Various Artists: Music from the motion picture American Beauty (Dreamworks)
Serious movie fans are looking forward to this intelligent drama starring Kevin Spacey and Annette Bening, while music fans can be reassured that the songs for the soundtrack have been chosen with care. The album is bookended by two evocative instrumental tracks by composer Thomas Newman, and features contributions by The Folk Implosion, Eels and Gomez, plus oldies by The Who and Free. The subject matter of middle-aged angst is underscored by such standards as Bobby Darin's Don't Rain On My Parade and Peggy Lee's Bali Ha'i, while Spacey's moral tumble is nicely denoted by Bill Withers's mighty Use Me. Finally, cult folkie Elliot Smith turns in a superbly harmonious rendition of The Beatles' Because, well, just because he can.
- Kevin Courtney
Mos Def: Black On Both Sides (Rawkus)
For every Puff Daddy living out his ghetto fabulous fantasies, we should be grateful that there's a Mos Def hanging quietly in the background. Black On Both Sides is a forceful and positive reminder that hip-hop hasn't quite fully descended to caricature. This erudite and smart New Yorker has been responsible for some of the better hip-hop tracks of recent times, and his debut hints at much more to come from this direction. Over rolling, subtle beats on such tracks as Know That and May-December, Mos Def spins wordy webs which never descend into farce or pastiche.
- Jim Carroll
Scheer: . . . And Finally (Schism)
The second and final album from the Co Derry noiseniks brings the metal curtain down on almost a decade of piledriving pop. Scheer's high-decibel guitargoth sound was hard to ignore, but it seems that few really listened, and so the band broke up in 1998. This posthumous release is in response to requests from 5,000 members of the band's fan club, and showcases Scheer's knife-edge guitars, jackhammer rhythms, and the icy, incandescent vocals of Audrey Gallagher. Sadly, this set also exposes the band's weakness for riffage over songcraft, which dulls the impact of songs such as Deadly Serious, Mercy and 6 AM. There are some melodic moments here, most notably Say What You Came To Say and Secrets And Lies, but this album will be best appreciated with the stereo turned up to 11 and the cat put safely out of the room.
- Kevin Courtney
Various: Stand Up And Be Counted (Harmless)
Music with a defiantly militant message, this collection of soul, funk and jazz from black America of the 1960s and 1970s swings and sings with the passion of its time. The song titles are as spirited as the lyrical content - Nina Simone's I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free, Mike James Kirkland's Hang On In There and The Last Poets' forceful When The Revolution Comes - while the grooves roll on with a wholesomeness the samplers of today have embraced in full. Even old-school faves like Gil Scott Heron's The Revolution Will Not Be Televised receive added pathos in this company. A proud, optimistic and angry soundtrack for troubled times.
- Jim Carroll