By By Ken Walker
Some say a great band should never change. Some say change makes the band better and shows their own personal musical diversity. I agree that a band or lone musician wanting to change their own style has every right to experiment with that which they obviously care about and that is their music. If the music of one group always sounded the same, they might as well only release one album and leave it for fans to judge. It is tough to listen to one album from a group you like. Face it. You either like the actual group, meaning the music, lyrics, personal style they represent and look. Or, you like the sound of the group. If you like the sound, then you should not choose one group to like. Only buy the albums from that one genre of music for every group and never buy more than one album from one specific group. Live is a personal favorite of mine and their music has always been on levels some bands choose not to reach or just are not able to. With the new release of their album “V,” they show they are a band whose musical veteranship carries rock’s patrons.
With past smash hits like “Lightning Crashes,” “I Alone,” and “The Dolphin’s Cry,” they show they know what being the epitome of a rock band is. Lyric writer, front-man Ed Kowalzcyk has always shown us the beauty of life through his eyes and mind of Eastern philosophies and Buddhist beliefs.
The new single, “Simple Creed,” shows his ideas and beliefs of love and how all musicians should love one another with lines like “I wait for you to take my hand…” and “We got to love each other.” It is almost mocking the pop feuds that exist today. “Someone should take your microphone, someone should take your bubble gum…” In this instance, the case is that Nsync and Eminem and Durst and Aguilera are the feuds being discussed. The pop is the bubble-gum and the other guys are representative of the microphones. If you’re going to waste your time writing music about how you dislike other musicians, don’t utilize your time at all. Track-guest Tricky whose spoken word on the break of the track is what you hear, has worked with Live before on some unreleased stuff.
If you watched VH1 through all the tragedy of the last two weeks, you would’ve seen another track off “V” called “Overcome.” Apparently in the last year or so as he is quoted for telling Spin Magazine, Kowalzcyk learned to “master the piano.” He wrote a piano riff and the lyrics and let go of a “sad melody.” The song is my personal favorite on the album. It is a song that brings echoes of lightning crashing or running down to the water.
New sounding tracks like “Forever May Not Be Long Enough,” “Deep Enough,” and Hero of Love,” bring an almost electronic sound. They worked with new keyboardist Michael Albright for a new and experimental sound only to be heard on this album. There is a contradictory question raised in listening to an album filled with meanings of love but there are, for the first time on a Live album, sexual innuendoes given from Kowalzcyk’s lyrics. The track “Deep Enough” speaks of this. His Eastern religious beliefs raise that question but it is a change and a positive medicine for the ears of Live fans.
It is a well-produced album and will bring the mediocre label of Radioactive Records some loot for the first time since the release of “The Distance to Here” in October of 1999. I am pleased with new work of the group and the new album. Some of you fans that just like the traditional sound of Live and groups like them may not be satisfied with bits and pieces of change shown in with this fifth LP. I think we just have to realize when you hear that one song that makes you give your trust to a certain band, you must expect changes sometime down the road. This is a wise change for Live. They stick to their roots and just sprinkle a bit of spice on the side dishes with this new album. Pick it up, see if you can be pleased with change or if you just will always like the old.
