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Quick Spins
With "Yeah!," Def Leppard doesn't cover itself in glory, but fans won't care.
(By Andrew Macpherson)
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Scott Walker
Eccentricity abounds in rock-and-roll, but true enigmas are few and far between.
One of them is the reclusive, self-exiled American singer Scott Walker, who landed a few minor hits in the '60s in England with the Walker Brothers before striking out as an increasingly strange solo act. He has released just three albums over 30 years, with the latest -- "The Drift" -- being typically challenging.
Walker's come a long way since his ornate pop days.
In fact, it's hard to imagine his current music influencing anyone, it's so idiosyncratic and relentlessly imposing.
Disturbing dissonance and droning rule "The Drift," with Walker's distinctive croon still strong but offering melodies as unpredictable as the music, an electronic soundscape that's firmly avant-garde.
The lyrics are by turns horrific and haunting: "I'm the only one
left alive," Walker sings in "Jesse," a 9/11 song that imagines Elvis Presley dreaming of the World Trade Center attacks.
"World about to end!" goes another declaration in "The Escape," a song that concludes with what sounds like a Donald Duck impression.
This is experimental music in the truest sense, a test to see how far an artist can push his vision without simultaneously pushing every potential listener away.
Whether you're one of the few pulled in depends a great deal on your patience and tolerance for discord and pretension, but like climbing a mountain, making it through an album as odd and oppressive as "The Drift" is in a sense its own reward.
-- Joshua Klein
DOWNLOAD THESE: "Jesse," "Hand Me Ups"
