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North Hollywood Shootout

Blues Traveler - North Hollywood Shootout Audio CD

A fair review of the Blues Traveler "North Hollywood Shootout" Audio CD. Please note that the below review is the views of the authors, and authors only. You can get a complete list of all Blues Traveler reviews here, or go back to the Blues Traveler tabs.

Band: Blues Traveler
Title: North Hollywood Shootout
Rating:

Release Date: 2008-08-26
Media: Audio CD

Tracks: 1: Forever Owed 2: You, Me And Everything 3: Love Does 4: Borrowed Time 5: The Beacons 6: Orange In The Sun 7: What Remains 8: How You Remember It 9: The Queen Of Sarajevo 10: Free Willis, Ruminations From Behind Uncle Bob's Machine Shop

This could be the album of their career
" The tracks builds with instrumentation and emotion as it progresses. The Good
The album kicks off with the mellow acoustic track "Forever Owned. Frontman John Popper even breaks out his trusty harmonica hear the end. The lyrics look back on lost loves that have never really left your heart. "Love Does" explores just how love compares to superficial things. It's accented by a twitchy groove. "Borrowed Time" shows the softest and heartfelt side of Popper as he pours out all he has while backed up by emotional piano. Blues Traveler break out the guitar riffage and pick up the tempo on "The Beacons. " It's more guitar grooving on "How You Remember It. " While the track has a funk flair, Popper delivers his blusey best. "Free Willis" is perhaps the group's most experimental offering, but is simply their best offering on this release.

The Bad
Nothing.

The Verdict
If you've heard the commercial version of Blues Traveler ("Runaround," "But Anyway," etc. ) then you ain't heard nothing yet. When you take away the major label pressures and just let a band explore their creative juices, the outcome is usually quite impressive. So is the case of North Hollywood Shootout. Not only does the album capture the bands signature bluesey sound, but it also shows a more poignant and emotional side of the group. This could be the album of their career. Let's just hope people get the opportunity to hear it.

Best Album since Debut
Driven by Popper's original tones and timbre, it takes the best of other albums experimental sounds and still gives us straight Blues Traveler. Great diversity- enough harp (almost) without being "A Harmonica Album". If you got hooked by "But Anyway" on Letterman almost 20 years ago, then you will love this album. .

The Black Cat is gone... but...
It's weird to listen in a BT album just to much synth sounds and "pussy" sounds. It's weird to listen a BT album with 4 or 5 slowtempo songs.

It's weird in a BT album but BT still manages to mixed up and sound great at it. They still manage to get along with rock, with pop, with (some little but still) jam. They try to catch some lost spark since Bastardos, and they succed it, in part.

In part because NHS still feels half way "there". First step, it's sounds more thight than Bastardos, second, is that it's is a diferent way from bastardos but it's like a "return" way, coming back. Very very shy try to set the course toward mixing old BT with new BT. But a try thats at least worth it. Because somewhere in the album I felt old BT trying to emerge. But still lacks the thightness and rock of Straight on till morning and maybe it will never be like it, but maybe it can be better.

The Black Cat logo maybe gone from the artwork of this album (the first BT album ever without it) but is still living in the music, and maybe, who knows, will make Blues Traveler comeback from these Pop Dream but with all the things they have learned from it. This album is in that direction. It gives me hope. .

Great album from really great jam band.
The "free willis" song is a true head nodder with a great bass line throughout, and with Popper's vocal's really distorted, supporting Bruce Willis' spoken word, it probably is the biggest surprise for any Blues Traveler long-time listener. Not only are there are several songs on here that you would absolutely hope to hear from Popper etal, but there are some real surprises. The best song is "orange in the sun," hands-down, but close runner up would be "how you remember it", "beacons" and "you, me and everything". Those three are really the meat of this, in my humble opinion. What's nice about this album is it feels fresh and you really get a sense that they were driven to get to their roots for this production. Very rock and roll. . . If you ever liked this band, you will enjoy this new album.

Mostly? It's just dull.
Bridge and Truth Be Told are my two favorite BT albums. As I see it, Blues Traveler reinvented itself spectacularly after the death of their first bassist. The addition of the piano, and a change in emphasis I think, allowed for more extensively complex arrangements and details in the studio work that I still find spectacularly inventive (my personal favorite, in terms of production, is You Reach Me from Bridge - there is so much going on in that song, it's difficult to know where to start. )

So, after those two albums, I was really expecting something outstanding from Bastardos!, and what I liked was there a couple of times (After What, Amber Waits, some others) but the experimental edge I think pushed them out of "complicated and interesting" and into "actually, sort of unpleasant and weird. "

Well, it would appear they agreed, because now we have North Hollywood Shootout, one of the most ridiculous overcompensations I've ever heard from a band. It's like they listened to Bastardos! and thought "ANYTHING BUT THAT!" and made exactly the opposite - no creativity, no drive, no unexpected sounds. . . heck, barely anything that could be called "arrangements" in the first place.

The lengthy Amazon review mentions their approach of recording the songs as this time the same way they play live, coming up with arrangements on the spot, and boy can you tell. Especially on the single, "You, Me and Everything", it's plain as day that they came up with a groove they liked and so they just sat down and played it for 4 minutes, and called that a song. It's a fine enough groove, there's just no variety to the song at all.

Even the songs that start off sounding complex and ambitious, Orange In The Sun and The Queen Of Sarajevo, each have sections where suddenly creativity gives way to muttering over top of stereotypical and extremely bare guitar lines. The overall effect is one of listening to a draft of a much better CD, like a progress report halfway through the recording process that they would then go on to legitimately flesh out.

I mean, it's not unpleasant like Bastardos! often was (well, except for one guitar line in How You Remember It that sounds like someone dicking around at guitar center, but I digress), it's just that it's, well, just kind of dull. Repetitive. Lots of chords, with no arrangements; lots of very plain melodies, without harmony; lots of simple grooves that stay the same for the whole entire song. There are more musical ideas in any four songs off of the last few albums than on this entire disc.

Next time, a middle ground would be nice - not unpleasant and bizarre like Bastardos!, not boring and completely uninspired like this one.

You can see a complete list of all Blues Traveler discography, or go back to the Blues Traveler tabs. There is also a good guide on how to read guitar tabs here.