4Play

June 15, 2008

The Byrds - Live at Royal Albert Hall 1971 - Sundazed
From a forgotten tape (found in Byrd Roger McGuinn’s garage) springs this 1971 set recorded live at London’s famed Royal Albert Hall. Available both on CD and high-def vinyl (cool!), the album’s tracklist focuses on live versions of both classic old Byrds favorites, such as “So You Want to Be a Rock n’ Roll Star,” “Eight Miles High,” and “Mr. Tambourine Man” and “newer” (well, relatively) tracks performed by the revamped version of the band. The more recent songs, featuring guitarist Clarence White trading riffs with McGuinn and throwing his vocals in to the band’s remarkable four-part harmonies, include highlight “Chestnut Mare,” among others - and all of the songs benefit from the Albert Hall’s acoustics and the band’s skill.


Ed Harcourt - The Beautiful Lie
Perhaps on his fourth full-length album, singer-songwriter Harcourt will finally win over a larger U.S. audience. Or maybe at this point, he just doesn’t care. Harcourt has been winning Euro fans and small pockets of U.S. devotees over for ages, yet hasn’t made much of a dent in the U.S. charts, indicating that his songs are too quirky-good for the more mainstream outlets stateside. Among the unusual pop on this set are the noisy, messy sensibilities of “Scatterbraine,” the old-school, jazzy feel of “Until Tomorrow Then” complete with Harcourt’s raspy vocal line, and the zany rhythms and earworm chorus of “Shadowboxing,” all enhanced by synths, pianos, a few horns, and Harcourt’s unique twin senses of melody and drama.


The Eagles - Long Road Out of Eden (Deluxe Edition)
Is this really The Eagles’ first studio album disc since 1979? It is - and apparently they’ve been saving songs up for a while, as this album arrives with two discs and 20 songs to make that absence up. Other than the songs themselves, of course, there’s nothing particularly fresh here - the arrangements are crisp, the harmonies familiar, pretty, and well-layered, the musicianship professional, and everything’s produced to a high sheen - but that’s exactly the point. The Eagles do one thing and do it very well, even if they don’t grow a whole lot as a band. That said, they’ve added more memorable songs to their playlist, among them “What Do I Do With My Heart,” “How Long,” and standout “Waiting in the Weeds.”


Graham MacRae - Graham MacRae
California singer-songwriter MacRae may have taken a lesson or two from the Eagles’ acoustic sessions, leaning as he does on little more than his acoustic guitar and vocally temperate musings. Mellow, couch-based numbers like “A Pick Me Up” and “I Can’t Trust You,” with their insouciant appeal and somewhat haphazard arrangements, share CD space with more speakeasy-friendly fare, such as the romantic “Forty Winks” and the Dylan-esque melodies of “Wedding Wind” and “Future Days.” There’s not really a ton of depth production-wise, but it all seems decently sincere; and it may get a bit folk-droney now and then, but sometimes that’s the extent of audio challenge you want to throw at your ears.