Mojo Priest reviewed

You would think I learn my lesson on not listening to another Steven Seagal album after his first one had a spectacularly bad half which you can see here.  But I'm a bit hard to teach and I do what I want!  Also, I was told that his second album was going to be an all-blues affair which is good since the only blues song on Crystal Caves was one of the best songs on that album.  And that means we don't have to hear Seagal breaking reggae's neck since those songs suck and furthermore, we don't have to listen to Lady Saw break our ears neck with her horrible singing.  So with that said, let's protect our necks with Mojo Priest.

1.  Somewhere in Between(***/****) -This song gets off to a good start with a blistering guitar lick.  Then it slows down with Seagal singing about race shouldn't matter and Seagal is better than you since he's somewhere in between.  It's a good song with some nice guitar work by Seagal but not one that's going to stick with you.

2.  Love Doctor(***/****) - It's a Steven Seagal song and Seagal's barely in it...but this time, it's not horrible but I digress!  Some girl needs some loving and only Seagal can heal her by breaking her neck...with his penis.  It has a good funky beat but his guest star that takes up half the song has some pretty good lines and has a good voice.  It's another good song that survives a guest star unlike his last album.

3.  Dark Angel(***/****) -This is yet another good song from Seagal that has a great bass riff and nice bluesy piano playing.  It's about how you shouldn't fear death and dying is a part of life since we're all going to die by Seagal's neck-breaking hands anyways.  But I did notice something strange, the organ riff in the chorus sounds exactly the same as the organ riff in Eric Clapton's cover of "I Shot the Sheriff".  It's just something weird I noticed, it's still a good song.

4.  Gunfire in a Juke Joint(***1/2/****) -Finally, a song that isn't merely good on the album.  It starts out with a truck-driving blues riff and then Seagal starts singing.  Somebody has done him wrong and now he's going to get revenge but he has to choose between loving his woman and breaking necks.  It's a nice piece of pure blues playing but that's about it.

5.  My Time is Numbered(***/****) -This is pretty much "Dark Angel" but more stripped down and featuring good guitar work...that's all that needs to be said.

6.  Alligator Ass(***1/2/****) -I'm kind of disappointed with this song.  I thought it was going to be the wacky hijinks of Seagal walking into a restaurant, ordering chicken but getting some alligator ass instead putting him in a neck-breaking rage.  Instead it's about the duality of religion and something like that.  However, it's still a great piece of blues work and Seagal does his best singing here.

7.  BBQ(***/****) -Seagal is hungry...for some cheating on his woman!  That's about it even though the music is once again, good. 

8.  Hoochie Koochie Man(***/****) -It's the stereotypical blues song with Seagal singing some words and then the music going DUN-DUN-DA-DUN!  And do you know why?  Because it's actually a cover of Muddy Waters version of the song.  And now it's Seagal-ified into something unholy and beastly....and still pretty good.  Everybody is at the top of their game and the organ riff in the middle is pretty chilling.

9.  Talk to My Ass(***/****) -Another good song even though a song called "Talk to My Ass" by Steven Seagal should be a lot more badass and awesome that it actually is.

10. Dust My Broom(***/****) -Read the review to "Talk to my Ass" and it's the same thing.

11. Slow Boat to China(***1/2/****) -It's eight and a half minutes of awesome.  The music has a nice dreamy quality to it.  The lyrics speak of love and lost instead of breaking your neck and fighting.  There isn't anything too flashy in this one but this doesn't require any flashiness at all.

12. She Dat Pretty(**1/2/****) -Seagal is speaking ebonics man....and this time, not even the music can save it despite it trying it's best.

13. Red Rooster(**/****) -With the other songs on the album, Seagal was playing the blues and doing a  good job on it.  This song has Seagal playing the blues while using equipment from the 1930's where everything is all fuzzy and it all sounds like it was recorded, played and mixed underwater.  I'm sure it was a conscious decision but it doesn't make it a good one.

14. Shake(***/****) -This sounds like something Bo Diddley may have done....and that means it should come as no surprise that Bo Diddley guests on this track.  It also has Seagal being in the background but when you compete with Bo Diddley you will never win.  Anyways, it's yet another good blues song.

15. Untitled(???/****) -There are three untitled tracks but since they're all a minute and a half long, I'm treating them as one track.  It's pretty much snippets from other guys doing the blues and as such it's hard to review and hard to talk about.  It's there, it's cute and that's all.

I have good news and bad news.  The good news is that this album is a good blues album with great music.  The bad news is that it's not very entertaining since it's all quality blues aside from a couple wrong turns near the end.  That also means there's not much to say about the tracks or even little to make fun of.  Yeah it's good but sometimes it doesn't make for an entertaining thing.

Songs from the Crystal Cave reviewed

Hey kids, you know the actor Steven Seagal right?  He's the guy who broke somebody's neck in various movies that are usually three words long.  And he's done most of his neck-breaking while grossly overweight.  I even made a top 10 list of  my favorite Seagal movies right here but that should probably be updated but I digress.  The main point is that Steven Seagal also plays music!  And it's not neck-breakings cued up to sound like music but actual music...or more specifically, the blues!  And now here I am about to listen to his first album...and yes, by that I mean he's made more than one which we'll get to in a few weeks.  But for now, let's focus on Songs from the Crystal Cave!

1.  Girl It's Alright(***/****) -Well, from the opening it has a nice, easy-going guitar riff and some chicks singing about how it's alright.  Then Steven Seagal comes in and breaks your neck!  Alright, I'm lying he's singing and he's not that bad.  This is pretty much, a nice easy-going song to go along with it's riff where it's quite pleasant to listen to.    And that's the main word, pleasant.  Any bad moods I had just went away as Seagal used song to break any adversity's neck instead of his hands.

2.  Don't You Cry(***1/2/****) -You guys remember On Deadly Ground right?  That movie in which Steven Seagal directed about breaking necks while protecting the environment?  Yeah, it totally sucks despite some laughable moments of awesome but the message was there about the environment and how it should totally be protected before Al Gore went insane and did it himself.  What does this have to do with this song, it's about the environment disguised as a love song!  He sings about living in the oceans and skies and ask how we share this common space?  And yet, this song soars with great musicianship and amazing backup vocals that makes the listener feel like flying.  However, Seagal's vocals aren't up to scratch here and his voice seems to be cracking when he goes really high.  But aside that, it's just a really well-made pop song.

3.  Music(**/****) -This song has a great twangy, bluesy guitar riff...and that's awesome since this song gets by until something so horribly goes wrong I had to deduct half a star for its horribleness!  But I'm getting ahead of myself a bit.  The problem is already evident in that it's really about nothing but music is awesome.  There's obvious fun in this but that fun never quite reaches the listener.  The lyrics are insipid and forgettable, the back-up vocals are annoying and Seagal's voice just flat-out breaks.  None of this gets in the way of the awesome guitar riff but then the horrible thing happened...RAPPING!  No, don't be alarmed, it's not Seagal rapping for that would be awesome.  It's just some guy I don't know and since I have the album without real liner notes, I never will.  Anyways, he's loud, he's obnoxious and I just wanted to Seagal to break his neck so he could take over...also, the guitar riff goes away completely during the rap.  It was never going to be a good song without the rap, but it was going to be fun...not anymore.

4.  Better Man(**1/2/****) -Bad new guys, Seagal isn't covering Pearl Jam here.  In fact we get the opposite message from Seagal.  Pearl Jam was an abused woman who couldn't get out of her relationship since she couldn't find a better man.  Seagal's is about how his woman deserves better and he will actually help her find a better man.  As for the song itself, while "Don't You Cry" was pretty much wuss-rock, it was amazing wuss-rock but here, it's wussiness dominates the music.  Everything sounds so sad and while it may sound like a sad song at first, but it's really about accepting your faults and mistakes and trying to learn from them.  But even then, everything sounds so mournful and sad that the song doesn't really work as well it should.  I mean, it's a decent song but it's not a good one.

5.  Route 23(***1/2/****) -In all the other songs, you've heard Steven Seagal the singer and Steven Seagal the guy who should've broken that rapper's neck but didn't.  This time, you're going to hear Steven Seagal, the blues guitarist...playing the blues!  And he's actually pretty good playing the blues.  This pretty much exists for Seagal to solo for four and a half minutes.  Granted, there's lyrics in them but they're so inconsequential that it doesn't matter.  As for Seagal's guitar work, while it is pretty basic in how the solo's constructed with little regard of scales and dynamics, it is pretty good in its limited way.  You do get Seagal's sincerity and it does seem that every note belongs in this and if you took one note away, the whole thing would just fall apart.

6.  My God(****/****) -This is the Steven Seagal song I've been waiting for!  A song about Seagal kicking your ass and breaking your neck.  Oh sure, Seagal doesn't want to fight saying that his God won't let him and he's better than your God, but how many of his movies seem to follow that same path only for Seagal to go ona wild neck-breaking spree....a lot, that's how many.  As for the music itself, it's pretty damn rocking with a great fast-paced beat and a fast riff combined with a great vocal hook with "My God is better than your God."  Then, the biggest surprise comes in during the breakdown where you hear the wail of a harmonica....played by Stevie Wonder!  That Stevie Wonder...that guy who's blind Stevie Wonder!  And it's awesome in it's weirdness and how it combines two things that shouldn't be combined but were anyways.  It's obviously the best song on the album.

7.  Lollipop(**1/2/****) -More bad news, this isn't a cover of Lil Wayne's "Lollipop" but it is a cover from the 50's from some guy and chick and that chick group who sang "Mr. Sandman".  After listening to this, I wish it was a cover of Lil Wayne's song.  I mean Seagal singing "My girl lollipop" over a fun reggae beat is hilarious, even more hilarious than that time he blew up a helicopter with a standard-issued police handgun in Exit Wounds.  And it would be a good song if Seagal was alone in the vocal department, as you can guess we have some guy who's pretty much a tenth-rate Lil' Jon with crappy raps and crappier additions.  He's in about 40% of the song which almost makes Seagal a featured artist on his own damn song!  It's a fun song, but that other guy ruins it.

8.  Not for Sale(**/****) - Here's the cliff notes for this song, Steven Seagal is NOT for sale!  It takes almost five minutes for Seagal to say that.  But I have nice things to say about it, the guitar solo in this is actually pretty cool and the opening drum riff is extremely awesome.  But on the other hand, the lyrics are extremely repetitive, the other parts of the music is pretty boring and it is pretty forgettable.  This song is obviously filler so let's move on.

9.  Dance(*/****) -This isn't a song!  It's a graveyard of broken necks for everything!  First off, Seagal breaks Suspension of Disbelief's neck with the fact that's he wants us to believe he can seduce a woman...sexually.  He breaks the melody's neck with some perversion of Arabian-Nights-esque sounds where it literally sounds broken and tortured.  He breaks his own tongue's neck since his vocals are so low in the mix that he's barely audible.  He breaks the ability to speak french's neck since his french is horrible.  It's like Seagal went neck-break crazy and took it out on this song.  Also, he's trying to seduce a woman SEXUALLY!  Nothing about this song is good in any way.

10. Jealousy(1/2*/****) -Just my luck, there's a song that's even worse from than Dance!  It's an obvious and pathetic attempt on how the media is bad and you can't believe the tabloids and blah blah blah.  The music is weak and just plods along despite some brief moments of nice soloing.  But this song has two fatal flaws which earns my hate.  There's a couple spoken word-segments where Seagal is trying to take the paparazzi to task and the paparazzi is all like "Freedom of speech!  Fifth Amendment baby"......no, you dumb slut it's THE FIRST AMENDMENT!  The fifth amendment is you can not answer questions that may incriminate you!  And what's worse, that slut is played by Lady Saw.  You may know her as that chick from Vitamin C's "Smile" in which she ruined an alright pop song or No Doubt's "Underneath it All" in which she was smart enough to keep her mouth shut most of the time.  Then she raps, and again I wonder why Seagal lets them live with non-broken necks.  She's annoying, her lyrics are stupid and her voice makes me want to kill something.  Things can't get any worse.

11. War(*/****) -More bad news but I think you've seen this coming, this isn't a cover of Edwin Starr's "War".  This time, I don't wish he done the cover since I shudder to think how he would have butcher it.  What should have been a blues song or even a wuss-rock song is inexplicably a reggae song.  The music, once again, is confused and scared as it tries its best to do reggae beats.  Seagal is unable to sing the high pitch that he wants to sing.  The lyrics are even MORE obvious than ever before.  The tenth-rate Lil' Jon is rapping even worse.  But hey, it's at least better than "Jealousy".

12. Strut(*/****) -It's another reggae song with Lady Saw....what do you think my opinion is?

13. Goree(**1/2/****) -Oh praise Jesus, it's not reggae!  We don't have to listen to horrible ska beats, that tenth-rate Lil Jon or Lady Saw!  Seagal's free to make music that doesn't suck......unfortunately he forgets about making a good song.  Now don't get me wrong, it's certainly a relaxing song  but six minutes is pushing it, especially since Seagal doesn't seem to be singing English in this one.  Or if he is, he's doing a horrible job at singing it.  But whatever, it's not reggae and it's Lady Saw-less, I'll take it.

14. The Light(**1/2/****) -It seems like that Seagal is trying to bookend the album with the easy-going "Girl, It's Alright" and the easy-going "The Light".  It doesn't get up there with "Girl" but it is a good try.  There's a nice beat to it and there's some good chanting going on.  It's not that it's a bad song, it's just not as good.

I got to admit, the first half of the album was pretty damn good despite "Music".  But once you "Lollipop" ends, you're kind of screwed since it abandons its bluesy roots to go for reggae and world music which leads to many songs that should be considered failed abortions...yeah, I went too far but Steven Seagal ruining two perfectly good country's musical styles would do that to me.  Ah well, there's always Mojo Priest to look forward to.

Machete reviewed

Yeah, that's me and Danny Trejo, star of Machete, from February or March of 2008 and look how happy he is!  At the time, Machete was only a fake trailer attached to Grindhouse that was the most awesome thing about Grindhouse, even though Thanksgiving came close but I digress.  Anyways, my friend asked Mr. Trejo when Machete was going to happen.  He spoke, in run-on sentences, that it was going to be shooting in April, directed by Robert Rodriguez and distributed by Troublemaker Studios.  Obviously, April 2008 came around and nothing so we resigned ourselves to the trailer and nothing more.  But then in the beginning of 2010, a funny thing happened: there was news!  And then it was actually filming for release in September of 2010.  And so we waited, and now that day has come for trailers to become real movies!  But enough talk, time for reviewing!

Once upon a time, Machete was a federale out to bring justice to the evil Mexican drug load...Steven Seagal!  But something went wrong and Steven Seagal breaks his wife and daughter's neck with a sword and leaves Machete for dead.  It's now three years later and Machete has fallen to being an illegal immigrant who wanders the streets of Texas for day labor and stuff.  However, some guy sees that Machete is like a bad ass and stuff so he offers him $150,000 to kill Senator Robert DeNiro but they double cross him!  Now, he's off to get revenge on everyone and to screw the women.

As Robert Rodriguez has proven, again and again, he has real affinity with Grindhouse-y material like this.  But what differentiates him from anyone else doing modern-day Grindhouse, say Quentin Tarantino with Death Proof, is that Rodriguez embraces the myth of Grindhouse instead of the reality like Tarantino did.  There's a great fun when watching this as Rodriguez makes the action fun.  The violence is gloriously over-the-top has heads get lobbed off and blood flies everywhere.  However, as awesome as the action is, the bigger the villain the more anti-climatic the fight would be.  Those scenes never achieved the critical mass that was needed to fully enjoy the death of a villain.

As for the acting....well, it's a movie that's named Machete and Robert Rodriguez usually gets right performances than good ones, what do you think?  First off, I should talk about Machete himself, Danny Trejo.  He pretty much does the typical Danny Trejo character where he grimaces and kills.  I would not have it any other way.  But there's a surprise, two guys who actually do acting and do it pretty well, both of them villains.  Jeff Fahey, the guy who hires Machete, is actually pretty good.  He has a cool voice and a nice, expressive face that's lined with authority and then fear when his plan backfires on him.  Hell, even his big shootout had me convinced he since he did those cool SWAT-esque moves when he was he checking his surroundings.  The other guy is Don Johnson as the head of the vigilante, violent version of Border Patrol.  He takes his role seriously enough to put the fear of God in you when he walks, talks real slow and then kills some illegals.  As for everyone else, they do what they do in movies like this even though Steven Seagal as an out-and-out villain is pretty much pure gimmick but he does say his own lines and kick his own ass which automatically makes this his best performance in years.  Oh, and Lindsey Lohan barely gives up the goods here if you look real close and squint...or actually gives them up if she's actually in that pool making out with Machete but I think that's a body double....but a really good body double.

Machete is exactly what you expect for a Danny Trejo-led movie with gratuitous violence, gratuitous nudity and gratuitous Steven Seagal.  You already have all the information you need to decide if this is something you may enjoy.  For those who will like this, it's a fun ride at the theaters even if at 105 minutes, it overstays it welcome and the last couple scenes aren't very good.  But nothing did make me happier than seeing this: Machete will return in Machete Kills....and Machete Kills Again!  Whether it'll actually happen, time will tell but I'm looking forward for more Machete adventures.

7/10