Reviews of new rock and pop recordings by Deseret News staff writers:
BJORK; "Post" (Elektra). * * *
The former lead singer of the Sugarcubes is back with a second solo release, "Post." The album is a pleasant surprise, cutting through the mass of plain modern rock with dynamic arrangements and spunky energy.
Opening with the brooding single "Army of Me," Bjork takes complaining victims by the throat and warns them to stick up for themselves or she'll dish out her own form of wrath.
Throughout the album you can hear Bjork's elfin frame quake with remorse, excitement and lone-liness. Her breathy vocals are spiced with controlled shrills and dive into almost whispered verses.
Other tunes, such as "Enjoy" and the Latinesque "I Miss You," have that special Bjork spark, while "You've Been Flirting Again" is a soft acoustic ballad that leads into a techno-swinging, world-music-sounding "Isobel."
"It's So Quiet" takes an interesting tack - it's a big-band, Broadway-style epic that sounds like it was made for the musical theater stage. Someone like Benny Goodman would be proud (or shocked).
- Scott Iwasaki
CYNDI LAUPER; "Twelve Deadly Cyns" (Epic Records). * * 1/2
"Twelve Deadly Cyns" collects Cyndi Lauper's greatest hits, with a couple of previously unreleased songs thrown in. And they're not bad.
The anthology has 14 songs - three new, five from the album "She's So Unusual," three from "True Colors," two from "Hat Full of Stars" and one from "A Night to Remember." Her best-loved numbers are here, of course, including "Time After Time," "True Colors" and the hit that shot her to fame in the '80s, "Girls Just Want to Have Fun."
A remix of "Girls . . ." - retitled "Hey Now (Girls Just Want to Have Fun)" - is also included and gives the song new life. This version has a slower beat and the words are drawn out longer. Basically it's the same song with the punk taken out.
Lauper fans will not want to miss this album, but if you haven't loved her in the past, the collection has nothing to offer you. It's the same stuff, same sound, different decade.
- Keli Dahlquist
NINE INCH NAILS; "Further Down the Spiral" (Nothing/Interscope). * * *
After a successful (and controversial) tour that passed through Salt Lake City last October, Nine Inch Nails is revving up to tour with David Bowie.
But all is not silent in the Nail zone, as the new album "Further Down the Spiral" shows. Composed of 11 remixes of seven original songs, "Further Down" doesn't lose any of the originals' stylized angst, anomie and calculated anarchy.
NIN's industrial malevolence opens with a grunting version of "Piggy" and quickly slips into the bottomless swirl of "The Art of Self Destruction, Pt. One" - one of three remixes of "Mr. Self Destruct." (The other two are titled "Self Destruction, Pt. Two" and "Self Destruction, Final".)
The flat, grinding guitars and Trent Reznor's breathy whispers and blood-boiling screams rail throughout the album. But it's on "The Downward Spiral (the Bottom)" that the dark dynamics really seep through, as the seemingly tortured soul of a murderer tries to justify itself and snaps into an arena of mindwhispers. The keyboard-laden staccato grinds away in the background.
Lonely antisocialism pumps through the dynamic pulse of "Hurt," while the friction of "At the Heart of It All" serves as a death march through the gothic medieval chant of "Eraser" toward "The Beauty of Being Numb."
The beauty of this album is NIN-leader Reznor's use of "non-music." As with all NIN albums, static and feedback blast through the mix just when you least expect it - talk about the psychological power of sound.
It would have been interesting to hear a remix of "Closer" and an older hit, "Head Like a Hole." But the remixers - including Rick Rubin, Aphex Twin and John Balance (among others) - did a wonderful, woeful job of revitalizing Reznor's anger.
"Further Down" is a must for NIN fans.
- Scott Iwasaki
RATINGS: four stars (* * * * ), excellent; three stars (* * * ), good; two stars (* * ), fair; one star (* ), poor, with 1/2 representing a higher, intermediate grade.