CD reviews 10/23: Jane's Addiction and Bjork

POP/ROCK
Jane's Addiction, "The Great Escape Artist" (Capitol)
"You know, we've become a big business," Perry Farrell sings on "Irresistible Force (Met the Immovable Object)," a song on the fourth full-length release from Jane's Addiction. It's a remarkable moment of candor: The band began in the late '80s as one of alternative rock's most maverick progenitors, fomenting the American festival movement in founding Lollapalooza and inspiring legions with heavy yet genre-confounding grooves. However, as Jane's coalesced into a mainstream headliner, its recorded legacy grew spotty and sporadic.
"The Great Escape Artist," however, represents a return to form and also an unsullied beginning. Epic opener "Underground" sets the tone, recasting the expanse of "Mountain Song" on Jane's classic 1988 debut with new angularity: "Zeppelinesque" given a Gang of Four makeover. Stephen Perkins' drums prove as tribal as ever, and guitarist Dave Navarro alternates guiltily pleasurable histrionic soloing with slashing minimalism. Farrell's howl remains recognizable, as well — if transformed into a more knowing, dissolute croon.
Producers Rich Costey (Interpol, Muse) and TV on the Radio's Dave Sitek (who contributes bass) emphasize Jane's post-punk dimension, evoking Public Image Ltd., Killing Joke and early Cult in the album's echoey, dub-wise mix. Such bands provided the sonic crucible that spawned Jane's; those influences feel utterly contemporary here, adding nervous, dynamic tension to Jane's trademark sound. Alas, while the interplay remains incendiary, the textures freshly incandescent, there isn't much in the way of memorable choruses or hooks. Still, for a group to sound this vital after a two-decade-plus run — well, that is shocking.
Matt Diehl, Los Angeles Times
Bjork, "Biophilia"
(One Little Indian)
With the rapidly reshaping music industry, artists as often generate buzz with their choice of delivery system, or what bells and whistles they attach to the music, as with the music itself. That's true and then some of Bjork's eighth album, which she is releasing not only as a CD, digital download and LP, but also as iPad and iPhone apps. There are some cool-looking graphics and interactive features to go with the songs, some of which, like the charmingly chiming "Crystalline," were played with instruments such as the gameleste, a combination of a gamelan and celesta, which were invented for the project.
In many ways, Bjork has reinvented herself as the world's strangest science teacher, an orange-haired faerie dedicated to "using technology to make visible much of nature's invisible world." As she sings of tectonic plates bonding together to form a "Mutual Core" or about "craving miracles" in "Thunderbolt," her fetchingly off-kilter delivery pulls you into her wonky world.
None of the nifty extras with "Biophilia" would be worth bothering with if the otherworldly music wasn't any good. Thankfully, it is. And while the album rarely kicks into high-energy club mode — the drum-'n'-bass-style kinetic coda of "Crystalline" is about it — much of it is eerily beautiful and arranged in a spare, uncluttered manner, like an open invitation to remixers to have their way with it.
Dan DeLuca, Philadelphia Inquirer