Mike Davies
GINA
VILLALOBOS
Miles Away
(Laughing Outlaw)
Debut album Rock n Roll
Pony saw Villalobos hailed, rather over-enthusiastically, as the best
new voice in country-rock. The follow up goes some way to living up
to the claims. The blueprint's much the same with ringing twangy
guitars, a raspy Bonnie Tyleresque drawl of a voice and songs that
mix up the dust road and the highway, the bedroom and the barroom.
The title track and Face On The Sheets fine examples of her ringing
Pettyish swagger, Don't Defeat Me and the bluesy, pedal steel infused
Somewhere To Lie Down the keening ballad side of things. The songs
ripple with lyrics about self-reliance and determination, even when,
as on the big ballad Somebody Save Me, she opens herself up to need,
giving the album a muscular strength borne out by the playing. As
with her debut, she also throws in a cover, this time an unlikely
alt-country version of the Bee Gee's penned Yvonne Elliman hit If I
Can't Have You that she makes completely her own. No doubt there'll
be those who want to call her the new Lucinda Williams, but that
would be a disservice because she's very much the now Gina
Villalobos.
Mike Davies
B.B.
KING
80
(Geffen)
I guess that we should
be grateful that B.B.'s 80th birthday album finds him working woith
real musos rather than being given the fashion makeover beloved of
record execs who think the definitioin of blues ic coming second in
the X Factor. That said they couldn't resist making it a duets album
in which the blues legend gates to trade licks - vocal and guitar -
with other blues greats such as The Eagles' Glenn Frey, Sheryl Crow,
Roger Daltrey and Elton John. Erm, right, it really is hard to see
who sent out the party invites, isn't it? Perhaps it was the blues
boy himself displaying a soft spot for Californian country-rock,
fringed jackets and rock opera and, well, in the case of Sheryl the
attraction is obvious. As for Elton he acquits himself which
surprisingly is all you can say for Van Morrison, Mark Knopfler and
Z.Z. Top's Billy Gibbons all of whom you hoped would rise to trhe
occasion. Bobby Bland, Eric Clapton and relative new boy John Mayer
up the ante by playing and singing with some elan and throughout BB's
guitar simply sings even though his vocals are a mite
careworn.
As a profile builder,
it's possibly what was needed, as a marker in a truly inspiring
career, the point is not just missed bur clearly
unidentified.
Steve Morris
BRAD
PAISLEY
Time Well
Wasted (Arista)
Driving across the USA
this summer, Paisley's Alcohol was ubiquitous. Every time search was
pressed on the car radio it seemed to be the first song on the newly
found station for a whole six weeks. Amazingly it never out stayed
its welcome. It's cleverly written, beautifully played and produced
and has the feelgood factor in spades. And in essence that sums up
the rest of the album tho' to dismiss it as being as shallow as that
suggests might just miss the point. Out In The Parking Lot - a duet
with Alan Jackson - with it's sharp observations on listening to an
unaffordable gig from outside and watching the brawling, puking and
front seat fucking with a bottle of Old Crow Whiskey and hot 7 UP to
hand is probbably as accurate a picture of his constituency as anyone
might dare record.
It's also true that Mr.
Paisley wears large hats but he plays guitar like a demon, sings
rather well and is well worth ditching prejudices for.
Steve Morris
BROOKS
& DUNN
Hillbilly
DeLuxe (Arista)
Speking of prejudice -
here we go! Brooks and Dunn, Ronnie and the oddly named Kix, seem
rather more airbrushed than hillbilly and posing with a Cadillac
Esplanade and rap graffiti artists suggest that they don't know their
honky tonks froma Studio 54 in the ground. (Yeah, I know that was
clumsy but you get the drift). And so it seems with the music;
there's nothing 'wrong' as such, it's all beautifully played and
expensively polished, guitars twang and harmonies are perfect but,
well, it's essentially a pair of jeans that's been bought pre faded
and pre ripped. And when that happens the rips are always in the
wrong places; they never look as good as those that have been
personally trashed. Designer country maybe? Hillbilly for the dinner
party set? A ready made honky tonk for the Caddy rather than the
pick-up truck.
Steve Morris
JOHNNY
CASH
Ring Of
Fore - The Legend Of Johnny Cash (Sony)
Probably tougher than
Sudoku to calculate just how many Johnny Cash compilations have hit
the shelves in recent months. HOwever, thie is the first single disc
set to cover his entire career from Sun to Columbia, Mercury and
latterly Rick Rubin's artistically rejuvenating American label. Even
The Highwaymen side trip with Kristofferson, Willie'n'Waylon is
touched upon.
There are 21 five star
performances here and the real criticism is that it's far too few to
comfortably cover what was a groundbreaking, hugely influential
almost half century career. The avoidance of the Bitter Tears native
American interests, the lack of his Dylan collaboration, the silence
of his overt political voice; all of these are important facets of
the man and in these days of single price two and three disc sets
this issue does look a trifle mean.
Steve Morris
JIMMIE
DALE GILMORE
Come On
Back (Rounder)
Jimmie's covers album
is sadly not influenced by marketing or career but by the passing of
his father; the songs included here are all particular favourites of
his old man, a part time, for the love of it musician. They also
represent a particular time in country music; a time when the country
music was enjoying huge commercial success whilst, if anything,
emphasising its integrity. The material here comes from now legendary
names that would have ben radio staples when Jimmie was a boy, Harlan
Howard, Hank Williams, Marty Robbins, Johnny Cash, Ernest Tubb and
their peers.
And given that Jimmie
has probably the very best country voice of his generation you'd be
hard pushed to find these songs performed any better beyond the
originals than here. That assertion is gold plated by the fact that
the lovingly tasteful arrangements and understandingly sympathetic
productiion is by Jimmie's long time friend and musical cohort Joe
Ely.
This is an album that
is at once a wonderful retrospective of a bygone era and in the full
hearted emotional honesty of material and performance a shining,
timeless example of Jimmie's living art.
Steve Morris
JACKSON
BROWNE
Solo
Acoustic Vol. 1 (Inside Recordings / EMI)
First reaction is to be
grateful that the song intros are individually tracked so you can
programme 'em out of annoyance! After all who wants all that audience
stuff intruding into Browne's exquisite introspection? Ahem, in the
event they serve to humanise Browne, connect him to the audience and
reveal clearly how the songs are as much about reception as delivery
- if you see what I mean. The real meat however remains in what might
be seen as yet another best of - These Days / Fountain Of Sorrow /
For A Dancer / The Pretender are all here - and yet stripped down to
voice and guitar / voice and piano they are illuminated more than you
might hope validating beyond any scintilla of debate Browne's status
as premier league singer-songwriter. Indeed Vol. 2 can't come soon
enough.
As an aside; it's
interesting that stripping songs back to troubadour basics requires,
if we believe the cover pics, no less than ten acoustic guitars and a
keyboard! How would Woody have managed his hard travellin' these
days, I wonder.
Steve Morris
BOZ
SCAGGS
Fade Into
Light (Virgin)
It is, it must be said,
more than a little surprising that Mr. Scaggs isn't a mite more
revered in these parts. From his work with Steve Miller way back when
through to the groundbreaking blues with Duane Allman and his
redefining of lounge lizard with Silk Degrees way before Bryan Ferry
hijacked the role. And it doesn't end there; his recent Dig album
must be the best example of sophisticated urban R&B you'll hear
(and if you have a 5.1 system you owe it to yourself to hear the DVD
mix).
So what of this
release? Originally an expanded soundtrack commission for the
Japanese market, it's been reworked into a cracking album for the
rest of us. Smoother than Dig, it's a particularly smooth listening
experience with a high proportion of the material being revisits to
his outstanding legacy - and should that sound like a lazy or
desperate measure, when the choices include 'unplugged' arrangements
of Lowdown, Harbour Lights and We're All Alone all such moaning is
redundant.
The playing and
vocalising here is beyond reproach; everything is exactly in the
pocket, all lean, no flab. It may be a midnight and not midday album
but it is called Fade Into Light and in my book there are few better
soundtracks to that journey.
Steve Morris
LONESTAR
Coming
Home (BNA)
It used to be a great
scandal when a successful act admitted not playing on their own
records and that's more or less what's happening here with Lonestar
proudly telling us that new producer Justin Niebank, thought it would
be better if the band did in the studio what they do on the road.
Play!
Whilst it might be more
to do with the success of Brad Paisley and Keith Anderson - both
sounding more like country rock'n'roll than the studio layered
blancmange that has been passing as country - than Lonestar's art,
the results are not half bad. That half is the sound of the disc
which is indeed that of a band with guitars and fiddles sounding
energised and cranked up. The other half is the material which in the
main is bland and characterless. That's at it's clearest in Two
bottles of beer which name checks Jimmy Buffett in a seemingly
desperate bid for both his personality and, I guess,
audience.
But if you're happy to
forego such critical forensics, it'll sound just fine set to loud in
your truck - or the Nissan you so wish was a Chevy!
Steve Morris
KARINE
POLWART
Faultlines
(Neon)
Sometimes it only takes
one song. And Karine Polwart's one song is called The Sun's Coming
Over The Hill. Recalling her partner killed in a drunken driving
incident, she writes "So I took to whisky so I could recall / The
taste on my mouth, that's all" only to compound the desperate
loneliness that conveys with "And I tried the same trick with a truck
but it stalled". That the vocal and melodic settings are well up to
the task and you have a perfect, quite perfect moment. That such a
moment is maintained for the whole song is simple brilliance; the
simple brilliance that many lauded songwriters would struggle to
manage. And it would be cause to buy the whole album were it the only
such moment but Faultlines is packed with beautifully considered
songs delivered with panache. Musically it's folk, clearly connected
to Scottish traditions yet not weighed down by them. Polwart is
clearly of the moment rather than traditionalist or revivalist.
Similarly the production whilst keeping faith with the melodeon and
fiddle traditions is happy to supplement the sound with electric
instruments , brass and studio effects that make quite clear that
this is definitely an album pitched in the present.
Steve Morris
SHELBY
LYNNE
Suit
Yourself (Capitol)
Major label pushes and
big productions having failed to 'break' Ms Lynne into the major
league one can only presume that the album title is a middle fingered
shrug of resignation. But being made of sterner stuff Shelby
accompanies said reaction with the purchase of recording equipment on
which she lays down the bare bones of a new album, this one. In doing
so she catches the spirit the bigger works have just missed. It's the
spirit of a bare bones country / soul crossover that needs the
lightest touch of Hammond / drums / guitar / bass and steel to make
it work. It may sound like demos to desensitized modern ears but to
anyone who grew up on Tony Joe White (who guests here), Amazing
Rhythm Aces, early Bonnie Raitt or Lowell George era Little Feat it's
a gem of an album that'll feel more like the holy grail the more you
play it.
Steve Morris
LOS
LOBOS
Live At
The Fillmore (Mammoth / Hollywood)
The Rick Griffin /
Kelly Mouse pastiche of the cover - it's a flying, fiery psychedelic
taco - could be seen as placing East LA's finest right into the
Grateful Dead tradition of long serving folk blues explorers. And
that's partly right, though too limiting. Like the Dead Los Lobos
have, after 30 years, an amazing grip on their craft playing, you
sense on ESP a lot of the time, and yet as they swing (and they do
swing) from hard edged R&B to fiddle and accordion driven Mexican
barrio tunes of their up bringing via the darker tones of Kiko And
The Lavender Moon before taking on Marvin Gaye's marvellous What's
Going On - and winning! - you have to admit that they have a far
broader palette to draw on than Garcia's men.
Live At The Fillmore
disappoints in only one way. In being filleted down to a single disc
(with bonus three tracker) it's simply not enough!
Steve Morris
RODNEY
CROWELL
The
Outsider (Columbia)
Critically and
artistically rejuvenated by 2001's Houston Kid, Crowell certainly
sounds energised on this album with himself and the band attacking
the material with a vigour more suited to a new combo. It's reflected
in the material too; Crowell throws commercial considerations to the
wind and writes from the gut tackling the state of Bush's nation head
on. "The Dixie Chicks can kiss my ass / But I still need that
backstage pass" from The Obscenity Prayer being a far less trite than
it seems slash at moneyed celebrity obsession.
Elsewhere he writes of
"... hearing Dylan when you're drunk at 3a.m." and "... knowing that
the chances are no matter what you'll never write like him".
Amazingly he then turns in a fine cover of Bobby's Shelter From The
Storm - as a duet with the wonderful Emmylou Harris - as if to both
taunt himself and challenge the listener. Well, Rodney, you probably
won't ever write like Dylan but you'll sure end up pretty high on the
runners up list!
Steve Morris
WILLIE
NELSON
Countryman
(Lost Highway)
Quite why Willie
Nelson's long promised reggae album - it was recorded in '96 / '97
and polished in Jamaica in '04 - should cause such furore is beyond
me. Of all musos Nelson has always been well laid back in approach
and well acquainted with playing with interesting rhythmic accents.
Listen to any of his guitar solos and you'll hear a maverick spirit.
In the event laying Nelson's liquid voice and guitar over classic
'70s reggae is a perfect move. The melodies remaining in tact whilst
afloat on a delicious fluid groove. And given Willie's fondness for
reggae's favourite roll-up he's probably been hearing the dub effects
that flavour this set for a lot longer than might be
expected.
Steve Morris
LAURA
CANTRELL
Humming By
The Flowered Vine (Matador)
Good to see that a
clearly upwards career trajectory hasn't been accompanied by the
apparently requisite dilution of that which sparked that very
journey. Certainly a thanks list that includes Elvis Costello,
Lucinda Williams, Lambchop et al indicates that the Thrift Shop lady
(www.radiothriftshop.com)
moves in exalted company these days. And indeed the production here
by J.D. Foster suggests a level of sophistication at play. However,
at the heart of it all Laura's beguiling vocals and unerring song
choices make clear that both the rationale and practice of her music
making remain anchored in simple truth. A simple truth that's
expressed so well in her own songs; Khaki & Corduroy, with its
ruminant clarinet solo, California Rose and Old Downtown, that they
are in no way dwarfed by a contribution from Lucinda Williams or a
Wynn Stewart classic.
Not sure about the
humming mind, this is a collection that sings loud and
proud.
Steve Morris
THE
BAND
A Musical
History (EMI)
Typical. No sooner do
you think you've got your Band collection sorted by replacing the old
CDs with the new remastered versions of the albums with the bonus
tracks, than along comes this 5 CD set featuring a whole bunch of
previously unissued tracks (including two with Dylan, Hey Mama and an
alternate Highway 61 Revisited), song sketches and a bunch of early
cuts by Ronnie Hawkins & The Hawks and Levon & The Hawks (two
of which were released under the name Canadian Squires) and a
recording of The Weight that features the Staples Singers.
If you've got the money
left it is, of course, essential for any true Band fan (who must hope
it really is the definitive collection) who needs to get their ears
around demo sketch versions of things like Words And Numbers and
Twilight an early take of Jemima Surrender and hitherto unavailable
recordings as 4% Pantomime, Home Cookin' and Forbidden Fruit. Plus of
course all the usual. And, just to top it off, there's a sixth DVD
disc that includes 9 unreleased or full length performances of
numbers that include Long Black Veil, Life Is A Carnival and Loving
You Is Sweeter Than Ever recorded during the Music Express tour of
Canada and their final, farewell appearance on Saturday Night Live
that closed up with Georgia On My Mind.
Mike Davies
TISH
HINOJOSA
A Heart
Wide Open (Measured)
It's five years since
the last album from the Tex-Mex songbird, possibly even longer since
she had anything released in the UK - or not so's anyone noticed, so
it would be a welcome return even if this was half as good as it
is.
Sounding a lot younger
than her years but also steeped in experience with bruised hearts and
battered dreams, as usual she slips between English and Spanish (in
the same song in the case of the reggae meets mariachi rhythmed Never
Say Never Love Again), Texicali country and (on Derechos De El
Corazon) Latino pop to the accompaniment of peddle steel and acoustic
guitars.
And she does it in the
dutiful service of songs of longing and hope that bemoan the lack of
compassion in the world (Whatever Happened To Everyone Wanting To
Care), dream of better days (The Kitchen Table), recount the fate of
broken discarded soldiers (Blue Eyed Billy), talk of making it
through hard times (Finding Paris) and set out off down the road for
another round of gigs (Shotgun Ridin'). The heart's open, you're
invited inside.
Mike Davies
NINEPENNY
MARL
Simple
Gifts (Folk Sound)
Old school finger in
the ear fol di rol unaccompanied four part harmony trad folk courtesy
the well seasoned Warwickshire quartet. Comprising Barbara and Gareth
Watt, Linda Dickson and Des Patalong, established names on the
Midlands folk scene, they originally formed in the 70s, took a
sabbatical and got back together a couple of years back. This then
reps a useful snapshot of their repertoire. It's a wide ranging set,
embracing farm workers song Let Union Be In All Our Hearts, American
Civil War number Marching Through Georgia, Shaker hymn Simple Gifts,
Who Killed Cock Robin, Johnny Coppin's arrangement of Song of
Gloucestershire, ale lifting number Padstow Drinking Song, 19thc
entury carol Tomorrow Shall be My Dancing Day, children's ditty Bingo
and allegorical chestnut Carrion Crow. Not one for the young
contemporaries perhaps, but anyone who appreciates the purity of
unadorned old fashioned folk club hostelry sing songs will be well
rewarded.
Mike Davies
RAINBOW
CHASERS
Some
Colours Fly (Talking Elephant)
The latest project from
the grandfather of British folk rock, Ashley Hutchings, a man whose
name links back to the likes of Fairport, Steeleye and any number of
Albion Band variations. Here he's hitched himself to three
whippersnappers in the shapes of guitarist Mark Hutchinson of Tickled
Pink, fiddle player Ruth Angell (who featured on Jim Moray's album)
and viola player and keyboardist Jo Hamilton, both Birmingham
Conservatoire graduates and the latter already well established as a
jazzy folk solo performer around the local scene.
Unfortunately, while
Hamilton's contributions shine and Angell does a solid job on her
Gypsy Jigg instrumental, it's not the most inspiring of offerings.
The playing's fine but Hutchinson has a colourless voice that leaves
his contributions flat and most of the songs (which include
Hutchings' Given Time tribute to Nick Drake, The First Europeans'
celebration of travellers, jokey feminist intellectual jaunt New Blue
Stockings and the pizzicato plucked Under Surveillance's lament for
the loss of camera's innocence in the face of the CCTV generation)
are pleasant but undistinguished affairs. At one point someone gives
a feeble weak background yelp of 'yeh' that rather seems to sum up
the general lack of passion of the whole album.
Mike Davies
THE MINUS
5
At The
Organ (Yep Roc)
Given this is mostly
left over material from the Down With Wilco sessions that teamed
Scott McCaughey with Peter Buck, Ken Stringfellow and Wilco, it
figures that if you liked that then you'll want part two. That said,
these are seven tracks are altogether sprightlier and often noiser,
Lyrical Stance surging out in punky assault mode, The Town That Lost
Its Groove Supply spilling over with power pop hooks and melodies and
Hotel Senator pure 60s spidery narcotic psychedelia pop. One More
Bottle To Go clatters like Tom Waits hanging out in a sherbert shop,
but perhaps the most appealing oddity is Film of the Movie, a knee
slapping country bounce with pedal steel, train rhythm and a bizarre
lyric that manages to include references to sheep shears, bedpans and
The Great Escape. Pleasingly wacky.
Mike Davies
THE CHRIS
STAMEY EXPERIENCE
A Question
of Temperature (Yep Roc)
Crank up the feedback,
that's the former dB's man doing a good job resurrecting The
Yardbirds' Shapes of Things. Clearly having had a good time getting
back into the swing with last year's Travels In The South, Stamey
made a swift return to the studio to barrel through this collection
of originals and covers. Of the latter you also get an understated
weary version of Television's Venus DeMilo, the Temptations meets
Chamber Brothers Vietnam (but still pertinent) protest number (Let's
Make It Real) Compared To What and a turbo charged workout on Cream's
Politician. Of the new material, several of which feature
collaborations with Yo La Tengo, a spare yearning NeilYoung like The
Plainest Thing, the plangent 60s tumbling Brian Wilsonish The Summer
Sun and the epic McCauley Street which sounds like the Velvets with a
Crazy Horse guitar storm stitched in the middle, are the obvious high
points. Elsewhere, as with the piano boogie woogie Desperate Man,
plinketty, whistled mutant Hawaiian lope Dr Strangelove's Assistant
and the druggy Sleepless Nights which consist of him just breathing
the title over and over while assorted instrumentation clanks away,
you get the feeling they were making it up as they went along.
Intermittently attractive and obvious a must for completists, but
next time he might want to finish putting the songs together before
he records them.
Mike Davies
CASS
McCOMBS
Prefection
(4AD)
If A had them reaching
for their Will Oldham comparisons, McCombs' sophomore release should
see a flurry of references to the likes of The Smiths, Cure, and all
things 80s Manchester. Oh and, with Subtraction, a big dollop of
Motown too. A ghostly production gives everything a spooky air that
McCombs' sometimes woozy soft vocals merely serve to accentuate. Dark
of lyric and often fuzzy of musical mood (as with the storm clouds
swirling in Tourist Woman), it also careers into Southern gothic
rockabilly for Bury Mary, snapshots a somewhat grotesque wedding
photo on the smoke curling dreamy pop that is Equinox, twangs into
Echo and the Bunnymen tunnels for Multiple Suns, soars into Morrissey
skies for She's Still Suffering, and jingle jangles its way through
the chiming pop cascades of Sacred Heart. The experimental ten minute
All Your Dreams May Come True, six minutes of which sound a like a
car alarm going off with background chatter might not be one you'll
be burning for the car compilation but pretty much everything else
here warrants the repeat button.
Mike Davies
ANDREW
BIRD
The
Mysterious Production of Eggs (Fargo)
As with solo debut,
Weather Systems, the second album from the former Squirrel Nut
Zippers violinist and sometime whistler isn't immediate but seeps
under the skin with repeated listens. Still rooted in an American
musical heritage and still throwing up comparisons to Rufus
Wainwright, its 14 tracks of chamber folk swim gently on his obscure,
often unsettling, way with words and soft burr of a voice while away
in the background all manner of instruments and arrangements have
their own party. Marvellously weird and frequently peppered with
images of death and blocked communications, the likes of A Nervous
Tic Motion of the Heart, The Naming of Things, oddball lullaby Sovay
and the delightful Measuring Cups might not yet seem like songs you
can't live without, but hey, give them time.
Mike Davies
SHAWN
COLVIN
Polaroids
(Columbia)
Though still sadly
underestimated on these shores, Colvin's carved a solid career's
worth of award winning albums since her debut back in 1989 with Carry
On. Back in the early days there was a slightly tougher musical edge
than the more mellow brand of contemporary singer-songwriter folk
she's settled in to of late, the Joni Mitchell influences fairly
evident on such numbers as Steady On and the outstanding Shotgun Down
The Avalanche.
13 tracks have been
culled from her five albums, among them her striking interpretations
of Sting's Every Little Thing (He) Does Is Magic and the Talking
Heads' This Must be The Place, with a bonus of a newly recorded Janis
Ian-like acoustic cover of Lennon and McCartney's I'll Be
Back.
Everything here
underlines Colvin's ability as a top flight writer and performer, her
pure but bruised vocals investing the songs with a rich emotional
melancholy, but while the compilation includes such stand outs as her
Grammy winning Song of the Year Sunny Came Home, A Matter Of Minutes
and You and the Mona Lisa, perhaps her finest moment remains the
stunning hymnal purity of I Don't Know Why, an affirmation of the
mystery of love that truly warrants a place among the all time
classics.
Mike Davies
VARIOUS
Tell Us
The Truth (Artemis)
A recording of the live
concert tour protesting media reform, economic and environmental
justice and the state of US democracy, this is hardly distinguished
by A list dissenters. Steve Earle (fine versions of The Mountain and
Christmas In Washington) and Billy Bragg (the pointed Price of Oil
and Help Save The Youth of America) are the only real names in the
line-up, though undoubtedly REM's Mike Mills singing a cover of Neil
Young's Ohio will awake the curious, even if only to underline why
his vocals don't figure prominently on the band's albums.
Cult singer-songwriter
Jill Sobule is on hand for two self-penned acerbic numbers, the
biting Texas and War Correspondent, but otherwise most will be
scratching their heads over The Nightwatchman aka Americana folkie
Tom Morello and radical poet Boots Riley, while veteran Chambers
Brothers singer Lester Chambers does little to inspire revisiting
Time Has Come Today (on which everyone else gets to do their bit too)
or Curtis Mayfield's People Get Ready. Undoubtedly the cause and
issues meant a lot to everyone who took part and attended, but
really, you'd hardly know it from the general lack of passion that
comes across.
Mike Davies
RICH
ROBINSON
Paper
(Keyhole)
Having spent 15 years
writing songs for brother Chris, with the demise of the band the
former Black Crowes guitarist has now decided to have a bash singing
them himself. It's not strayed too far from the Southern swagger rock
blues territory he knows well, but the textures are deepened with
other influences, embracing strong shades of The Beatles and 60s West
Coast psychedelia and close harmony. He's not got anything like as
distinctive a set of pipes as Chris, but he's not lost his touch in
scribbling melodic, driving rock songs, so that, for example,
Yesterday I Saw You and Know Me sound like something CS&N might
have done had they decided to go guitar rocking Southern boogie. The
Lennonish Enemy and Places equally lean to the ballsier side of
things while Places erupts into a scouring, fuzzed guitar storm, but
by contrast he also comes up strong on the funereal mountain country
of Forgiven Song, a backwoods acoustic When You Will, jazzily blues
piano ballad Baby and the Band-like Falling Away. The orchestral
flourishes don't always work to the material's benefit and there's
times - as on It's Over - when a little more trimming back wouldn't
have gone amiss, but while he's still to really find exactly who and
where he is in musical terms, this is an impressive first
step.
Mike Davies
JAKE
BRENNAN & THE CONFIDENCE MEN
Love &
Bombs (Yep Roc)
It's been a while since
we last had an early Costello soundalike, so here's Boston's Brennan
to put things right. A former member of hardcore outfit Cast Iron
Hike who's basically done a Jesse Malin and switched genres, he has
the same curled snarl and sneer to the voice on songs like Shake 'Em
Down and Frank Black's If It Takes All Night which swagger in the
same punky manner as the first couple of Costello albums. But he soon
gets fed up of that and the country kicks in, Annie May) and Moe
Bandy's It Was Always So Easy (To Find An Unhappy Woman) all Jason
& The Scorchers rip snorting kick ass rebel rock, the latter's
intro also prompting thoughts of Sam the Sham while Sarah's Got A New
Favorite Song, In My Stepdad's Truck and Original Mixed Up Kid
straddle somewhere between Gram Parsons and John Mellencamp and Two
Of A Kind 's duet with Sarah Borges is pure outlaws at the honky
tonk. Released with a bonus DV charting the recording of the album,
it might not be the one to make him the next big alt-country thing
but it certainly stands tall as an impressive debut.
Mike Davies
PATTI
SCIALFA
23rd
Street Lullaby (Sony)
Word magazine in their
rather dismissive fifteen word review of this album pegged it as an
album of 'fire escape love songs', and despite their brevity they
were spot on. Whilst sounding nothing like the twelve songs here
evoke the spirit of The Angels, Reparata And The Delrons and the
mighty Ronettes. Indeed, it's amazing how similar to Ronnie Spector
Scialfa sounds at times. However the hue of the album is darker than
the glow of classic girl group times; the characters are 'pushing
fifty' and reflective of better times in '67 or '88. Clearly the
streets are more careworn, sitting on the stoop shooting the breeze
not an easy option in today's urban atmosphere and yet there is still
strength in communal spirit; we can all reach inside ourselves and
find a way to bust loose.
It's familiar turf to
anyone who has ever bought an album by Patti's old man and hardly
surprising as they share a New Jersey culture. However cynics who
cite the Boss' influence and suggest that maybe he made possible a
'vanity project' forget, or are oblivious of the fact that, Patti was
making musical waves in New Jersey long before the call came from the
E Street Band. And that shows for whilst the themes and roots of the
music may be familial what Patti and co producer Steve Jordan have
created owes little to the E Street sound and more to a melange of
Laura Nyro, Emmylou, Lou Reed, a fair bit of alt. country and the
contents of a damn good classic stuffed juke box.
It's not only a good
album, it's a great one.
Steve Morris
RODNEY
CROWELL
Fate's
Right Hand (DMZ / Epic)
You could mount a
convincing argument for Crowell being Americana's Paul McCartney.
He's capable of equaling the ex Fab's melodic invention for sure and
has about him the same charm and good looks but the compliments
equally damning as it suggests that he lacks the edge in the same way
that it's always assumed that Macca too is ultimately dull. That
theory was, however, blown out of the water by Crowell's last set,
The Houston Kid, which proved that he could write as sharply and
incisively in the lyrics department as he could in the tunes shop.
Whatever had happened in his life had opened the door to his creative
soul it seemed.
Fate's Right Hand
builds on that. The production is a little fuller, though not without
edge and the songs remain as tightly focussed. It's an album chock
full of gems. The songs are, as I've intimated very good indeed, but
as you listen over and over you warm to odd lyrical ideas that shine
differently in different lights offering a new thought or perspective
and you also find a new lick, an improbably good yet sparse flash of
guitar genius to hook you back in.
Not to be
missed.
Steve Morris
THE LONG
WALK (Featuring TOM PACHECO)
The Long
Walk (Halden Plateproduksjon)
Some time ago Tom
Pacheco told me about a fine Norwegian group he'd met; they were fans
of his work and wanted to work with him. At the time Tom was
outselling both Willie Nelson and Bon Jovi in the Norwegian album
chart so the outfit's motivation may have looked beyond the artistic!
However Pacheco enthused about having his opportunity to make his
Blonde On Blonde and, finally, here it is.
Sounding nothing like
the legendary Dylan double, it is, however, a triumph. You kinda know
that from the moment Fredrik Viklund's slide guitar fires up the
disc's opening cut, Norfolk, Little Rock, Memphis. The epic tale of a
man destroyed by long term unemployment who, having been driven to
uncharacteristic prayer, bundles his pregnant wife into the car to
search for anything that'll leave him the vestige of his personal
dignity. The detail unfolds to an soundtrack that would swell the
heart of any Boss fan. That's not to say that The Long Walk - the
trading name of this line-up, Pacheco is listed as no more than
member tho' he supplies all of the material - are derivative; they
offer the flavour of Crazy Horse at times with the passion and
texture of Pearl Jam at others all marinated in a versatility that
understands the need to serve the song at all times. It's certainly
the first Pacheco album to warrant playing at stun level, that's for
sure.
Long term Tom watchers
will recognise The Last Rolling Stone, a song that celebrates the
life force that is rock and roll, and Juan Romero, the tale of a
Mexican waiter caught up in the assassination of Bobby Kennedy. The
new material is as varied as you might expect; There Was Me (Before
There Was You) examines loss of personal identity in relationships
against an original, taut musical setting, Che is a muscular reading
of the story of Fidel's friend and You Gotta Have Money berates
materialism against a Hooker-ish boogie. And that's the first pass,
there's far more substance here that'll reward continual playing for
quite some time to come.
Rock and Roll with
attitude is always welcome in these parts and even more so when it
comes from one of Uncle Sam's finest songwriters even if it's a mite
confusing that his co-architects hail from nil point Norway, hardly
the first call for the hall of fame. Five stars all round.
You should be able to
order a copy from http://www.angelfire.com/music5/roots2rockmusic/rootsalbums.html
Steve Morris
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