The New Music 4

Just a short trip through the New Music this week.

Gorillaz - Demon Days: The softmore album from the animated rock/hip-hop/pop group Gorillaz is no less a surprise than their first album. Instead of giving listeners more of the same, they trade in the eclecticism for a smoother, more melodic offering which has the sound of maturity to it. I seem to recall one of the band members saying that Noodle had more to do with the structure of the album than anyone else and, whether this is true or not, it feels like there's a singular force behind it all driving the songs. I'm not 100% sold on every song on 'Demon Days', but the good far outweighs the bad and just gets better the more you listen to it.

Audioslave - Out of Exile: I don't actually own the first Audioslave album but I know a few people who do and have heard it on many occasions. I liked what I heard and it is based on that liking of their debut effort that I give them a mention here for the second album, 'Out of Exile'. I haven't heard a single track off of it yet but Cornell usually takes a few albums to settle in before he decides to take quantum leaps with his songwriting, so I'm willing to bet this one is more of the same, but a good kind of same, you know? If I have the time and the inspiration, I'll probably be checking this one out in the near future.

Missed This One Dept.

Angel: Live Fast, Die Never - Music from TV Series: Last week I said that there were no new albums worth mentioning but I was wrong. Really wrong, as a matter of fact. It took many years for this compilation to see the light of day, but now you can have a sampling of the official score of the show created by series composer, Robert Kral.

It looks like a nice sampling of tracks as well as including 3 songs performed by cast members (from their Karaoke performances, of course), a newly recorded version of the theme song and some other non-music goodies like an intro by Joss Whedon and some pics.

Now that I've remembered this one is out there, it may give 'Demon Days' a run for its money as the CD to buy this week.

mike