Black Book (2006) [reuploaded]

If you've never heard the music of George Crumb before, you are in for a treat. Well, treat may not be exactly the right word; perhaps "an experience" would be a better way to put it. Written in 1970 and 1974, Crumb's Black Angels: Thirteen Images from the Dark Land for electric string quartet and Makrokosmos III: Music for a Summer Evening for 2 amplified pianos and percussion are the classical music equivalent of psychedelic rock.

Unless you go strictly by the lyrics and/or the circumstances, the third and fourth Scritti Politti comeback albums are not very dissimilar. They're principally bright-colored guitar pop albums, though 2006's White Bread Black Beer features neither the guest MCs nor the deeply hip-hop-rooted arrangements that speckled 1999's Anomie & Bonhomie. Beneath that, everything on White Bread Black Beer was written and played by Green Gartside at his house, and the sleeve design of the album is credited in part to an Alys Gartside.

A mixture of utterly trad folk and country tunes with some hipsterish indie touches, The Black Dove is uneven, but it works more often than it doesn't. The songs sung by Sharron Kraus, a British folksinger whose voice bears comparison both to U.K. folk icons like June Tabor and American country singers like Gillian Welch, fit uneasily against those featuring Christian Kiefer's hushed bedroom-rock murmur. Imagine Norma Waterson collaborating with Elliott Smith and the parameters of the project's influences will become clear, as well as its flaws. However, the songs featuring Kraus are uniformly excellent, as are the atmospheric instrumental interludes between songs, which occasionally recall Dolly Collins' fantasias for harmonium on her albums with sister Shirley. Kiefer's whispery material, which works better on his solo records, simply sounds out of place in these surroundings.

Firmly rooted in the style of the masters of the Berlin School (most notably TD), these ten tracks certainly manage to retain their own identity and are good for more than an hour's listening pleasure. The somewhat macabre opening of "If I Have To" is quickly filled with one of his many wonderful sequences that, in turn, evolves into a more complex whole. Flowing over this come a couple of delicate melodies and then the piece settles down for a stately and peaceful end. The deeper personal emotions of Mac himself are often audible - as is the case in "Blade of Loneliness"; the pain and the will to heal, along with the desire to rediscover the good things in life are beautifully portrayed here. The build-up of "All Wrong" also matches the best of TD at the beginning of the eighties. Of course this isn't quite the same level of originality as TD, but "Black Light" is absolutely no 'dumb copy' and is a breath of fresh air in today's market.

Three years after Swampsong, Kalmah returned with a successor to their trilogy that kicked off their career. Kalmah’s sound became more cemented in melodic death metal without the extraordinary fervor of the previous material. Therefore, this album sounds tamer in comparison. Each album thus far has brought a less explored avenue for Kalmah, with this one taking that concept further into stability. This time it’s a slightly thrashier Kalmah, but overall it feels like a natural transition from the eclectic early years.