“If AC and DC had a baby, Andrew Stockdale of Wolfmother would be their rock & roll problem child,” Rob Sheffield writes in his four-star review of the Australian band’s second album Cosmic Egg. Since the band’s 2006 debut, two-thirds of the band have exited, leaving Stockdale and his new brood to completely embrace their love of Black Sabbath, making Cosmic Egg a wilder and freakier album than its predecessor. Among the highlights are “Sundial” and “In the Castle,” which Stockdale played acoustic during his recent visit to RS. Adds Sheffield, “There isn’t a boring moment — when’s the last time you could say that about an album with Cosmic in the title?”
Also this week: Tegan & Sara follow up the power-pop of 2007’s The Con with Sainthood. “Here, the girls just wanna have fun: With squawking synths, clipped vocals and head-snapping New Wave drums, their latest is an Eighties dance party,” writes Will Hermes in his three-and-a-half star review of the sisters’ new album. “Alligator” sounds like early Madonna, while “Redbelt” is inspired by the post-punk movement. “Tegan and Sara make catchy songs about loving not wisely but too well,” Hermes writes.
Celebrating its 25th anniversary this week with a new reissue is U2’s The Unforgettable Fire. The disc includes remastered hits like “Pride (In the Name of Love)” and “Bad,” and the reissue’s bonus disc adds “fascinating experiments, including the excellent Bowie-drag outtake ‘Disappearing Act’ and some funky B sides that borrow from Eno’s Talking Heads playbook (see ‘Boomerang II’),” Will Hermes writes in Unforgettable Fire’s new four-and-a-half star review (which fans should find more agreeable...
Article Source: Rolling Stone : Rock and Roll Daily