Frontmen

Queen guitarist Brian May's first complete attempt at a solo album, Back to the Light, focuses on the hard rock sound that Queen often abandoned in the 1980s. While obviously sounding similar to some of the work by his former band, May's path is far more hard-edged and emotionally punched than the majority of Queen's work. His vocals are sometimes weak for a singer, but they also add a certain tenderness that most hard rock frontmen seem to lack. The album succeeds best on its heaviest tracks such as the cover of "Rollin' Over" or "Resurrection," which features pounding drums courtesy of Cozy Powell and thundering guitar riffs with Queen-like multi-tracked vocals.

The sum total of the nuanced, elliptical lyricism at the heart of Paul Motian's compositional method can be heard in the opening seconds of "Osmosis Part III," the first track from I Have the Room Above Her. Recorded for ECM – with producer Manfred Eicher, guitarist Bill Frisell and saxophonist Joe Lovano – this date is Motian's first as a leader for the label in more than 20 years. This is the same team that recorded the seminal album It Should've Happened a Long Time Ago in 1984. At that time, Lovano and Frisell were just beginning to establish themselves as bandleaders though they had each recorded under their own names. The weight placed on each member of this band is tremendous since standard rhythmic and harmonic anchors such as bass and piano are absent.

The Band was a Canadian-American roots rock group including Rick Danko (bass guitar, vocals, fiddle), Garth Hudson (keyboards, accordion, saxophone), Richard Manuel (keyboards, drums, vocals), Robbie Robertson (guitar, vocals), and Levon Helm (drums, vocals, mandolin, guitar). Their time backing Bob Dylan was when they first reached prominence (as well as providing The Band their name), but they were originally formed as The Hawks, a backing band for rockabilly singer Ronnie Hawkins…

Ragged Soul was the first album in five years from the Lazy Cowgirls, and from the first blast of D.D. Weekday's guitar on "I Can't Be Satisfied" it's obvious that this band was ready to make up for lost time. Against all odds, Ragged Soul sounds like the band's best album ever; the twin-guitar punch of Weekday and Michael Leigh offers plenty of kick with no clutter, the rhythm section (Leonard Keringer on bass and Ed Huerta on drums) drives the songs forward without crowding anyone in the process, and Pat Todd proves he's one of the greatest unsung frontmen in rock, pouring out fire and passion on every cut…

Of the many shows that Gov't Mule's faithful fans have clamored to have officially released, this is among the most deeply desired. These tapes on double disc were culled from a pair of December 1999 gigs in Georgia where the trio – guitarist Warren Haynes, bassist Allen Woody, and drummer Matt Abts – invited ace jazz guitarist John Scofield and keyboardist Dr. Dan Matrazzo to sit in. They were originally intended for release as a live album, but due to Woody's premature death a couple of months later, they were shelved. These shows mark the very first on-stage meetings between Scofield and Haynes, who've played together many times since…

Recorded in 1972 and released in 1973 with Herbie Hancock, Stanley Clarke, and Jack DeJohnette, Joe Farrell's Moon Germs was a foray into the electric side of jazz. On the opener, "Great George," Farrell leads off with the hint of a melody before careening into legato streams of thought along striated intervallic paths. DeJohnette is like a machine gun, quadruple-timing the band as Clarke moves against the grain in a series of fours and eights, and Hancock's attempts to keep the entire thing anchored are almost for naught. On the title track there is more of a funk backdrop, but the complex, angular runs and insane harmonic reaches Farrell attempts on his soprano, crack, falter, and ultimately turn into something else; the sheer busy-ness of the track is dazzling. "Bass Folk Song" by Clarke, is the only thing on the record that actively engages melody rather than harmonic structures.

A place for Tool and A Perfect Circle frontman Maynard James Keenan’s musical explorations, Puscifer is a project that, by its very nature, has that free association vibe around it. On his second album under the Puscifer moniker, Conditions of My Parole, Keenan continues to his unfettered explorations, seeing where a sound will take him without being tied down by the expectations that would be present if he released these songs with any of his other projects. A departure from the angst of Tool and the esoteric darkness of A Perfect Circle, the synth-heavy album has a more autumnal feeling about it, combining layers of electronic ambience and programmed drums with the singer's yearning vocals to create a kind of cold loneliness. It’s this isolated sound that Keenan thrives in, with his trademark vocals adding just the right amount of drama to the mix and acting as the glue that manages to hold everything together when the mood strikes him to drift into more aggressive territory on songs like “Toma” and “Conditions of My Parole”.