Disclosure
CD Reviews Of A National Scale
Coldplay
Parachutes
by Michala Michaels
 After bursting onto the music scene with their self-released 1998 EP The Safety and the subsequent five-track disc, The Blue Room EP, the Brit-rock quartet Coldplay has sealed their success with Parachutes. And while the album’s first single, “Yellow,” is currently gaining hefty airplay and drawing the listeners to the record stores, the CD is chock full of music that deserves to be listened to.
“Yellow” is just one cog in the wheel for Coldplay, and on Parachutes there isn’t a single song that risks being skipped. It’s that good.
Released in the United States in November, Parachutes quickly became a critical favorite, with lyrics that are at the same time simplistic and searing — in fact, it is quite possible that the very reason the lyrics are searing is because they are so simplistic. After all, who wouldn’t get chills by the inherent obviousness of such lines like this one from “We Never Change”: “We never change do we? No, no/We never learned to leave./So I wanna live in a wooden house/Making more friends would be easy.” Somehow, Coldplay makes it sound so easy…
Voiced by frontman Chris Martin, tracks like “Shiver” and “Don’t Panic” don’t differ all that drastically and for that, the band makes no apologies. Rather than hanging melodic replication around their necks to weigh them down, they use it to their advantage: with this release, the band has created a mood just as much as it has created a record.
Parachutes is nothing but mellow. It’s words and music don’t attempt to change the world, don’t attempt to save it, and sure as hell don’t attempt to gripe about it, rather they — Coldplay — just live in it.
Jurassic 5
Quality Control
by Zeek Weil
 Between the guest appearances and the continuous jazz-laced beats, Jurassic 5’s (J-5) latest album is like a Friday evening in Harlem during the Renaissance. Constant themes of unity or “U-N-I-T-Y” and being “armed and equipped with much confidence” make Jurassic 5’s latest release fresh and powerful enough to bring the group to the front of the rising hip-hop community. Making unique blends of rap music is nothing new for J-5; they’ve been known in certain circles for many years. With the release of the single “Quality Control” last summer, J-5 reached many new people. A video release of the single also helped tremendously. There is no doubt that Quality Control does “captivate the mind, body, and soul”. With its continual references to jazz and poetry, Quality Control is a “Dreamwork without Spielberg that still holds.”
Quality Control, the group’s first LP, is a like a frozen Caribbean drink that’s on the bartender: fifteen eclectic ingredients, and one great taste that pays for itself. The coherent harmonizing and variety of references make each song an experience of quality. Whether the songs are taking you to the backyard or the schoolyard, there is one guarantee: rarely is the jail yard mentioned.
Quality Control is definitely a marked release for the rap industry, and with their “power of words, nouns and verbs, the pens and the swords” Jurassic 5 have created a distinct sound that doesn’t stop when the album does.
|
147x50.gif)