Quick Spins: Adiam Dymott, Hopewell, Cheap Trick
By Tankboy in Arts & Entertainment on Aug 4, 2009 5:20PM
In which we take a quick look at a few recent musical releases.
Adiam Dymott tops our list of surprise finds over the past few months. The silky voiced Swede sings with a matter-of-fact approach that's immediately accessible and difficult to resist. Her songs aren't complicated, but the impressions they cause to arise are. Melancholy strumming has the effect of perking up even the most cynical ears. Dymott ain't an optimist, but she deflates suicidal urges by pointing out how selfish they are, and when it comes to the planet our parents are leaving us she's not exactly convinced our kids are gonna survive. But she tackles these subjects head on, employing hummable pop with just enough of an edge to keep her from tipping into diva territory, allowing her to mix genetic material from Patti Smith, Joan Jett, and Belinda Carlisle.
Hopewell
Good Good Desperation
Hopewell's psychedelic strumming meshes together to create songs that hew to a familiar approach without disappointing. The experimentation they employ -- the feedback, the tape manipulation, the naturally delivered vocals that suddenly squeal and turn back in on themselves -- has all been heard before. But Hopewell's intent isn't to create a new musical movement, they want to get lost in the one they love. And it's easy to get lost in their swirling melodies, it's easy to close your eyes and allow the strobes to pierce through your lids, it's easy to just give in and fall under the weight of their songs' inexorable approach. This is music created out of the cloth of the '60s, but it ain't for the tie-dye generation. Instead it's for subsequent generations willing to submerge themselves in the black inky depthh underneath the oily reflections of the technicolor rainbow. It's scary, but it's also pretty goddamned beautiful in there.
This one is simple. It's ridiculous how terrific Cheap Trick still is. This collection finds Robin Zander in impossibly fine voice, while Rick Nielsen, Tom Petersson, and Bun E. Carlos provide a musical attack that -- and we don't care how cliched this sounds because it's absolutely true -- makes band a fifth their age sound like doddering old men. The Rockford quartet has been steadily regaining musical ground they lost to mid-'80s power ballads and with The Latest their delivering acidic shredders like "Sick Man of Europe" that could have appeared on any one of the trio of perfect albums they put out between 1977 and 1978. New wave, power pop, punk rock, and Midwestern working class thrunk all come together in one delicious ball of fury and we couldn't be happier.