Remember – if you send it, it will get reviewed. That’s the City Slang promise. It doesn’t matter what genre the music is – as long as it has a Metro Detroit connection, it’ll get in. Preferably, we’d like to concentrate on new releases but, while we’re getting warmed up here, feel free to send back catalog material too. Send CDs, vinyl, cassettes, demos and 8-tracks to Brett Callwood, City Slang, Metro Times, 733, St. Antoine, Detroit, MI 46226. Email MP3s and streaming links to [email protected].
Doop and the Inside Outlaws new album, What am I Supposed to do? (Blood River Music) is exactly what one might expect from a Doop record. That’s how good this guy is – we know that a new album from Dun Duprie and his outlaws is going to be quality. It’s like somebody has picked up a Nashville bar and planted it right on Woodward. The songs are honest, raw and heartfelt, but that vein of Detroit filth and gasoline is running straight through it, giving this country music an edge that our friends to the south will never be able to match. Fine work, you silver-tongued Motor City cowboy.
North To Glory is a local indie band that create bleak, yet somehow lush, soundscapes on their Silencer (Utter East) album. There are times when the record call forth thoughts of Nine Inch Nails, others when Sigur Ros spring to mind. But always, this album keeps you thinking.
Geri Allen is a local jazz pianist and composer, and A Child is Born (Motema) is an album of mostly Christmas tunes performed beautifully. To be honest, it’s weird trying to listen to this is September, but come mid-December, this album should be played all over Detroit and beyond. I can practically taste the turkey and ham.
Small Houses surprised us a little by sending over a folk album, “North” (self-released) that is frankly superb. Recorded in Ann Arbor, the songs are hair-raisingly beautifully, some of the vocal interplay is incredible, and the musicianship is wonderful.
Enny Ess emailed us an amazing remix of Mew’s “Introducing Palace Players”. Like any great remix, it retains the spirit of the original but takes it in a whole new direction. Enjoy.
It doesn’t seem like a proper City Slang week of reviews without some hip-hop, and this week it’s provided by Cold Men Young, who sent in their new single “Time Bomb”. The guys say that, “We wrote this song to reflect the frustration that everyday people feel with the current state of affairs (class/economic inequality, governmental dishonesty and corruption, the routine struggles of trying to make it day to day), and provide them with an anthem/chant to release that tension and push them through the their tribulations...also just to get them rowdy because hey, sometimes you just have to get rowdy.” The song succeeds on every level. Frustration and rowdiness flows out of every word and rhyme.
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