Rundgren rediscovers his rock-guitar roots
When Todd Rundgren came out with Liars in 2004, avid fans knew he still has something to offer in today's music scene, and now he gives us Arena, which further proves his relevance today. Todd’s long since given up writing predictable boy-meets-girl love songs, and has instead spent his career writing songs that describe the human experience in greater detail.
On Arena, Rundgren reclaims his rock guitar god status by rockin’ out with a fervor that was missing with the last decade or so of either synthesizer-laced techno-pop or soulful ballads, with only a handful of really rockin’ tunes. Then, over the past few years, Todd joined forces with former Cars bandmates Elliot Easton and Greg Hawkes to form The New Cars, and he found a new, energetic audience that helped steer him towards a more arena-rock sound, hence the name of the new album. Then, on a solo tour last year, he blew the dust off some of his more rocking back catalog, and realized that the fans love this stuff.
Some tracks on Arena borrow the styles of more famous arena-rock legends as AC/DC (‘Strike’) or Robin Trower (‘Bardo’), but overall this album has very good riffs and interesting song concepts. If you remember ‘Bang The Drum All Day,’ a new offering, ‘Mountaintop,’ offers that same sports-arena feel.
I rated this album as Good because it has some great guitar, the production is good, but the use of live drums might have given it an even better sound. The songwriting isn't quite as good as Todd's best albums of the last four decades - Something/Anything? (1972), A Wizard/A True Star (1973), Nearly Human (1989) or the more recent Liars (2004) - but it is very well performed, and rocks out with a hearty attack of heavy guitar and witty lyrics. This isn’t your average Rundgren offering, with a lot of synth loops and studio trickery he’s used on the past several albums (even though Rundgren does 'play' all the instruments himself, except bass and drums which were programmed). This album rocks out a bit more than Todd’s allowed himself to in recent years. And that’s a good thing.Read full review
