A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Café Tacuba
Captain Beefheart
Mariah Carey
Neko Case
Catpower
Cecilia & Bryn
Cheap Trick
Chemical Brothers
Cher
Chumbawamba
Cibo Matto
Clem Snide
Collective Soul
Cornelius
Chris Cornell
The Corrs
Crash Test Dummies
Sheryl Crow
The Cure
Café Tacuba 'Reves/Yosoy'
(Warner Bros.) (8/20/99)
On their latest collection, Mexico City's Café Tacuba breathes new life into rock music, reaffirming faith in the form while pushing it forward more aggressively and artfully than anyone since the Beatles. Reves/Yosoy is divine madness—or at least divine eccentricity—shaped by genius and converted into a rich, darkly textured and deceptively simple vision, the parts of our musical universe recombined into something at once familiar and entirely new.
Disk one, "Reves," is a series of instrumental numbers. They are like the skeleton of Tacuba's sound, songs stripped down so that structures and influences—from surf to salsa, electronica to acoustic laments, brit pop to Tejano—are laid in clear view, adorned by field recordings and random noise. "Yosoy" is a more traditional collection of songs, built on the leavings of a hundred civilizations and delivered with understated grace and artistic integrity. The lyrics are in Spanish, but Tacuba's collective genius, guided and shaped by producer Gustavo Santaolalla, pushes so far beyond the limitations of genre and language that they become irrelevant.
"Reves/Yosoy" satisfies and provokes, challenging tradition in one phrase and praising it in the next. It is not perfect in execution and won't, with any luck, be Tacuba's crowning achievement. But despite some inconsistencies and lack of coherence, this double CD is the deepest, most ambitious and most sublimely textured collection of popular music in a generation. It may elude more people than it captivates, for now. But look for "Reves/Yosoy" on 'best of' lists in about a decade; you'll find it listed as the last great rock statement of the 20th century.
THOMAS HAYDEN
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Captain Beefheart
(7/6/99)
From the mid-'60s to the early '80s, Captain Beefheart (a.k.a. Don Van Vliet) set a still-unmatched standard for avant-garde gnarliness in rock. "Trout Mask Replica," his 1968 masterpiece, is a plugged-in "Song of Myself" that is part dada and part blues shouting—as if Ornette Coleman and Howlin' Wolf started a band together. Alas, Beefheart retired in 1982 and began a second career as a highly regarded abstract painter. Now, in a weird if wonderful coincidence, three labels are issuing Beefheart material: from Buddha, new editions of "Safe as Milk" and "The Mirror Man Sessions"; from Rhino, a "Best of" set, "The Dust Blows Forward," coming in August; and the best batch yet, a five-CD set from Revenant, "Grow Fins," unreleased tracks and live material that amounts to an undiscovered masterpiece.
MALCOLM JONES
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Mariah Carey 'Rainbow'
(11/9/99)
When you sit down to listen to Mariah Carey's new album, "Rainbow," it's clear that musically there are two Mariahs. Top-40 Mariah sings octave-soaring mainstream ballads. Hip-hop Mariah records with Master P and Snoop Dogg. She dives deep into the roots of R&B with the Minnie Riperton-inspired "Bliss"—five minutes and 44 seconds of hot-buttered soul. She may not have pioneered the pairing of R&B singing with rap music, but her hip-hop sensibility is impeccable. On "Rainbow," she swerves from hip-hop-laced tracks like "Crybaby"—about being kept awake by a broken heart—to a remake of Phil Collins's easy-listening perennial "Against All Odds." Mariah Carey did not become the biggest-selling female artist of the 1990s by cultivating an air of mystery. On "Rainbow", there are not-so-thinly veiled references to her ex-husband and her ex-boyfriends, including baseball star Derek Jeter, as well as to her new love, Mexican singer Luis Miguel. She tells her fans that the album "chronicles my emotional roller-coaster ride of the past year. If you listen very closely, there's a story here with a very happy ending."
VERONICA CHAMBERS
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Neko Case, 'Furnace Room Lullaby'
(Mint/Bloodshot) (3/3/00)
A country traditionalist with punk rock roots, Case creates country music that, in the best tradition of the genre, goes miles beyond mere sentimentality and into the realm of true pathos. Case's 1997 debut solo effort, "The Virginian" (Mint Records) established her as a unique and credible country voice, with touches of the hopeful melancholy of Patsy Cline, the mischievous fun of Dolly Parton and the intensity of Loretta Lynn. "Furnace Room Lullaby" is a bold move forward, filled with twangy and tough originals about loving and losing, and the third—and most often overlooked—leg of country's subject list, attachment to place. Among the best tracks on the new CD is "Thrice All American," a bittersweet defense of her hometown in Washington State. "People they laugh when they hear you're from my town, they say it's a sour and used up old place…There was no hollow promise that life would reward you, there was no where to hide in Tacoma. The people who built it they loved it like I do, there was hope in the train yards that something inspired." "Furnace Room Lullaby" is first-rate hurtin' music, but it's also remarkably warm and nuanced. Unlike so many of the punks-turned-pokes who make up the ranks of "insurgent" country, Case is immersed in the style, rather than just passing through as an experiment in post-punk irony. The result is just the kind of gorgeous, genre-busting gem that will have trouble finding a place on either rock or country radio. All the more reason to find it a home in your collection.
THOMAS HAYDEN
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Catpower, 'Moon Pix'
(Matador(Dna)) (2/12/99)
Catpower's Chan Marshall hasn't exactly mastered the art of live performance. Onstage she sputters disconsolately through songs without finishing them, turns her back on the audience and makes helpless remarks about her bandmates, like, "These guys hate me." On record, though, her falling-apart act coalesces into something uncommonly beautiful. "Moon Pix" (Matador), Catpower's fourth album, is soft and somber, a kind of toxified take on folk-blues. Marshall has a voice like a Southern Gothic Sinead O'Connor: it's capable of brute force, but she spends most of her time restraining it to a supple whisper. The primitive arrangements—scratches of guitar, rumbling bass and plenty of songs with no drums at all—complement Marshall's willfully enigmatic songs about discomfort and loss. She's less concerned with telling a story than creating a mood, and she scatters images about like random items on a dresser-top. Enjoy this one in public at your own risk; better yet, stay home in bed and keep her company.
KAREN SCHOEMER
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Catpower, 'The Covers Record'
(Matador) (4/21/00)
Cat Power's early CDs featured the cryptic lyrics and midnight sentiments of most standard indie fare, distinguished primarily by Chan Marshall's frail, wary voice. But her breakthrough album, "Moon Pix" (1998) explored a lusher, quieter musical landscape and Marshall blossomed, articulating emotion with every crumpled consonant or painfully pure note. "The Covers Record" keeps the singer near that peak. Accompanied only by guitar or piano throughout, the focus is on her. She opens the record with a swagger-free take on the Stones' "Satisfaction," pre-empting Mick's climax a shade too cleverly; from there, the album only improves, and in unexpected ways. Marshall covers two songs by neo-hobo singer Michael Hurley with a light touch—half goofy resignation and half woe—and goes on to render Nina Simone's "Wild is the Wind" with a knowing, chilling hopelessness. Though the album follows a mostly dark road, Marshall does pass through a few patches of sunlight. "Salty Dog" is an amiable goof, and the Lou Reed-penned "I Found a Reason" contains a measure of hope. Its spirit matches that of Dylan's biblical "Paths of Victory." In this inspired interpretation, we can detect Marshall's brand of cheeriness: that of a seeker ambling vaguely on, sustained by visions of a promised land.
DOM AMMIRATI
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'Cecilia & Bryn' 'Cecilia & Bryn'
(London Classics) (3/29/99)
Is all that winsome mugging in the CD-booklet photos of "Cecilia & Bryn" meant to convince us that the world's highest-profile mezzo-soprano and bass-baritone are just folks? Baritones and mezzos may be opera's Fred and Ethel Mertzes—sidekicks, spunky servant girls—but Bartoli and Terfel are musical aristocrats, their playfulness grounded in absolute technical mastery. These duets from Mozart, Rossini and Donizetti require versatility: Terfel sings bass as Mozart's Figaro and baritone as Figaro's rival, the Count. And stretches of recitative show off the stars' acting: Terfel pompously pops his Ps as the quack in "L'elisir d'amore;" as Rosina, Bartoli greets Rossini's barber with an unstudied laugh. Terfel's mellow maleness (with the odd artful growl) is an ideal complement to Bartoli's breathy purity (with the odd artful snarl). Sure, they're a couple of hams. But this disc is serious fun.
DAVID GATES
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Cheap Trick, 'Music for Hangovers'
(Cheap Trick Unlimited) (7/16/99)
The alternative rock crowd has embraced Cheap Trick's early work, and there has been a resurgence of respect for the band's cartoon flourish. So the time is right for this live album, compiled from a series of unique appearances at northeastern clubs during the Spring of 1998. Each of the shows featured the entire song sequence from one of the band's first three albums: "Cheap Trick," "In Color" (both 1977), and "Heaven Tonight" (1978). Of course, Cheap Trick's biggest hit was a live album, "Cheap Trick At Budokan" (1979). But "Music For Hangovers" makes the Budokan set sound like a sound check, and proves that the band's live sound has more torque and yammer than ever. They haven't just gotten better over the years, the years of hanging-in-there have brought their pop overdrive new heft. "Surrender," the smash hit that never was, plumbs new depths of irony, while previously overlooked songs like "Hot Love" get the wallop kicked out of them. With breathless liner notes by Smashing Pumpkin Billy Corgan, who sits in on "Mandocello," it is the kind of live album kids over 50 can love.
TIM RILEY
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Chemical Brothers, 'Surrender'
(Astralwerks)
(6/8/99)
Two of this season's most appealing CDs, the Chemical Brothers' "Surrender" and Moby's "Play," are bound to get pigeonholed as "techno" or "electronica"—catchall terms for music assembled with samplers, sequencers, synthesizers and drum machines. Don't let this put you off if you never mastered the jargon ("jungle"? "filtered house"? "drum 'n' bass"?) or still half-suspect it's all about robotic factory noises and designer drugs. In fact, it's all about music.
True, England's Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons continue to revel in the artificial sounds and textures of the Chemical Brothers' high-energy 1997 hit album "Dig Your Own Hole": wheeps and shimmers, rubbery flatulences, burry buzzes, caldronlike bubblings. But this is a subtler, moodier, sweeter, funkier record, less in-your-face, more in-your-heart. Even the dance instrumentals are booty shakers, not bone crunchers. Noel Gallagher of Oasis returns for another guest vocal, but Mazzy Star's Hope Sandoval steals the show on the drowsy, sexy, depressive "Asleep From Day": she sounds as if she's melting, yet in absolute control.
Only musicians and techies (a fast-disappearing distinction) will know how it works—and God only knows why it works. But you don't have to be a club kid or know the rock-crit lingo for it to work on you.
DAVID GATES
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Cher, 'Believe'
(Warner Bros.) (12/21/98)
"Believe," the world's most popular dance-club song right now, is an unremarkable tune except for two things. (1) It's by Cher. As in Sonny and Cher. (2) It's 1998, a time when most clubbers think Cher is that blond chick from "Clueless." But the 52-year-old performer doesn't care. "Kids 10 years ago didn't know 'I Got You Babe,' either," she says. "It's about where you are at this moment." Cher, at this moment, is busy. Last month her autobiography hit bookstores. And a film, "Tea With Mussolini," arrives in mid-1999. You've still got us, babe.
DEVIN GORDON
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Chumbawamba, 'Tubthumper'
(Universal Records) (11/24/97)
Before we can tire of Chumbawamba, they're going to put one over on us. This eight-piece British collective has an agenda: anarchy. Chumbawamba's members (two vocalists, keyboards, percussion, guitar, bass, drums and trumpet) really believe in the overthrow of the state, and they've decided that the best way to infiltrate the masses is through cheerfully innocuous pop fluff. "Tubthumper" features songs about labor movements, the perils of bourgeois values, homelessness, sexism and the corrupting influence of trickle-down capitalism. But the ideas are so skillfully embedded in frat beats and new-wave bounce, the casual listener might easily not notice. Ultimately, the band shows that political music doesn't have to be confrontational and self-righteous. "There's nothing wrong with entertainment," says singer Alice Nutter. "I don't mind people just enjoying us. We have got big ideas as well. If they catch on, they catch on."
KAREN SCHOEMER
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Cibo Matto, 'Stereotype A'
(Warner Bros.) (7/23/99)
An "ain't-we-cool" confidence is the downfall of this follow-up to 1996's (too?) well-received "Viva La Woman." On their sophomore release, Cibo Matto displays a critical inability to recognize when their updated soul lapses into self-parody. The band's musical backbone is electronica cum R&B: horn hits and background vocals paired with samples and the fluid flourishes of Stereolab. At moments, the results are acceptable: "King of Silence," the best track, offers uncommon, well-orchestrated melodies and tasteful fills against a syncopated background.
In general however, the by-the-numbers, within-the-lines quality of the groove obliterates the occasional worthwhile details. Embarrassments abound: the human beat-boxing of "Clouds," the 70s-fusion palette of "Lint of Love," the scratching--and everything else--on "Sci-Fi Wasabi." Miho Hatori's periodic rapping is hopeless, and the lyrics are wretched: "I can't say I'm good at cleaning it baby/The lint of love, it's made of 'dust of confusion'/You see, the President is in trouble/Every cent you make is floating in a bubble." The stylistic gropings on the album do extend beyond urban contemporary: two songs try to cash in on the recent rediscovery of '60s Brazilian pop, and another offers plodding heavy metal. But the choice of genre makes no difference; throughout "Stereotype A," Cibo Matto is undermined by their own hipster obliviousness.
DOM AMMIRATI
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Clem Snide, 'Your Favorite Music'
(Sire) (6/22/00)
With their unfortunate name and tired baby-blue tuxedo look, you might expect New York-based Clem Snide to be the pathetic last gasp of the breathtakingly lame retro-ironic lounge revival. But the quartet actually delivers sweetly sad, often stately music, and they're deserving of a better name--and more somber clothing.
The CD opens with a mournful cello cautiously working its way up through what sounds partly like an orchestra tuning, partly like a jammed car horn. "The Dairy Queen" evolves into a slow, gorgeous country folk ballad about "a road paved with liver and onions." The title track is a gently hopeful love ballad to a particularly depressive someone. "Your favorite music well it just makes you sad, but you like it, 'cause you feel special that way," read the lyrics. "I can't teach you to learn to love yourself, but here's a sad song that I wrote for no one else." A few too many of the tracks are similarly low key laments, like a somewhat rougher version of the Cowboy Junkies. "I Love the Unknown," is one of the only moments on the CD with any appreciable energy. It's hardly a rocker, but the band does at least prove that they can rise above the level of a near-stupor. That's an impression that is all but undone with the closing tune, an ultra low-energy cover of Richie Valens's teen love classic "Donna," which goes beyond lullaby to pure soporific.
While the CD is a perhaps overly repetitive, Clem Snide does come across as entirely sincere. "Your Favorite Songs" is not overwhelming, but it is a surprisingly pleasant minor gem.
THOMAS HAYDEN
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Collective Soul, 'Dosage'
(Atlantic Records) (2/9/99)
The Georgia-based band, Collective Soul, best known for the songs "Shine" and "The World I Know," has a sound that's one part alternative, one part pop, and three parts vanilla. On their fourth album, "Dosage," as usual, the songs are catchy and over-produced, the lyrics heady but uninteresting. While at no point does vocalist and songwriter Ed Roland ever go further than what Top 40 radio stations are willing to repeat endlessly, some of the tracks on "Dosage" do merit the airplay. "Run," which has the dubious distinction of also appearing on the "Varsity Blues" soundtrack, is a slow, beautiful elegy to the past, but it would have been more subtle and affecting without the irritating string arrangements (which sadly plague many of the songs on "Dosage.") "Needs" is a pleasant ballad with a chorus perfect for singing along to while driving to the mall. The guitars on "Heavy" are old-school thrasher fun, even if the vocals are uninspired, seemingly added as an afterthought. Like most rock today, Collective Soul's songs tend to be derivative. The vocal phrasing of "Dandy Life" is fast and strange and pure Third Eye Blind, itself a derivative band, but with much more energy and charisma than Collective Soul has ever shown. They should know better than to invite comparisons with musicians who do not share their major defect: boring songs.
TED GIDEONSE
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Cornelius, 'FM' and 'CM'
(Matador (Dna)) (3/23/99)
These two releases of remixes, the product of song-swapping between the uberhip Cornelius and some of his friends and admirers, emphasizes the mastery of the cut-and-paste popster at the expense of his counterparts. "FM" (Fantasma reMixes) features songs from his critically adored 1998 album "Fantasma" as reworked by artists including Money Mark, U.N.K.L.E., and Buffalo Daughter, while "CM" (Cornelius reMixes) features Cornelius doing the opposite. "FM" is hamstrung by the inevitability of comparison to its source; it limps from track to track, emptying the songs of their oddball charm. Money Mark's lifeless remix of "Mic Check" is emblematic: his mechanical interpretation is precisely opposite in spirit to Cornelius's lively combination of pop lyricism and technology. The record has bright spots—The Pastels' gentle "Crash," which builds upon the ethereal moments of the original, and the hilarious "Star Fruits Surf Rider" by Damon Albarn, which takes a few cues from the Fantasma version to create a wistful pseudodisco sound. But, in general, the performances on "FM" fail to approach the inventiveness of Cornelius's own work.
On "CM," Cornelius has his own hands on the knobs, and the result is more fun. The record refers as much to sonic palette and samples used on "Fantasma" as to the work of the artists represented. On Money Mark's "Maybe I'm Dead," Cornelius balances the song's sentimental lyrics with computer bleets and whirrs to make it sweet without being sacchrine. "Homespun Rerun" loosens up The High Llamas' stiff original and gives it a sense of humor: the Hawaiian-sounding vocals, played straight on their album "Cold and Bouncy," are camped up by plopping the Llamas on the beach, complete with rolling surf and the strains of a plucked uke. Occasionally Cornelius gets carried away by his own virtuosity—on Coldcut's "Atomic Moog 2000," for example, he can't keep his fingers off the fader—and the recycling of devices from "Fantasma" at times makes the album seem a bit lazy and redundant. Neither "FM" nor "CM" exists as a wholly satisfying entity in its own right; instead, the two records point the listener back both back in time and forward, to the delights of "Fantasma" and to the anticipated pleasures of Cornelius's next release.
DOM AMMIRATI
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Chris Cornell, 'Euphoria Morning'
(Uni/A&M) (10/6/99)
Chris Cornell knows something about swimming against the tide, having spent 12 years with the seminal Seattle band Soundgarden. Now his first solo effort, the brooding, retro "Euphoria Morning," has made its debut at No. 18. Musically, Cornell is taking more chances than ever with his dark, enormous voice, gliding through R&B, acoustic ballads and '60s pop, as well as the Zeppelin-ized hard rock that Soundgarden trafficked in so gloriously. Lyrically, the singer's still a moody S.O.B. specializing in tortured love and self-hate. In the groaning ballad "When I'm Down," Cornell tells a woman he loves her only when he's bummed out. Then he rushes to comfort her: hey, don't worry about it, I'm always bummed out. Cornell admits his poetic, sometimes overwrought lyrics are more personal now but insists there's still a lot he's not telling us. "You probably don't want to know what I'm really thinking," he says. If it's more depressing than this, then no, probably not.
JEFF GILES
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The Corrs, 'Talk on Corners: Special Edition'
(Atlantic Records) (4/16/99)
Talk about an embarassment of riches. The Corrs, Ireland's newest pop sensation, have it all: looks, talent, two multiplatinum records and gigs with everyone from Mick Fleetwood to the Rolling Stones. The group is a PR agent's dream: Andrea, Caroline, Sharon and Jim Corrs are not only really cute, they're related! The sibling quartet mixes light-as-air pop tunes with traditional Irish riffs on instruments like the bodhran and tin whistle. Their mainstream-with-Irish-roots sound shot them up the British charts in late 1997 with the release of their first album "Forgiven, Not Forgotten." Since then, the Corrs have started a plan of world domination: singing with Pavarotti and friends in Italy, performing before 200 million people at the Asia Games in Malaysia, opening for the Stones, doing guest spots on Letterman and Leno. Their two albums have gone platinum in more countries than U2 can shake a stick at. At one point, "Talk On Corners" was selling to the tune of 40,000 units per day.
The album delivers. On "Special Edition," a re-mixed release of their multiplatinum second album, the group recruits European mix masters K-Klass and Tin Tin Out to make their tunes even more irresistably bubble-gum light. The album's lead single "What Do I Do?" is the perfect pop anthem: cute and happy, with cotton-candy synthesizers and Andrea's breathy voice asking, "What can I do to make you love me?" The tune gets better the more you listen to it; like the band, it's ready-made for prime time.
ESTHER PAN
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Crash Test Dummies,'Give Yourself a Hand'
(Arista) (3/26/99)
Somebody seems to have planted a seed full of soul in the garden of the Crash Test Dummies--either that or they've been hanging out with Barry White. Their latest and fourth offering, "Give Yourself a Hand," is ripe with the new rhythms and lyrics of singer/songwriter Brad Roberts. Best known among the early-90's audience for the humdrum beat and wry lyrics of "MMM, MMM, MMM," the Dummies seem to have found the perfect mix for their frontman's baritone, their unbridled lyrics, and the more open ear of the late-20th-century listener. The humor implicit in Roberts's new philosophy-meets-dance-floor ethic should enlist new fans, but there is still enough of the group's utterly weird perception of the world to satisfy the old ones. There is truly something for everyone on this album, from the angst of, "I'm all dried up, I'm all fried up, I wanna burn things now and then, If I've been talking to businessmen" ("A Cigarette is All You Get") to the silliness of "Give Yourself a Hand:" "Hello, Mr. Fussy, Hello, Mrs. Nice,/ Have you ever shared a bathtub--Full of beer and ice?/ I know you want to, I know you can,/ Put down your children, Free up your hands." As a former Crash Test skeptic, I confess conversion.
SARAH WADE HUTMAN
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Sheryl Crow, 'Sheryl Crow'
(A&M) (9/16/96)
For someone who seems to have it all together, Sheryl Crow has made a pretty convincing album about falling apart. "Sheryl Crow" is nervy and unsettling, a psychojourney through a very deep funk; it's definitely not a happy record. Like her first album, "Tuesday Night Music Club," the new one compiles styles from rock and blues to country and soul, but this time the references are mangled by studio effects, heavy distortion and oddball instrumentation. Crow's lyrics tell fractured tales of losers, misfits and star-crossed loners who are just determined to make their lives go wrong. Like "Tuesday Night Music Club," the new album contains grand American themes of restlessness, ambition and discontent; from her first hit, "Leaving Las Vegas," to the new "Hard to Make a Stand," Crow writes about the compulsive desire to move from place to place from an idiosyncratic female perspective.
KAREN SCHOEMER
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Sheryl Crow, 'The Globe Sessions'
(Interscope) (9/21/98)
Sheryl Crow's such a badass guitar player, it's easy to forget what a great singer she is. Her new CD, "The Globe Sessions," is one gorgeous reminder. On the first single, "My Favorite Mistake," Crow starts with a sopranic coo, drops into a sexy alto whisper, then rides the melody with understated ease. It's a switch from 1996's "Sheryl Crow," where she purposefully went for a rawer, more abrasive sound. On this new album, she's in a different frame of mind. On the song "Riverwide," Crow sounds almost like Kate Bush as she sings a mythological love story set against Celtic rhythms. Roots rock fans will be appeased by the songs like "There Goes the Neighborhood," where Crow wryly observes: "This is the movie of the screenplay of the book about a girl who meets a junkie/We can't be certain who the villains are because everyone's so pretty." And just when you thought she was all VH1, she revs it up with a hard-hitting rock tune like "Am I Getting Through." She sure is. Loud and clear.
VERONICA CHAMBERS
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The Cure, 'Bloodflowers'
(Elektra) (3/10/00)
Disillusionment. Anguish. Displacement. Insanity. Death. Yup, The Cure is back with a new album. "Bloodflowers" is the final album in a trilogy that, characteristically, deals with mortality and hopelessness (the first was 1982's "Pornography," the second, 1989's "Disintegration"). And it may, according to singer/songwriter/guitarist Robert Smith, be the final Cure album. (A claim, it should be pointed out, the band has made before. But if fans who believe in numerological significance are feeling especially unlucky, note that "Bloodflowers" is the band's thirteenth studio album.) The band's audience should hope there is more to come; quite possibly no band presents the pain of existence and the impermanence of relationships in such a fevered yet oddly heartfelt tone. But if it's true that this is it for Smith, his wonderfully moody lyrics and heavy imagery certainly back him up. In "39," Smith (now 40 years old) fervently sings, "I used to feed the fire / But the fire is almost out / And there's nothing left to burn." And in "The Last Day of Summer," he cries, "All that I feel for or trust in or love / All that is gone." The irony of the band's name will not be lost on listeners who relate to Smith and company's understanding that no cure exists for life's absurdities and agonies. Not exactly easy listening, but, assuming the claims are true, "Bloodflowers" is one great swan song.
JANE HOGAN
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