CD Reviews — September 30th

Elvis Costello & The Imposters

The Delivery Man - UMG 2004

Walk into a bar, some place with sawdust on the floor, some neon oasis in the middle of the Southwest desert, some band’s playing, what is that, jazz? blues? rock? country? Well, whatever it is, it’s worth it to get some beers, maybe some whiskey, some barbecue sit down and dig in.

This is going to be a good night.

From the swirling opening of “Button My Lip”—which slips into bars from the West Side Story song “America” here and there—you know this isn’t your standard Elvis. This isn’t the tight, occasionally tense thinky-pop of 2002’s When I Was Cruel. This is a rollicky, messy, sometimes lonesome, sometimes boisterous, night at the ice house. It’s music you can two-step to, just before it becomes music you want to cry to.

Lucinda Williams’ duet on “There’s a Story in Your Voice” is a lively howl. Emmylou Harris’ duet on “The Scarlet Tide” sounds more like a country hymn. And in between, Costello delivers a wonderfully creepy gritty story of loss in “The Delivery Man.”

The album is a loose Elvis, one more soul than structure. Like the dusty, sweaty relaxation of long-gone beer halls, The Delivery Man is joyous and celebratory, freeing and comforting. 

—Amy Diaz

Tom Dean

Pennies - Dev Productions, 2004

Like jazz of the 50s and 60s, the New England folk scene sometimes seems to consist of such a tight-knit group of players that it’s tough to tell whose song it is you’re listening to. On any given new album, particularly in New Hampshire/Maine Tom Dean, Joyce Andersen, Tom Yoder and Don Campbell (to name the most proficient) show up all over each other’s CDs. Nothing wrong with that. In fact, on Dean’s latest release, the excellent Pennies, the presence of such folk royalty is enough to lift the album beyond your standard folk fare.

Let’s be clear. There is no middle-of-the-road folk. There’s Bob Dylan and then there’s bland. But throughout his career, even without the help of Andersen, etc., Dean has rarely fallen into that trap. Dylan, and Dean, understand that the stories in their songs aren’t about the singer. Sure, in many of the 10 songs on Pennies Dean is a character, but the message is more complex, more universal. Another guy with a guitar singing about a broken heart we don’t need. But in “The Streets of Montreal,” when Dean sings about returning to that city to walk in the shadow of an old, long-gone lover, the song isn’t about self-pity, it’s about a guy who lost it and understands it’s never coming back. “We’re made to think there’s always something else that we can try,” Dean sings behind the sad soprano sax of Charlie Jennison. “The things we do don’t change a thing, and this is the reason why I’m seeking absolution.”

Later, in one of the strongest songs on the album, Dean is joined by Andersen on “Escape and On You Go.” In back-and-forth vocals, they tell the story of a woman beaten by her man and a man nearly escaping death on the highway. Are they the people each of them sings about? The song never tells. But each of them deals with loneliness and the inability to change their life through denial as an escape. Hardly typical singer/songwriter fare.

There are some small smarmy missteps: the title song in fact is a mess of clichés, and “That Girl is the Moon” is a Celtic-influenced throwaway that would be better as an outtake.

Still, Dean and his songwriting partner George Wardwell have created a mature, and occasionally dark little album about aging and the consequences of having regrets. Dean’s voice is light and mellow, as always, but Pennies has a strength under the surface that gives Dean’s gentle voice urgency, and makes the album a stand-out. 

—Dan J. Szczesny
 

The Streets

A grand don’t come for free - Vice/Atlantic, 2004

Most albums are like one season of a television show.

A season of Law & Order, maybe. Similar themes, some ideas that carry from one piece to the next, but more or less each installment can stand on its own.

A grand don’t come for free is like a mini-series. This is the tale of a stretch of time—something more than a day, less than a year—that includes drugs, parties, money lost, romance, drinking, romance lost, drinking, being pissed at friends, being pissed at self, being piss drunk and, finally, some realizations, some wisdom, even. Throughout the happenings, Mike Skinner, the album’s narrator (whose voice is sometimes the only thing riding above the steady beat) wonders about his friends and this idea of someone who he can depend on, someone who always has his back. Is it his mates? Is it his girl? Maybe he just has to get his own back.

The individual tracks on the album do not all stand well alone. The two best are, in fact, the ones that have made it to the radio—“Fit But You Know It” and “Dry Your Eyes.” The album version of “Fit But You Know It” is far more boisterous and jostling than the radio version, with the guy-making-an-ass-of-himself part a little rougher and funnier and with an ending, singsongy warning that he’s about to fall over.

“Blinded by the Lights” is a stripped-down track that adds little to Skinner’s voice but is fairly effective and, despite how exposition-heavy it is, could stand well on its own—an oddly quiet, yet easily danceable song.

The album version of “Dry Your Eyes” is also a bit grittier than the silky, Chris Martinized radio version. Where that version has an almost symphonic delicacy, the album “Dry Your Eyes” sounds like a pep talk from an equally drunk friend at the pub.

An entertaining story backs up sparse but strong elements to produce that rare album you’ll actually want to listen to, in order, all the way through. 

—Amy Diaz

The Martinis, Smitten (BMG, 2004)

Joey Santiago of the Pixies appears here with wife Linda Mallari and the result is a sweet little bit of alt-pop.

Surfy and sunny on the guitar, airy on the vocals and playful drums, The Martinis give their songs, mostly of the love variety, an energetic alt-rock sound that is lighter and not as smirky as the Pixes.

Sing while you’re driving—“You Are the One” and “New Scene” seem made for the radio. “Wishful Thinking” will have you cha-cha-cha-ing around your house and “Big Three Wheeler” wants you to jump on your bed. Wriggle your toes in the sand; the Pixies have built a sand castle.
 

Various Artists, Austin City Limits Music Festival: 2003 Collection (New West Records, 2004)

About half of the collection of songs from the 2003 Austin City Limits festival seem charmingly dated—what ever happened to Kings of Leon or Abra Moore? Last year’s compilation, released just before this year’s festival in September, seems to lean heavily on the mellower Steve Winwood/Nickel Creek crowd and not enough on less popular tracks from the quirkier Drive-By Truckers and aforementioned Kings.

Here’s hoping next year’s festival mixtape—which could include Pixies, Cake, The Roots, Elvis Costello and Modest Mouse, if the lineup is any hint—doesn’t take 10 months to hit the shelves.
 

G. Love, The Hustle (Universal, 2004)

In The Hustle, G. Love goes it alone, without the backup from the Special Sauce component of earlier releases such as Philadelphonic. Love does, however, have help from Jack Johnson, a similar purveyor of the laid-back groove.

Hear the harmonica howl over the molasses-like, bluesy “The Hustle.” “Booty Call” is a fun rollicking song that actually sounds sweeter than the title would lead you to believe. Funk, old-school R&B, folk and even some country—G. Love throws it all in the mix. The results are satisfying if seldom extraordinary—a few too many of the songs sound either too similar to each other or too similar to earlier G. Love to be terribly memorable. But then you’ll get a little weird bit of bossa nova like “Two Birds” and you’ll remember what makes G. Love worth catching up with once and a while.

Ray Charles and various artists, Genius Loves Company (Concord Records, 2004)

Frank Sinatra? Genius. His Duets series? Kind of embarrassing.

Ray Charles? Brilliant. Genius Loves Company? Amazingly unredeemable, even by Charles.

The concept seems to be Charles singing classics or covers with an artist, primarily one of the VH1 variety.

It’s not that there is inherently anything wrong with James Taylor (who sings “Sweet Potato Pie” with Charles) or Elton John (“Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word”). It’s just that the adult-light-rock nature of their songs and their voices strips the soul, the fire that makes Ray Charles such an auditory treat. Only with B.B. King (“Sinner’s Prayer”) do we even see hints of the real Ray Charles. Most tracks are syrupy, over-produced and simply too manufactured to create any warmth.

—Amy Diaz
 

R.L. Burnside

A Bothered Mind - Fat Possum, 2004

There’s a reason R.L. Burnside is on Tony Soprano’s mix tape.

Burnside’s “It’s Bad, You Know” appears on the first soundtrack for The Sopranos and captures perfectly the mix of got-it-bad bluesness and modern energy that is a hallmark of Burnside’s sound. In A Bothered Mind, he offers up a solid album of top shelf blues served up with just the right amount of burning guitar licks and vocal and melody sampling.

He’s Deep South—listen to the vocals on “Go to Jail” or “Someday Baby”—but he’s also seen MTV.

The effect is evident in more ways than just Kid Rock’s vocals on “My Name is Robert Too.” The guitar on “Detroit Boogie, part 2” and his fiery anger in “Stole My Check” is as bright and crackling as anything produced by men a third his age.

R.L. Burnside’s music is good-time blues—surprisingly happy and upbeat even in its anger.

Thievery Corporation - The Mirrorball Conspiracy

ESL Music, 2000

It’s on the third sip that a martini really starts to do its stuff.

First two are all about flavor and sweetness and the liquor-to-non-liquor-ingredients mix. The third one, especially if it’s a slightly longer sip, that’s the good one. That’s where the hazy, blushy feeling of relaxation comes over you. That’s where you get just a little warmer and the room gets just a little cooler. By sip four, your eyes open and close a little slower and you start to believe that maybe a certain level of hipness isn’t so out of your reach after all.

That, that feeling after sip three, as you slip into sip four, is the overall mood and tone of The Mirrorball Conspiracy. It flows from your stereo like a slow seductive smoke. It curls and snakes through the air. It lowers the lights and tells you to lean back, relax, chill.

Though I vaguely remember both Thievery Corporation and their album from 2000, I didn’t really start listening to it until the recently released soundtrack to Garden State, which features the fabulously seductive track “Lebanese Blonde.” The track is smooth, with a mellow beat and a silky female singer. On the soundtrack, the song blended well with Zero 7’s “In the Waiting Line.”

On The Mirrorball Conspiracy, the track is just one of the 16 that produce the same nouveau lounge feel—silky and sensual while still crisp and clean.

Just like the third sip of a really good martini.

—Amy Diaz

2004 HippoPress LLC | Manchester, NH