Review: Ablum! - Duplex

Presented with a band that includes 3-, 11-, and 12-year-old kids as members, plus an album cover that makes it look very much like the 3-year-old was the artistic director for the album, Ablum (2005), by the Vancouver-based Duplex!, had a couple strikes going against it according to my general bias against kids in bands and bad album cover art.

Thank goodness I have no idea what I'm talking about there, because this is a very good album. Consisting of adult members from assorted north-of-the-border bands (The Beekeepers, p:ano, and more) plus a few of their kids, Duplex! is very much a side-project supergroup. And while my temptation is compare them with labelmates and Western Canadian supergroup The New Pornographers ('cuz I'll do anything to work in a reference to them), the more appropriate comparison is the Eastern Canadian supergroup Broken Social Scene. While the New Pornographers work up their tunes into a polished if frenzied power pop sheen, Broken Social Scene plays things loose, sometimes sounding ragged around the edges.

It's the general ragged charm of the album, plus the willingness of the group to throw just about everything against the wall and see what sticks, that is its strength. From the Grateful Dead-noodlings of the album opener "Yr Mama" to the Cake stylings of "Heatin' Up the Milk," there are few musical stylings that it doesn't cover. Euro-cabaret of 8 1/2 Souvenirs? Try "Mr. Slim or "Bethlehem." Sleater-Kinney? Try "Nucat." Ska? "DNA."

The album is not without a strong sense of humor, amusing both youngsters and hipsters. For kids, the album's particular enjoyment in rhymes is particularly noticeable in "The Salad Song, " which takes a decidedly anti-green approach ("Spinach, cucumber / I think I'm going under / Cabbage and sprouts / I have a lot of doubts"). Adults will probably appreciate more the cabaret song "Bethlehem" and its less-than-reverent view of the city ("Bethlehem / Where the beds are fluffy and the rocks are hard / where everyday is a holiday card"). For the most part, though, the subjects (including poop, monkeys, and multiplication) are very kid-focused.

When you throw everything against the wall, some of it is bound to, uh, slide off. The spoken word "Lament of the House Rabbit" is tedious while "Lookit Me!" is as annoying as your 4-year-old who wants you to look at her every five seconds for what seems like an eternity. But those are exceptions, not the rule.

Kids age 3 through 8 (or 38) are most likely going to enjoy this album. You can buy the CD at many online stores (physical and download formats), and find samples there. (There are no samples at the Mint Records page for the band.)

If you have any sort of indie-music tendencies, you will find something to amuse and entertain you in Ablum. The giddy fun in making the record comes through loud and clear on the album, and you'll find yourself telling others, "Yeah, the album cover's kinda dorky, but wait 'til you hear it..." Definitely recommended.

Review: Chocolate Milk - ScribbleMonster and His Pals

In college, I had a friend who occasionally entertained crowds by doing rock classics in the one-and-only voice of Ethel Merman. You've not lived 'til you've heard an Ethel Merman impersonator doing performing "Black Dog" by Led Zeppelin. ("Hey hey mama, said the way you move...") The incongruity of rock lyric and near-cartoonish voice rarely failed to bring down the house. Nobody could take that voice seriously.

I think most people would agree that "Black Dog" isn't a kids' song, but the question remains: why is it that some children's music feels the need to use cartoon voices? Cartoonish voices are good... in cartoons. Stripped of the visuals, cartoonish voices can become very tiresome very quickly. Do you want to hear an entire album of alternative pop recorded by, say, Bugs Bunny?

ScribbleMonster and His Pals attempts to bridge that gap on their 2004 album, their second, Chocolate Milk. ScribbleMonster is joined by ScribbleKitty, ScribblePiggy, and ScribbleBunny in singing seriously catchy power-pop melodies. Can the combination work?

Not entirely. This is best demonstrated on the title track (which fills the "void of festive, drinking songs for kids"); it's actually found twice on the album. On the first version of the song, voiced by ScribbleMonster, the growly voice causes me some ScribblePain. The second version, voiced by ScribbleJim (James Dague, the Chicago-area group's songwriter and voice for ScribbleMonster) provides no small amount of ScribbleJoy and is a ridiculously catchy song. "Beautiful Day" borrows part of the chord progression from Weezer's "Island in the Sun," and has the same, mellow alterna-pop feel of Weezer's song. In a good way. Because it's sung by "ScribbleKitty," whose voice is, well, normal, it's pleasant to listen to. (And while we're on the subject of songs sounding a lot like other, older songs, "Don't Cry, Dance" makes me wonder if the ScribbleAnimals haven't been to more than a few showings of the Rocky Horror Picture Show.)

The power-pop melodies and instrumentation will be familiar to fans of alternative pop and rock over the past 20 years, with mid-tempo rockers and quite a bit of fuzzy electric guitar. The lyrics are written with good humor and have little pretension. "The World's Greatest," for example, a driving rocker about being whatever you want to be, a standard topic for kids songs, has a list of entirely reasonable careers, including lines about "I'm gonna be the world's greatest plumber / I'll clear a clog like nobody else can." Any song that sings about becoming a plumber without condescension is OK by me.

The album will probably appeal most to kids ages 3 through 8. You can hear a number of songs at the ScribbleBooks Music page, or watch some additional videos at their Video page. You can buy the 32-minute album through the ScribbleMonster website and the other usual online suspects (in physical or download format).

In the end, I can't recommend Chocolate Milk entirely because of the cartoonish voices, but other listeners may not have the same eye-twitching that the voices cause me on some of the tracks, so if you're interested check out the Music and Video links above. Behind those cartoon voices you'll find a nice batch of kids' alterna-pop. And if ScribbleJim ever releases an album, I am so there.

Review: The Amazing Adventures of Kid Astro - Ralph's World

Listening to The Amazing Adventures of Kid Astro (2004), Ralph Covert's fifth album as Ralph's World, one can't help shake the feeling that Covert spent a lot of time listening to AM radio growing up. Because the album sounds like what kid might hearing moving up and down the AM side of the dial (and occasionally flipping over to FM).

Take one of the strongest cuts on the album -- "Fee Fi Fo Fum," which is a great little slice of bluesy garage rock. Covert sings it with a Jagger-like swagger; and even '90s garage-rock revivalists The Smithereens wouldn't do it any better. (Not to mention Covert slides in some healthy self-esteem lyrics such as ("It doesn’t matter who our friends are / if you got some Fee Fi Fo Fum / It doesn’t matter who our friends are and / let me tell you everybody got some"). "Dumptruck" has a funky countryfied sound with a slinky bridge. "We Are Ants" is a sweet piece of bubblegum pop that would sound great on any oldies station today. (Sure, it copies some of the chord structure from "Fee Fi Fo Fum," but why wouldn't you when it sounds so good?) "Sun in My Eyes," despite some clunky lyrics ("And the simple things are simple / And the truth will still be true"), sounds like a Beatles outtake.

Even on the songs I didn't enjoy I can appreciate what Covert's trying to do. "The Tea Tale" is a slice of James Taylor at his most acoustic. The lyrics and arrangement don't do much for me, but I recognize that's a matter of taste, not execution. And the title cut nicely blends the outrageous tropes of Saturday-morning adventure cartoons with the ever-popular-with-kids-genre of... prog-rock. For all those kids begging their parents to play their copy of Genesis' The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway. (OK, I really don't care for prog-rock. Having said that, it's not half-bad.) On all the songs, Covert backs himself up with a crack band and well-placed soloists (the clarinet on the zippy "Miss Molly Crackerjack," for example).

With songs about dumptrucks and first kisses, it covers a wide range, age-wise, perhaps ages 3 through 10. You can read lyrics and get an mp3 of "Fee Fi Fo Fum" at the Ralph's World site here. The 36-minute album is available at many online (iTunes Music Store, included) and finer retail locations.

Over the years in Ralph's World, Ralph Covert has honed his children's pop and rock songwriting skills, coming up with great hooks while generally steering clear of lyrical sappiness. The rockers and gentle acoustic ballads combine in The Amazing Adventures of Kid Astro to make for an album which sounds just as nice coming out of your speakers in the 2000s as it would have in the 1970s. Definitely recommended.

Review: Songs from the Hebrew Scriptures / Songs from the New Testament - Why Not Sea Monsters?

For many artists, children's music is a side project. If you're Justin Roberts, however, you're already a children's music artist, so what's your side project? It's recording as Why Not Sea Monsters? with frequent collaborator Liam Davis.

In late 2005, Roberts and Davis released two Why Not Sea Monsters CDs -- Songs from the Hebrew Scriptures and Songs from the New Testament. Most of you will recognize that these albums have a distinctly... Biblical aspect to them. (My readers, they're sharp.) Roberts was commissioned to write many of these songs by Augsburg Fortress Publishers, he wrote a few more when deciding to record the album, and added a couple covers.

To put in context my review of the album's music, I should explain to you my history with Christian music.

Which is to say, virtually none. Aside from my U2 albums (upon which some churches are basing entire services), the only Christian music album I've ever owned was Amy Grant's Unguarded, and I didn't buy it for the praise music. I bought it because the music was good. The message was secondary. (That's still the case today, even though I'm now an active member of a mainline Protestant church.)

For the most part, the music here is good. Those of you expecting Meltdown! Bible Stories, as Roberts and Davis dial back some of the tempo and layering of instruments found on that album. Instead, they're content to play mostly midtempo acoustical songs in the manner of "Roller in the Coaster" off Way Out or "Koala Bear Diner" off Meltdown!. Given that many of these songs may end up in Sunday School curricula, the fact that many of these songs are little more than guitar and drums and/or bass, the simplicity is appropriate. (Each of the 35-or-so-minute discs include chords and lyrics.)

The best songs are those where Roberts lets his humor shine and he puts his own spin on stories so familiar that most people, Christian or not, would recognize them. On the sweet and poppy "Why Not a Spark?," Roberts' narrator tells of God choosing what to bring forth at the Creation, but he keeps getting ahead of himself ("On the fifth day / God said, why not sea monsters / Why not starfish and lobsters / why not airplanes over water / Wait that's later!"). Or Daniel in the lion's den who beckons the lion with "Here kitty kitty / Won't you come kitty kitty" ("Here Kitty Kitty"). As a whole, Roberts has written Christian music without much trace of sappiness.

I found the songs on Songs from the Hebrew Scriptures more enjoyable, and maybe that's because my raised-not-in-Sunday-School theological foundations are pretty weak and I was drawn to the more familiar stories in the Old Testament. Hebrew Scriptures also has the advantage of having Roberts cover Craig Wright's "Where Were You?," a beautiful hymn ("Where were you when I crafted you a language... / So you could live and die with dignity / And shake your fist with poetry, imagining creation from the first") for which Roberts and Davis pull out all the instrumental tricks (strings, for example) they've otherwise left in the bag. It's an absolutely gorgeous song. On the other hand, New Testament's stories are less familiar and the songs aren't as compelling ("Lydia" has the lyric "Her name was Lydia / Our hearts will never be rid of ya," which, I'm sorry, bugs the heck out of me).

Biblical songs can probably be sung at any age, but I think the morals and religious precepts contained within the songs are most appropriate for kids aged 3 through 10. You can hear samples by going through the Sea Monsters website.

In the end, this is a Christian music album, and there's no two ways around it. Having said that, I think you just need a basic Christian belief system (regardless of whether you attend church regularly) to enjoy the CDs. [And, as a reader subsequently pointed out to me, the Hebrew Scriptures CD is appropriate for persons of the Jewish faith as well.] Regardless of your faith, if you're not sure these are for you, start off with Hebrew Scriptures. Recommended.

Review: Quiet Time - Raffi

Raffi generates such strong feelings in people, that it's almost impossible to review the April 2006 release of Quiet Time without addressing some knotty issues. I'm not going to tackle those knotty issues here, but here are 3 "nots."

1. This is not a new Raffi album.
2. This is not a Raffi greatest hits album.
3. This is not a bad album.

This is not a new Raffi album -- You know how you get excited about an episode of a TV show without an "R" behind it, thinking, "hey, this is a new episode!," then get disappointed to find out it's nothing but a "clip" show? That was what I felt on a small level when I realized that this wasn't an album of new Raffi songs; in fact, every single track on here is previously released.

This is not a Raffi greatest hits album -- As the title suggests, Quiet Time is laid-back and calming. So even though the 31-minute CD draws from just about every single album of new material Raffi has released over the past 30 years, it's hardly a "greatest hits" collection. (Which, Raffi's multi-CD collections and concert albums aside, he could sorely use.)

This is not a bad album -- Having outlined what this is not, let's talk briefly, then, about what it is. The album cover calls these "songs for a pause, a cuddle, or a nap," and I think that's a pretty accurate description. Although these are slow, relaxing songs, they are not, for the most part, lullabies. They're gentle songs, a good soundtrack for quiet times and activities. Raffi has a clear and wonderful voice, which serves these songs well. He is a great interpreter of traditional child's music. Your appreciation of the Raffi originals may vary. I found "Spring Flowers" to be a soothing song in which the vocals are almost as much of an instrument as the instruments themselves (it certainly doesn't sound like the music he recorded 20 years before). On the other hand, his "Blessed Be" is overly precious to me, and I find Raffi most appealing precisely when he's not being overly precious. Again, your mileage may vary.

I think the album will be most enjoyed by kids ages 1 through 5. Released by Rounder, the album's available at most online and the usual retail suspects.

This is not the first album I'd recommend for someone looking to start off with Raffi. But for someone looking for pleasant background music to a half-hour of downtime for their child, Quiet Time is a good choice.