Sixteen Stone
Bush
Bush were never difficult to place on the musical map. Sixteen Stone has the thick guitars, quiet verses and explosive choruses associated with early-nineties alternative rock, and Gavin Rossdale's voice carries a familiar kind of strained intensity. The interesting part is how many effective songs they build from those ingredients.
Everything Zen gets the balance right straight away. The guitar has a rough edge, the rhythm stays firm and the chorus is easy to find. Little Things is more restless, pushing the loud and quiet sections against each other with enough energy to avoid feeling like an exercise. There is a strong sense of a band making the most of a sound they clearly enjoy.
Comedown is the real centre of the album. The bass line gives it a relaxed forward movement, leaving Rossdale room to build towards the chorus. It takes its time, but the extra space helps. Machinehead goes for a more immediate impact, with a rushing guitar part and one of the album's most direct hooks. Neither song needs an especially unusual structure to make its point.
Glycerine is a useful change of pace. With the drums removed from the picture, the guitar and voice have to carry the song, and the simple arrangement makes its sadness feel more exposed. The strings add weight without making it too sweet. It is an obvious radio song, but obvious doesn't automatically mean ineffective.
The problem is consistency. Some of the surrounding tracks use the same heavy textures without producing a melody as memorable as those singles. The lyrics can also sound more convincing as noises and phrases than as something you would want to explain over dinner. A few songs trimmed from the middle would probably help.
Still, Sixteen Stone has a strong collection of peaks, and its straightforward approach is part of its appeal. It asks very little preparation from the listener: a good riff, a big chorus, then another one. If that is what you want from a post-grunge record, Bush provide it often enough to make the full album worth exploring.
