Life is Music™

Are You Ready?

Unfortunately The Verve’s 2008 reunion was short lived.  But in its ashes, singer Richard Ashcroft put together a new band called United Nations of Sound.  Ashcroft liked the work producer, No I.D., did on Jay-Z’s song “D.O.A. (Death of Auto-Tune)” and hired him on as executive producer.  The new album entitled Redemption is due March 29th, 2010 and has the singer teaming with a host of new musical collaborators.  At this point I cannot confirm if former Verve drummer, Peter Salisbury, is once again backing Richard Ashcroft as he did on Ashcroft’s three previous solo releases.

Redemption is Ashcroft’s fourth solo album and hopefully a welcome follow up to his respectable yet somewhat spotty 2006 release Keys to the World.  NME exclusively unveiled the first material from Ashcroft’s new project.  The song “Are You Ready?” doesn’t run far from his past work, still thematically thick in spirituality, but the lengthy guitar solo taking out the song is a nice addition and something I don’t recall in his previous works. 

Check out the new video here and form your own opinion.

After cancelling their last two shows in Minneapolis in 2002 and 2005 (2005 cancelled to play Letterman), the Brit-rock band Doves finally landed in Minneapolis on Thursday, May 28th, 2009.  The sold-out show was at the historic little Varsity Theater in the Dinkytown section of the city.

The trio of Manchester, England rockers (with unofficial fourth member on keys) were in good form and in good spirits as their sound pounded through the carpet lined confines of the Varsity.  On tour to support their long-awaited fourth album, Kingdom of Rust, the band worked through a majority of the new album while also touching on plenty of their classic older tunes.  Highlights for me were “Snowden”, “Here it Comes” and “Black & White Town”.  ”There Goes the Fear” was a fantastic closer with everyone in the band banging percussion to end the night.

It seemed this show was an introduction to many in the crowd as a majority of concert-goers were oftentimes emotionless, but the band still brought large applauses throughout the night.  Doves played a very fine show, but I wasn’t much impressed with the opening band, Wild Light, whose redundant indie sound couldn’t keep me interested for a minute.

Minneapolis Setlist:
Jetstream
Snowden
Winter Hill
Rise
Pounding
Almost Forgot Myself
10.03
The Heat Is On tease (Jimi & Martin)
Words
Denier
Kingdom Of Rust
Ambition
Black & White
The Outsiders
Caught By The River
—–
Lonely
Northenden
Here It Comes
Last Broadcast
The Fear