Newspapers / Daily Tar Heel (Chapel … / Feb. 25, 1993, edition 1 / Page 12
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Page 4 • DTH • Omnibus Thursday • February 25, 1993 WXYC 1. Superchunk On the Mouth 2. Battle Serveert Palomine 3. Jawbreaker Bivouac 4. Pipe Ball Peen 5. Angels of Epistemology Fruit 6. Tom Walts The Early Years, Vol. II 7. Railroad Jerk Raise the Plough 8. Shonen Knife i Let's Knife 9. Paris Sleeping With the Enemy 10. Coleman Hawkins Rainbow Mist Top 10 1. Whitney Houston I Will Always Love You 2. Peabo Bryson and Regina Belle A Whole New World 3. Duran Duran Ordinary World 4. Whitney Houston I'm Every Woman 5. Dr. Dre Nothin'But a "G" Thang 6. Arrested Development Mr. Wendat 7. Prince and the NPG 7 8. Shanlce Saving Forever lor You 9. Naughty by Nature Hip Hop Hooray 10. Snow Informer -Billboard GMATCUTS Hair You'll Love at a Price You’ll Like! the courtyard Hr w. franklin st. 929-5-Hl MM Anil location B willow creek * shopping center B M 6020 jones fern’ (Food Lion) no appointments Dulcet Donelly tones warm the inner child Belly Star Sire/Reprise ••••• Admittedly, I get that same car nal craving for hard-ripping Sabbath-esque guitars like any other red-blooded male. But 1 also have a sweet tooth, a soft spot, a kinder, gentler yearning for the realm of dream pop. And nothing has warmed the inner child in me better than the dulcet tones ofTanya Donelly. Throughout her ten ure as second fiddle in my longtime fave band Throwing Muses (to her step sister Kristin Hirsh) and then again in the Breeders (to Kim Deal of the Pix ies), Donelly only occasionally stole the limelight from the leaders. But with her new group Belly (named after her favorite word), Donelly has assumed the forefront. Dragging along former Muse bassist Fred Abong and joining up with broth ers Thomas and ChrisGorman, Donelly has crafted an alternative pop extrava ganza that, well, kicks my little white butt, for lack of a better term. The sound that was only hinted at in last year’s 4-song EP explodes on Star like a rear-ended Ford Pinto. Maybe it’s just ’cause it was recorded in my hometown of Nashville, but the album feels as comfy as home. A dysfunctional home, but home all the same. The rockin’ Muses-ish beat is Interesting lyrics missing from Missile's latest effort King Missile Happy Hour Atlantic Records •• It’s a sad day for America. The visionary John S. Hall is famous for proposing the revolutionary call, “Take stuff from work it’s your duty as an oppressed worker,” and for extolling the virtues of a “way cool” Jesus who “turned water into wine and if he wanted, he could have turned wheat into marijuana, or sugar into cocaine.” Could it be true that this same man could be reduced to singing pointless, uncreative slop like “Detach able Penis?" Yeah, it could be true. OK, so King Missile have changed quite a bit since the olden days. The the beautiful magazine for beautiful people album KEVIN KRUSE boosted by the cotton-candy vocals of the chanteuse who is Tanya Donelly. Softly punching home the beat with lyrics like “Grass stains back bums/she’s a screamer she’s just dusted leave her,” the rollicking pseudo-pop takes a darker and richer tone. In a kind of half-hush, half-wail voice, Donelly propels many of the songs to the same old Muses rhythms she did in the days of yore in Belly tunes like “Angel" and “Dusted." And the poppin’ fresh dough of sweet Muses tunes like “Not Too Soon” comes back in “Slow Dog” and “Feed the Tree." But Donelly evolves from her near deity status of the Muses and the Breed ers into anew vocal style that ranges around the LP like Strom Thurmond in a Senate hearing. From the plaintive album-closer “Stay” to the sweet and sour of "Untogether,” she maintains a strong flow of gut-searching tones. And as much as 1 despise Pope basher Sinead O’Connor, Donelly ac tually sounds a lot like the bald one on the lullaby-turned-strumfest “Full Moon, Empty Heart.” O’Connor-ish lines like “See this child twice stolen from me” don’t hurt the comparison at all, but it’s the high pitched and then soulful singing that really nails it home. The sound of Sinead, but with half the attitude and none of the stubble. I’m sold. Though Tanya Donelly’s siren-like album MAIIKPRINDLE original clever goofball, folky guitarist Dogbowl, left a while back, and since then the music has been a more refined sort of metal-funk thing. And I suppose Hall’s lyrics haven’t all been brilliant, but hell, they were never this boring before. In the rare instances when he actually tries to be clever and witty, he’s predictable and stupid. For instance, the lines “1 wanna be different like everyone else I wanna be like. 1 wanna be just like all the different people” don’t seem nearly as sarcastic and biting after you consider that almost every song Minor Threat ever wrote (in 1981, I might add) carried pretty much that exact theme. And the hit single “De tachable Penis” goes no further than you might expect. There are 18 songs on here. I chuck led aloud at two “Martin Scorsese” (which is pretty much just a bunch of profanity, but hey, cussing’s funny) and And, which is only funny because it’s such an overdone ’7os power rock thing. The lyrics themselves are stupid and boring. 1 found four others to be kinda musically catchy in a pleasantly generic sorta way (these would be “Sink,” “Trapped,” “Detachable Penis,” and the title track, if, for some strange reason, you actually care), and I was truly an noyed by about seven of them. The rest are just boring, like Arsenio. MUSIC Lots and lots of bellies performance is enough to make this a must-buy, the other kids of Belly rock out as well. Fred Abong matches and occasionally surpasses his basslines of the Muses years. Thomas Gorman’s guitars provide a sound like Bob Mould’s newest incarnation, the alternative-pop troika of Sugar, while brother Chris keeps it up on percussion. The only thing that gets me peeved SB $ f H if m The members of King Missile surround a big rock _. tfy° u lik e early King Missile (Dog Fly Religion) stuff, you should probably just ignore this and instead grab hold of the John S. Hall/Kramer album, Real Men, which came out in early 1991 on Shimmy Disc records. It has 24 tracks, which combine the most clever stuff Hall has ever done with lots of weird samples, noises and musical mutations courtesy of Mr. Kramer (who also plays guitarfor Bongwater). It’s real, real good in my opinion much more entertain ing (and even thought-provoking) than anything King Missile or Bongwater have ever done. And it makes Happy Hour look like ... well, like an even bigger piece of crap than it is, which is no small feat. about this album is that it took Donelly this long to branch out on her own. But in the words of Linda Lavin from Alice, “there’sanewgirlintown, andshe’sfeelin’ good! got a smile and a song for the neigh borhood/ life is great when you stand on your own two feet ..." Or, to paraphrase another aging pop icon, keep your feet on the ground and keep reachin’ for the Star. King Missile are playing in Raleigh over Spring Break, but don’t worry if you miss them. With their second ma jor-label record, they’ve proven that they’re about as far past their prime as, say, Queen in 1981. Oh, excuse me, was that snotty? • forget It —watt far a bargain bin buy ••• tape It from a friend •••• buy It ••••• buy two copies
Daily Tar Heel (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
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Feb. 25, 1993, edition 1
12
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