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Job's Rhetoric

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Electric Tears, by Buckethead

This is the guy who plays concerts with a KFC bucket on his head and a white, expressionless mask on his face. He has played some strange styles over the years. He is perhaps best known for his stint with Guns and Roses--as Slash's replacement.

You'll be interested in this album if you like beautiful, strange things. You'll need a lot of endurance for this one too. It's entirely instrumental, and some of the songs are about 7 minutes too long. The instrumentation is all guitars. Acoustics provide a calm background while clean electrics solo slowly over the top. The sound is introspective, not quite melancholy, but very somber. Take, for example, the song Angel Monster (isn't that a great name for a song?). That song seems to explore duality and fallen nature. If you squint your ears you can hear some hope there too. The album isn't despairing, but it's not feel good music either. It's edgy without being loud, dissonant or ever saying a word. How many albums can say that?

Chasing Daylight, by Sister Hazel

You may remember Sister Hazel from the mid-90's. Their hit song All For You was ubiquitous fare on pop stations and VH1. Whatever happened to those guys? They went independent and they filled out. You could call it the college 15 and the healthy dose of experience that comes with it. Compared to their mid-90's work, Chasing Daylight sounds incredibly solid. Some songs are like cork, some are like stone, some are olive branches and some are swords.

In short, this album is their high point. They were good before, and they've been great after, but they've never been better than they were on Chasing Daylight. Here is a pretty good review:

Amazon.com
Gainesville, Florida's Sister Hazel would have you believe that resuming indie status has given the band renewed vitality, and judging by the sheer force of Chasing Daylight, you'd probably be inclined to agree. Opening with a trio of songs that are shamelessly buoyant, the band makes clear its determination to craft anthems, and they're not about to let lost love stand in the way of a hooky chorus, as songs like opening track "Your Mistake" make clear. The relatively somber ballad "Best I'll Ever Be" divides the disc between its utterly accessible first half and slightly more adventurous last half, but generally speaking, the quintet stays on point, delivering smooth, sing-songy country-dusted roots-rock full of wide-open spaces and palpable longing. Skynyrd is subtly noted in the dirty guitar graffitied across the opening of "Swan Dive," though their Florida brethren never had the vocal harmonies mustered by Sister Hazel at full tilt. And while a full string section adds shadow and nuance to these compositions, Chasing Daylight is straight-up, radio-friendly, and as comfortable as worn denim. --Kim Hughes