At a time when most of the artists of his time are already with GOD or lazing around palatial bungalows living off their hard-earned pension, multi-instrumentalist Sir Paul McCartney still seems to be in his prime making good music, as ever! There are obvious traces of ‘The Beatles’ in some of the songs but that’s about it and this album isn’t like anything The Beatles or Wings (McCartney’s band with his wife) ever did!
The most notable factor (negative or positive is something I leave for you to decide!) of the whole album is the ultra-simplistic lyrics (sample this: Everybody gonna dance tonight, Everybody gonna feel alright…Everybody gonna jump and shout, Everybody gonna sing it out, Everybody gonna dance around tonight…). Such lyrics are strewn all over the place and it makes this album seem like a ‘birthday party celebrations’ cassette, occasionally. There are influences ranging from The Raconteurs in “Only Mama Knows”; Led Zeppelin and Scissor Sisters in the pop-rock of “Gratitude” and Pink Floyd in oddly psychedelic “The End of the End”. Though most of the instruments have been played by Sir Mccartney himself, this time around he has been ably supported by his tour band: Abe Laboreal, Jr. on drums, Rusty Anderson on guitar, Brian Ray on bass, and Wix Wickens on keyboards. The songwriting is top-notch, lyrics and music are thematically diverse and vocals range from downright childish to retrospectively mature.
Inspite of all the positives, I really don’t think today’s teeny-boppers would actually be able to appreciate the kind of soft-rock/pop 70’s sound that Sir McCartney has put forth in this album. All in all, this seems to be one of the better albums of Sir Paul’s solo pop career but recommended only if you are a hardcore McCartney/The Beatles fan.
When San Diego Music Award's 2006 Artist of the Year and MTV Metal Gods 2006 Awardee As I Lay Dying (AILD) release an album (their 3rd with Metal Blade Records), you can be dead sure the album is going be a classic. Released in August this year, ”An Ocean Between Us (AOBU)” is a bar-raiser for many reasons. This album is brutally heavy, lyrically diverse and musically superior to a lot of recent albums put out by bands within the same sub-genre. It is the kind of album that you would never expect of a metalcore band whose genre is synonymous with typical breakdownladen chugga-chugga sounds.