post reviews for SFBM here Options

[NectarDan]

And here is a rough translation of the "planet" interview...
__________________________________________

Live-singer Ed Kowalczyk drew themselves a year or what suffered from the hectiek of the muzikantenbestaan for a period of inkeer and bezinning in the californische desert. One is not after all for its pleasure on this world, must also the lords of live conscience has. The result of those contemplations has been laid down in ` songs From Black Mountain, and ziedaar, live are in fact the Bløf of the American gitaarrock. Edje sing with climbing pathos concerning the zwarigheden of living, and from itself thereby just like its zeeuwse colleague in total incomprehensible volzinnen, flanked by puberthematiek where an adult kerel nevertheless farewell of must to take. Musical also already surplus does not have it for the lijf, it is just like at aforementioned link and also at Kane a stacking of musical stereotypes and powerchords, which must disguise that it concerns simple three akkoorden-versjes, which every subtiliteit and refinement go effortlessly from the way. On the other hand the festival season have come, and lend there uniform resounding stadion-rock of Kowalczyk and are stick out seriously looking at companen for, therefore what we would grumble. Cling to me now!!

Dietmar Terpstra

[swedeguy]

Okay, here's the first real positive review. Check out melodic.net, they're really
Live-friendly so it's not a big surprise that they like it. It gets a strong 4 out of 5.

[LiveRoCkS77]

Wow, that's clever. Learn that in your grade 7 computer class this year?

Don't be mad, hair one will come sooner or later.....

[Pokey]

Wow, that's clever. Learn that in your grade 7 computer class this year?

Don't be mad, hair one will come sooner or later.....

Don't get mad aboot it!

[NectarDan]

Here's a review I came across on the DelcoTimes website...
________________________________

In recent years, Live has been nothing but original, with its sound bouncing between heavy, low end rock, as heard on "Lakini's Juice" from 1997's "Secret Samadhi", and soaring ballads like the September 11 comfort piece "Overcome." But the group has finally seemed to find its place, settling into more stripped down and mid-tempo melodies; first felt with the spiritual and uplifting "Birds of Pray" in 2003.

It was that release where Live wore its beliefs on its sleeve, and with a first single titled "Heaven," weren't exactly skirting the issue of religion with hidden and double meanings like Creed or Lifehouse have made a career doing.

Singer Ed Kowalczyk delivers his confusions, questions and convictions with less of the exaggerated grandeur of Scott Stapp; and more in step with the assertiveness of U2's Bono. "Songs from Black Mountain," out next month, finds the band at its most anthemic.

The first single "The River" is already making waves, and for an album that was recorded as quickly as "Throwing Copper," the energy is palpable, but the imagery never so in your face that the musical message is lost in the mire of sermonizing.

Experimentalism is left at the door, replaced with striking acoustic refrains and harmonious paeans. Sometimes the lyrics are questionable, as in "Sofia" where the object of desire is required like "a junkie needs a vein," but if there was ever anyone who could pull off an otherwise uninspired line, it's Kowalczyk, who could rhyme "moon in June" with shocking earnestness.

It's that heartfelt approach to the song that will make a believer out of even the most cynical tonight.

[snoogins]

I understand the negative reviews, but I wholeheartedly disagree!

SFBM is a pop album, no doubt, sounding closer to Savage Garden than old Live. BUT, it's a far better sound than what passes for rock music these days. The Strokes, the Killers and the White Stripes are all okay at best (the Killers) and awful beyond words (the Strokes; when a friend suggested I buy their first record and I did without hearing them first, I wanted to bust a cap in his ass). Frankly, I like pop music. Bands like Men Without Hats and Roxette have been a staple of my music collection for years, and Live made a pretty good pop record, far better than what passes for pop these days.

This is not to say that I hope they stick to this kind of music, and I'm sure they won't. But I like the record. I think it's their best album since TDTH. And frankly, I don't care what music critics think. After all, music is probably the most subjective of all art forms. I find the Beatles highly overrated myself. And I think Hanson's first CD is wicked.

[Jennyfoo]

I must say, that while I still don't like the songs I heard live last night (the River, Show, Mystery, Sophia & Wings) they at least sound better live then they do on that frickin' cd. Ed sings them live in his normal voice and the entire band is heard in full so they don't sound so wussy. And there is a rockin' Taylor solo in Sophia. But I still dont like them and you can't make me.

[serene23]

I must say, that while I still don't like the songs I heard live last night (the River, Show, Mystery, Sophia & Wings) they at least sound better live then they do on that frickin' cd. Ed sings them live in his normal voice and the entire band is heard in full so they don't sound so wussy. And there is a rockin' Taylor solo in Sophia. But I still dont like them and you can't make me.

http://jam.canoe.ca/Music/Artists/L/Live/A...575166-sun.html

another negatve review

[NectarDan]

Live's seventh CD has as much truth in advertising as a James Blunt CD called Songs of Rape and Pillage.

Sorry, but you have to admit that was a good one.

[Gertjan]

[...] yet another sweepingly anthemic, embarrassingly earnest set of romantic-rock cliches ("My love is here to stay") and spiritual pap ("Think of gentle Jesus") from the increasingly wimpy and irrelevant Ed Kowalczyk.

When you think freedom and love is irrelevant, so be it.

I know it does not exactly say that the message is irrelevant but with the same arguments you could praise Ed for the courage bringing it out to the "post-grunge" audience.

[SJN1279]

www.alternativeaddiction.com has a very positive review of Songs from Black Mountain.

[ShowalittleLove]

I like it, but everyone is entitled to their own opinions.

But seriously, screw the critics!

[Maggie]

Quite a nice one from Mail&Guardian in South Africa:

Rocking the world
Old favourites Live have a new album out, and newcomers Fall Out Boy and Hard-Fi make the headlines too, writes Riaan Wolmarans

This week, one band well on their way to a third decade in the rock arena, and two indie acts on the threshold of greatness.

Pennsylvania's Live won over the world with the stormy, emotional rock of their breakout Throwing Copper album, went even darker on Secret Samadhi and, partly, The Distance to Here -- but their subsequent albums seemed stuck between hard rock and a more subdued approach. In 2003, they released Birds of Pray, which seemed earnest but weak; a band on the way to a new musical space but not quite there yet, with the pop single Heaven leading it to only moderate success.

Now, on their new album, Songs from Black Mountain (Sony BMG), Ed Kowalczyk and company have reached a level of maturity that might not be what fans of their louder Nineties hits were hoping for. The single The River is almost boy-bandish in its simplicity (but charming nonetheless). Listen to the whole album and what unfolds is solid, confident pop-rock that flows seamlessly and comfortably.

Kowalczyk's songwriting skills sparkle (though parenthood has clearly turned him a tad sentimental), and as usual his lyrics contain several spiritual references, be it to Jesus, Buddha or just a nameless god. Mystery is buoyed by a beautiful melody, and tracks such as Show, Sofia and the solid Night of Nights up the pace just enough to keep the album progressing nimbly. Overall, Songs from Black Mountain is still less memorable than some of Live's previous work, but it's also one of their most likeable albums to date.

Full article

[Senghe]

I don't if I should add this, but hey ho:

Kerrang! Issue 1109, May 27 2006

Valley Deep - gutless 7th album from complacent radio rockers
KK (that's poor for the uninitiated)

It's hard to understand how a band as great as Live can possibly have been reduced to peddling second tier radio pap like this. Can this really be the same band that recorded the exquisite Throwing Copper and Secret Samadhi albums? Is the weary crooner the same Ed Kowalczyk who sang with such piercing emotion on songs like Selling The Drama and The Dam At Otter Creek? Kowalczyk has often been described as the ahrd rock equivalent to REM frontman Michael Stipe, but when did he start actually pretending to be the egg head wonder?

If only that were the worst of it. On the nauseating Love Shines (A Song For My Daughters About God) Kowalczyk purrs stuff about Jesus and sounds more like Will bloody Young than Stipe. Rock stars should be banned from parenting after this. The River and Mystery are nearly as bad: semi acoustic plodders that Live have chosen to open thei album with. Occasionally Chad Taylor's guitar reaches out of the murk, small slivers of quality reminding of glories past. Wings and Sofia actually manage to take flight with proper, melodic conviction. These, though, are scraps - sad echoes of something that was once vivid and meaningful.

After a 20 million album sales career, Live has become a toothless lion - captive, tame and bloated. This is music honed to the industry's calling. It's the sound of a band not so much selling the drama as selling it's soul.

Steve Beebee

I get the feeling that this reviewer actually liked Live rather than bashing for the sake of it, which makes it all the more sad.

This post has been edited by Senghe: May 25 2006, 1:42 pm

[NectarDan]

Here's one from musicomh.com...
________________________________________

Live - Songs From Black Mountain (Sony BMG)
UK release date: 29 May 2006
1 star
Live - Songs From Black Mountain

When Pennsylvanian quartet Live released Throwing Copper back in 1994 they went from the ridiculous to the sublime in just one step. Where their debut Mental Jewelry had been a distinctly mediocre set of acoustic-led pop, Throwing Copper was a tour de force that sounded like it had been created by a completely different band.

In fact, two different bands, for it was as if Pearl Jam had been writing aggressive rock songs with Michael Stipe. Every track was golden, at least 10 million people around the world agreed and Lightning Crashes became US radio's most played song ever.

Since then Live's star has waned somewhat, although not altogether fairly considering the quality of much of Secret Samadhi and The Distance To Here, some of V (especially the simply beautiful Overcome) and pretty much all of 2003's superb sixth album, Birds Of Pray.

And so to 2006 with Live signed to a new record label and frontman Ed Kowalcykz making claims of epiphanies, new eras and other evangelical hyperbole.

Except here's the thing. Songs From Black Mountain isn't very good. It's not even average. In fact, it's downright bad. Tour de force? More like tour de farce...

It pains me to say so, believe me. But from the moment The River flows in with acoustic guitar and cheesy vocal "la-da-da-da"s, it's clear that this listener is in for a torrid time.

Treat this review as catharsis for a grieving music critic. How else is one supposed to get over the fact that The River sounds like something an American Idol would perform and has all the overbearing mawkishness that that implies? "Oooh baby, let my lovin' ease your pain!" Excuse me while I barf.

Things don't improve with the camp vocals and teenage sentimentality of Mystery ("your mystery keeps on turning me on"); the droning Get Ready ("C'mon get ready, this is the spring of our love / C'mon get ready, it's like it's ordained from above"); or the semi-Latin rhythms of Show and Sofia.

And just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, they redefine nadir with Love Shines (A Song For My Daughters About God), which besides being saccharine incarnated in musical form, also features the execrable lines: "Think of gentle Jesus / Think of the Buddha underneath his tree / They taught the world about love and how we all can be."

I'm struggling for positives. The chorus to Show is reminiscent of former glories but the production overly compresses Chad Taylor's guitar and holds the song back; Where Do We Go From Here? is okay; Home at least takes the listener by surprise with a fierce chorus unleashed after a musical hiatus; and All I Need is bearable once that bizarre, '80s keyboard intro is out of the way.

However, acoustically, vocally and lyrically, Songs From Black Mountain sounds like an Ed Kowalcykz solo record, were he to record one. The problem is that not only is that not the sound of Live but Kowalcykz's misfiring seems to have infiltrated the rest of the band, with hitherto percussive giant Chad Gracey inexplicably using a near-identical drum move as an intro or fill in around half a dozen songs.

In conclusion, the only crumb of comfort I can hold on to is the fact that the last time Live made an album this bad they followed it up with a piece more magical that most bands will never have a hope of conjuring. Lightning Crashes - let's just hope it strikes twice too.

- Vik Bansal