ARTISTdirect.com Recent Album ReviewsMost Recent Album Reviews on ARTISTdirect"Pebble to a Pearl" by Nikka Costa- September 17, 2008 Nikka Costa has a golden throat. The chanteuse's voice belies the fact that she's merely 36-years-old and white, to boot. That's because she sings in a smoky, wise-beyond-her-years voice that's undeniably ethnically influenced. Costa's pipes make her sound as though she's a veteran of life, love, loss and whatever hard knocks teach a woman how to sing the soulful blues like this. Pebble to a Pearl places Costa in the same peer group as Amy Winehouse and Macy Gray, and it's all due to those...http://www.artistdirect.com/nad/store/artist/album/0,,4769918,00.html#review "Greetings from the Shore" by Kim Shaw- September 17, 2008 New Jersey has often been described as the "armpit of New York City." Given the Garden State's proximity to several major metropolitan areas, it's often overlooked for its own pleasures. One thing Jersey is famous for is its coastline, which runs the length of the state. Greetings from the Shore captures all the simple physical beauties of the state's natural endowments, many of which were obliterated by an MTV special a few years back about a trampy trio of Jersey Shore girls who were looking..http://www.artistdirect.com/nad/store/movies/title/0,,4430153,00.html#review "Caught in the Trees" by Damien Jurado- September 16, 2008 Damien Jurado long ago secured the sort of critical reputation and cult following that most of his fellow folk and folk-rock troubadours spend their careers chasing. But lists of the true pantheon of harrowing singersongwriters in that veinWill Oldham, Mark Kozelek, etc.seldom include Jurado, who quietly and consistently has been building a catalog that very much earns him a spot in the top tier. One of the possible catches for Jurado is that it doesn't seem that he's yet made his crowning...http://www.artistdirect.com/nad/store/artist/album/0,,4764890,00.html#review "Our Long Road Home" by Taproot- September 16, 2008 It's fitting that Taproot begin their fourth full-length album, Our Long Road Home, with a song titled, "The Path Less Taken." Basically, that title offers a snapshot of the band's ethos over the past decade. Taproot never quite fit in with the nu metal scene that was happening when their major label debut, Gift, dropped in 2000. However, they weathered that trend and continued to evolvefrom the tuneful hard rock stylings of Welcome (2002) to the ethereal experimentation of Blue-Sky Research...http://www.artistdirect.com/nad/store/artist/album/0,,4769493,00.html#review "Righteous Kill" by Robert De Niro- September 16, 2008 At the beginning of Righteous Kill, Robert De Niro's grizzled, semi-psychotic Detective Turk asks, "How do these things start" He's referring to the heinous murder of a child, and his charred delivery thinly veils an underlying rage. De Niro's performance is chilling because he references outbursts from his impressive list of career characters. Propelled by two of the greatest actors ever, De Niro and Al Pacino, Righteous Kill has the trappings of a great thriller, but it never transcends the...http://www.artistdirect.com/nad/store/movies/title/0,,4163001,00.html#review "Megagraphitti" by Vordul Mega- September 16, 2008 So far, Vordul Mega's chief career mistake has been picking extremely dynamic collaborators, namely Vast Aire of Cannibal Ox, and Billy Woods with whom he worked on 2002s Camouflage. Hes been overshadowed in the past, but Megagraphitti, Vorduls third solo album, should put him properly on the map as a versatile, rock-solid Harlem MC with a strong vision, and impeccable taste. Its fifteen tracks feature eleven different producers, but without checking the credits, I could easily believe it was.http://www.artistdirect.com/nad/store/artist/album/0,,4719518,00.html#review "Heavenly Bender" by Sam Champion- September 16, 2008 A little clarification to start. Sam Champion is a band, not a dude. On Heavenly Bender, the members of Sam Champion put together a collection of scuzzy, guitar-driven garage rock songs birthed on the dirty floor of some rehearsal space in Brooklyn, a decidedly hipster mecca when it comes to indie rock music. Armed with clang n' clatter numbers such as "Like a Secret" and "Be Mine Everyone," Sam Champion's music is a wee bit reminiscent of Jonathan FireEater, the indie rock gods who crashed and.http://www.artistdirect.com/nad/store/artist/album/0,,4720349,00.html#review "The Life Before Her Eyes" by Uma Thurman- September 15, 2008 In the post-Columbine era, gun violence in schools is a credible fear. The Life Before Her Eyes touches on this reality but flounders when it attempts to be too deep for its own good. The film is a split narrative that shuffles back and forth between the events that define the life of teenaged Diana (Evan Rachel Wood), a rebellious spark plug of a girl, and the scarred, stunted adult she becomes, since her spark was extinguished when a teenaged shooter who went ballistic in her high school...http://www.artistdirect.com/nad/store/movies/title/0,,3693304,00.html#review "Sukiyaki Western Django" by Hideaki Ito- September 15, 2008 With his hat lowered and boots dusty, a lone drifter moseys through the dry brush of a Nevada town. Hand on his gun, he eyes down an unruly posse of hoodlums. The wind blows, shots ring out, and the violence begins. This may sound like a traditional Western, but for visionary (and hallucinatory) Japanese director Takashi Miikes Sukiyaki Western Django, the similarities to the age-old genre end here. Instead, Miikes Western includes a cadre of Japanese actors, a hybridized AsianAmerican...http://www.artistdirect.com/nad/store/movies/title/0,,3866097,00.html#review "Ultra Beatdown" by Dragonforce- September 15, 2008 DragonForce's axemen Sam Totman and Herman Li can no doubt light up a fret board. However, the best thing about Ultra Beatdown &91;Roadrunner Records&93;, the follow-up to DragonForce's massively successful Inhuman Rampage, is ZP Theart's vocal performance. He's morphed into a bombastic arena-rock crooner with a set of vocal cords that could shake Valhalla to its very core. Ultra Beatdown is reminiscent of the infamous "Ride of the Valkyries" scene in Apocalypse Nowthat incredible attack where..http://www.artistdirect.com/nad/store/artist/album/0,,4717658,00.html#review |