to avoid controversy.

The Freedom People are Brad Stanfield & Periel Marr, who apply their vocal and instrumental skills upon the ten tracks on their album New (R)Evolution. Musically, the album assembles guitars, percussion, and Stanfield's and Marr's vocals into a crisply recorded folk-rock style that will sound familiar to fans of John Mellencamp or, to go back a few years, the Mama's and the Papas.

The lead-off track, "New (R)Evolution" is the most overt call for the end of the Bush Doctrine and an end to the war. Stanfield and Marr plead for a "sit in on the White House lawn," to an accompaniment of vibrato-charged guitars. Stanfield's guitar chops are solid, as he uses a wah-wah to great effect in the hard-charging "People Let's Stop the War." The duo shows off a funky side with Marr on lead vocals in "Say Love," then enters Stevie Nicks territory with the mid-tempo number "Be Here Now."

New (R)Evolution offers a good bit of varitety. The duo's voices are engaging and effectively compliment each other ("Hologram"), they know how to rock ("The Earth is My Church"), and Stanfield demonstrates his guitar chops ("Free").

The modern rock audience may find the Freedom People to be overly nostalgic, with their message of peace and love. But Stanfield and Marr are sincere in their beliefs, even if sometimes the album hearkens back to a time when people were actively engaged in demonstrating their disdain for the politics of the time.

Bud Buckley: "It's About Time"

Listen to this album while reading this review!

It's comforting to know that while Americans are facing tough times, one can always turn to music to provide relief.

Bud Buckley, along with several talented Woodstock, NY musicians, has cooked up an album full of AOR tracks that succeeds on a lot of different levels. Sometimes the album is perfect as a Sunday morning soundtrack, other times a song will grab your attention with a clever hook or a sense of urgency.

Buckley's honest voice is accompanied by a lush production of strings, guitars, and percussion. The lyrics are often poignant and occasionally humorous, as in the track "Tatoo": "Bad ideas seem so perfect when they first inflame your mind - Possibly they'll show no mercy, going from cool to lame in time."

Buckley can also rock in a rootsy, earnest manner that will be familiar to fans of Tom Petty or Bruce Springsteen ("Underground"). His quieter efforts resemble Crowded House, as acoustic guitars are deployed in an unusually effective manner ("Keeping Secrets").

It's About Time is an eclectic collection of songs that also manages to achieve a level of cohesiveness often lacking in 21st century pop and rock. Give Bud Buckley a listen, it's well worth the time.

Blackmore's Night: "Paris Moon"

There are two distinct schools of thought when discussing the career of Ritchie Blackmore. Either you are totally ambivalent and only remember him for playing the ultimate guitar riff in "Smoke on the Water," or you are a total Blackmore nut who collects everything he's ever recorded.

If you are in the latter group, you are probably already aware that his renaissance-revival band, Blackmore's Night, is not in the same league as his hard-rocking electric bands Deep Purple or Rainbow. Instead of pummeling a Stratocaster, Blackmore delicately strums acoustic stringed instruments. The band's lead vocalist and lyricist, Candice Night, is a lovely yet slightly cloying lady who could be the daughter of actress Barbara Eden. Night completely immerses her lyrics in medieval imagary, which is easily absorbed in small doses. The entire Blackmore's Night catalog represents a solid body of work that will satisfy a narrowly-defined audience.

The new DVD set from Blackmore's Night, "Paris Moon," is a live concert of the band performing in a mid-sized theater in Paris in 2006. For this concert, Blackmore and Night lead the band (bass, drums, keyboards, two lovely background vocalists) through a lively set of highly melodic medieval songs. blackmore is in charge, but he is not the star of the show. Instead, he lurks in the background, demonstrating complete command of his guitars and mandolins. His band is given plenty of room to demonstrate their chops in a variety of complex interplay that resembles classic progressive rock at times. The melding of "Past Times With Good Company" and the Jethro Tull track "Rainbow Blues" is a brilliant opening to the set, but the momentum is lost as the band seems to be unsure of their set-list. The audience is eager for the band to increase the energy level, but Blackmore resists and instead plays the uninspired instrumental track "Durch Den Wald Zum Bachaus." Fortunately, the lively tempo and solid musicianship of "Under a Violet Moon" and a creative re-visioning of the Rainbow track "Soldier of Fortune" resurrect what could be a fairly dull concert. Candice Night does her best to entertain, and she sings with precision and perfect pitch. She also plays a variety of woodwinds, which successfully add to the texture and dynamics of the songs.

"Paris Moon" is a very nicely packaged product. Along with the DVD is an 11-track companion CD of songs from the concert and two bonus studio tracks. An earlier Blackmore's Night DVD release (2003), "Under a Violet Moon," contains a livelier performance of the band at an outdoor renaissance festival. Fans of the band should consider adding the earlier DVD to their collection before purchasing "Paris Moon."

Review: Good Morning Maxfield

Bursting from ear buds in a glorious wall of post-pop extacy, the opening track of Good Morning Maxfield's debut CD, "Bound to Fly," evolves from a sweeping bell-infused instrumental passage to a high-energy vocal romp that stands up to the best modern indie music. Combining elements from 70's radio pop and modern-day acts like the New Pornographers or even the Polyphonic Spree, Utah's Good Morning Maxfield show that they have the chops to stand out in a crowded market.

It's difficult to explain why the album takes such a different turn on the second track with an indifferent sounding ballad ("Somehow") that one would expect from an American Idol runner up. Lead vocalist Stewart Maxfield possesses a very nice voice, but he sounds better when surrounded by a more energetic mix. Fortunately, the next track, "Lovers Past," with its lively tempo and stellar, melodic guitars, has a hook-laden chorus that will sound familiar to fans of classic rock acts such as the Moody Blues or ELO. The tempo slows as the band veers into Semisonic territory with "Running Again," a quiet little number that possesses a suitably pleasant melody, bells, and subtle string production.

"Spinning Wheel," one of the albums strongest tracks, finds the band cranking up the creativity, but not the volume. Opening with barely audible electric guitar, Maxfield's voice lays out fully on top of the mix. Suddenly the energy level is increased as the guitars and percussion kick in, then it's back to the haunting intro melody, and the song finishes with a solid burst of six-string magic and wall-of-sound vocals. The album continues with a mid-tempo guitar ballad ("Lovely Way to Go"), then offers up a power ballad ("Song for the Wind") that justifies its existence with a ending that blends whistling, heaps of guitars, and heartfelt singing. "Steeples" continues the formula, starting slow but finishing loud. The pace slows a lush ballad ("Julie Julia") and ends with the "Wrath to Come," another Moody Blues inspired slab of orchestral rock.

Good Morning Maxfield (the band) have the chops to create provocative, interesting modern rock music. The albums many ballads, while pleasant, do nothing to separate the band from the competition. One would expect future releases from Maxfield to offer a more challenging collection of songs.

Review Briefs: Sue Brescia, Aether, Treven Kraus

Regular readers of HitSession know that this site isn't known for reviews of adult contemporary music. HitSession is largely fueled by a passion to seek out and identify the best new independent rock and pop artists.

Which brings us to Sue Brescia, an artist who bathes her lovely voice in lush acoustic guitar and keyboard arrangements that leave very little to the imagination. Brescia, from Rhode Island, plays most of the instruments on her nine-track cd, Hope Rising. The lyrics can be poignant, as Brescia gently rants about the current state of affairs in our country in the track, "On the Way to Finding Peace:" "There's a cancer in this country, fueled by fires of greed and hate, you can feel the earth stopped breathing, as human hearts begin to break." She speaks the truth, but the listener wishes the music had more impact. Perhaps Brescia was hoping that by disguising a protest song as a middle-of-the-road track, she'd win over more listeners. It's pretty much the same formula for her other tracks ("You And I," "Passage In Time," "Stepping Stones"): Combine a sweet voice with lush arrangements, and win over fans of adult easy-listening music. Maybe it will work for Brescia, but it doesn't work for this critic.

Things are looking up as a wall of steady-downstroke shoe-gazer guitars introduce the Ohio indie band Aether. Updating the dense style of Joy Division, Aether successfully combines aggressive guitars with whispy keyboards, insistently pulsing percussion, and completely melodic yet unintelligible vocals. The result is music that is meant to be absorbed, not just simply enjoyed. Relying upon nondescript titles such as "Milk," "Alabaster," or "New Sound," Aether force the listener to form their own opinion about what the music represents. Case in point: A pulsing bass line introduces the track "New Sound." Then, zooming in like an out-of-control motorist on a busy highway, the guitars jar the listener into consciousness. There is something in the song that resembles singing, not unlike Thom Yorke's Radiohead moaning. Yet it is all completely enjoyable and bears repeat listening.

Aether are a band that deserves to be heard by a large audience. Don't pass this band up.

Treven Kraus is a guy who knows his way around the neck of an acoustic six-string guitar. His nimble fingers are capable of nearly anything, so he uses his super-powers to record solo guitar and voice recordings that sound like they belong on 20-year-old Allman Brother's albums. Kraus is the kind of guitarist that makes the rest of us drop our jaws in wonder.

"The Old Guitarist" is three and one half minutes of amazing, melodic acoustic guitar picking. This isn't masturbatory neck wanking, it's more along the lines of what you used to get from Dickie Betts and Duane Allman. "I Keep A Rollin'" is an up-tempo Delta-blues rocker that skillfully combines a couple of acoustic guitars, blues harp, and Kraus's convincing voice. The production on these tracks is stark and unpolished, and may ultimately only appeal to other guitarists. Hopefully Kraus will find a band to accompany his talents and bring his music to a larger audience.

Scissors For Lefty: "Underhanded Romance"

Even though the mainstream music industry has pretty much given up on developing and promoting new artists, there are still bands out there who are capable of pulling off an important new recording all on their own. Scissors For Lefty, on Eeeny Meeinie Records (Los Angeles), are a foot-stomping amalgamation of modern dance rock and indie pop. Blessed with instrumental skills and a keen sense of melody, the four lads toss off slick keyboard and guitar riffs with glee. Lead vocalist Bryan Garza sounds like Jarvis Cocker on a speed binge, as he easily frolics his way through the albums eleven tracks.

A fluttery-sounding piano is quickly trounced upon by a massive bass beat and stuttering multi-tracked guitars that would have made INXS cry in the opening track, "Nickels and Dimes." The chorus is a HUGE, Killers-style blast of volume and energy, determined to increase the pulse of even the most jaded listener. The band switches to a light and bouncy mood with "Next to Argyle," which is similar in scope to the Cure's "Lovecats" but possesses a whole lot more "oomph." Synthesized blips and bleeps introduce "Lay Down Your Weapons," a track that eventually manages to use every instrument and production trick that in the modern-rock handbook.

Underhanded Romance continues with pounding dance rock ("Ghetto Ways"), lushly romantic ballads ("X's Are Forever"), Pulp/Cure inspired pop heroics ("Wandering Arms"), big music that's comfortable in any Killer's fan's iPod ("Save it Cory"), and simple yet lovely modern-pop ("Marsha").

Scissors For Lefty will satisfy any fan of the bands mentioned in this review. Underhanded Romance is a fun and memorable. Even though the band obviously embraces the recent dance-pop trend, the record manages to sound fresh and original.