XL CD REVIEWS

Patrice Pike, Michael Hall, Lisa Richards, Dave Madden

Monday, October 16, 2006

Patrice Pike

'Unraveling'

(Tape Slap Records)

Patrice Pike's recent release, "Unraveling," is both an introduction and a plaintive seduction. For those unfamiliar with Pike's extensive, genre-hopping/chart-topping, pre-"Rockstar: Supernova" career, "Unraveling" glides through 10 poppy, polished tracks while displaying all of Pike's musical fortés: pitch-perfect pipes, above-average song craft that is mannered without being cliché, and a sincerely wrought, blue-eyed soul that drenches the majority of her vocal inflections.

Far and away the album's strongest track is its title song, "Unraveling," wherein the Austinite breaks new ground within the complexities of her songwriting. The track takes a slight Beatles melodic influence and transcends it into something wholly original and unique to her discography. Between its string arrangements, the echoes of Mellotron and the cascading pop hook in the verse, "Unraveling" may be the strongest song Pike has crafted in her entire career.

Buried in the album's back end is a stunner of a ballad entitled "Pressure & Heat." Pike uses a simple three-chord melody and her ever-maturing voice to tell a story that possesses pathos in its details. It's subtle, but it shimmers with a road-weary depth that her previous band Little Sister/Sister 7 always lacked.

— V. Marc Fort

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Michael Hall

'The Song He Was Listening to When He Died'

(Freedom)

Doesn't Michael Hall, the Texas Monthly writer who used to front the Wild Seeds, know that Neil Young writes his own songs? On first, casual, doin' the dishes listen, this record sounds like it was made to get into Young's hands so that he might cover a song or two. Live with the record a couple days, however, and you'll hear so much more. Produced by Jud Newcomb and George Reiff, "The Song He Was Listening To" journeys from beaches to jungles, the altar to the bar. It can be sappy ("The Wedding"), hilarious ("America"), pretentious and silly ("I Had a Girl In Dien Bien Phu"), sinister ("Captain, Captain"), hypnotic ("I Will Follow You") and somewhere between anthemic and broken ("My World, You're Welcome To It"). On the title track, you can add all those adjectives plus "uncomfortably similar to a Jimmy Buffett song."

You can't say Hall and his cohorts didn't pack a lot of musical and lyrical ideas into this post-rock paella. Some of it works; some of it doesn't. But such richness and variety serves Hall's vocals well. He's always been a better songwriter than singer, but with this, his eighth album after the Seeds breakup, Hall seems to have found his voice by writing songs that sound like they should be sung by him.

(Michael Hall plays the Continental Club Thursday, October 19.)

—Michael Corcoran

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Lisa Richards

'Mad Mad Love'

(self-released)

With a stunning, crystal clear voice, this new Austin resident (from Australia via New York City) creates an evocative mood piece on her fourth album. Recorded in Brooklyn, N.Y., with Tim Bright and in Austin with Craig Ross, "Mad Mad Love" sounds immaculately conceived, a big production sound untouched by major label dollars. The merger of Lou Reed's "Satellite Of Love" into the title track is especially exquisite.

The record derails slightly when Richards switches to rock mode on "Whose Chain" in the fourth slot. I would've let the ethereality roll on a little longer before tamping on Edie Brickell and the Cranberries territory. Her cover of the blues number "Rags and Old Iron" makes more sense, draining the down and dirty out of the ditty with her pristine pipes. If you've become a fan of Corrine Bailey Rae and want a slice of that sweet, slinky soul a little closer to home, try out this one at the listening station.

(Lisa Richards plays Friday, October 20 at the Bugle Boy in La Grange.)

— Michael Corcoran

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Dave Madden

'Anything Goes'

(self-released)

BAM! Summer slaps Seth Cohen. Fade out. The scene opens the next day at the Cohen household in Newport Beach, Calif. Cue "Anything Goes" by Dave Madden.

Almost any of the tracks on this Austinite's full-length debut would fit perfectly on one of "The OC" season soundtracks sandwiched somewhere between Keane and Matt Pond PA. Madden can surely slay the aging adolescent niche with the whole piano playing singer-songwriter thing. The driving force here is definitely Madden's vocals. Many of the songs like "Push & Pull" rise and fall from acoustics and a scruffy whisper right into a hooky chorus, which is, by the way, where he excels. If someone walked in mid-chorus, he or she might think it was the lost track from the Coldplay's "Parachutes" sessions. At times, however, the choruses are so strong that they make the sultry verses stand out that much more and as kind of a letdown, and the verses also seem to grow longer and more frequent as the CD progresses. Although, "Accountable" does seem to punctuate things midway through with the introduction of a violin and french horn breaking things up a bit with some different sounds. Like summer, it would be nice if Madden's choruses lasted forever. Or, at least the entirety of the album.

(Dave Madden plays Thursday, October 19 at the Rooftop at Houlihan's and Saturday, October 21 at the Power of the Cross Festival at Auditorium Shores.)

— Will Mills