Frank K. is back in the house, and this time he’s kicking the doors down and knocking the walls flat. Unlike his solo debut Morphscape, Rocktronic is a little more similar stylistically from track one to track ten. And that’s cool – I loved some of Morphscape’s more off-the-wall offerings like “Gonna Rock Yo Body” and “Cosmic Lounge”, but if Rocktronic proves anything, it’s that Frank Klepacki’s always got more musical ideas rattling around. And for those of us who learned about his music through his hard-driving accompaniment to some classic Westwood computer games (and I’d hazard a guess that this category probably includes almost everybody reading this), Rocktronic is homecoming week for you – it easily lives up to its name.

And the title should give you a pretty good clue of what to expect. Guitars are to the forefront of Rocktronic, and Klepacki demonstrates some impressive ability at that instrument. The opening volley, “Decible”, lives up to its name. The following track, “Rocktronic”, is probably the best fusion of rock and techno elements on the whole CD, with some mighty crunchy guitar work melding seamlessly with the techno elements. “Escape” feels a little bit like “Mode One” from Morphscape, only more aggressive and drum-driven, but the similarity is in some dandy throwback-to-the-’80s synth work. In Yo Face has both feet firmly in industrial/techno territory, and it’s best appreciated at a level where the speakers rumble the foundation of your house. Seriously. Headphones don’t quite do it justice.

“Take Me” has a very cool, laid back bluesy opening that leads into an extended hard rock jam on the same theme. There’s a nifty ’70s stadium rock guitar solo vibe to the whole thing. It Has Begun is more of an aggressive dance number, with the sampled voice yelling “It has begun!” Mortal Kombat-TV-ad-style hearkening back to some of Frank’s Command & Conquer work. “The Streets” and “In The Tunnel” almost sound like lost cuts from the Lexx music library, which isn’t a bad thing. The Streets has a little more of a Euro/electronica thing going, while “In The Tunnel” has the dramatic intensity of a soundtrack cue bubbling under the surface.

“Machines Collide” has an epic feel that hails back to some of the better Emperor: Battle For Dune tracks, with sampled choral textures and an interesting sonar-as-percussion element that I liked – it’s probably my favorite track on the CD, with “Take Me” running a close second. “Bring The Fight” closes things out by jumping right back into hard rock territory, which brings us full circle.

On the one hand, I really missed the roller-coaster variety of styles that made Morphscape a lot of fun – but you can’t argue against Rocktronic’s dominant style being the one that won Klepacki his fan base to begin with, and it’s still great music.

1. Decible (4:32)
2. Rocktronic (3:57)
3. Escape (4:11)
4. In Yo Face (3:42)
5. Take Me (4:58)
6. It Has Begun (4:06)
7. The Streets (4:02)
8. In The Tunnel (3:47)
9. Machines Collide (4:42)
10. Bring The Fight (4:28)

Released by: Frank Klepacki
Release date: 2004
Total running time: 42:27

Alan Parsons is back, that’s the good news. And the bad news? There really isn’t any. Parsons has jettisoned some of his “classic rock” sound and stepped firmly and unquestionably into the 21st century. The result is an album that will hopefully gain Parsons a whole new audience – and considering how much of his longtime fanbase was attracted to the sound of Parsons routinely going further out than the cutting edge 30 years ago, A Valid Path should also be a treat for the folks like me who’ve been hanging around since the 1970s.

And A Valid Path does surprise me in a few places. After those three decades hiding behind the mixing board or a variety of instruments or processing his vocals through a vocoder, Alan Parsons steps out into the limelight and takes a turn at a lead vocal with “We Play The Game”, and lo and behold, the guy’s got a hell of a voice, and it’s almost as smooth as former Alan Parsons Project cohort Eric Woolfson’s. Why he didn’t just come out and sing a long time ago is a mystery. If anything, it’s the one track that most solidly resembles classic Parsons.

There are other links to the past, too. But from the pre-release publicity going into this album’s release, it almost sounded like Parsons was decisively moving away from anything he’d done in the past, with this album’s focus on electronica. P.J. Olsson mixed most of the album, and lent a hand on several tracks, and there are guest appearances by Shpongle, The Crystal Method, Uberzone and Nortec Collective. Even more omipresent than Olsson is Parsons’ son Jeremy, who forges a couple of the albums’ strongest links to the past with from-the-ground-up remakes of classic Project tracks “Mammagamma” (as “Mammagamma ‘04″) and the album-opening duo of “Dream Within A Dream” and “The Raven” from the very first Project album (as “A Recurring Dream Within A Dream”). The only people on the album that Parsons has worked with before are David Pack, who co-writes and provides heavily processed vocals on “You Can Run”, and Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour, giving a six-string assist to the opening track, “Return To Tunguska”.

That doesn’t mean that you won’t hear from folks you’re familiar with, though. Of all people, John Cleese briefly appears on the final track, “Chomolungma” (which is a rather obscure local name for Mount Everest, in case you’re wondering). This percussion-heavy track instantly earns a place in the pantheon of Parsons’ widescreen-ready instrumentals, and Cleese doesn’t even show up until nearly seven minutes into the not-quite-eight-minute track.

The much-publicized “electronica” angle can be a bit misleading, though. Olsson’s “More And More Lost Without You” is electronica, but it’s electronica with layers of twangy guitar on top of it. The instrumental “Tijuaniac” is surprisingly jazzy (though Parsons is no stranger to electronic-heavy jazz with such numbers as “Where’s The Walrus?” and “Urbania” in his back catalogue), and “L’Arc En Ciel” is thick with soaring guitar solos. Parsons may have cast off some of his classic-rock-radio-specific sounds, such as the 70s-style electric piano tones that he incorporated as recently as 1993’s post-Project comeback Try Anything Once, but he still brings a lot of the classic rock sensibility to the table, and hearing that together with a genre of music that seems to have an inherent youthfulness about it is an interesting step forward.

Parsons once said in an interview that he’s always making music for today’s listeners, and A Valid Path certainly seems to back that up – but it also doesn’t have anything that’ll alienate long-time listeners who have appreciated Parsons’ constant walk along the cutting edge. Even if you’re chafing at the electronica label, give it a shot – it’s not as far removed from Parsons’ previous works as you might think, and it’s got some fantastic music on it.

1. Return To Tunguska (8:49)
2. More Lost Without You (3:21)
3. Mammagamma ‘04 (5:07)
4. We Play The Game (5:35)
5. Tijuaniac (5:30)
6. L’Arc En Ciel (5:21)
7. A Recurring Dream Within A Dream (4:12)
8. You Can Run (3:53)
9. Chomolungma (7:42)

Released by: Artemis
Release date: 2004
Total running time: 49:35

In the nine years since their first album hit the streets (and I was a bit of an early adopter too, snatching up an import copy months before a North American distribution deal was even hinted at), it seems I’ve had a bit of a hard time selling everyone on the merits of The Finn Brothers as an act unto themselves. And y’know, it wasn’t Crowded House’s Woodface, and it wasn’t Split Enz reborn, it was its own unique, rough-hewn entity. Even if you’d heard everything that either Tim or Neil Finn had done before, the original Finn Brothers album was not something that any of that had prepared you for.

With Everyone Is Here, however, there’s a much more obvious polish to the whole thing – and in the finest tradition of the aforementioned gem of a Crowded House album, the whole thing was, for all intents and purposes, recorded twice over. Everyone Is Here was originally recorded in an upstate New York studio under the auspices of legendary producer Tony Visconti, but apparently the brothers changed their minds, scrapping everything except Visconti’s string arrangements on several songs and re-recording the lot with Mitchell Froom, who produced all but one Crowded House album, as well as Tim Finn’s third solo album and worked on Neil’s most recent solo outing, One Nil / One All.

The first single, “Won’t Give In”, is a radio-friendly mid-tempo affair heavy on Neil vocals, and it sets the tone for the album as a whole – hopeful, wistful, and concerned (not unlike the aforementioned Neil solo outing) with matters of home, hearth and heart. It’s catchy – but ultimately eclipsed by several other songs on the album when the whole thing is listened to in one sitting.

“Nothing Wrong With You” sports some of the best brotherly harmonies on the whole CD and a lush orchestral backing for what is, on the surface, a rather folky little number. “Anything Can Happen” is more of a thumping rocker, while “Luckiest Man Alive” comes closest to the loosely-arranged charms of the original Finn Brothers album – the harmony’s still there, but everything’s much looser, more like an off-the-cuff jam than the rest of the album.

If there’s anything that caught me off guard with Everyone Is Here, it’s that a number of the songs reminded me less of Crowded House and more of Split Enz. It seems to be primarily the songs driven by Tim Finn that do this, and “Homesick” may well be the Enziest song on the album, with the strings and vocals in the chorus strongly echoing the Judd-era Enz chestnut “Spellbound” – for all I know, with the song’s theme of returning home, Tim may have deliberately steered the song in that direction as a thematic element of coming full circle. It’s a great song on its own, with some dreamy harmonies in the chorus and soaring orchestral elements contrasting a series of raw and raucous verses.

“Disembodied Voices”, apparently the sole survivor of the original New York recording sessions with Tony Visconti, is a soft-pedaled folksy affair with mandolin and banjo – the latter played by Neil, an ability I’m not aware that he’d demonstrated before now. It’s an interesting little song, nicely produced, and leaves me wondering what happened that sent the Finns scrambling back to the safety net of Mitchell Froom.

“A Life Between Us” has the confident gait of a 50s rock ballad, and it’s primarily a Neil song – there’s not much evidence of Tim until halfway through the song, when a nice harmonic break reminding me a little of the bridge from the Crowded House song “Everything Is Good For You” brings both voices into play. “A Life Between Us” and “Disembodied Voices” also have slightly unusual lyrics – it’s rare for the Finns to pen lyrics that directly address their brotherly relationship, and even rarer for them to put two songs back-to-back that do that.

“All God’s Children” is a gleeful, distorted-guitar romp with another increasingly rare phenomenon – some classic throat-thrashing vocals from Tim. The next song is a shock to the system, chasing an unabashed rocker down the ornate ballad “Edible Flowers” (which many of us first heard on the Seven Worlds Collide concert DVD). I’d loved this song since that rather rough live performance hit my ears, and here the song comes into its own with a beautiful orchestral backing and a perfect vocal balance between Tim (in the verses) and Neil (in the absolutely soaring choruses). “Edible Flowers” may well be the best song on this whole album – everything just seems to click on this one.

A couple of Tim-heavy tunes, “All The Colours” and “Part Of Me, Part Of You”, bring back some really unusual chords and writing, and again on some intangible level they conjure up the Enz songwriting ethos in my mind. Part of me is thinking “well, duh, same vocalists, same songwriters, of course it sounds like the Enz,” but I still can’t shake the feeling that these are the Enziest songs that the Finns have turned out in ages. “Part Of Me, Part Of You” also bears a strong resemblance to a classic Crowdies tune – if you listen closely, the chords in the verses are almost the same as those in “Walking On The Spot”, only going much faster! That song also has a lyric – “we’ll still be here / when the cows come home” – which got a laugh out of me. I suppose it could be seen as trite, but compared the usual lyrical sophistication we get out of the Finns, it’s got shock value with a touch of humor.

Tim and Neil both have a habit of ending albums on a slow but hopeful note (well, okay, maybe “Kiss The Road Of Rarotonga” doesn’t really bear that pattern out), and they do so again here with “Gentle Hum”, a song with a Neil lead vocal and a mostly hummed chorus. This song also has electronic percussion that, while it doesn’t really stick out enough to distract from the other instrumentation, seems slightly at odds with the rest of the song’s stripped-down, folky sound. That’s really venturing into nitpicking territory though – it’s a fine song, and a great one to go out on.

1. Won’t Give In (4:21)
2. Nothing Wrong With You (4:12)
3. Anything Can Happen (3:05)
4. Luckiest Man Alive (4:00)
5. Homesick (3:50)
6. Disembodied Voices (3:42)
7. A Life Between Us (3:55)
8. All God’s Children (3:49)
9. Edible Flowers (4:53)
10. All The Colours (2:13)
11. Part Of Me, Part Of You (3:31)
12. Gentle Hum (4:38)

Released by: Nettwerx (North America) / Parlophone (everywhere else)
Release date: 2004
Total running time: 46:14

When R.E.M. set out to record Green, they knew it would be their first album for their new label, Warner Bros. They also knew that it would be the foundation of a worldwide arena tour designed to boost their global profile. It’s not surprising, then, that they produced a number of songs that refined the political rock songs of Document into an even more radio- and arena-friendly form. But if for no other reason than to keep themselves interested, they began experimenting with switching instruments and acoustic arrangements. The mix of silly pop songs and political introspection makes Green sometimes seem out of sorts, but it’s also not hard to see how the album helped take the band to a new level of popularity.

The first two songs, “Pop Song 89″ and “Get Up,” definitely seem made for an arena rock show, more power pop than jangle pop. The songs feature strong melodies with simple, repetitive choruses and the occasional instrumental quirk, such as the dozen music boxes chiming in the middle of “Get Up.” The band uses the formula to perfection on the fourth track, “Stand,” whose goofy lyrics, guitar solo, video and associated dance made for a memorable presence on Top 40 radio at the time. (In fact, I can still remember where I was the first time I heard “Stand” on the radio – also the first time I had ever heard of R.E.M.)

Tracks 3, 5 and 6 show that Green is not all about fun and games. “You Are the Everything” features Bill Berry on bass, Mike Mills on accordion, and one of Peter Buck’s first experiments with mandolin. It’s a very spare, quiet song, one that literally opens with the sound of crickets chirping. It’s one of the things I like most about the song; it feels like you’re hearing each note and lyric on its own, as Stipe’s protagonist unburdens himself of his fears and imaginings. “World Leader Pretend,” meanwhile, is more complex in its arrangements, but features the same kind of introspection and mustering of resolve. There’s no mumbling from Stipe here; in fact, he felt so strongly about the lyrics to this song that they were printed on the liner notes, the only time that would happen until Up. “The Wrong Child” has a similar simplicity to “You Are the Everything,” but whereas the latter evokes the quiet beauty of nature, the former is a little more grating and discordant, befitting its lyrics; the song’s protagonist is a child with some kind of illness or physical problem that cuts him off from other children. Once upon a time, it was my least favorite song on the album, but it’s really grown on me over the years.

The album heads back into rock territory with “Orange Crush,” but there’s far more edge and intensity to this song than the shinier pop songs that opened the album. The band’s rhythm section does a nice job of giving this song, whose lyrics evoke the specter of Agent Orange and the psychological and environmental legacies of war, a sense of marching forward into whatever the fates have in store. Even fifteen years later, this song packs a heck of a punch in the band’s live show. The album slows down again for the final three listed tracks, although only “Hairshirt” has the same kind of acoustic sensibility as “You Are the Everything” and “The Wrong Child.”

There is also an eleventh untitled track, which features Buck on drums – Berry claimed the drum part Buck had written was so full of mistakes that he’d be unable to perfectly replicate them for an entire song. It’s a great closing track, and Berry’s fears notwithstanding, I even think the drum part’s kinda nifty.

1. Pop Song 89 (3:03)
2. Pop Song 89 (3:03)
3. Get Up (2:35)
4. You Are the Everything (3:45)
5. Stand (3:10)
6. World Leader Pretend (4:15)
7. The Wrong Child (3:35)
8. Orange Crush (3:50)
9. Turn You Inside-Out (4:15)
10. Hairshirt (3:55)
11. I Remember California (5:05)
12. Untitled (3:15)

Released by: Warner Bros.
Release date: 1988
Total running time: 41:00

I first heard “Losing My Religion” on a Top 40 radio station shortly after its release. I thought it was an OK song, but nothing special. I was clearly in the minority in that view, as the single and video became hugely popular. Eventually I borrowed a copy of Out of Time from a friend, and I’ve been an R.E.M. fan ever since. The album, the band’s best-selling in the United States, is full of beautiful songs that highlight R.E.M.’s eagerness to challenge conventions and shake up its own status quo.

After turning out pretty much an album a year throughout the 80s, Bill Berry, Peter Buck, Mike Mills and Michael Stipe slowed down for the writing of Out of Time. They often switched instruments; Berry, for example, wrote most of the bass lines while Mills worked heavily with pianos and keyboards. They brought in unusual instrumentation, like the harpsichord on “Half a World Away,” and guest vocalists like the B-52s’ Kate Pearson (on “Shiny Happy People” and “Me In Honey”) and KRS-One (on “Radio Song”). Mike Mills sang lead vocals on not one but two songs, “Near Wild Heaven” and “Texarkana.” (I love Mills’ work, but I think he’s better suited for support and backup vocals. He does do a nice job on “Texarkana,” whose lyrics he wrote when Stipe found himself unable to come up with anything for the song.) Stipe decided to personalize his lyrics; he described Out of Time as an album full of love songs, after having heavily mined political territory on the band’s previous three albums. The ornate arrangements work very well; Buck described the band as “rock and roll band that plays sitting down” in this time period, and it’s a very apt description.

While “Losing My Religion” has certainly grown on me over the years, it’s still not my favorite song on the album. I prefer “Radio Song,” “Me in Honey,” and “Half a World Away.” In none of those songs am I very confident about what Stipe is trying to say, although I think the emotion of his vocal performance more than makes up for the ambiguity of his lyrics. Musically, the first two are among the faster-paced, clearly-rock songs on the album, while the latter’s harpsichord makes it the most frequently cited example of the album’s “baroque” influence. Slower songs like “Low” and “Endgame” have to strike me in the right frame of mind; they have the potential to simply come off as depressing, but in the right context they’re both meditative and cathartic. The mournful “Country Feedback” has become quite popular amongst the band’s fan base; in fact, it was the most requested song of the band’s 2003 tour.

1. Radio Song (4:12)
2. Losing My Relgion (4:26)
3. Low (4:55)
4. Near Wild Heaven (3:17)
5. Endgame (3:48)
6. Shiny Happy People (3:44)
7. Belong (4:03)
8. Half a World Away (3:26)
9. Texarkana (3:36)
10. Country Feedback (4:07)
11. Me In Honey (4:06)

Released by: Warner Bros.
Release date: 1991
Total running time: 44:10