Album reviews

In a submission by the Rose-Thorn’s own Living writer, Christine Price, Slainte Mhath’s second CD available on import from Canada is “VA”. With the title alone and the brief description of, “It’s Scottish music played by Canadians,” there was no real expectation on my part to what the album could be. When the first track, “Va”, played, the only thoughts I had were “Wow, awesome bagpipe work.” When you get deeper into the album though, it’s not all about being a classical Scottish sound but moves more into a weird blend of electronica, blues, rock and classical instrumentation and it doesn’t stay stale through the album, which is a special feat, especially for bagpipes. The album has a lot of really excellent songs and they all inspire the mood to dance, but that may be an Irish/Scotsman thing, I don’t know. I think one trouble I had was taking all the music in at once; the CD isn’t very long but at times it feels like it was dragging on. The song order sounds best when randomized simply because after songs like “10 Grand” and “Foxhunter”, my senses get fried. This CD is definitely worth a listen but it is more of once in a while jam out for any listener.





As a fan, like many, of the OK Go free music videos and the band’s acclaimed album, “Oh No”, I thought a step back to the band’s first album would be enlightening as to the band’s roots. In comparison to their second release, this album is a lot more poppy and catchy which is a bit of a disappointment. I had gotten the impression from the band’s website (http://www.okgo.net) that the feeling was mutual in what they were doing differently with “Oh No”. To be fair, it is a great album and there is nothing wrong with being poppy; this is definitely great driving music because of its fast beats and sweet melodies. Everything about OK Go is here, but it just feels so glossed and clean that it drove me crazy. Two songs (“There’s a Fire” and “C-C-C-Cinnamon Lips”) that really didn’t impress to a point got irritating; so much that I almost refuse to listen to them anymore than I have to in order to maintain what’s great about the album. It’s hard to really finalize a rating for this CD, but as a stand-alone album, it is good and can easily be appreciated as such.