All These Brilliant Things is the third disc from Brooklyn musician and restauranteur Ariel Aparicio. The disc successfully brings together the sounds of 70's glam rock, 80's pop, and current-day post-punk.

In many parts of the disc, Ariel's voice and delivery is similar to David Bowie. The disc starts out on a strong note with the Bowie/Spiders-ish "Life and Times" (video below). What adds to the Bowie comparison is that the guitars on this track have that Mick Ronson crunchy guitar sound. The Bowie comparison holds in a couple of other places as Ariel has a few mid-tempo rockers ("Mr. High and Mighty" and "Bones") that sound like 80's era Bowie.



There are one or two ballads on the disc which isn't my preferred style of music (though Ariel has a great voice so I didn't skip past the songs like I've done with different artists) so the real high points for me are the rockers. "Life and Times" is one of my favorite cuts, "The New World" has a great post-punk sound and "Jameson and Cocaine" has real teeth (video below).



The intro on the video above is used as the intro and outro on this disc and this tune really takes me back. The song is from the Free to be You and Me soundtrack which was a kids movie from the mid-70's that featured Michael Jackson and Roberta Flack. This is classic stuff that hasn't surfaced in years.

Ariel's next show is at the Javits Center on November 15th. It is a free show and Ariel & the Hired Guns are playing at 4:30PM.

Links:
Ariel Aparicio's Website
Ariel Aparicio's MySpace Profile