CD Reviews

1976
Late Summer of 1976
Le Musique
1976 hit the local indie scene five years ago, but never managed to achieve the same degree of success and, or notoriety as other acts that sprung up at that time and went on the bigger and better things such as Chthonic (閃靈) and Anarchy (無政府).

The band's over-reliance on slow melancholy and rudimentary Brit pop at a time when local testosterone-fueled teenage audiences were looking for raucous forms of musical mayhem, was, no doubt, the main reason behind the bands failing to secure a sizable following of fanatical fans.

Released earlier this month, Late Summer of 1976 is the band's first fully acoustic live album and sees three members of the four-piece act going through the motions.

Recorded at a live show in August of last year, the album features a selection of some of the combo's most popular tunes, yet omits all too many of its finest moments. 1976 warbles its way through slow, acoustic versions of a dozen its melodic and pleasing tunes. Highlights include the pop melody Coffee Shop (咖啡店), the Morrissey-like 2nd Secret and the lively and upbeat Circles (循環).

While there is little wrong with the band's lo-fi acoustic sound electric versions of all these tunes sound a whole better.

Zayin
Zayin
Avex Trax
Formed by five Taiwanese guys who met while living in New Zealand, Zayin is the latest in a string of bands to sign with a local mainstream record label, Avex. While the band has shared the stage with large numbers of the nation's more indie oriented acts at spit-and-sawdust dives and seasonal dowdy and over-rated outdoor festivals since its formation almost three years ago, Zayin has cleverly managed to avoid being categorized as just another "alternative" rock band.

Signed to commercial record label, but marketed as a pop/rock act rather then a boy band, Zayin's self-titled debut might not grab the music press by the throat and immediately propel them to superstardom, but it certainly paves the way for bigger and better things. If Zayin can build on this then the band is surefire bet for a nomination at next year's Gold Melody Awards.

The music is tight and well produced and the tunes themselves well written and, for the most part, highly memorable. Zayin's ability to blend fiery rock riffs with pop and mainstream hooks gives the album staying power and makes for a great listen if you can get through to opening 30 seconds of the opener, The End (終於), which is drib, drab and far too dreary for its own good.

Before long, however, the problematic opener bursts into a Third Eye Blind-like power pop ballad worthy of full volume on the sound system and the material that follows is equally entertaining, hard-hitting and well thought out.

There maybe no dud track in sight, but the album's highlight and the tune that makes the album worthy of accolade is Cherry Times, which is a guitar driven jerky rock number that should prove a crowd-pleaser when the band sets out on its promotional tour in the coming weeks.

Various
IS#1
Music543.com/isle
IS#1 is a bit of misnomer for this album. Featuring an odd selection of tunes by an even odder assortment of quite contrasting acts, the album, which has been released by newcomers, Music543.com/Isle, has, no doubt, hit record store shelves as a way of introducing the label's recent signings rather than as a must-buy addition to CD collections.

Ambling in with a dreamy Sandee Chen (陳珊妮) and an equally dreamy and hypnotically downbeat tune entitled Express Delivery (快遞), the album takes listeners in a myriad of musical directions.

Local Brit-pop wannabes, 1976 does its best to sound like a combination of the Verve and Pulp on Star, popular DJ Lim Giong (林強) plods his way through a lithium loaded I Want to be With You (我想和你一起), and Li Yu-huan (李雨寰) goes disco with a pulsed-up cover version of Sandee Chen's Passionate Cocktail (熱戀Cocktail).

The bottom line here is that IS#1 makes for an inoffensive and at times original and interesting listen, but as a compilation album worth purchasing it falls rather flat.

Various
Ho Hai-yan Indie Music Awards III (貢寮國際海洋音樂祭: 熱浪搖滾 III)
TCM (角頭音樂)
The third album to be released by TCM (角頭音樂) featuring the sounds of the annual Ho Hai-yan Music Festival, Ho-Hai-yan Music Awards III offers listeners much the same as the two previous albums in the Ho Hai Yen series.

Featuring a selection of not-so-great tunes, some of which sound like they have been recorded in an empty baked bean can, none of the material that appears on the album could, or should be judged as "highlights" of the event. Low-lights would, in fact, be a much more fitting appraisal of the material.

Why the record company bothers to release such trash is beyond this reviewer, as it hardly makes one want to rush out and buy tickets for future Ho Hai-yen Festivals.

Considering last year's festival saw stellar performances from long-serving funksters Sticky Rice (糯米糰), American folk/ambient musician Scott Ezell and the masters of Mando-downbeat Tizzybac, why producers chose to ignore these great acts is quite puzzling.

Instead of greatness, we're subjected to so-so recordings of even more so-so performances by unsigned underground bands like Mango Runs (芒果跑), whose prog-rock inspired tune After All (畢竟) opens the proceedings with whimper rather than a roar, and pop-punk act Hotpink as it crashes its way through a tinny rendition of its Horny Starfish Prefers not to Take Breakfast (淫蕩海星 吃早餐).

A really, really laughable and badly recorded rap tune by Stone ( 正仔) best sums up just how bad the vast majority of the material on this album is.