MHUD – Cheval de Bataille
Genre: Pop-rock
France’s MHUD sounds like a pop-jazz combo reorchestrating Rage Against The Machine songs for a French audience.
People of a certain age, living in well-developed countries, often complain about just how spoiled youngsters are. According to them, young people haven’t faced many challenges, haven’t contributed greatly to society, yet feel they have the right to complain often. Worse of all, these people are weak, both mentally and physically.
I tend to disagree. In fact, there’s a high level of aggressiveness at every level of corporate work. These people aren’t pencil pushers. They’re social climbers ready to slice their way through however many lives they need to in order to reach their goals. If that’s not grit.
MHUD seems to recognize this as evidenced by the nervous energy captured in the jazzy Cheval de Bataille, and the expressive video that accompanies it. Soundwise this feels like a jazz group acting as backing band to a political rally. MHUD does something very clever here in identifying the horror involved in the supposedly respectable corporate world.
Dave Sheinin – St. Paul
Genre: Garage Rock
Dave Sheinin sounds like a desperado on his first night out of jail on the single St. Paul.
The greatest outlaw rockstars are the ones that get away with it and manage to tell the tale and brag about it. The Replacements never asked for forgiveness or looked for a way back. They seemed to burn all of their bridges with the ones that could have helped their careers and only played straight when there was nobody around to hear them. That makes for a good story.
I don’t want to hear about David Lee Roth going broke either. How could that happen if a man that bragged about jogging while balancing champagne glasses lost his money? I don’t want to hear about Bob Dylan, or Leonard Cohen going through a horrible writer’s block? They are the ones for whom it should all come easily.
And, because of that, I like to think that everything comes just as easily to Dave Sheinin as he makes it sound on the single St. Paul. No 9 to 5, broken heart or rehab for him. On St. Paul, Dave Sheinin pays tribute to the great Paul Westerberg. It sounds like the playing and songwriting of a clever juvenile delinquent who never really grew up, or had to pay the fines.
