Elephant
The White Stripes
Third Man Records
(out of 5)

Throb, throb, thump, thump. Opening bass and drum lines drive into your heart. You’ve landed in a sonic jungle and a striped beast is on the loose. Suddenly, a wailing guitar jumps out from behind you. It joins its fellow sounds, wreaking havoc and pausing only to offer a piece of advice: Listen to me, the animalistic instrument says, Jack and Meg White are here to set things straight. The superduo has intensified and complicated its sound by piling heavy-handed blues on a simplistic musical template.

While The White Stripes’ last albums were all skin and bones, Elephant packs some serious flesh. “Girl, You Have No Faith in Medicine,” “Black Math” and “Hypnotize,” are just a few examples of their new aggression—fierce tributes to raucous garage rock complete with requisite fuzz tone and nostalgic hand-clapping. The songs attack and command frantic dance.

Although most of the tracks are notably different from previously released material, some of the songs sound eerily similar to their predecessors. “There’s No Home For You Here” seems to be an updated version of “Dead Leaves on the Dirty Ground” from the White Blood Cell album, while “Little Acorns” echoes “The Same Boy You’ve Always Known.” Of course it only makes sense that the duo’s older work provides the perfect base off of which to launch striking new product.

Elephant also marks Meg’s solo vocal debut. “In the Cold, Cold Night” proves that she is just as capable as her husband/ex husband/brother Jack at sending chills down your spine. The melody glides below the drumming temptress (sans sticks) as she dishes out fever-inducing vibes. More, more!
This album boasts the merits of experimenting with tradition. Two previously unassuming musicians continue to flip convention on its head. Now they’re ready to take over the world. Welcome to the jungle, baby.
-JG

“Kung Faux Volume 1”
Tommy Boy Films/Dubtitled entertainment
Created by Mic Neumann
(out of 5)

The creators of the “hip-hop comedy kung fu series” titled “Kung Faux” hoped to create a hit show by combining crappy old kung fu movies, elements of hip hop culture, comic book-style graphics and video game-style pacing into a mundane and unfunny project. The TV and DVD series, which just debuted on the MuchMusic USA channel this weekend, is also available on VHS.

There are lots of reasons why one shouldn’t watch this series, one of them being that the comedy isn’t funny. The whole premise of the comedic side of the series is the overdubbing of an original kung fu movie’s soundtrack with other people’s voices, mostly black guys who talk in street slang. You see, it’s supposed to be funny because the Asian kung-fu actors’ lips move but they are saying stuff that one would associate with black people. For example, many of the overdub characters say stuff like, “holla” or refer to other characters on screen as “nigga”—that’s comedic gold.

That’s not all—the exploitation of stereotypes gets worse. In episode one, titled “Ill Master,” the Ill Master is an old, long-haired stoner who fights like a pro while sounding like an amateur Tommy Chong impersonator. His young student fashions the voice of an inner-city youth and their adversary The Tiger, or something like that, sports a very, very, bad Jamaican accent. The only female character’s voice is very high pitched and heavily accented, as if it’s a real Asian doing it (before you write me an angry letter, that last aside was intended to be sarcastic).

The voice-over dub is the only comedic device employed. I think I laughed once when the Ill Master’s student made fun of him for opening his eyes and looking at him. Oh, I forgot to mention the Ill Master’s eyes are sealed shut— The Tiger bad guy did it in his younger days. That’s the only funny part because the characters aren’t taking the show seriously—for the rest of it, they are really trying and it’s sad.

I won’t give away the ending, but I will say that somebody dies, but not before there’s like eight poorly choreographed fight scenes enhanced with video-game style comments and comic book-style emphasis like on the Batman TV series, except they use street words in tag style lettering like “capped,” “played” and “snuffed” to accompany the classic, “pow.”

Oh yes, and in between all the action, there are commercials. I wasn’t watching TV, folks, there are commercials on the DVD. In the press packet, the series creator Mic Neumann says, “Yeah, but they’re commercials you’re not going to see anywhere else. Think of it like a pop-culture magazine.”

That’s so lame. So, I guess as you skip over the ads in magazines, you’re supposed to fast-forward to the action. By the look of it the marketing team is trying to tap into the wallets, or parents’ wallets, of just about every adolescent heterosexual male by featuring video-game ads, basketball ads, skate and BMX ads and let’s not forget the “Hip-Hop Honeys Tasty Flavors” on DVD and VHS, with enough big tits and-ass to drive a $20 hole in a young horny boy’s wallet. But I digress.

After the commercial breaks—there are like three of them—a female voice-over brings us up to speed on what the hell is going on. The episodes are introduced in the same fashion too.

The hip-hop soundtrack on the first episode is pretty good, but episode two, “Boxcutta,” switches between the same drum and bass interlude and hip-hop bass line for every fight scene. “Boxcutta” delivers more of the same, but with two female characters this time. One has a valley girl voice and the other a poorly played Puerto Rican accent. If they exploit too many stereotypes in one episode, how are they going to keep the series fresh for the next four volumes?

The creators acquired the licenses for 30 kung fu movies and each volume, five so far, contains two episodes. The DVD features an option that allows you to eliminate the vocal soundtrack so you and your friends can play along too and fill in the voices yourself. The TV series airs on Friday nights on MuchMusic USA.
—LMV

Hotel Vast Horizon
Chris Whitley
Messenger Records
(out of 5)

Chris Whitley’s style of roots music is true to form in its raw recorded style and honest pacing, but the lack of changes in the texture leaves Hotel Vast Horizon as an uneventful album on the whole.

Whitley’s style of roots music is heavily folk-influenced with some very vague elements of the blues. The instrumentation is simple—Whitley provides guitar, banjo and light raspy vocals, Heiko Schramm plays acoustic and electric bass and Matthias Macht takes care of the drums and percussion.

The sound on the recording is pretty raw, with all the buzzing strings and other typically removed elements included in the mix. All the songs on the album except the final cut, “Free Interval,” are really slow and somber. The melody lines and vocal phrasings repeat so much it becomes monotonous, and there’s little exploration or variation done on the existing elements.

“Free Interval” is redeeming in the sense that the pace is picked up enough to make the song lively. Whitley switches to banjo for the tune and explores elements outside of the progression, and the percussion has a driving force, whereas the snare and cymbals on the other tunes seem to add more texture with the instruments rather than keeping time.

“Insurrection at Newtown” also has an uptempo feel to it with a quick pace and an upfront sound on the guitar as the drums get  more boisterous in the background—Whitley’s voice inflection changes like there’s a little bit of aggression behind it.

The rest of the album is pretty sleepy and conveys the same level of emotion throughout. If there weren’t stops between some of the songs, you might not be able to tell when one song starts and the other finishes—it’s that boring.
—LMV