‘Re-Load’ More Continuation Than Sequel
Metallica “Re-Load” (Elektra) ***1/2
The title of Metallica’s new album does the band a disservice. This is less a sequel to last year’s “Load” than a virtual repudiation of it. Gone, hopefully for good, are “Load’s” Simonized production gloss, pretty harmonizing and pithy song structures.
Granted, “Re-Load” is not exactly a return to the band’s thrash-metal roots: There are no sprawling, suitelike compositions or precisiontooled playing cranked up to warp speed. Rather, it’s more a continuation of the style Metallica mined on its multiplatinum “black” album, which stressed processional tempos and thickly textured, radio-ready riffs.
“Fuel” kick-starts the album with a thunderclap of galloping guitars and drums, and when James Hetfield spews forth in his best baleful growl, you know that the real Metallica has reared its ugly head once again. Need more evidence? Check out “The Memory Remains,” a cautionary tale of sinful excess featuring flat-out creepy vocals from Marianne Faithfull, or “Slither” and “Carpe Diem Baby,” both classic Metallica sludge-fests.
Not everything clicks here - “Bad Seed” is silly, and “The Unforgiven 2” is pointless - but “Re-Load” is strong enough to make you forgive the band its past concessions to mass tastes.
- Marc Weingarten
Celine Dion “Let’s Talk About Love” (550 Music/Epic) **
Were there any lingering doubts about Dion’s quest for world domination, this 15-track album should dispel them. The production and songwriting credits read like a who’s who of mainstream pop bards and boardsmen, from George Martin and Carole King to David Foster and Carol Bayer Sager.
One song is the love theme from “The Titanic,” and there are duets with the reigning prima donnas of both the pop world (Barbra Streisand) and opera (Luciano Pavarotti). At 29, Dion clearly has the resume and the chops required to meet such giants on her own turf.
Unfortunately, that turf remains strictly in the middle of the road. Dion’s voice is without question a technical marvel, but her delivery lacks the personality and the intuitive sense of drama that are a diva’s stock in trade. On the super-schmaltzy “Tell Him,” the power and clarity of her voice rival Streisand’s, but in terms of emoting, the elder singer leaves her in the dust.
Elsewhere, Dion generally adheres to her usual formula of bloodless brilliance so that the feisty, reggae-laced “Treat Her Like a Lady” is just as dazzling as the pining, pathos-ridden “My Heart Will Go On” - and no more convincing.
With all her talent and ambition, Dion may reasonably expect to move mountains, but she has yet to prove adept at moving hearts.
- Elysa Gardner
Jane’s Addiction “Kettle Whistle” (Warner Bros.) ***
This grab bag of vintage demos, studio outtakes and live recordings is really nothing more than an ancillary byproduct of this hugely influential late-‘80s/early-‘90s band’s reunion tour. The two new tracks, in particular, are just warmed-over Porno for Pyros, and feature singer Perry Farrell’s annoying, quasi-mystical musings. The live material, on the other hand, is a jolting reminder of just how incendiary the group was when firing on all pistons.
If “Kettle Whistle” has anything to prove, it’s that Jane’s Addiction was a great band and not just a supporting cast for Farrell. On the 1990 live recording of “Three Days,” guitarist Dave Navarro, drummer Stephen Perkins and bassist Eric Avery (who isn’t joining in the reunion) segue from a subdued dirge into an extended, hypnotic tribal war dance.
Similarly, “Ain’t No Right” and “Stop!” feature the epic blend of Zeppelinesque thrash boogie and Grand Guignol histrionics that helped ratify Jane’s reputation as one of the pre-eminent bands ever to come out of Los Angeles.
- Marc Weingarten
Michael Bolton “All That Matters” (Columbia) *1/2
Don’t let Bolton’s new, closecropped hairdo fool you - musically speaking, the singer’s style remains as pseudo-Byronic as ever. This album features more of the same politely sentimental adult-contemporary arrangements and subtlety-be-damned vocals that Lord Bolton has been using to seduce fans and irritate critics for years.
- Elysa Gardner