Contributing Writer
Are you in the mood for catchy songs that will stick in your head?
Tool's new release, Aenima, will do just that. Aenima is over an hour of somber, yet energetic songs. Armed with holograms on the front of the case and underneath the CD itself, Tool's new disc shows uniqueness.
The Los Angeles-based band's music and lyrics also are quite unique. Tool has the elements of both alternative and metal. Lead singer Maynard James Keenan sings about darker subjects, such as chile abuse and death, with a passion. His voice trembles and cracks when he sings and screams with emotion.
Guitarist Adam Jones keeps lengthy songs going with tight riffs and crunching twists and turns, while drummer Danny Carey pounds away on complicated beats. The new addtion to the band is bass player Justin Chancellor, who took Paul D'amour's place after he left to pursue his own music career.
Songs like "Eulogy" and "H" are about dead friends. "Eulogy" reflects on a lost friend's life, with lyrics like, "Well, so long/And we wish you well/Show us how you weren't afraid to die." "H" is dedicated to Bill Hicks, a dead comedian and a friend of the band's.
This CD starts off at a fast pace. It slows down after the fifth track only to speed right back up.
I recommend this disc to all Tool fans � and to people who aren't afraid to listen to new forms of music.
Aenima by Tool. Zoo Entertainment. 1996. Produced by Tool and David Botrill. Contains Explicit Lyrics.
By NIVEEN KATTAN
Managing Editor
Deana Carter is a good-looking woman. At first glance you would think she�s just another of Nashville�s handsome young things playing the new country. But Carter has a lot more going n addition to looks and a great voice, Carter has pedigree. She is the daughter of country session guitarist Fred Carter Jr.
�There was always music in our house,� she said. �At family reunions, you either found a harmony part or washed dishes, so I chose the harmony part.�
Having lived around music her entire life, Carter feels right at home in the studio.
�Burnt coffee, cigarette butts and the smell of tape in a freezing cold room: that�s why I�m comfortable with.�
Carter made her first attempt at the pop music business when she was only 17.
�I went around with my dad, trying to get a record deal,� she said. �When it didn�t happen for me right away, I though I better do something else.�
So Carter decided to go to the University of Tennessee. She studied rehabilitation therapy, partly because her grandmother suffered through a disabling illness.
At UT she sang at campus hangouts. After graduation, she went to work helping stroke and head- injury patients.
But music never left he blood. She started by playing dives in Nashville. Then Willie Nelson got ahold of one of her cassettes. He liked what he heard and remembered her father. Nelson asked Deana to perform at Farm Aid VII. That was her first big audience � she was the only female on the program � and now she has come out with her debut CD, Did I Shave My Legs for This? It�s one of the best CD�s I ever heard. It attracts a variety of listeners. Yes, it�s country. But it�s that new country popularizied by Mary Chapin Carpenter.
Each of her songs reveals emotions experienced and expressed by everyone. Perhaps her best song on this first CD is �I�ve Loved Enough to Know,� which expresses confidence in the face of love gone wrong. Some of her best efforts here are covers, like �Strawberry Wine,� �To the Other Side� and �If This Is Love,� a Kim Carnes song about finally understanding that life is going to work out OK.
Did I Shave My Legs for This? by Deana Carter. Capitol Records. 1996. Produced by Chris Farren.
By DAVID BULLA
WordSmith Advisor
Shawn Colvin had been around for a while, but I hadn�t paid attention. Then one day I took advantage of Border�s CD stations and had a listen to A Few Small Repairs. I was immediately hooked. Why? It really isn�t her voice or even the adult-oriented rock that I tend to favor. Rather, it was the lyrics. This woman has a fire in her belly and she expresses with more than a little fervor. The rocking �Get out of this House,� the cut that�s getting the most air play and was featured recently on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, sets the tone for the CD. It�s a song in which a spurned woman basically tells her ex-lover to hit the highway and leave her along � forever: �Go listen to Buddha, go listen to Joe/ Get out of this house/ If anyone asks, you tell them you don�t know/Get out of this house.� And the refrain: �You act like a baby, you talk like a fool/ Get out of this house/ Go back to your mama, go back to high school/ Get out of this house.� The woman�s got an attitude.
But Colvin can be funny about her firey attitude. In �Sunny Came Home,� she writes about a woman who has had so much bad luck in life that she decides to just burn everything. It�s cool how she leads into this scene: �Sunny came home to her favorite room/ Sunny sat down in the kitchen/ She opened a book and a box of tools/ Sunny came home with a mission.� It�s the best depiction of self-destruction I�ve heard in awhile.
Yet the song that took my heart was �Wichita Skyline.� The title intrigued me from the start. I was thinking how can she top Glenn Campbell�s �Wichita Lineman�? But she does it, with a few miles to spare. This is a song about living in the Midwest, about a world where farming is no longer the doman of families. What does a person growing up in the cornfields do with her/his life? Colvin, who has worked for such acts as the Richard Thompson Band, tried the big time. �Down at the train they go to Independence every day/ But anywhere else now seems like a million miles away/ And I must have been high to believe that I would ever leave/ Now I�m just a flat fine line like the Wichita skyline.� This is about being humble in an often bewildering world. It shows the same Midwest stoicism that turned voters off in droves to Bob Dole. Colvin, somehow, turns her modest taciturnity into something very attractive. Well, what she offers, listening to that good station from LaRue, ain�t such a bad way to live a life.
This South Dakota guitarist is getting a lot of favorable votes from the critics. She seems to have found really good chemistry working with producer John Leventhal, who is married to Rosanne Cash. Mixer Bob Clearmountain adds his usual sound touch to the final cut.
Colvin claims to be a Crowded House fan. I had no idea that was the case, but I bought her CD the same day I got a best-of CD by Crowded House. It was a pretty good day for this consumer. One recommendation: play Colvin�s CD loud.
A Few Small Repairs by Shawn Colvin. Columbia. 1996. Produced by John Leventhal.
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