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News Arhive: Releases:50 Cent, Mando Diao, The Cape May |
50 CENT The Massacre (Shady/Aftermath/Interscope/Universal) On the strength of a multi-platinum debut record, 50 Cent got rich and didn’t die trying and now the chiseled superstar isn’t looking to mess with the formula. The Massacre beats the usual gangsta tropes to death — Fiddy will kill you if you mess with him, Fiddy’s got lots of money and Fiddy can get any "bitch" he wants. He does deserve credit for doing most of the heavy lifting — The Massacre is mercifully light on guest cameos — and for his charismatic command of the mic, but these skills are wasted on a record that celebrates street life without saying anything new about it. 50 FOOT WAVE Golden Ocean (4AD/Beggars) Someone once wrote that the holy trinity of rock is comprised of The Beatles, The Who and The Pixies. If Golden Ocean is any indication, then a career can be fashioned by aping just one of these triumvirates. 50 Foot Wave swipe The Pixies playbook wholesale, swapping Frank Black’s manic singing with Kristin Hersh’s (Throwing Muses, soloist) gravelly, Janis Joplin-gone-stark-raving-mad caterwauling. This is the antithesis of the punk ethos — instead of inspiration before musical talent, these guys deliver technical expertise with tired, retread concepts. It’s bands like 50 Foot Wave who make the recent Pixie reformation redundant. BELINDA BRUCE Dream Yourself Awake (Maximum/Universal) The first album from the Vancouver-based Belinda Bruce makes for a great campfire soundtrack, drifting along on gentle, unassuming melodies and low-fi intimacy. Bruce’s voice isn’t a powerhouse instrument, especially compared with a couple of certain Sarahs who traffic in the same kind of sound, but when it’s laid over softly-plucked guitars and brooding cellos it takes on a uniquely ethereal quality. Though it too often displays the singer’s maddening tendency to under-enunciate and murk up her lyrics, Dream Yourself Awake introduces Bruce as a master of grown-up lullabies and a worthwhile addition to the female singer-songwriter tradition. |
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