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I have been patiently waiting for this release. Really, I have. I have put up with the re-release of the powerhouse debut album, Songs About Jane. I have spent several months frustrated by the acoustic and live re-releases of that same album. I mean come on… throw us a bone and include a new song or something guys, right?

The new album, It Won’t Be Soon Before Long, drops today. So what’s the verdict?

Totally. Worth. The. Wait.

The dreamy Adam Levine and company have managed to paint a musical landscape that lies somewhere between the neo-funk Stevie Wonder-esque stylings of their hits like “This Love” and “Sunday Morning” and the sexy traditional rock sound of “Harder to Breathe” and “Tangled.”

Don’t buy this album expecting a retread of their earlier hits. There is no “She Will Be Loved” included here. Instead, there is a Beatles inspired ballad, “Better That We Break.”

The new tracks are completely refreshing, yet oddly familiar.

The first single, “It Makes Me Wonder,” (see the video here) is far from the best song. It’s also not an adequate representation of the rest of the album.

The best way I can think of to clue you into the sound of the new disk is to give you a little taste. Here’s “Little of Your Time.”

[audio:LittleOfYourTime.mp3]

Even after the initial screening of this album, I can safely say it won’t be leaving my iPod Top Albums list any time soon.

Buy it on
.

Key Tracks

• Little of Your Time
• Won’t Go Home Without You
• Kiwi
• Can’t Stop
• Nothing Lasts Forever

Did anyone else catch these two performances of new material from Avril LaVigne on last week’s SNL?

I saw her live a couple of years ago and was completely blown away by her.

These performances couldn’t have been less exciting or lackluster if she had sung them while laying on a feather bed, especially the second song.

What has happened to her!?

Here she is performing “Girlfriend”:

Here is the dreadful “I Can Do Better.” (Ironic title, no?)

I have put off posting this review for a while. I’d like to be able to write about the album and not talk about the political commentary and messy situation involved. I’ve determined that it is impossible to extricate the two. This album is acidic, [tag]bold[/tag], forthright, outspoken, and quite frankly, [tag]brilliant[/tag].

Music reflects society and like it or not, celebrities have a unique position in which the masses listen to what they say. It’s not a perfect situation, but one that exists just the same. This album embodies all that is necessary and wonderful about having a soapbox.

So far, this is my best pick of the year. The first single “I’m Not Ready to Make Nice” hits the nail on the head about the tumultuous 2 years the Chicks have had. The crescendo of the string section in the bridge almost makes me burst into tears. How many of us have wanted to say

I’m not ready to make nice
I’m not ready to back down
I’m still mad as hell and I don’t have tiime to go round and round
It’s too late to make it right
I probably wouldn’t if I could?

And they tackle the hate mail and vile rhetoric from fans and the country music world:

It’s a sad sad story when a mother will teach her daughter
that she ought to hate a perfect stranger
and how in the world can the things that I said
send somebody so over the edge
that they would write me a letter
saying that I’d better shut up and sing or
my life will be over?

Amazing.

I fully support the country station’s right to not play the [tag]Dixie Chicks[/tag] music because of their beliefs, no matter how misguided. However, I think we rock and pop junkies need to support The Chicks. This isn’t the country you have come to expect from them.

Key tracks:

• I’m Not Ready to Make Nice
• Easy Silence
• Lullaby
• Baby Hold On

Looking for this summer’s Balls To The Wall hard rock album, chock-full-o hooks and plenty of scream-along-in-your-car moments? This is your album. This may be one of the best bands to come out of LA in the past 5 years.

There are some obvious influences by [tag]The Strokes[/tag] and [tag]The White Stripes[/tag], but what sets these guys apart is clean and melodic guitar riffs and intelligible lyrics.

Key Tracks:
• Who’s Gonna Take Us Alive?
• Starting Me Up Again (Diary of a Teenage Cutter)
• Tiara

It would be impossible to write a review of this album without using the words, [tag]unique, quirky, funky, trippy,[/tag] or [tag]unusual[/tag]. I have heard him referred to as a folk-techno troubadour and I think that’s a great description. Well produced with lots of ‘detail sounds’ that will allow you to hear something different with each spin. This disc is chock-full-o drug and sex references, disguised not so well in some truly inventive lyrics. For instance this excerpt from “Visine”:

Seal this note with my juicer; Use the liquid from your womb; Season to taste

and

Had a dream ’bout Joseph Stalin; Was his son haulin’ out of Moscow; On a jellybean with wheels

You can make some obvious comparisons of P.J. Olsson’s music with [tag]Beck[/tag]. Only with better lyrics. And melodies.

You’ve undoubtedly heard “The Whistle Song” on the Starburst commercials. It’s quite catchy. You’ll whistle along, then realize 3 hours later that you’ve been whistling that song non stop, your lips are dry, and your cubicle mate is threatening to give you a rectal with your own head.

Key Tracks
• Visine
• The Whistle Song
• Three Light Years and One Day
• Perfect

This is one of my favorite purchases of the past few months. It’s hard to qualify exactly why, it’s not especially edgy, or profound… I can only say that the songs are solidly written and performed. The melodies are [tag]catchy[/tag] and [tag]memorable[/tag], easy to sing along. [tag]Moody[/tag] and reminiscent of mid-90’s rock acts (in part certainly because of 2 ex-[tag]Pearl Jam[/tag] members are in this band), without the grungy feel.

Key Tracks:
• Perfect
• Old House
• I Know, I Know

Fans of bands like [tag]The Stereophonics[/tag], and [tag]Jet[/tag] will love this cd. Ike Reilly’s songwriting style is obviously influenced by [tag]Bob Dylan[/tag], where the cadence and flow of words is just as important as the meaning behind them. His slightly below the pitch delivery is a fresh departure from the pretty-boy voices dominating the airwaves.

There are many solid tracks on this album, in fact, none that I would consider a throw away, although there are several slow tempo songs that you may find yourself skipping to get to the up-tempo rockers. Full of [tag]hooks[/tag] and great melodies, you’ll sing along to songs that at first glance you might not believe. For instance, one of the strongest tracks on the disc, “What a Day” is a rockin’ number all about the death of the singer’s mother. No, really. You’ll love it.

Key tracks:
• 22 Hours of Darkness
• Kara Dean
• Farm Girl
• Heroin
• What a Day

[tag] Ike Reilly Assasination, Junkie Faithful, New Releases, Rock, [/tag]

With a crystal clear falsetto and his heart on his sleeve, [tag]James Blunt[/tag] has hit the US with a virtually unstoppable single, “You’re Beautiful.” While I enjoy the song, and have been known to sing along, it suffers from one of my personal pet peeves. He changes his lyrical voice several times in the song… one moment he’s singing to the listener, the next to the girl he’s so forlorn over. Just my personal issue with songs that do that… but I digress. There are some really solid tracks on this album. My favorite being “Wisemen” with it’s hooky chorus and tale of friendship.

James spent a lot of time in Kosovo in the UK army, his experiences there inspired probably the most moving track on the album, “No Bravery.”

There are children standing here,
Arms outstretched into the sky,
Tears drying on their face.
He has been here.
Brothers lie in shallow graves.
Fathers lost without a trace.
A nation blind to their disgrace,
Since he’s been here.

And I see no bravery,
No bravery in your eyes anymore.
Only sadness.

While there’s no Summer Anthem Rocker on here, if you are a fan of thought-provoking singer songwriters, you’ll want to spend some time with this album.

Key Tracks:
• You’re Beautiful
• Wisemen
• Out of My Mind
• No Bravery

A few weeks ago, I finally got the opportunity to see one of my favorite bands live. You see… I got into [tag]The Pat McGee Band [/tag]several years ago when I first heard “Rebecca” on KFOG here in San Francisco. I’m a sucker for great [tag]harmonies[/tag], intelligent lyrics, and any song where before it’s over I can sing along to the chorus. That’s right, I’m a Pop Junkie(tm). I make no apologies.

Anyway.

After being quite enchanted with the album, Shine, I was quite excited to discover they were going to play a show at Slim’s on September 11, 2001.

So my first thought on that day wasn’t, ‘gee this is awful, those poor people.’ It was, ‘damn, I just know they’re canceling the show tonight.’ [of course I immediately thereafter felt the weight of the events of those days as it related to other people.]

I’m not saying it was the most PC, socially-conscious, or even compassionate thing to think, but as we all know, it IS all about me.

So I waited patiently for PMB to come back to San Francisco… anxiously scanning the fan-site emails for new tour dates, and kicking myself for not living in Nashville anymore.

So fast forward FIVE, yes, count them FIVE long years of downloading live versions of anything I could find from PMB and waiting for them to come back to the left coast.

In the meantime, I picked up many many many cd’s, including one by [tag]Michael Tolcher[/tag] that I love. His voice is amazing, pitch perfect… and while I believe this album is a bit overproduced, and would have been much more powerful with a couple of solo acoustic songs, it is nonetheless wonderful. I caught a live performance of Michael’s last year when he opened for [tag]Everclear[/tag] (who hold the distinction of being only the 2nd band I’ve ever walked out of a show before it was over… before it was even really begun, actually…) MT is great live.

I had purchased the [tag]Stephen Kellogg[/tag] and the Sixers album, and it was buried in my iPod. I knew that a couple of songs stood out and I actually remember thinking that they sounded a bit like PMB, but really I hadn’t given them much thought.

But then.

FINALLY, an announcement that PMB was coming to San Francisco, and they were bringing Stephen Kellogg with them. Great… I immediately got tickets.

A week before the show, I got an email from the Michael Tolcher website, saying he would be opening the show. No. Way. Great news!

Let me just say, despite the fact that PMB brought half his band, this was probably the best live music event I’d ever attended. Michael performed solo acoustic (!) and really showed off his guitar abilities and again, his PERFECT FUCKING PITCH. I got the opportunity to talk to him after his set, he put a new song (which is quite good) on my iPod. I relayed to him my disbelief that his record company hasn’t done more to promote him. He completely agreed with me.

Stephen Kellogg and the Sixers are a m a z i n g live. There was so much on stage chemistry and energy that it couldn’t help but boil over into the audience and infect the entire room. I love small venues like The Independent. At one point the band jumped off stage and played an acoustic version of “See You Later, See You Soon” in the middle of the audience. Their show included many cover song segues, an unusual inclusion of random movie quotes during songs, and a bass player who danced in his underwear.

And of course Pat McGee was just as good as I had hoped. I wish the whole band had come along, as the lack of a bass player made some songs that should have had more drive fell slightly short of expectations, but above all their musicianship was evident and provided a different arrangement of songs that I had by now become quite familiar with. They did a fine mix of older songs from Shine, as well as newer songs from Save Me.

Oh yeah, and they ended the show with “Rebecca,” with Stephen Kellogg and the Sixers helping out. Fantastic. And it wasn’t just the six manhattans talking.

It isn’t very often that a band’s sophomore major release is as good, or even better than their first release (see [tag]Hootie and the Blowfish[/tag], [tag]Jason Mraz, Lifehouse[/tag], and many many others as examples). However, the few years that Vertical Horizon took to work up some new material were very kind to the guys. This release is a polished non-stop perfect pop/rock album, complete with the balls out rock of “When You Cry” and the tear jerking ballad “It’s Over.” While there may not be a standout anthemic single like “Everything You Want” on this album, you’ll quickly find yourself singing along to every song on the record, wondering why good songs like these never make it to the radio.

It don’t matter, it’s over, here I’ve been waiting, all my life, all this time.

Key Tracks:
• It’s Over
• Forever
• One of You