Kylie Minogue

Fever

Capitol

It’s hard to deny that there are some great musicians coming out of the British club scene right now. Australian Kylie Minogue is not one of them. Although the single “Can’t Get You Out of My Head” has been bopping up the dance charts, Kylie’s new album, Fever, is unlikely to do much for her reputation.

While “Can’t Get You Out of My Head” is admittedly infectious, your toes stop tapping pretty swiftly after the fifth song with the exact same electronic pulse. Kylie’s voice, so thin and reedy that it makes Britney Spears sound full-throated, is completely overpowered by the pulsing electronica. Even when her voice can be picked out of the beeps and blips, lyrics such as “There ain’t a surgeon like you any place in all the world/ So now, shall I remove my clothes?” will make you wish you had not taken the trouble to listen that closely.

The majority of the songs on the album were obviously intended to become dance anthems in the vibrant London club scene. The album wavers between the campy ’70s disco groove of “More, More, More,” the grittier, early ’80s club sound of “Love at First Sight,” and the edgier, more modern sound found on the title track “Fever.” One of the more interesting turns on this album comes when Kylie attempts to prove her validity as an artist on the track “Burning Up.” The song begins with the interesting concept of combining folksy acoustic sound and lyrics, before getting swqmped in a pulsing, electronic chorus. The song ends up sounding like a derivative of Sheryl Crowe’s “Santa Monica Boulevard” distinguished only by Kylie’s generic techno chorus. While Fever certainly has its share of potential club hits, two aspirin and a good night’s sleep would make it all better.

—Emily Porter

The Chemical Brothers

Come With Us

Astralwerks

The new Chemical Brothers album Come With Us is an invitation to jump on board this frenetically-paced breakbeat juggernaut. Rip it out of the plastic, stick it in the CD player. Bounce around the room. The album opens strongly and with no hesitation or introduction the fat electronic beats begin.

“Galaxy Bounce” made an appearance on the suitably funky soundtrack to Tombraider, so it’s easy to imagine what the title is referring to. The album moves smoothly into the current single, “Star Guitar,” perhaps the most explicit example of The Chemical’s new sound. The song blossoms into a lush melody with the subversive lyrics “Feel what I feel, take what I take.” Yet the female vocals and acoustic guitars are surprising, not the subversion.

Taking this less frantic idea even further, “The State We’re In” is a slow, sad electronic ballad. Who would have thought such a song possible from the kings of the frantic, distorted electric beat? That idea is still present though, permeating the background, and at the end of the song it takes over. Feel the need to bounce.

The driving breakbeat rhythms are everywhere in this album, and that’s what gives it its strength. Check out “Pioneer Skies”: A great track and no words can convey the overpowering urge it sets off to dance. Come With Us may not have immediate dance-floor fillers found on the Chemical’s 1999 release Surrender like “Hey Boy Hey Girl” or “Out of Control.” But overall, it is a better album: Come With Us is more diverse, but at the same time more unified in its overall scope. When the album finishes, there’s only one thing left to do: Stick it on repeat and bounce some more.

—Daniel M. S. Raper

Ben Kweller

Sha Sha

ATO Records

Ben Kweller is not your run-of-the-mill child prodigy. Born in 1981 in Greenville, Texas, he formed his first band at the age of 13, and was signed by a local record company the next year. In 1996, his band, Radish, was the subject of a bidding war that garnered national attention. The band broke up in 1999 and Kweller moved to Brooklyn to begin his solo career. In the years following he opened for Guster and Evan Dando tours, while also releasing the short EP Come Home. Finally, at the golden age of twenty, he has released Sha Sha, his first solo album, which comes courtesy of the talented people at Dave Matthew’s ATO records.

The long awaited album, produced by the experienced Stephen Harris (Dave Matthews, U2), is an original, catchy and downright enjoyable debut that lives up to Kweller’s immense potential. Kweller displays his versatility with song styles ranging from acoustic folk on “Family Tree” to pop on “Walk On Me” to rock with “Commerce, TX”, effectively defying categorization. Some songs, particularly “Wasted and Ready” are reminiscent of Weezer, but the most apt comparison is to singer-pianist Ben Folds, particularly on piano-dominated songs like “In Other Words.” Although Kweller is gentler to his piano and his vocals are less jarring than Folds’, their voices sound similar and both use a wide-range of musical styles.

Kweller’s lyrics reflect his eccentric personality; one could argue that they’re either poetically insightful or complete nonsense. “The butterflies are passive/aggressive/ And put their problems on the shelf/ But they’re beautiful” he croons on “In Other Words.” As Kweller, still too young to drink legally, matures and continues his musical experiments, we can look forward to decades of refreshingly unique music. In the meantime, try to hitch a ride to his show when he opens for Dashboard Confessional in Worcester on April 4.

—Nathaniel D. Myers

SOiL

Scars

J-Records

SOiL’s major label debut, Scars, explodes from the Windy City with a hard-rock radio blend of melodic hooks and crunching riffs. This nu-metal outfit manages to temper the simplicity of drop-d tuned chunk metal with alt-rock and cock-rock attitude. The band keeps it simple. They don’t blend hip-hop, they don’t dose tracks with techno-loops, but stick to simple meat and potatoes rock-metal power, with an occasional decrease in distortion for a few seconds of sensitivity. Catapulted by their debut single, “Halo,” the band is threatening to leave behind their Ozzfest second-stage brethren and move into the mainstream.

Beginning with, “Breaking me Down,” SOiL asserts its style immediately. This up-tempo opening track opens with a feverish drum line whose pace is so furious that it seems on the verge of falling out of step with the halting and heavy riff layered upon it. McComb shows off his ability to dynamically shift vocal tone, without stretching his overall range. His thick-throated melody is reminiscent of Creed’s Scott Stapp with a lot less Jesus and a lot more animosity, while his more aggressive growls and screams are akin to Pantera’s Phil Anselmo.

“Inside” showcases the band’s juxtaposition of pulsing and brooding heaviness with haunting and hummable melody. Initially the guitars thud as McCombs sings in a low eerie tone, then a flickering and sweetly sad bridge ushers in a memorable chorus. Crooning “Everything is right here/ Color me unsold/ Everything is right here inside,” McCombs forges his own sound, though some listeners might find his softer timbre akin to Alice in Chains’s Layne Staley.

With punishing but radio-friendly guitar riffs and aggressive but tuneful vocals, SOiL’s Scars toes the line between hard rock and metal, and manages to entertain from start to finish. For those who are interested in nu-metal without the “I’m sixteen and I hate my Dad” kiddie-angst, SOiL’s Scars may well be an album to heal the ear.

—Michael T. C. Packard