Music Review | Ed Hale & The Transcendence

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Ed Hale & The Transcendence

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August 2002 Rock Pop Alternative

Written by Joe Hartlaub

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2.0

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Artist: Ed Hale & The Transcendence
Title: Rise and Shine
Label: TMG

I had a sinking feeling when I started looking through the CD booklet of RISE AND SHINE that this bad boy was going to be a turkey. Maybe it was going over the pages and pages of Ed Hale's liner notes and came across the line "I was looking for something... something that could take me back to that original feeling I had when I was a kid first hearing the music that knocked me out and made me get all excited and smiley and goosebumpy." Uh oh. And it gets worse from there. Hale urges us to "Tune In, Turn On, Help Out!" and lists a bunch of political action committees that are basically perpetual motion machines for their own fundraising when they're not telling us all to eat our peas. By the time I got to the CD, I expected the worst. And boy, I wasn't disappointed.

Hale, who refers to himself as "The Ambassador," (the self-aggrandizing, ego-tripping b.s. permeates this entire project from start to finish) should have his diplomatic privileges revoked and be sent back to La-La Land. For a guy who professes to love opera, he should know that he can't really sing, his voice sounding a bit like Ziggy-period Bowie (one of the many, many musicians he lists as an influence). Listening to his compositions is something to be more endured than experienced, form the mindless repetition of "You Know Who You Are" to "Paris" all the way to the end of "So Quero Um Xodo"/All You Need Is Love." Along the way he name checks ("chilling like Bobby Dylan" from "Paris" is particularly noteworthy) everyone he can. It's impossible to listen to any one track on RISE AND SHINE for more than a minute without feeling like you're gonna slip loose of your moorings from the pretentiousness, the wretchedness of it all. "Mother" is particularly, unintentionally hilarious, with the line "you didn't tell me that the girls were all whores/that the boys would be bullies." Or maybe he got that backward. Similarly, "The Journey (a Call to Arms)" contains the repetitive chant "This is a wake up call motherfuckers/We're not gonna take it anymore." Oops. Looks like everyone slept through Reveille.

If this one is shipped gold, it will be returned platinum. I'd put this on the skeet pile, except I need a new coaster. Or maybe I can use the shiny side to tease the cat with on a sunny Sunday afternoon when nothing else is happening. Transcend that!

Ed Hale & The Transcendence -- Rise and Shine
Official Artist Website: http://transcendence.com

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