CD Reviews

Lou Reed & Metallica | Lulu

Warner Bros. (2011)

By BARRY THOMPSON | October 25, 2011

3.0 Stars

"I am the table!" growls James Hetfield during the de facto chorus of "The View." It was hard to muffle chuckles when Lou Reed and Metallica first revealed such an aberration as an appetizer from their much-ballyhooed collaboration. The notion of the equally-polarizing grand muckamucks of, respectively, art rock and thrash metal joining forces for a concept album based on early 20th-century German Expressionism inspired equal parts ironic glee and revulsion. But one must reconcile with the absurd fact that Lulu exists before realizing how genuinely brilliant it is — when it's working. Particularly on tracks like "Mistress Dread," where Reed taps into his sly, statesmanlike aura and tunelessly orates on androgynous, impotent sexual anger that would sound goofy, except it's coming from Lou Reed. Relaxing their usual chest-beating bombast on tunes like "Dragon," Metallica use the leftover space to build an unstable house of sludge, drones, and extended flare-ups for Reed's streams of consciousness to inhabit . . . or, dare I say, haunt. It's a shame Lulu ends with a whimper, not a bang. "Junior Dad" sounds like the verse section from "Hero of the Day" played half-time with violins, and drags on for 20 minutes for absolutely no reason.

Trans Am | What Day Is It Tonight? Trans Am Live, 1993 - 2008
Trans Am are distillers of guilty pleasures, mixing fat AOR riffs with sleazy electronic accents and a propulsive attitude typically reserved for arcade soundtracks. What Day Is It Tonight? covers the DC-area band’s 20-year history with high-quality, high-energy live cuts taken from their many tours.
Various Artists | Where the Action Is: Los Angeles Nuggets 1965 - 1968
More than three years in the making, the most recent installment of Rhino's legendary archival garage-rock series offers an amazingly comprehensive excavation of an absurdly fertile scene.
Various Artists | Nippon Girls: Japanese Pop, Beat & Bossa Nova 1966–1970
Girl-group records are great and everything, yet the countless compilations out there were becoming a little hit-or-miss until 2005, when the great Girl Group Sounds Lost and Found box set finally gave this diverse genre a proper taxonomy.
Various Artists | Casual Victim Pile: Austin 2010
The notion that regional musical flavors exist independently in American cities is quickly becoming an archaic truism, seeing as how the world really is a stage these days, at least in the digital sense.
Bearstronaut | Broken Handclaps
There's a distinct absence of wildlife or astronauts on Lowell electronica quartet Bearstronaut's latest release.
The Big Hurt: Reed goes to the dogs
More evidence of the sickening barbarity of America’s penal institutions: Lil Wayne is being hassled because officers found headphones and the charger for an MP3 player in his cell.
Avi Buffalo | Avi Buffalo
Look, I get it: the last thing we need right now is yet another band who can be described as “sun-baked,” “reverb-soaked,” or even just “psychedelic.” But Avi Buffalo (I know! An animal name to boot!) are worth your attention for a few reasons.
The Big Hurt: Vince Neil acts his age
By the time you read this, the Situation will have his first single out on iTunes. Yeah, that the Situation.
Getting into the mix
Raw Power is viewed by many as one of the all-time great rock albums — but its hyper-trebly, David Bowie–mixed brittleness has been almost as infamous as the musical mayhem on the wax.
Review: Brandon Flowers | Flamingo
Brandon Flowers has gone on record saying he brought the songs on Flamingo to his fellow bandmates for the next Killers album and was given the brush-off.
Review: Kevin Dunn | No Great Lost: Songs 1979–1985
Casa Nueva Industries (2010)
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Topics: CD Reviews , Music, Lou Reed, Metallica, More

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