Eyelike: Whitesnake, Chris Connelly, Boosie Badazz

Whitesnake delves deep into Purple past on new album

Whitesnake
“The Purple Album”
(Frontiers)

Who says you can‘t go home?
David Coverdale delves deep into his Deep Purple background on the new Whitesnake album, which redoes songs from his tenure fronting the legendary classic rock outfit.
“The Purple Album” begins with a more bottom-heavy version of the classic rock anthem “Burn,” on which Coverdale previously shared lead vocals with Glenn Hughes on the original track. And while the remake misses Hughes’ high notes, the current Whitesnake lineup that includes guitarists Reb Beach and Joel Hoekstra, bassist Michael Devin and metal drum legend Tommy Aldridge provides a chunky underpinning to the familiar melodies and riffs.
“Mistreated” is actually much better known as a Rainbow show-stopper from the days when Ronnie James Dio fronted Ritchie Blackmore‘s post-Purple solo band. Dio’s soaring high notes took the song to places Coverdale never imagined, but Dave valiantly tries to reclaim it as his own.
“You Fool No One” sounds fresh and new here, and “Stormbringer” is more pounding and forceful than the original.
Time has roughened Coverdale‘s voice, and there are few of the high notes that put him on top in the late `80s with tracks like “Still of the Night.” But with Blackmore continuing to waste away with a medieval-themed solo band that no one is listening to, it’s good to hear someone dust off these tracks and breathe some life into them.



Connelly a crooner with a wild streak

Chris Connelly
“Decibels from Heart”
(Cleopatra Records)

Chris Connelly is perhaps best known as one of industrial rock‘s most distinctive voices, with Fini Tribe in his native Scotland and then in Chicago in the Wax Trax stable with Al Jourgensen. His trademark was that he could actually sing, though you sometimes wouldn’t know it amid all the machine clatter. That vocal gift comes through most persuasively in his extensive solo work, where his affinity for dark ballads, glam and orchestral art-rock emerged in such early ‘90s landmarks as “Phenobarb Bambalam” and “Shipwreck.”
On “Decibels from Heart” (Cleopatra), he flirts with a lounge-singer croon that might suit the increasingly lush recordings of heroes like David Bowie and Bryan Ferry as they settled into their comfortable middle years. A handful of female vocalists add further melodic and tonal sweetening, softening the arrangements to a distressing degree on “Mistreated & Wild,” “Let’s Be Actors” and “At Least When I‘m Gone.”
But producer Matt Walker’s drumming balances the scales. Dry and heavy, it sits relatively high in the mix and prevents things from getting too cushy too often. Echoes of the singer‘s industrial past -- distorted vocals, clanging percussion, spasms of dissonance -- echo through “Be Mine When You’re Not Mine,” the Celtic-flavored title track and the bass-driven “Lavender City.” Piano ripples through the space ballad “Gravity,” with an incongruous but brilliantly disorienting reggae bass line contributing to the sense of where-are-we drift.
The genre-blurring twists and bends reach their apex on the sprawling final track, “2Gloryb,” a mix of contemplation and corrosion that presents Connelly at his least predictable. (Chicago Tribune/TNS)




‘Touch Down 2 Cause Hell’ by Boosie Badazz features Southern rap and harrowing lyrics

Boosie Badazz
“Touch Down 2 Cause Hell”
(Atlantic)

In just three years, Boosie Badazz has gone from facing the death penalty at Louisiana‘s notorious Angola State Penitentiary (he was found not guilty on murder charges) to releasing a major-label LP with Young Thug, T.I. and Rick Ross. In the interim, his music became an ad hoc soundtrack to the protests on the bloody streets of Ferguson, Missouri and he’s ascended to the current vanguard of weird Southern rap with tales of post-prison life that add essential new layers to today‘s music of police protest.
“Touch Down 2 Cause Hell,” Boosie’s sixth album and his first formal full-length since his release, could have emerged only from these circumstances. Boosie was a prolific recording artist even while locked up, but “Touch Down” feels especially considered -- he clearly spent his time inside thinking deeply about what this comeback album should mean. Singles “Like a Man” and “Retaliation” nail the gothic and narcotic sounds ruling southern rap today, but Boosie‘s lyrics have the harrowing air of a man who saw death slinking close.
More unexpectedly, he shines on the gentler material as well. “Black Heaven,” in particular, imagines an afterlife in which Michael Jackson and Marvin Gaye team up to make posthumous classics. Boosie might not be at their caliber yet, but for this moment in American life and hip-hop, he’s as visceral a voice as we‘re going to get. (LA Times/TNS)








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