Sound bites

People Under the Stairs “…Or Stay Tuned”
OM

People Under the Stairs has always been a hip-hop group proudly
against the bling bling. The duo raps about everyday life instead
of big pimping in addition to keeping its music simple too,
sticking to a few low-key beats and samples to prop up its flow.
“”¦Or Stay Tuned,” continues PUTS’s hip-hop
minimalism that worked on its last three albums. As Double K puts
it, “It’s the art of fresh music, not that artificial
crap that people call rap, ““ we’re getting rid of
that.”

But outside of the occasional swipe at “the artificial
crap,” PUTS stay nice and positive. Its raps tackle the
challenges of grade school and lazy summers in the neighborhood or
the tough choice between staying in bed or going to church. In
“Fly Love Song” the duo touches on sex, but spends most
of its rhymes on good, clean romance and fantasizing about
“putting her picture in my locket.”

The beats are as laid back as the lyrics on “”¦Or
Stay Tuned.” PUTS uses jazzy samples to make hip-hop that
flows quickly but still seems to take its sweet time. It’s
definitely a fitting disc for these last days of summer.

-By Alex Palmer

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club “Take Them On, On Your
Own” Virgin

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club’s 2001, “B.R.M.C,”
was a great debut record. It was loud, feedback driven, and
the San Francisco-based trio backed up all that brash noise with
some great bass and guitar riffs that made the music more
accessible than that of the Jesus and Mary Chain ““ a band
that also reveled in the intense feedback BRMC indulges in.
It’s no wonder that BRMC is often compared to JAMC
(don’t those acronyms look similar?), although members of
both bands dislike the comparison.

With “Take Them On, On Your Own,” BRMC only
half-delivers on the promise of its first album. There are standout
tracks like “Rise or Fall,” which is anchored by a
searing riff, and there are clunkers that can only be described as
boring. The album was recorded in England while the band waited for
the U.S. government to allow for the return of British drummer Nick
Jago, who had been living in the United States on an expired
student visa. Recording its sophomore album in that strange state
of limbo had mixed results and perhaps not coincidently, the band
expresses its dissatisfaction with the U.S. government, on
“US Government.” However, like several of the other
songs on the album, the song never takes off despite the
band’s often effective dark imagery and a driving rhythm.
Lyrically, BRMC doesn’t seem to move too far forward ““
there are still songs about the bad kind of love and suffering.

One of the hallmarks of the band’s first album was the
crispness of the recordings, which emphasized the dynamics of the
band. Only a three-piece, bassist and sometime vocalist Robert
Turner often serves up thick bass riffs to fill spaces, while
guitarist and vocalist Peter Hayes specializes in washes of
distortion and feedback.  When the drums kick in on the
album-opener, “Stop,” it’s reminiscent of
“Red Eyes and Tears,” or the sublime “Spread Your
Love” from the band’s debut. But for every track on the
new album like “In Like the Rose,” which features an
interesting staccato guitar part, there is a track like “Ha
Ha High Babe,” which can only be described as filler.

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club puts on a ferocious live show and
gained this reputation putting in hours in clubs in San Francisco
and Los Angeles. One imagines this gave the band a lot of time to
tweak and hone the 11 gems that made up that first
album. Maybe a year of putzing around in England with the
rabid British press heaping praise on the band wasn’t a good
state in which to record the follow-up.

-By Daniel Miller