Increasingly ignored amidst the exploding trip-hop scene, Massive Attack finally returned in 1998 with Mezzanine, a record immediately announcing not only that the group was back, but that they'd recorded a set of songs just as singular and revelatory as on their debut, almost a decade back. It all begins with a stunning one-two-three-four punch: "Angel," "Risingson," "Teardrop," and "Inertia Creeps." Augmenting their samples and keyboards with a studio band, Massive Attack open with "Angel," a stark production featuring pointed beats and a distorted bassline that frames the vocal (by group regular Horace Andy) and a two-minute flame-out with raging guitars. "Risingson" is a dense, dark feature for Massive Attack themselves (on production as well as vocals), with a kitchen sink's worth of dubby effects and reverb. "Teardrop" introduces another genius collaboration -- with Elizabeth Fraser from Cocteau Twins -- from a production unit with a knack for recruiting gifted performers. The blend of earthy with ethereal shouldn't work at all, but Massive Attack pull it off in fine fashion. "Inertia Creeps" could well be the highlight, another feature for just the core threesome. With eerie atmospherics, fuzz-tone guitars, and a wealth of effects, the song could well be the best production from the best team of producers the electronic world had ever seen. Obviously, the rest of the album can't compete, but there's certainly no sign of the side-two slump heard on Protection, as both Andy and Fraser return for excellent, mid-tempo tracks ("Man Next Door" and "Black Milk," respectively).© John Bush /TiVo

Increasingly ignored amidst the exploding trip-hop scene, Massive Attack finally returned in 1998 with Mezzanine, a record immediately announcing not only that the group was back, but that they'd recorded a set of songs just as singular and revelatory as on their debut, almost a decade back. It all begins with a stunning one-two-three-four punch: "Angel," "Risingson," "Teardrop," and "Inertia Creeps." Augmenting their samples and keyboards with a studio band, Massive Attack open with "Angel," a stark production featuring pointed beats and a distorted bassline that frames the vocal (by group regular Horace Andy) and a two-minute flame-out with raging guitars. "Risingson" is a dense, dark feature for Massive Attack themselves (on production as well as vocals), with a kitchen sink's worth of dubby effects and reverb. "Teardrop" introduces another genius collaboration -- with Elizabeth Fraser from Cocteau Twins -- from a production unit with a knack for recruiting gifted performers. The blend of earthy with ethereal shouldn't work at all, but Massive Attack pull it off in fine fashion. "Inertia Creeps" could well be the highlight, another feature for just the core threesome. With eerie atmospherics, fuzz-tone guitars, and a wealth of effects, the song could well be the best production from the best team of producers the electronic world had ever seen. Obviously, the rest of the album can't compete, but there's certainly no sign of the side-two slump heard on Protection, as both Andy and Fraser return for excellent, mid-tempo tracks ("Man Next Door" and "Black Milk," respectively). © John Bush /TiVo

After a beautiful introspective debut for the label ECM, Avishai Cohen changes gears with his band Big Vicious. A unique cast around the Israeli trumpeter boasts two drummers (Aviv Cohen and Ziv Ravitz), an electric bass player (Yonatan Albalak) and a guitarist (Uzi Ramirez). This jazz-wielding quintet grew up with a thousand other sounds in mind. Hence this assembly of plural sound textures from electronic music as well as rock, classical, pop and trip hop. We are treated to big and improbably leaps, such as the one between Massive Attack and Beethoven, the two names whose works Big Vicious revisits (Teardrop and Moonlight Sonata). Avishai Cohen sometimes seems to be wearing the clothes of his elders Jon Hassell and Don Ellis. In particular, he tones down his leader's aura to let the quintet advance as one. It is precisely the homogeneity and atmospheric sound of Big Vicious that makes the whole original. And whether the compositions are trippy (Intent), uptempo (King Kutner) or downright experimental (Fractals), they share a real unique narrative force. © Marc Zisman/Qobuz

You have to be really sure of your concerts to be able to release a fifth live album after only 18 years career time. But stage performances are such a speciality for Coldplay that Chris Martin's group can allow themselves to release this Live In Buenos Aires album rather an eighth studio album, which is being eagerly awaited their fans... Recorded during the A Head Full of Dreams World Tour, this album captures (with amazing sound quality) the powerful 15th of November (2017) show in the Argentinean capital. As per usual, the four Brits play with the constant participation of a totally devoted crowd. U2 often put on these types of shows, Coldplay being their most obvious successors. From the stadium hymn (Viva La Vida) to the early classics (Yellow, Clocks), Coldplay put on a real electric fiesta. © Clotilde Maréchal/Qobuz

As expected but perhaps not hoped for, Virgin dishes fans this best of, Collected, as Massive Attack are buying time to complete Weather Underground, their next album to be released -- hopefully -- within the calendar year 2006. All collections of this type give punters the chance to look back at what was once futuristic and is now commonplace and how well an act's music has aged. The remainder of the Wild Bunch -- Andrew "Mushroom" Vowles and Grant Grant "Daddy G" Marshall, and Robert "3D" del Naja -- who formed Massive Attack as evidenced by these 13 tracks, all have their place. The cuts are nearly equally divided between the albums Blue Lines, Protection, Mezzanine and 100th Window. None of the soundtrack works appears here, and neither do any 12" mixes. Hits like "Safer from Harm" and "Karmacoma" don't age so well, but others, such as "Inertia Creeps," the sublime "Teardrops," the sinister "Butterfly Caught," the spooky, mercurial love song "What Your Soul Sings," (with Sinéad O'Connor on vocals), and even "Unfinished Sympathy," (with Shara Nelson singing her ass off), do. There is a an unreleased track, a new blues called "Live with Me" that begins with a string intro, a deadly slow rhythm track offered as mid-tempo creep, and the deep soul voice of Terry Callier hovering inside the darkness. He moves from the blues to soul and back again as M.A weave that sorrowful, noir-ish, sonic magic all around him, draping him in atmospheric shadows and snaky beats. Nope, it isn't so new, but music this fine doesn't need to be. This isn't music for kids, or perhaps even for clubs, but it may be for the masses if the masses were given the chance to climb on. This is a fine introduction if you've been sleeping these past 15 years, or have recently come to realize that indie rock is but one color on the spectrum. Massive Attack at their best -- and much of it is here -- were a force to be reckoned with, and "Live with Me," is a hint that they still may be.© Thom Jurek /TiVo

As Mehldau explains in his liner note for the album, "Although it totals around 300 minutes, the order of songs is not arbitrary, and I have tried to tell a story from beginning to end in the way I've sequenced it." He continues, "There is a theme and character given to each four-side set."Of the Dark/Light theme, he says, "In concerts, I find that I contrast dark and light emotional energies and highlight the way they depend on each other. Sides 1–4 focus on this dichotomy in pairs, beginning with the dark energy of Jeff Buckley's 'Dream Brother,' which is followed by the grace of Lennon/McCartney's 'Blackbird.'" He further says, "Although the songs on Sides 5–8 (The Concert) come from different concerts, on this set, I arranged them in a sequence similar to that I would perform in a single concert in 2010–11," he continues."The third set could be thought of as Intermezzo and Rückblick–like in character. I'm thinking of the penultimate movement of Brahms's Third Piano Sonata with that title. Rückblick means a look backward, perhaps a reappraisal. Brahms's Intermezzo movement was a look back at what had taken place in his Sonata before moving to the final movement. Here, the listener is invited to look back to music that was recorded 10 or more years ago, in 2004 and 2005." Mehldau explains that his approach to the sequence of the fourth set "is to focus on the rub between the keys of E minor and E major. I return to the theme of dark and light from the first set, now allowing the listener to focus on how 'dark' and 'light' might manifest in tonality."Brad Mehldau played in a number of different ensembles, including label mate Joshua Redman's quartet, before becoming a bandleader himself in the 1990s. The Brad Mehldau Trio made eight recordings for Warner Bros., including the five Art of the Trio albums with former drummer Jorge Rossy (released as a boxed set by Nonesuch in 2011). The pianist's years with Nonesuch have been equally productive, beginning in 2004 with the solo disc Live in Tokyo and including five trio records— Day is Done, House on Hill, Live, Ode, and Where Do You Start—as well as a collaboration with soprano Renée Fleming, Love Sublime; a chamber ensemble album, Highway Rider; two collaborations with label mate Pat Metheny, Metheny Mehldau and Quartet; a CD/DVD set of live solo performances, Live in Marciac; and collaborations with Kevin Hays and Patrick Zimmerli on Modern Music. Last year, Nonesuch released the debut from Mehldau's electric duo with Mark Guiliana, Mehliana: Taming the Dragon. He also produced Redman's 2013 release Walking Shadows.Mehldau has performed around the world at a steady pace for 25 years, with his trio, with other collaborators, and as a solo pianist, building a large and loyal audience. "It is actually strange, this whole business of performance. It is a direct, intense kind of empathy with a group of total strangers that lasts around 90 minutes. And then, it's over, and everyone goes home. I go back to a hotel room and go to bed," the pianist says in his 10 Years Solo Live note. "Something happened, but what was most vital about it can't really be put in words. It is sweet, kind of bittersweet. In any case, it is not enough to say that the different audiences were important for the creation of this music. They were absolutely necessary; they were pivotal. Without those audiences, this music would not exist in the way it does."

Moving from the Signum label to the major Decca, the British choir Voces8, indeed an octet, breaks into new territory with its debut release for the Lux label. The album, with its vaguely positive theme and its mix of Renaissance, contemporary British and American, and pop selections, is aimed squarely at Britain's substantial crossover market. But it departs from earlier easy-on-the-ears collections in several ways, and it's worth the time of anyone who likes virtuoso choral singing. Voces8 not only takes on the difficult octet vocal blend, they spice things up by using a pair of countertenors on the alto parts (this Lux shares with the group's earlier recordings). The shimmering effects that result are quite impressively controlled and even more significantly beautifully engineered in a pair of locations. Choirs have sung arrangements of the likes of Massive Attack and Ben Folds before, but it's not often that choral singing of this quality has been applied to them. The whole thing is so beautiful that the pieces of music do run the risk of seeming to run together, and an hour of pleasant aural surroundings may be what's on the mind of many buyers. But this release offers something a step above the basics.© TiVo

When a small acoustic group expands their numbers, it's usually with the intention of delivering a bigger and bolder sound, but Mandolin Orange are an act who continue to create a strikingly intimate record as they've expanded their instrumental range. Mandolin Orange started out as the duo of Andrew Marlin (vocals, guitar, mandolin) and Emily Frantz (vocals, fiddle, guitar), but they grew into a full band for 2016's Blindfaller, and they've continued with 2019's Tides of a Teardrop, where they're joined by Josh Oliver (guitars, keyboards, vocals), Clint Mullican (bass, baritone guitar), and Joe Westerlund (drums). However, the addition of a rhythm section and an occasional electric guitar has only reinforced the character of Mandolin Orange's music; their music evokes the sweet, quiet sorrow of late nights, long rides across the plains, and that moment when the snap of autumn begins to give way to the chill of winter. Marlin and Frantz are vocalists who have no trouble finding the emotional textures of a song, and their tales of love and ordinary life (penned by Marlin) are all the more powerful of the subtle details of their unforced delivery, and their harmonies are never showy but always add to the songs. Tides of a Teardrop may sound more flavorful than 2013's This Side of Jordan, but the extra ingredients haven't spoiled the soup, instead using their greater dynamics to deepen and emphasize their emotional peaks and valleys. The careful, nuanced interplay of the musicians is superb, and producer Marlin and engineer Julian Dreyer give the recordings a wide-open ambience that recalls the unobtrusive accuracy of a good bluegrass session with the telling atmosphere of slowcore classics like Low's Secret Name. Plenty of roots-oriented acts can do the high and lonesome thing, but Mandolin Orange make it cut like bourbon and soothe like honey on Tides of a Teardrop, and it's outstanding work from a group that grow more satisfying and accomplished with each release. [The initial edition of Tides of a Teardrop includes a bonus EP, Sing and Play Traditionals, featuring Frantz and Marlin offering spare interpretations of four folk standards. It's not quite as impressive as the material on the album, but the performances are spot-on and they approach the covers with the same emotional honesty as their originals.]© Mark Deming /TiVo

Labeled not as a new record but a "fan album," 2015's Burning Bridges contains, in Jon Bon Jovi's words, "songs that weren't finished, that were finished, a couple of new ones." Usually, this kind of hodgepodge is called a contractual obligation or a stopgap, but "fan album" not only sounds kinder, it also identifies precisely the audience that would be interested in this brief, power ballad-heavy collection. In a way, Burning Bridges clears the deck for a new incarnation of Bon Jovi, the first where guitarist Richie Sambora is no longer part of the equation. Sambora gets a co-credit on "Saturday Night Gave Me Sunday Morning," a song dating back to The Circle that's easily one of the liveliest things here, rivaled by "I'm Your Man," which punches like it was left over from New Jersey. Elsewhere, things are pretty turgid, as Bon Jovi tries in vain to splice Coldplay with Springsteen in an attempt to scale previously unheard heights in arena rock. The sound is there but not the songs. Apart from "Fingerprints," which benefits from a hint of 12-strings from "Wanted Dead or Alive," these seven songs have no flair and virtually no melody, a pretty clear indication that Bon Jovi completed Burning Bridges out of a sense of obligation, not inspiration, but just in case you missed the point he lays it all out in the closing title song. Here, Jon Bon Jovi doesn't mince words about his label, singing "After 30 years of loyalty, they let you dig the grave/Now maybe you can learn to sing or even strum along/Well I'll give you half the publishing, you're why I wrote this song," then delivering the coup de grace with the chorus: "Here's a last song you can sell/Let's call it Burning Bridges, it's a singalong as well...hope my money and my masters buy a front-row seat in hell." Not since Graham Parker snarled about "Mercury Poisoning" has a rocker not bothered with parting niceties to his benefactors, and the venom invigorates Jon Bon Jovi, allowing him to write a nagging melody that immediately hooks under the skin and revealing just what a slog the rest of this fare-thee-well actually is.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

As expected but perhaps not hoped for, Virgin dishes fans this best of, Collected, as Massive Attack are buying time to complete Weather Underground, their next album to be released -- hopefully -- within the calendar year 2006. All collections of this type give punters the chance to look back at what was once futuristic and is now commonplace and how well an act's music has aged. The remainder of the Wild Bunch -- Andrew "Mushroom" Vowles and Grant Grant "Daddy G" Marshall, and Robert "3D" del Naja -- who formed Massive Attack as evidenced by these 13 tracks, all have their place. The cuts are nearly equally divided between the albums Blue Lines, Protection, Mezzanine and 100th Window. None of the soundtrack works appears here, and neither do any 12" mixes. Hits like "Safer from Harm" and "Karmacoma" don't age so well, but others, such as "Inertia Creeps," the sublime "Teardrops," the sinister "Butterfly Caught," the spooky, mercurial love song "What Your Soul Sings," (with Sinéad O'Connor on vocals), and even "Unfinished Sympathy," (with Shara Nelson singing her ass off), do. There is a an unreleased track, a new blues called "Live with Me" that begins with a string intro, a deadly slow rhythm track offered as mid-tempo creep, and the deep soul voice of Terry Callier hovering inside the darkness. He moves from the blues to soul and back again as M.A weave that sorrowful, noir-ish, sonic magic all around him, draping him in atmospheric shadows and snaky beats. Nope, it isn't so new, but music this fine doesn't need to be. This isn't music for kids, or perhaps even for clubs, but it may be for the masses if the masses were given the chance to climb on. This is a fine introduction if you've been sleeping these past 15 years, or have recently come to realize that indie rock is but one color on the spectrum. Massive Attack at their best -- and much of it is here -- were a force to be reckoned with, and "Live with Me," is a hint that they still may be. © Thom Jurek /TiVo

A crazy duo from the 70s New York punk scene, Suicide unites the deranged spirits of Alan Vega on vocals and Martin Rev on synths. It’s the debut eponymous album from these cerebral dandys that invents electronic rockabilly, a scream squeezed into a synthetic straitjacket. A fan of fifties rock’n’roll, Vega sings like a radioactive Gene Vincent, and Rev complements this with repetitive and apocalyptic sounds. The powerful atmosphere created by this debut released in December 1977 is a work of urban musical madness. But behind all this madness, Suicide offer a truly original vision, illustrated on the ballad Cheree or the terrifying Ghost Rider. It’s an album that would make a beautiful soundtrack for the end of the world… © Marc Zisman/Qobuz  

The Cardigans gained the respect of listeners in the mid-'90s, not for the impossibly sunny triteness of their lyrics, but for the wonderful songs and productions that seemed to emanate from Malmo, Sweden, and the minds of the group's core trio: vocalist Nina Persson, songwriter Peter Svensson, and producer Tore Johansson. More than ten years after their debut, a few things had changed -- the lyrics were no longer sunnily trite but cynically trite, and the songs and productions were no longer so wonderful. Super Extra Gravity matches their previous record, Long Gone Before Daylight, for its dour mood and sour attitude, its lack of discernible hooks, and the unappetizing flavor of the Cardigans' performances. First of all, Persson's lyrics are eccentric and unconvincing. She may not have truly meant it when she sang, "Come on and love me now," a lyric from an early album, but she sang it like she meant it; here, on "Overload," she asks, "Baby dance with me," but sounds like it's the last thing on her mind. (Listeners are easily capable of appreciating irony, but they like to be allowed in on the joke.) Secondly, Svensson's songs are understated and drab. Those qualities could work if they were combined with the work of a gifted lyricist, but unfortunately that's not the case. Finally, Johansson's productions only occasionally allow a hint of brightness and color into the proceedings.© John Bush /TiVo

Armed with trumpeters Ray Martinez and Hurricane Smith who add soaring flourishes and energetic blasts throughout, on Kilimanjaro the Teardrops explode in a torrent of creative, kicky and often downright fun songs that hotwire garage/psych inspirations into something more. Steering clear of ham-handed attempts to be commercially "new wave" while at the same time sounding young, bright and alive, the foursome go happily nuts with great results. Cope is already a commanding singer and frontman; his clever lyrics and strong projection result in a series of confident performances, whether his trading lines with himself on the motorik chug of "Sleeping Gas" or his yelps on "Books." For all the bad energy between himself and Balfe, the two sound like they're grafted at the hip throughout, the latter's keyboard washes and staccato melodies adding the fun, nervy vibe. Dwyer's spot-on drumming keeps the pace, while both guitarists, Finkler and his replacement Gill, don't drown the band in feedback to the exclusion of everything else. One listen to many of Gill's pieces, on songs like "Poppies," and Cope's oft-stated claim that early U2 was trying to rip off the Teardrops and other Liverpool/Manchester groups makes sense. Though it was assembled from a variety of different sessions Kilimanjaro still sounds cohesive. Perfectly hummable choruses, great arrangements and production and Cope's smiling vibe all add up with fantastic results. The sweet romance of "When I Dream" closes out this entertaining debut.© Ned Raggett /TiVo

Before the next teardrop falls, one thing is for sure: Another Freddy Fender collection will be issued with the same title as this one, the original blockbuster album that made him a household name among an audience that extended well beyond country fans, at least for a few years. "Before the Next Teardrop Falls" was such a smash hit that record companies cashing in on Fender's popularity just had to use it on their releases. The concept of calling these packages "greatest hits" never occurred to anybody, apparently. Thus the consumer might think they are buying this particular album when they are not, so careful. Although the later "Before" albums are perfectly good records, like most Fender productions, he really struck a tasty groove on the original 1974 session, done with a small band of his usual bandmates and studio accomplices. Obviously the same players are featured on all the tracks, creating great continuity and a pleasing flow to the light country-rock sound. Of course, there is the surprise appearance of a harpsichord but that hardly shakes the Tex-Mex foundation. The group's success was not just limited to the album's big hit. Even better tracks are here, such as Fender's own hilarious song "I Love My Rancho Grande," a few covers of great country songs such as "Wild Side of Life," and the obligatory Fender "fool" song (this time it's "I'm Not a Fool Anymore"). And to no surprise, he pulls off an effective version of the weepy "Roses Are Red" to kick things off. Maybe best of all is the fantastic honky tonk song "You Can't Get There From Here." This is surely the must-have Fender album in a country fan's collection.© Eugene Chadbourne /TiVo