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MUSIC ZONE
Beyoncé — 4 (Sony)
Saurabh & Gaurav  FROM the opening
lines of the crushing 1+1, Beyonc`E9’s voice is ripe
and full-bodied, and the glow continues through until the climax
of the album’s last track. I Care rolls in on
meditative percussion and low-profile synthesiser drones,
surging during a therapeutic chorus. Meanwhile, Rather Die
Young is 4’s best foray into grown-up music, channeling
Anita Baker-era R&B before Beyonc`E9 pays tribute to Luther
over sunny-day synths and finger snaps on Love on Top.
Martika’s Love, Thy Will Be Done is conjured in the
Frank Ocean written I Miss You, which boasts a sound
design of ambient synths that expand and contract as they
progress through their chords, maintaining an even level of
intensity throughout. The song climbs higher and higher, chorus
by chorus, until Knowles reaches her apex, delivering some of
her best vocals on the album. Elsewhere on the album are the
swinging Love on Top, the Caribbean drum-n-bass hybrid Countdown,
and album highlight End of Time, a joyfully vibrant
collision of Afrobeat and Latin jazz. Ryan Tedder adorns the
soaring waltz I Was Here with strings, guitar tremolos,
and forlorn pianos. Moving from there to the slowly spreading
synth notes and drum-machined/hand-clap rhythm track, I Still
Care takes a drift of Peter Gabriel’s Salsbury Hill
with her voice moving from silken to powerful, suggesting 4 is
an album about the voice of the woman, who played Etta James in
Cadillac Records. Party, co-written by Kanye West and
featuring Andre 3000 of Outkast, is a slow paced number that
sounds like a remix of a Human League song. 4’s strongest
track makes its appearance closer to the end of the album,
sandwiched between the promising horns of End of Time and
the aforementioned Run the World (Girls).
Best track:
Run the World (Girls)
Worst track:
Rather Die Young
Rating ***
Eleanor
Friedberger — Last Summer (Merge Records)
 Eleanor
Friedberger invites listeners on a dreamy journey to her past on
her debut solo outing. The album carries over many of the themes
and obsession of her work with brother Matthew, but it severely
restricts its scope and vision in order to give the songs a new
personal poignancy. Combining the experimental pop of The Fiery
Furnaces with Friedberger’s soaring vocals, Last Summer
is an enchanting, intimate look into a season in the city. My
Mistakes, along with its accompanying video, has been making
its internet rounds for the past month or so, and it’s easily
the album’s catchiest number, tossing saxophones into a sonic
playground that keeps things pleasant by resisting the urge to
reach for the extreme. Glitter Gold Year bonds faintly
pounding pianos with boasting vocal melody, giving off a
shoulder-shrugging impression that belies the theme of the song.
She captures the dreamy, sentimental experience of recalling the
past, at times romanticising and at others sternly reflecting.
On Scenes from Bensonhurst, Friedberger flips through a
series of memories, tracking, in near-cinematic form, the arc of
a relationship that eventually went nowhere. While songs like Owl’s
Head Park and One-Month Marathon deliver a healthy
dose of melancholy, the album’s overall variety injects
pleasure at just the
right moments.
Best track:
My Mistakes
Worst track:
I Won't Fall Apart on You Tonight
Rating ***
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Album of the
month
R.E.M. —
Life’s Rich Pageant (Capitol)
 Now 25 years
old, Life’s Rich Pageant gets a double disc reissue full
of demos from the 1986 recording sessions that showcase
this golden age of the Athens, GA band. The remastered
version of the album emphasises how tight R.E.M.’s song
construction and arrangements had become after just four
albums. Every song is pure spit-shine and polish, The
Flowers of Guatemala as airy and light as a world
where "flowers cover everything," though its
ruggedness is found in the country-infused Indie rock
strum of What If We Give It Away? From opener Begin
the Begin to the joyous closing cover of the Clique’s
Superman, Life’s Rich Pageant sounds like an
album imbued with a swaggering confidence. Two demos
featured on this reissue’s latter half Bad Day
and All the Right Friends would be a couple of the
band’s finest singles of the 2000s, appearing on
compilation discs with new life. With Bill Berry’s
thundering percussion lines and Peter Buck’s trademark
jangly lead guitars, Hyena is a standout for how
R.E.M. and producer Don Gehman, best-known at the time for
his work with John Mellencamp, foreground the rhythm
track. These Days moves fast while the astounding Cuyahoga
flows like the tide building up eagerness until finally
offering the release of a truly stirring chorus halfway
through.
Best track:
Hyena
Worst track:
Two-Steps Onward |
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