4Play: The Cranberries, Eels, Findlay Brown, 30 Seconds to Mars

Feb. 14, 2010

The Cranberries - Bualadh Bos Live - Island
Dolores O’Riordan, brothers Noel and Mike Hogan, and Fergal Lawler make up Irish alt-pop band The Cranberries, who were best known in the mid-’90s. Although the bandmates themselves have moved on to work on other musical projects, this new collection brings together plenty of the band’s best known hits as well as some of their equally-worthy but lesser heard B-sides. The concert itself is recorded fairly well, typical, for the most part, for this sort of live album; the songs were collected from a variety of venues, including Cranberries shows in Toronto (“Forever Yellow Skies”), the Feile Festival (“Dreams”), The Nobel Peace Prize Concert in Oslo (“Promises”), and Live at the Record Plant (“Linger.”)



Eels - End Times - V2
Although of course no one wants Eels frontman E (aka Mark Oliver Everett) to have yet another stressful year, at least he’s capable of funneling his troubles into some pretty great, often empathic music. This set, mostly recorded on an ancient, classic four-track tape machine in E’s own L.A. house, it’s a reverse paean of sorts to E’s failed relationship, equating the loss of his divorce with the failures E sees in the world itself, although all not without a sense of eventual hope. The regular disc includes the on-the-edge moods of “A Line in the Dirt” and the title track, plus the introspective “The Beginning” and the finally optimistic “On My Feet,” while the deluxe edition adds on four extra exclusive tracks.


Findlay Brown - Love Will Find You - Verve
Influenced in large part by the likes of Roy Orbison and Elvis Presley, singer-songwriter Brown knows his way around a tune, and compliments his tunesmithing with Spector-like b-i-g production values, including layers and layers of background vocals and a horn section. The Stray-Cats-influenced “That’s Right” brings in quirky background instrumentals while “Love Will Find You” retrofies the sound even more with its echoey effects; “That’s Right” stops by a wood-floored old-time dancehall, and “Teardrops Lost in the Rain” is perhaps most evocative of Orbison in his heyday. Throughout the set, the standout element is Brown’s unique voice, which has the ability to sound concurrently sad and confident.


30 Seconds to Mars - This is War - V Records
The Flood/Steve Lillywhite-produced third 30 Seconds to Mars album arrives with a twist - namely, 2,000 different album covers featuring the band’s picks of pics, including individual photos of fans from around the world. Past the graphics, though, lie the songs - a solid and polished tracklisting that offers up tunes of fighting towards a better future. This is a band that’s growing with the times, albeit within the confines of their alt-rock sound; to what would otherwise be typical rockers they’ve added such elements as choral chanting (“This is War”), the voices of their own fans (“Night of the Hunter”), and even a lullaby feel (“Alibi”) to make this chart-aimed set about as diverse as it could be.