The Fireman, Electric Arguments (ATO, 2008)

The Fireman is a side project for Paul McCartney and the veteran producer Youth. They recorded two instrumental albums in the nineties which fell through the cracks completely, but their third album Electric Arguments contains songs. Electric Arguments does maintain the same experimental flavor of its predecessors, though, so people expecting a typical McCartney album will be in for a bit of a surprise.

The whole album has a resonant ambience, heavy on the reverb and containing a bit more distortion than the arrangements would normally call for. On tracks like the opening bluesy rocker "Nothing Too Much Just Out of Sight," the countryish "Light from Your Lighthouse," and the electronic "Lovers in a Dream," McCartney does some different things with his voice. As a result, the normally unmistakable tenor behind so many classic Beatles songs is not always easy to recognize. Youth contents himself with creating the soundscapes to back up McCartney's voice and instrumentation. Most of the music on Electric Arguments has a dreamy, trance-like quality, which does work nicely enough on songs like "Sun Is Shining" and "Lifelong Passion."

On one hand, it's always interesting to hear a performer of McCartney's stature doing something different for the fun of it, especially after he seemed to be trying too hard to get back on the radio with his last album Memory Almost Full. On the other hand, Electric Arguments is more interesting than it is good. McCartney included "Sing the Changes" and "Highway" on the set list for his shows at Citifield over the summer, but neither song is particularly memorable. And that more or less sums Electric Arguments up. There are some promising ideas in here, but none of the songs really stick with you once you put the album down.

Overall grade: B-

reviewed by Scott

"Sing the Changes"

Paul McCartney, Memory Almost Full (Hear Music, 2007)

While Paul McCartney's legacy and vital contributions to the music of the rock era are utterly indisputable, his recent musical offerings have mostly fallen through the cracks. In the case of his 1995 CD Chaos and Creation in the Backyard, this was particularly unfortunate. Paul didn't try to impress anybody but himself and just had fun with the music instead, and the result was one of his two or three strongest post-Beatles efforts. With his new CD Memory Almost Full, Paul is making much more of an effort to make another dent in the charts, aiming for more accessibility with the music and promoting the album more aggressively than he's promoted anything in quite some time. Regrettably, much of the new album lacks any genuine inspiration.

In many of the songs on Memory Almost Full, Paul reflects either on the distant past or on his shrinking future. In "Ever Present Past," Paul wonders where the time went. Paul continues to wax nostalgic in the three-song medley (yes, he's already been there and done that) of "Vintage Clothes," "That Was Me," and "Feet In The Clouds" but the psychedelia of the first part, the funk of the second part, and the synthesized orchestration and vocals in the third part just sound forced. He gets very sentimental in the penultimate song "The End of the End," reflecting on how he'd like his passing to be acknowledged when the time comes. I'm not sure the sentiments he expresses in this song are particularly profound, but mortality remains a subject few performers address, so he at least deserves some credit for trying.

Otherwise, nothing in Memory Almost Full really struck me as being noteworthy. It sounds like Paul is trying too hard to get people's attention, when he really has no need to.

Overall grade: C+

Top 10 CD's of 2005

Hello and Happy New Year everybody. The birth of the Armchair Critic site gives me the opportunity to revive an old annual tradition of posting my 10 favorite albums of the year. I had a pretty good selection to choose from this year, and as usual the list adds some new faces to the fold to go alongside return efforts from recently-made acquaintances and old stand-bys alike.

10. Hurdy Gurdy, "Prototyp": Garmarna's Stefan Brisland-Ferner and Hedningarna's Totte Mattson take two Swedish hurdy-gurdies and a smattering of electronics and produce one of the most groundbreaking albums you're going to hear from anybody in any genre.

9. Richard Thompson, "Front Parlour Ballads": An average album by Richard Thompson's standards will never have any difficulty cracking my top 10 lists. A mere thirty-eight years removed from his first LP with Fairport Convention, he's still as good a songwriter and guitarist as you'll find.

8. Porcupine Tree, "Deadwing": What started as Steven Wilson's one-man-in-his-basement project has evolved over the past decade into a full-fledged, first-rate band bringing modernized art rock to the masses, or at least to their cult following.

7. Frigg, "Oasis": Folk fiddles from Finland and Norway. Their self-titled debut would have made last year's list if I had a chance to post one, and the follow-up is even better.

6. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, "Howl": Grunge band with strong Jesus and Mary Chain influence does about-face with third record and puts out rootsy, mostly acoustic, gospel-tinged effort. Somehow, it still works.

5. The New Pornographers, "Twin Cinema": Formed from the remnants of a couple of popular Vancouver bands, with a helping of (mostly backing) vocals from alt-country goddess Neko Case thrown in for good measure, The New Pornographers spent their first two albums bringing retro power pop into the 21st century. Their third album finds them aiming for a bit more depth and generally finding it. (I'm still partial to Neko Case's solo work, though; she put on a fabulous show in town on Valentine's Day and will have a new CD "Fox Confessor Brings the Flood" out on March 7.)

4. "Brandi Carlile": The year's best debut comes from a singer in her early twenties who looks like a teenager but sings with the voice of a woman whose seen enough for several lifetimes. "Closer To You" and "Thrown It All Away" are absolute gems.

3. Paul McCartney, "Chaos and Creation in the Backyard": Paul keeps things simple and straightforward, adopting the same approach that makes his 1970 debut still his best post-Beatles effort, and the result is arguably his strongest album since then, or at the very least matched only by 1989's "Flowers in the Dirt" and maybe one or two others. It's hard to believe that an album from a Beatle could sneak up on people, but here you go.

2. The Soundtrack of Our Lives, "Origin Vol. 1": When I saw them play at the Bowery Ballroom in March, a woman at my table said she described them to a friend as "stoner prog, but in a good way." That's a better description of TSOOL than anything I could come up with, so I'm going with it. They're fun and they rock, so why sweat the details?

1. Pina, "Guess You Got It": I've already reviewed this album in detail elsewhere, so I'll just say that Pina is wonderfully creative and distinct and has my two favorite CD's of the 00's to date. And she was also an extremely cooperative and fascinating interview subject to boot, for which I remain quite grateful.

Check out any and all of these performers if you get the chance. 2006 should get off to a flying start, with the Neko Case CD in March and the return of Värttinä, a Finnish band who've found themselves at or near the top of a lot of my year-end lists in the past, coming up on January 24. I plan on keeping quite busy. In the meantime, peace and good will to everybody everywhere.

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The Top 10 CD's of 2006