Review Round Up

[Bandit72]

The Independent Review: Jane's Addiction - The Great Escape Artist
14 October 2011

They may talk it up as a brave new step forward, but their first album in over eight years can't really be viewed as other than a retrograde move for Jane's Addiction.

Their spiky, iconoclastic sound used to sit uneasily alongside more mainstream rock, but here there's a distinct shift towards the bombastic stadium mode of such as Muse. In places, they even sound like U2, particularly when the charging riff of "Curiosity Kills" hits its stride. The involvement of TV on the Radio's Dave Sitek has introduced Goth and psychedelic synthscapes alongside Dave Navarro's shrill, fizzing guitar riffs, the elements circling each other like caged beasts on tracks like "Twisted Tales" and "Underground", two of several songs here yet again featuring Perry Farrell's tributes to (his own) outsidership.

Download This: Underground, Twisted Tales

2 / 5

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-enter ... 70093.html

Why waste the ink on printing that? What does that tell me about the album. Doesn't even list who did this "review" but whoever he is, he's a fucking nob jockey.

[cursed male]

Why waste the ink on printing that? What does that tell me about the album. Doesn't even list who did this "review" but whoever he is, he's a fucking nob jockey.

The major newspapers, at least the European ones, usually write pretty short album reviews. They're more like side dishes to movie reviews.

[NYRexall]

I already know NYRexall, and we don't have an interpersonal conflict. Can you please stop stalking me? kthxbye

You do?

From where?

[Bandit72]

Why waste the ink on printing that? What does that tell me about the album. Doesn't even list who did this "review" but whoever he is, he's a fucking nob jockey.

The major newspapers, at least the European ones, usually write pretty short album reviews. They're more like side dishes to movie reviews.

Even the NME/Q would write convoluted prose about the band history or the "new" Perry and steer well clear of actually reviewing the album. Music journos don't really do their job these days in my opinion. I'm sure a lot of them don't know how to critique music anymore.

[Jasper]

I already know NYRexall, and we don't have an interpersonal conflict. Can you please stop stalking me? kthxbye

You do?

From where?

Not irl, from xiola & here. From what I can tell I'm the only person who realized you were Ash. Did you listen to the album yet?

[NYRexall]

If by listening to the album you mean the stream of it, then no, I have not and will not. I'll wait until the release date when I have the physical product and then make a judgement call as to whether I want to or not.

That's interesting. I didn't think I made much of a presence on Xiola as "Ash", least of which someone might remember me from there under that name.

NYRexall is the internet pseudonym I've been using for most everything in the last 10 years. I don't even particularly like the name anymore, it's just who certain people in certain places know me as.

I'd much rather have a name here like "Then She Died..." or "I Hate Myself and Want To Die"

[creep]

poor stephen...chris chaney gets more respect than him now. nice job on spelling perry's first and lasts name wrong in the title too.

Jane's Addiction members Dave Navarro, Chris Chaney and Pery Ferrell reunite for comeback album

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainmen ... z1al1uJGFN


"I've replanted my feet / back in the underground," yelps Perry Farrell at the start of the comeback CD from his band Jane's Addiction.

But is that really possible?

The version of Jane's that speaks to us today would have a hard time approximating the wild-eyed crew that stormed out of L.A. in the mid-'80s. Then, they communicated a hedonist's abandon, told in everything from their brutally askew riffs to their lyrical paean to free sex and the joys of shoplifting.

The members' current ages, fame level and bank accounts make that kind of anarchic pluck difficult to pull off. But it's still theoretically achievable. Unfortunately, the music they came up with on "The Great Escape Artist" - their first new studio recording in eight years, out this Tuesday - sounds too comfy to occupy any current underground.

It's hardly lame. Dave Navarro's guitar takes some needling new turns, the riffs have appeal, and there's always Farrell's loopy character, and foghorn vocals, to sway us. There's even some new blood injected, in the form of bassist Dave Sitek from TV on the Radio. But you'll find little of that band's arch abrasion here.

Essentially, "Escape Artist" offers respectable fodder. It's generic Jane. Of course, that still has its charms. So should the band's concert appearances, two of which take place Monday and Tuesday at Irving Plaza. Even if they're not cutting-edge, they're heritage events by a band talented enough to deserve one.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainmen ... z1al1m0hb8

[Jasper]

If by listening to the album you mean the stream of it, then no, I have not and will not. I'll wait until the release date when I have the physical product and then make a judgement call as to whether I want to or not.

That's interesting. I didn't think I made much of a presence on Xiola as "Ash", least of which someone might remember me from there under that name.

NYRexall is the internet pseudonym I've been using for most everything in the last 10 years. I don't even particularly like the name anymore, it's just who certain people in certain places know me as.

I'd much rather have a name here like "Then She Died..." or "I Hate Myself and Want To Die"

Eh, I remembered. Ash from "Ashland."

As for the album, I think we've mostly gone beyond listening to the stream. I don't quite understand buying the product if you don't know whether you want to listen to it, but you seem to be a little eccentric about the whole process, so whatever floats your boat. I'm going to be a good guy and pay for it, but I definitely wouldn't pay a nickel if I hadn't heard it and wasn't sure I'd listen to it at least once.

[kv]

If by listening to the album you mean the stream of it, then no, I have not and will not. I'll wait until the release date when I have the physical product and then make a judgement call as to whether I want to or not.

[cursed male]

London Evening Standard Review: Jane's Addiction - The Great Escape Artist
14 October 2011

This is only Jane's Addiction's fourth album in a 23-year career peppered with break-ups and substance issues. In truth, despite recruiting The Master Musicians of Joujouka on End to the Lies (you can't hear the legendary Moroccans, so it hardly matters), it's as you were. Perry Farrell's rocket-propelled screech remains something to admire if not love, Stephen Perkins drums like an irritated monster and Dave Navarro is still one of the great Nineties guitarists, only slightly adrift in this century. When it all comes together on the extraordinarily powerful and unusually moving Irresistible Force, they sound genuinely inspired. For all the shoulder-shrugging occasioned by another reunion, it's not the disaster it could have been.

3 / 5

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/music/art ... -estate.do

[ESY]

God I really hate music reviews with a score attached.

When I went to see the Mona Lisa I didn't stand there and walk away after an hour thinking to myself, Yep - 10/10 but that other painting over there was only a 4/10.

[creep]

the metacritic score based on five reviews so fa is 49 which is not very good.

http://www.metacritic.com/music/the-great-escape-artist

from one of the reviews

Farrell comes across like a man in the midst of an identity crisis, flitting between juvenile boasts and wrong-headed takes on domestic bliss in the space of a song on the ponderous ‘Splash A Little Water On It’. It’s probably telling that the only time he really sounds at home is when he’s looking back on a time before fame (“I laid my bed out / On my back seat” on ‘Twisted Tales’). But that’s only half the problem. ‘The Great Escape Artist’ is one-paced, bloodless, and frequently blighted by Dave Navarro’s ersatz Edge-isms. It’s only on closing stomper ‘Words Right Out Of My Mouth’ that they finally cut loose, but it’s too little, too late.

[leviticus]

the metacritic score based on five reviews so fa is 49 which is not very good.

http://www.metacritic.com/music/the-great-escape-artist

from one of the reviews

Farrell comes across like a man in the midst of an identity crisis, flitting between juvenile boasts and wrong-headed takes on domestic bliss in the space of a song on the ponderous ‘Splash A Little Water On It’. It’s probably telling that the only time he really sounds at home is when he’s looking back on a time before fame (“I laid my bed out / On my back seat” on ‘Twisted Tales’). But that’s only half the problem. ‘The Great Escape Artist’ is one-paced, bloodless, and frequently blighted by Dave Navarro’s ersatz Edge-isms. It’s only on closing stomper ‘Words Right Out Of My Mouth’ that they finally cut loose, but it’s too little, too late.

That's a shame, I rarely see a score that low. Satellite Party was at 59, Strays was at 75. I personally think it is more deserving. would like to see it in the upper 60's where it belongs.

[sonny]

the metacritic score based on five reviews so fa is 49 which is not very good.

http://www.metacritic.com/music/the-great-escape-artist

from one of the reviews

Farrell comes across like a man in the midst of an identity crisis, flitting between juvenile boasts and wrong-headed takes on domestic bliss in the space of a song on the ponderous ‘Splash A Little Water On It’. It’s probably telling that the only time he really sounds at home is when he’s looking back on a time before fame (“I laid my bed out / On my back seat” on ‘Twisted Tales’). But that’s only half the problem. ‘The Great Escape Artist’ is one-paced, bloodless, and frequently blighted by Dave Navarro’s ersatz Edge-isms. It’s only on closing stomper ‘Words Right Out Of My Mouth’ that they finally cut loose, but it’s too little, too late.

i'm trying to tell folks.

radiohead's new one 80
wilco's new one 84

[leviticus]

the metacritic score based on five reviews so fa is 49 which is not very good.

http://www.metacritic.com/music/the-great-escape-artist

from one of the reviews

Farrell comes across like a man in the midst of an identity crisis, flitting between juvenile boasts and wrong-headed takes on domestic bliss in the space of a song on the ponderous ‘Splash A Little Water On It’. It’s probably telling that the only time he really sounds at home is when he’s looking back on a time before fame (“I laid my bed out / On my back seat” on ‘Twisted Tales’). But that’s only half the problem. ‘The Great Escape Artist’ is one-paced, bloodless, and frequently blighted by Dave Navarro’s ersatz Edge-isms. It’s only on closing stomper ‘Words Right Out Of My Mouth’ that they finally cut loose, but it’s too little, too late.

i'm trying to tell folks.

radiohead's new one 80
wilco's new one 84

Both good albums.

[NYRexall]

If by listening to the album you mean the stream of it, then no, I have not and will not. I'll wait until the release date when I have the physical product and then make a judgement call as to whether I want to or not.

[NYRexall]

If by listening to the album you mean the stream of it, then no, I have not and will not. I'll wait until the release date when I have the physical product and then make a judgement call as to whether I want to or not.

That's interesting. I didn't think I made much of a presence on Xiola as "Ash", least of which someone might remember me from there under that name.

NYRexall is the internet pseudonym I've been using for most everything in the last 10 years. I don't even particularly like the name anymore, it's just who certain people in certain places know me as.

I'd much rather have a name here like "Then She Died..." or "I Hate Myself and Want To Die"

Eh, I remembered. Ash from "Ashland."

As for the album, I think we've mostly gone beyond listening to the stream. I don't quite understand buying the product if you don't know whether you want to listen to it, but you seem to be a little eccentric about the whole process, so whatever floats your boat. I'm going to be a good guy and pay for it, but I definitely wouldn't pay a nickel if I hadn't heard it and wasn't sure I'd listen to it at least once.

Lolz, Ash from Ashland indeed.

I will listen to the album eventually. Probably the day it arrives in the post. I'm just talking out of my ass when it comes to putting to the band on blast. My hopes for quality with TGEA are not very high, so I'm not expecting much. But I've been a fan for a long time and I'll still buy pretty much anything they release.

That Sputnikmusic review that cursed male posted pretty much sums up my honest-to-god opinion of the band these days.

[trevor ayer]

"I will listen to the album eventually" if u haven't yet don't bother .. save yourself the heartache .. its like going back to that restaurant that sucks ever since they changed management, thinking it might be good if you try it again, then you realize you just spent 60 bucks on dog food ..

[Tyler Durden]

"I will listen to the album eventually" if u haven't yet don't bother .. save yourself the heartache .. its like going back to that restaurant that sucks ever since they changed management, thinking it might be good if you try it again, then you realize you just spent 60 bucks on dog food ..

Awesome analogy.

[Hokahey]

the metacritic score based on five reviews so fa is 49 which is not very good.

http://www.metacritic.com/music/the-great-escape-artist

from one of the reviews

Farrell comes across like a man in the midst of an identity crisis, flitting between juvenile boasts and wrong-headed takes on domestic bliss in the space of a song on the ponderous ‘Splash A Little Water On It’. It’s probably telling that the only time he really sounds at home is when he’s looking back on a time before fame (“I laid my bed out / On my back seat” on ‘Twisted Tales’). But that’s only half the problem. ‘The Great Escape Artist’ is one-paced, bloodless, and frequently blighted by Dave Navarro’s ersatz Edge-isms. It’s only on closing stomper ‘Words Right Out Of My Mouth’ that they finally cut loose, but it’s too little, too late.

i'm trying to tell folks.

radiohead's new one 80
wilco's new one 84

And both make me go sleepy time. Radiohead could fart a new album out and critics would rave about it because Radiohead is the defacto art band that must be praised.

[JOEinPHX]

Radiohead is boring as fuck.

[Larry B.]

Radiohead is boring as fuck.

As your fuck, maybe.

My fuck is pretty enjoyable.

[kv]

Radiohead is boring as fuck.

As your fuck, maybe.

My fuck is pretty enjoyable.

looks pretty fucking boring to me

[Deconstruction]

Radiohead is boring as fuck.

Yep, hate all the hipsters my age who act like Thom Yorke is god.

[cursed male]

[moved]