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Paula Cole -- Ithaca (2010) (Harrison Reviews 2015 #77)

Few musicians in my collection have been so revelatory, and then so disappointing, as Paula Cole. Paula Cole made her way into my rotation at a time when I hadn't yet discovered Aimee Mann, or Janis Ian, or Bic Runga, or Joni Mitchell or Shawn Colvin or Dar Williams or any of the other brilliant women whose work I've had the opportunity to listen to over the last several years. I wasn't actively avoiding female singer/songwriters--I just hadn't found the ones that worked for me. In that context Cole's commercial breakthrough This Fire (1996) rocked my world. The album was comprised of wonderfully crafted songs teeming with a visceral anger that made for an absorbing and emotional experience. It was one of the best albums I heard that year, whatever year it happened to be. Nothing I've heard from Cole since has lived up to that. Harbinger (1994) and Courage (2007) were just dull, featuring Cole's beautiful voice but almost nothing in the way of melodic hooks. Amen. (1999) was better, but marred by a weird amount of cultural appropriation that made the listen at times genuinely uncomfortable. My memories of This Fire have kept me buying, but as I started my listen of Cole's 2010 album Ithaca, I knew the odds were good that this would be the last Paula Cole album I ever heard. But now I hope very much that it's not, because Ithaca is great. The album kicks off with "The Hard Way," a song that begins with Cole on solo piano. Her playing here is beautiful, and a clear reminder of what I've found easy to forget: that Cole, while having a stunner of voice, is really an impressively well-rounded musician, and substantially better on the piano than most talented songwriters are on anything. But then the drums kick in, and "The Hard Way" takes on an anger reflected very quickly in Cole's vocals. The verses lead into a soaring, harmonic chorus, with a serious emotional tug that carries through the entire composition, especially with the key change toward the end. "The Hard Way" is autobiographical, or at least it seems to be, detailing the experience of Cole's divorce. This reflects the album as a whole. I don't know how much of it describes Cole's life exactly--some of the songs were written pre-divorce, I think--but collectively they create a clear and tangible song cycle, carrying Cole from the pain and anger of the divorce through to the discovery of both new love and self-love. I love albums that are more than collections of songs, but in fact emotional journeys--concept albums, really--and this is very much the territory Ithaca occupies. Cole seems energized by this--the music has a vibrancy that hasn't appeared in her work since This Fire, and it makes Ithaca perpetually compelling. The best songs here are those that occupy the first half and address the divorce most directly. The soulful 6/8 "Waiting on a Miracle" runs a bit off-track lyrically by removing the focus from Cole herself in a way that recalls the problems of Amen. ("You can take the boy from the ghetto, but the ghetto from the boy?"), but the music itself weaves a subtle and effective hook. The guitar-driven "Music in Me" is better, with Cole singing passionately about the music helping her survive this experience. The song features one of Cole's best choruses, and one of the great things about a voice like Cole's is that it can not only match, but surpass the music in conveying pain and joy and everything in-between. When Cole is able to utilize every tool in her repertoire she's capable of some amazing things. She's also quite capable of exploring this experience from different angles. On the contemplative side, there's "Elegy," played with some very interesting start-and-stop piano as Cole sings about being a single mother too busy keeping everything together to deal with the pain she's feeling. As a lyricist Cole is often clumsy--subtle she's not--but even so she has some very interesting things to say about the complexity of this sort of experience, and between that and the electric instrumentation that emerges in the haunting bridge "Elegy" is outright enrapturing. But on the other hand there's "P.R.E.N.U.P.," a fun little song playing on the classic "R.E.S.P.E.C.T." lyric from Aretha Franklin's "Respect." With jazz in the choruses and banjo in the verses, "P.R.E.N.U.P." is a standout, strong and self-affirming. I like these songs not only on their own merits, but because they remind me very much of the recent and present struggles of a friend of mine. But Ithaca, like I said, is a song cycle, and that means the mood changes over time. "Come On Inside"--again, as a lyricist, Cole is not subtle--begins the process of introducing a new love, and while that song is a very good pop number, "Violet Eyes" is the best track in this part of the album. Featuring a string quartet, "Violet Eyes" is about the experience of finding love again, and it's a song that feels striking and personal. There are a lot of really good choruses on this album, and "Violet Eyes" includes one of the best. Really, there's nothing on this album that doesn't work. Even the jazzy eight-minute "Sex" is strong--and very very good at delivering the atmosphere it aims for. Ahem. And when the album closes with "2 Lifetimes," another song making use of the string quartet, it feels very much like the end of a story. The anger of "The Hard Way" has been replaced by the understanding that life goes on after pain. It's a great way--indeed, a beautiful way--to end one of the most absorbing albums I've heard this year. Ithaca is without question the best Paula Cole album since This Fire. Indeed, it may be the best Paula Cole album of all. It's the album I've been looking for these last several years, and what makes it work is that Cole has again managed to marry her emotions and her craft. I don't want this to be the last Paula Cole album I hear, but I fear it might be. Her next two albums, one crowd-sourced with likely limited distribution and the other maybe digital-only, may be difficult to find. When a musician has a hit we assume sometimes a lifetime of financial security, but my sense is that Cole, despite her prominence in the mid to late nineties, is at this point an indie musician of modest means continuing to do what she loves. If what she loves can maintain the kind of quality we see on Ithaca, I hope there's a lot more of it and I hope I'm able to find it. I highly recommend this one. "The Hard Way":

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Trash -- Zygomorphic (2002) (Final Neil CD)

Dear Neil, As I review the last of the albums you sent me over a year ago, it seems only fitting to look back on the gift of these albums as a whole. In a listening pattern typically driven by a lot of thought and research, all these albums could probably best be described as wild cards. But I like that about them. Sometimes it's exciting to start an album having no idea what I'm about to hear--or, alternately, having some concept and watching as reality takes that away. And it's exciting, no matter what the outcome, to ponder and learn and take the lessons and observations into whatever I should hear next. I'll be honest: I've not saved the best for last here. But I always knew I was going to end with Trash's 2002 album Zygomorphic. This is not an album anyone who reads this other than you will ever have heard of. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if you don't even remember sending it to me. It may be the only album I've ever heard with absolutely no online presence. Seriously. Google it. You won't find anything. Only by googling the band name and one of the three musicians who comprise that band could I determine what Trash is: a local band from the Isle of Wight. Probably it's a group of then-high school kids recording in someone's basement. Maybe you even know them, or know someone who knows them. It's music directly from your part of the world, though. So how could I end with anything else? Let's get this out of the way early: Zygomorphic is not a good album. At all. I think we've all heard recordings like this, though. Some distant relative or friend of a friend sends along the hastily recorded demo of someone who may or may not have any actual music ability, and you listen along and nod and act impressed at the first moment that seems to contain some level of musical competence--like the guitar solo in "Joyrider," for example, or the rhythm of the ska-inspired "Driftin' Away." But good is relative. Good has never been more relative. Trash, as a band, is as amateur as amateur gets. The band is comprised of David Careless, Chris Dobbas, and David Granshaw, all of whom are credited with songwriting and performance but none of whom is credited individually for anything, so I have no idea who plays or sings what. But this is the sort of band that features a drummer who can play complex patterns, but even in the studio can't really maintain a tempo. It's the kind of band that features a guitar player who may have genuine chops, but also little chemistry with his bandmates. Actually, honestly, it reminds me a lot of the Hassles. Not in terms of quality--the Hassles, one of Billy Joel's first bands, had dramatically better material, drawing from a number of well-considered covers and a couple of the earliest Joel originals. But the guitar playing for Trash is very much of the same sixties psychedelic mode, with electric washes all over the place and limited coordination with the rest of the instrumentation. The Hassles, I've long maintained, were simply not a very good band beyond Joel himself, and their technical prowess limited the potential of their output. But they were also five Long Island teenagers enjoying themselves and doing what they loved. Trash, though lacking really any competent songs, are doing exactly the same. That's partly why I didn't hate listening to this album. But the truth is that I haven't hated listening to any of these albums, because I've gotten something from all of them. I can tell you now why Spandau Ballet is irredeemable. I can explain why Simply Red simply can't keep up with more technically proficient bands. I can discuss David Bowie's outright weird choices when it comes to selecting his own music. I've learned as a listener and grown as a person through these albums. And of course, some have been excellent additions to my collection: a Beach Boys compilation including some of my favorite songs from childhood; tracks I'd never have picked up from Carly Simon and Rod Stewart; surprising work from groups like Blondie who generally exist outside my frame of reference. Hell, as I write this, sitting on my desk is Life (1995), the second album from the Cardigans--a band I would never even have thought about pursuing until I heard, and seriously enjoyed, their 1996 album First Band on the Moon. I haven't managed a second DeVotchKa album yet, but I'm looking, which is something I'd never have done before hearing 2004's How It Ends. Zygomorphic was never going to be one of those albums. These kids don't have it in them. Whoever sings lead on most of these tracks really can't sing; I'd say his best quality is that he's on key, but really he's not. His voice is all force, and his collaborators aren't any better, which leads to some appropriately sloppy harmonies. The lyrics are inane. There's not a single moment on this album that defies expectations, and it's hard to imagine any of these people continuing to pursue music (or at least songwriting). And I thank you for it just the same. Thank you, Neil, for all the unexpected listening adventures you have given me over the last couple years or so. I haven't loved every album, but I've treasured every experience. Whether or not you can remember sending it, thank you for Zygomorphic, an awful recording I'm probably one of the only people in the world ever to hear. Thank you for the thought that went into sending me these albums and the trans-Atlantic friendship that inspired it. When I first received these albums, I wasn't sure how I was going to handle the listening process. I didn't want that much unexpected material in one blast, so I opted to add one of your gifts to the pile every six listens. From this point on every album in my stack is one I picked out for myself, and while that may mean work more consistent to my tastes, I can already tell I'm going to miss the adventure and the surprises. You've made this hobby of mine a lot more fun. Sincerely, Harrison P.S. No YouTube video for this one. Because, you know. It's Trash.

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Bob Seger -- Beautiful Loser (1975) (Harrison Reviews 2015 #75)

Over time I've developed what I think could fairly be considered mixed feelings when it comes to those musicians who are more rock than pop. I've come upon some winners for sure, and I love the Eagles, but then you have guys like Tom Petty, whose albums are good but not great, and John Mellencamp, for whom there's rarely anything worth listening to beyond the hits. Stylistically I think it's fair to include Bob Seger in their camp, but when I listened last year to 1978 Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band album Stranger in Town, what I realized is that Seger seemed to be operating at a higher level when it comes to song composition. I still ended up with somewhat mixed feelings about the album, but I saw clearly the talent of the musician. In Seger's 1975 album Beautiful Loser, that talent is clearly realized in a way I haven't heard before. Beautiful Loser was not a hit record, although it's easy to perceive it that way. After all, songs like "Beautiful Loser," "Katmandu," and "Travelin' Man" are classic rock radio staples. But those versions come from the album that genuinely did represent Seger's commercial breakthrough: 1976 live album Live Bullet. By contrast, Beautiful Loser was the eighth album from a musician who had earned himself a lot of critical acclaim and local recognition, but not a ton of success. It must have been frustrating, but I wonder if it was freeing too--an opportunity to focus on craft with no particular expectation of hit singles. Of course that's easy to say in retrospect. It probably isn't true. But what is clearly true from this album is that Seger's primary focus wasn't energetic rock and roll, as much as Live Bullet would convey that, but rather songwriting. And the result is some very, very strong material, and for that matter strong material well outside the album's better-known tracks. "Jody Girl" is a great example of this. A song played on acoustic guitar and keyboard, almost entirely by Seger--it's one of only two songs on the album not performed by the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section with which Seger was recording at the time--"Jody Girl" is beautiful and poignant, in particular when Seger harmonizes with himself in the chorus. At points the guitar work recalls the more popular later track "Night Moves," but "Jody Girl" is smarter and subtler than "Night Moves," its arrangement careful and understated and vocal performance terrific. "Sailing Nights" is a favorite as well. Played in compelling minor chords with some great single-string electric guitar from the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, "Sailing Nights" is another quiet piece with an affecting, even haunting melody. At times it even resembles the work of Peter Gabriel, while never leaving the general acoustic template of Bob Seger. "Momma" is a definite winner too--more upbeat with some beautiful organ work, and still emotional and personal. Naturally, the songs I already knew factor in too. As used to the live version as I am, the studio version of "Beautiful Loser" sounds oddly subdued at first, but this feeling fades away fast, leaving in its own place an instantly catchy rocker. I've always enjoyed this song on the radio, and I like the more pronounced piano in this version. When I listen on the radio "Beautiful Loser" is often preceded by "Travelin' Man," revealed in its studio version as a surprisingly subdued and uncommonly structured composition. Both obviously worked great live, but they work well recorded as well. Of "Katmandu" this is even truer. Actually, the first two times I heard "Katmandu" on the radio, it was the studio version, and I loved it instantly, in particular the hook of the verses bolstered by Seger singing at the very bottom of his register. Consequently I've never been huge on the live version, because it discards that hook. With Beautiful Loser in hand I can now listen to this song the way I've wanted to again for years--and it really is one heck of a catchy rock song. Surprisingly, the song is over six minutes long, but the composition is so much fun you don't even notice the time slipping by. The studio versions of the songs I knew live are great--but simultaneously no greater than the other highlights. And that's what really makes Beautiful Loser such a good album--it is consistent, and persistently demonstrative of a very talented writer crafting some of his best material. That in mind, it's difficult not to see "Nutbush City Limits" as a bit of a letdown. An Ike and Tina Turner song, written by Tina--honestly I had no idea Tina Turner was a songwriter--the song lacks the build and depth of Seger's own material. It's a great performance though, the only track featuring the Silver Bullet Band rather than the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Session, and if I had to guess I'd imagine that this was just a song the group had fun playing live. The Silver Bullet Band plays this one with tremendous energy, and even if the material isn't quite on par with Seger's songs it's still worthy of inclusion. "Worthy" is a good word for this album, I think. It's my third Seger album, after Night Movies (1976) and Stranger in Town, and it's definitely the best of the three of them. My respect for Seger was already on the rise after Stranger in Town, and Beautiful Loser makes it definite: This man is one hell of a musician, and Beautiful Loser is one of the best albums I've heard this year. "Sailing Nights":

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Meredith Brooks -- Blurring the Edges (1997) (Harrison Reviews 2015 #74)

As I've mentioned in the past, the majority of the albums I listen to are carefully researched and purchased with intent. But I take a flyer here on there on albums I find for next to nothing, and that's the case with Meredith Brooks's 1997 debut Blurring the Edges. Brooks is essentially a one-hit wonder, that one hit being "Bitch"--a perfectly fine song, but one to which I've ever had an extraordinary connection. But what I have had is a lot of luck lately when it comes to the female singer-songwriters of the mid-late nineties. I've found gems in the work of Alanis Morissette, Paula Cole, Fiona Apple, Sheryl Crow, and Shawn Colvin, so when I spotted Brooks's album for ten cents at a favorite used CD store, I figured it was worth a shot to see if I might find another. When evaluating this album you pretty much have to start with "Bitch." As a choice of a single it was dead-on--a perfect model for the female-fronted guitar rock dominating radio at the time. But I don't want to suggest the song is pure commercial calculation--it just happens to work really well for the time in which it was written. With a drum loop at the center, heavy electric guitar, and an instantly catchy chorus, it was about as surefire a hit as you could have, and it continues to stand well against the other similar radio hits at the time. Listening to it again my affection for it hasn't grown at all, but it's the same reasonably substantive track it always was and it alone makes the album worth the dime I paid for it. Meredith Brooks co-writes the song with Shelly Peiken, which is worth noting only because Peiken is Brooks's most consistent collaborator. It's the Brooks/Peiken songs that best reflect what might be considered the voice of the album--the edgy, sexual feminist outlook personified very well in "Bitch." But that's not to say the other collaborations work to the same extent. Opener "I Need" is more aggravating than the hit that follows it, featuring borderline spoken word verses building to a fairly generic guitar rock chorus. The verses are distinctive enough to be memorable, and like "Bitch" they follow a list structure--"I need a [blank]" versus "I'm a [blank]"--but the end result is more irritation than engagement. "Birthday" is probably the most fun of the remaining collaborations, taking on the perspective of a girl who quickly turns stalker on the first date, but musically it's not much to speak of. Ultimately that's the reality of this album as a whole. Every track here, no matter who Brooks's co-writer happens to be, is never less than competent, but almost never more. Probably the best track here outside "Bitch" is the one Brooks writes alone: "What Would Happen." I didn't know going in that this was the second single, but it makes sense that it would be--it's the catchiest, and the one that comes closest to capturing some genuine emotion in its chorus. It was never a hit, though. I don't think it had a strong enough hook for that. "Stop" has its moments too. A bit of a bluesy song--really the only track that deviates from the straightforward guitar rock of the rest of the album--"Stop" recalls nothing so much as Sheryl Crow. It's not extraordinary by any stretch, but the deviation does Brooks good. It was interesting to learn in the course of my research that Brooks actually has more in common with Shawn Colvin than most of the rest of the nineties female hitmakers, in the sense that Brooks was a veteran when she got her commercial breakthrough. This is her first solo album, sure, but Brooks was about forty when this album launched and she'd been a working musician since the late seventies. She clearly worked hard to make this album a reality, and she brings considerable talent to the table--not just a sharp, engaging singing voice, but also some serious guitar chops. Brooks is the only credited guitar player on this album--a rarity for singer/songwriters, who more often handle rhythm guitar while someone else handles the heavier electric stuff. But the simple fact of the matter is that the reason Brooks never scored another hit is that she's just not that good a songwriter. It's a challenge to remember anything on this album other than "Bitch." In fact, probably the biggest downfall of this recording is that it is fundamentally the embodiment of average--not good enough to remember, not bad enough to hate, and not really worth anybody's time. Unless you find it for ten cents in a used CD store. "Bitch":

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L.E.O. -- Alpacas Orgling (2006) (Harrison Reviews 2015 #73)

I'm still amazed that I have this album. Indie pop collaboration L.E.O. and their single album Alpacas Orgling (2006) had all the makings of a holy grail for me--a super-obscure tribute to the Electric Light Orchestra featuring a rare comparably recent appearance from Jellyfish frontman Andy Sturmer not as producer and songwriter (his primary roles these days), but as recording artist. Every copy I'd seen online was inordinately expensive. I certainly never expected to find this album in a CD store--in particular not for only five dollars at a store my friend and I nearly skipped at the end of a day of CD hunting. I was flat-out thrilled to find Alpacas Orgling, and when it showed up at the top of my pile this weekend I was thrilled to listen to it too. And why wouldn't I be? I love Jeff Lynne and ELO (the obvious source for the band name L.E.O.). I love Jellyfish. And I love power pop, which seems to be the uniting factor of the musicians participating in this project. Of course, the truth of the matter is that Sturmer's role in this endeavor is pretty small--two co-writes and one vocal performance. The leader of L.E.O. is indie pop artist Bleu, who co-writes and sings the majority of the material, joining forces with the likes of Mike Viola (Candy Butchers), Matt Mahaffey (Self), Maclaine Diemer (Bang Camaro), Tony Goddess (Papas Fritas), and Scott Simons. Even nineties brother band Hanson is here, teaming up with the rest to craft songs in the style and spirit of the Electric Light Orchestra. But it is Sturmer who helps kick things off. After a short and convincingly ELO-style instrumental, "Overture," from Diemer, the album opens with "Goodbye Innocence." Written by Sturmer and Bleu, "Goodbye Innocence" evokes Lynne's work immediately with its steady wall of acoustic guitar and drums, Goddess playing slide guitar up top. The trappings are important for the atmosphere to which the song aspires, but what makes it work is the construction. Bleu takes the first verse, singing an effective melody above an engaging chord progression. The song is a long way from flat-out imitation--it never sounds exactly like the Electric Light Orchestra--but Bleu's voice, unadorned but precise, has a stylistic resemblance to Lynne's, and the music is close enough to ring all the right bells. The chorus does this especially, Sturmer's soft backing vocals nailing those ELO harmonies. Sturmer takes lead in the next verse, and as a fan it is fantastic to hear his voice again. Though clearly Sturmer has found his niche behind the scenes, he really has a terrific pop voice, and clearly it hasn't gone anywhere in the thirteen years that separate Alpacas Orgling from the last Jellyfish album. It sounds even better during the terrific bridge. Here Sturmer doesn't bother trying to sound like Lynne--he just sounds like himself, and it's lovely. It's difficult to think of "Goodbye Innocence" as anything but an unqualified success. Sturmer's other contribution is "Nothin' Will Ever Change," which he again co-writes with Bleu. This time it's Bleu alone on vocals, which is disappointing from the perspective of a Sturmer fan, but the fact of the matter is that "Nothin' Will Ever Change" is, if anything, an even better song than "Goodbye Innocence." Featuring prominently those unexpected chord movements, "Nothin' Will Ever Change" has Bleu sounding oddly like George Harrison--as produced by Lynne, naturally--and singing an outright beautiful melody. The chorus especially is a pop gem, bolstered by some excellent backing vocals from Mahaffey. Clearly Sturmer nails it with his contributions, his tracks emerging as everything I could have wanted. The rest of the album is a lot more of a mixed bag. Take "Ya Had Me Goin'," the album's third track and one of two with music written by Bleu alone. Again, the trappings are all there--the opening of the song is very obviously meant to evoke "Evil Woman"--but the track that follows is too much of a straightforward rocker. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with that, but what the song reveals is that it takes more than vocoder-styled backing vocals and electric touches to create an Electric Light Orchestra song. The ELO style is memorable and in that respect easily imitable, but what actually made the songs work was the tightness of Lynne's pop construction--the way he'd put together these offbeat chord progressions and striking melodies in a way that made them seem effortless. "Ya Had Me Goin'" gets it backwards, revealing a lot of effort and very little unpredictability. It shows just how good Lynne really is by not being very good itself--and that's certainly not the intention. But it is the common element of a lot of these songs. Bleu writes "Distracted" and "Make Me" with Viola, with Viola contributing vocals to both, and while the sonic landscape is good--"Distracted" especially sounds great, courtesy of some actual violin and cello orchestration--the music falls short of its aims. "Distracted" actually has a pretty strong verse, but the chorus is flat and obvious. "Make Me" tries to follow the lead of "Do Ya," but like "Ya Had Me Goin'" it's too straightforward to impress as anything but a rock song put together by less gifted songwriters. None of this is to say that Alpacas Orgling is a mess whenever Sturmer isn't in the picture. In fact, credit must be given to Bleu, because his second solo musical contribution (he gets some help with the lyrics) matches, and maybe even surpasses, Sturmer's songs. "Don't Let It Go" aims for upbeat ELO and hits it dead-on, with a bit of fifties in the bass (played by Bleu, who also handles all guitar and vocals on this one) and an irresistibly catchy chorus bolstered by hand-claps. In fact, the chorus may be the only moment on the album where you'd genuinely think you were listening to the Electric Light Orchestra--not that perfect pastiche is the only sign of musical success on this album, but the similarity in that moment is hugely impressive. "Don't Let It Go" is an absolute gem. "The Ol' College Try" has its moments too. Co-written by Goddess, "The Ol' College Try" is a real duet, a story song featuring Bleu and Paula Kelley. Kelley, whose other contribution to the album is the string arrangements featured here and on "Distracted," has a voice that could almost be described as fragile--childlike, even--and it's certainly not something often melded with the ELO sound. But again, pastiche is not the only indication of quality, and the song is engaging on its own merits, a likable melody sitting well alongside the strings. Nothing else here really stands out. There is a fun cover of ELO's "Don't Bring Me Down" at the end, but there's a catch: It's a bonus track, coming after almost forty minutes of silence at the end of closer "Sukaz Are Born Every Minute." Bonus tracks following blocks of silence were common in the nineties, before the age of mp3s, but for an album released in 2006 this is unacceptable, as it ensures that neither "Sukaz Are Born Every Minute" nor "Don't Bring Me Down" can really be enjoyed on their own. I've tried not to let this affect my view of the album, but it does bring things to a close in disappointing fashion, which is regrettable given half of the album's ten tracks (and the majority of the songs, with "Overture" being a thirty-second instrumental) are disappointing to begin with. As I write this review I can't help but draw comparisons to the Explorers Club. The Explorers Club released their first album only two years after L.E.O.'s, and like L.E.O. paid tribute to an inspiration, in their case Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys. In that album, and in the next (2012's Grand Hotel, reviewed earlier this year), they nailed it, releasing music of which the Beach Boys would have been proud. L.E.O. doesn't aim for quite the same level of pastiche, I think, but they do try for the spirit of Lynne's work, and the fact of the matter is that, despite contributions from eight songwriters, they miss more often than hit. The Explorers Club is required listening for any Beach Boys fan. By contrast, Electric Light Orchestra fans should certainly take a listen to Alpacas Orgling if they happen upon it, but it's more curiosity than necessity. If they can hit the high points on YouTube--"Goodbye Innocence," "Nothin' Will Ever Change," and "Don't Let It Go"--they really have all they need. These songs provide enough good that I'm very glad to have this album, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't expecting more. So what's next? It's hard to say. L.E.O. only released the one album, but I was hoping that album would get me into several of its contributors. But I'm not especially impressed with Bleu, even though he's co-writer on all the songs above. Weirdly, I find myself more drawn to Mike Viola, even though his contributions don't really land--I think maybe this just wasn't his style of music, and the clips I've found online bode well. Otherwise, the musician I really want to hear more from is Andy Sturmer, and I'll just have to keep seeking out new ways to accomplish that. "Don't Let It Go":

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Aimee Mann -- I’m With Stupid (1995) (Harrison Reviews 2015 #73)

I think I've been approaching Aimee Mann albums the wrong way. After being blown away by 2000 album Bachelor No. 2 or, the Last Remains of the Dodo a few years ago, and then bowled over by the brilliant soundtrack to Magnolia (1999) last year, I put myself in the position of anticipating brilliance from everything Mann does. That's not fair to Mann, or for that matter to any musician. Aimee Mann may be one of the best songwriters on the planet, but that doesn't mean she's great all the time. Why do I begin my review of 1995 album I'm With Stupid like this? Because this second solo album, the immediate predecessor to Mann's astounding artistic heights in the 1999-2000 corridor, simply isn't all that great. If I were to make a distinction between I'm With Stupid and predecessor Whatever (1993), which I reviewed earlier this year, it would be that I'm With Stupid is a lot more of a straightforward rock and roll album, a feel established clearly by opening track "Long Shot." Featuring fuzzy guitars at its base and "you fucked it up" as an opening line, "Long Shot" has a lot of energy but not a lot of craft, more or less repeating its opening guitar groove rather than building upon it. So when the song draws to a close, the sense is that you haven't really gone much of anywhere, and unfortunately this is true of much of the album. Second track "Choice in the Matter" shows a bit for variety in including a more clearly defined chorus, and I like the way that chorus transitions back into the verses, but again the song doesn't really hook. "Sugarcoated" is a step up as well, featuring some unanticipated moments in the chorus and bridge, but ultimately it never ascends into that unexpected beauty Mann so often taps in her later work. And this is an important consideration, I think, where Mann's writing is concerned. She has such a gift for the offbeat chord change and the heartbreaking emotional pull, but a lot of the material on this second album feels as if she settled--as if she capped herself with whatever musical idea began the composition, not yet skilled enough or confident enough to take things to the next level. Of course this isn't true across the board. The one track on the album that immediately stands with Mann's best work is "Amateur," a song that begins with a quiet, slightly haunting piano sound that recalls the Magnolia soundtrack. This makes sense--Mann's co-writer on this track, and a number of others, is producer and Magnolia collaborator Jon Brion, and while his sonic aesthetic is not as prominent on I'm With Stupid as on other Brion-affiliated projects, he does bring that atmosphere to "Amateur" in particular as a result of playing nearly every instrument on it. (The one exception is a guitar solo from Squeeze singer/songwriter Glenn Tilbrook.) Overall sound aside, "Amateur" also brings with it a beautiful melody, sung strikingly well, plaintive and quiet, by Mann. The emotional pull of this one is genuine, in particular heading into a very effective bridge. While nothing else on the album is quite on the level of "Amateur," things do pick up in the second half. "That's Just What You Are" is the album's strongest upbeat track, and the only one not produced by Brion (although he is co-writer again). The song gets a boost from Tilbrook, whose near-perfect pop voice sounds great behind Mann's lead vocals, and the steady drum loop helps craft an absorbing aesthetic for the melody. Tilbrook's longtime Squeeze collaborator Chris Difford joins in with "Frankenstein," a song that thrives on the the combined harmony of all three singers. The bridge here is especially strong, bolstered not only by the harmonies but also some  notably psychedelic Beatles-style keyboards. It strikes me as a grower. Closer "It's Not Safe" hits me similarly. I think multiple listens will strengthen the latter half of this album in my mind considerably. But the first half just isn't great. "You Could Make a Killing" makes a good effort to get there, but like a number of these tracks, it feels like it's a bridge away from an impact it never makes. And a lot of what remains has potential--"Superball" in particular would be a lot of fun with a sharper melody--but it never gets where it has to go. There's another way to look at this though. As awed as I've been by Mann's 1999-2000 output, maybe I've underestimated its significance. Clearly Mann made a remarkable leap forward after I'm With Stupid, and whatever the cause that's exactly the trajectory you want to see from a gifted musician. Given everything of which Mann is capable, it's hard to be too bogged down by one disappointing album. And I'm With Stupid is disappointing. I can't with any enthusiasm recommend it. But as usual, there's another Aimee Mann album already in my pile--The Forgotten Arm (2006)--and I don't need to listen to it to know that I still want every Mann album I can get my hands on. "Amateur":

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Split Enz -- Corroboree/Waiata (1981) (Harrison Reviews 2015 #71)

My feelings about Split Enz have changed substantially over the last several months. For me Split Enz has long been the outcast of the Finn family--a band interesting as the starting point for Tim Finn and Neil Finn, but featuring work of a quality Neil especially would quickly outgrow. I heard jarring keyboard and weird for the sake of weird. This didn't stop me from enjoying well enough the four Split Enz albums I had--True Colours (1980), Time and Tide (1982), Conflicting Emotions (1983), and See Ya 'Round (1984)--but I could never understand why people liked Split Enz so much with such an abundance of better Finn material, specifically in the form of Crowded House, Finn Brothers, and both brothers' solo careers. I think the change began earlier this year when I listened to the 1994 live album Anniversary. As much as I've found the Split Enz sound somewhat jarring, there was such a jubilation to the live performances that I couldn't help but find it all endearing. Split Enz was clearly a new wave band and dated to an extent, but the material was fun and the keyboard sound distinctly theirs. A while after--indeed, only a few weeks ago--I listened again to True Colours, and found that I now enjoyed it nearly all the way through. So 1981 album Corroboree popped up in my pile of used CDs at just the right time. Known internationally as Waiata--Corroboree is the Australian edition only, but it is the one I have, so that's how I'll refer to the album--Corroboree has Split Enz coming off far and away their most successful album. Though Tim Finn was definitely the leader of Split Enz, the popularity of True Colours can be credited largely to younger brother Neil, who wrote the band's first international hit single "I Got You." One wonders about the extent to which this changed the dynamic of the band, but either way the hope of Corroboree was to build upon that success. While this didn't happen--there were no more hits on that scale--Corroboree did provide the band's second and third top ten hits in New Zealand and Australia. And once again, the hits came from Neil Finn. The best of these is certainly "One Step Ahead." A slinky, somewhat sinister-sounding song, "One Step Ahead" maintains the pop songcraft Neil revealed on the previous album, its descending opening verses leading into a very well-crafted B part. The hook is more than solid, and really what has to be acknowledged, whether or not it was at the time, is that "One Step Ahead" is better than its more successful predecessor. It's musically complex in a way that "I Got You" was not, and in that respect indicative of Neil's remarkable development as musician and songwriter. "History Never Repeats" is a great song too, an instantly catchy piece thrown slightly off-kilter (in a good way) by Eddie Rayner's keyboard strikes. There's an emotional intensity to the song that I think informs a lot of Neil's early work--a bit of mania underneath the surface that works both for the material and for the band. Neil writes four of the album's eleven songs, and the other two are not quite as impressive as "One Step Ahead" and "History Never Repeats." "Iris" has its moments, in particular its melodic, engaging verse, but the chorus is a bit forced. It also reveals in Neil's writing the lyrical shortcomings that mar his early work, in particular rhyming "Iris" with "I feel desirous." "Ships" is stronger, but it doesn't go much of anywhere, working more as atmosphere than song. Neil Finn in 1981 was a lot better at pop composition than he was new wave art rock, but his contributions to the latter are still enjoyable enough. Tim Finn's contributions are a bit different. Tim provides five songs, his fewest since the band's second album in 1976, but he does get the opener: the excellent "Hard Act to Follow." While the extended metaphor of the lyric is a bit forced, the music is great, an intense, driving verse barreling into one of the hookiest choruses Tim would ever write. Rayner's keyboards are terrific on this one--he's responsible for a lot of those sinister undertones--and it's honestly surprising that this song wasn't released as a single alongside "One Step Ahead" and "History Never Repeats." But Tim's remaining material is somewhat flimsy. "I Don't Wanna Dance" and "Clumsy" are both fun enough compositions, but also both somewhat silly songs basically about being at a dance club. They're frivolous, and that's not intrinsically bad, but it does suggest that Tim didn't have a ton to say this time around. "Ghost Girl" is more substantial, albeit not extraordinarily memorable. It has a good atmosphere if nothing else. "Walking Through the Ruins," though, suffers under a bit of overproduction--which does happen sometimes with Split Enz, an impression not entirely erased by my newfound appreciation for the band. There might have been a good song there, but it's buried underneath a wash of keyboards. That said, for most of the album the keyboards are a strength. It's easy to view Split Enz purely as the early work of the Finn brothers, but to describe it as such undervalues the contributions of Eddie Rayner. Rayner is a stellar keyboardist, and his combination of classical piano and new wave synth is a fundamental part of the band's sound--something evident not only on Neil and Tim's songs, but also Rayner's own instrumental contributions. Closer "Albert of India" is especially strong in this respect. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Rayner is the only performer on the track--it's nearly all keyboards, save for drumming that could easily be drum machine and some form of percussion and bass, which makes it a pretty much pure soundscape. I think it's the combination of Rayner's keyboards and the Finns' songcraft that really makes Split Enz Split Enz. All that said, despite my altered feelings toward Split Enz, it couldn't be said that Corroboree is a great album. I enjoyed it, and it's definitely fun to listen to, but it likely emerged too fast on the heels of True Colours, which prevented Tim Finn from writing the caliber of songs he needed to. Neil's contributions make a big difference, but his work wasn't yet prolific enough to carry an album, so Corroboree by whatever name winds up an uneven affair lacking the relative consistency of its predecessor. Still, where once I wondered if Corroboree would be the last Split Enz album I'd want, now I know that I want to keep pursuing these albums, even with Neil Finn a less prominent force in the band's earlier work. So I may become a true Split Enz fan yet. "One Step Ahead":

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Jonathan Edwards -- Jonathan Edwards (1971)

Jonathan Edwards is a musician I took an interest in one summer years ago when I devoted a few weeks to researching one-hit wonders. I believe this was the summer of 2004, or possibly 2003, and either way it means that I've been waiting more than a decade to find, and listen to, Edwards's 1971 solo debut Jonathan Edwards. Edwards's one hit, of course, is the classic rock staple "Sunshine." The acoustic guitar-driven song has long been a favorite, Edwards crafting a very short, but potent combination of folk arrangement, addictive melody, and joyful defiance. It's one of those songs that has been around, and in the background, long enough that you can miss how good it really is. The choruses play off the hook of the melody wonderfully, then drive right back into it perfectly, which is what gives the song its momentum. Sung in Edwards's steady tenor vocal, "Sunshine" is and has always been one of those songs where pretty much everything works. I knew that going in, and hearing the song again on the album only confirms it, but naturally the real question heading into this listen was what manner of album Jonathan Edwards was going to be, and what sort of musician Edwards himself would reveal himself as. The truth is that I, like most people, had never heard another Edwards song. I know I like early 1970s singer/songwriter and folk, but that's about it. The album opens with "Everybody Knows Her," which clocks in at under two minutes--the album's shortest song, but not by a lot. Played on acoustic guitar and bass only, the song gets things going with a bright, engaging verse, Edwards's slightly raspy but never less than pretty vocal an easy draw. What's most interesting about the piece, though, is the bridge--not that it's at all complicated, because it's not, but it is an unexpected break from the obvious folk progression. In making this break, the song reveals the nature of this album and the songwriting of Jonathan Edwards. As a songwriter, Edwards strikes me as restless. By this I mean not that he experiments in a wide variety of genres or anything like that, because he doesn't, but rather that he gets bored with himself when he's stuck in an obvious progression. And when that happens, he throws in something different. This happens to be my own tendency as a songwriter, so as I listened to this album I found myself relating to and admiring the man behind that one single hit. It's not as if every experiment is a success. "Dusty Morning" is mostly a strong composition, mid-tempo and moody, but the end of the first line of each verse brings with it a dark chord change that hits my ears, every time, as awkward. "Jesse" does this also, and at a similar time as well (just the second line of the verses versus the first). While I do love unusual chord progressions in songs, it doesn't mean they always work, and what makes these instances jarring--in otherwise very good songs--is that the chords are too sudden and contradictory to convey the atmosphere Edwards is going for. But Edwards succeeds a good deal more often than he fails. The album's most interesting track is "The King," a contemplative minor chord piece with changing chords climbing alongside its melody. Based on its construction, music and lyrics, "The King" could actually be a progressive rock piece; if it were based around keyboards and electric instrumentation it would be a song of the sort Genesis might do. But the entire album is performed only with a small folk band, and "The King" is no exception--and that's certainly not a problem. Indeed, it's part of what makes "The King" enormously compelling, and nowhere else is Edwards's imagination as clear. "Emma," though, is a really great song too, less a love song than an abandonment song, at least from the perspective of the singer. Played on acoustic guitar with some slide in the background, "Emma" brings with it a very good melody, one Edwards handles delicately and effectively. The verses are beautiful on their own, but the minor chord chorus builds upon them wonderfully. It's difficult to put anything above the perfect construction of "Sunshine," but "Emma" is excellent in its own right. Most of this album is quite strong. "Shanty" is a delight with its rollicking blues sound, Edwards contributing some impressive harmonica playing. Closer "Train of Glory" is a lot of fun, something a bluegrass song played in double time. "Cold Snow" is a bit less distinctive, but here again Edwards makes an entirely unexpected move--an instrumental bridge this time that includes a violin part you'd swear comes from Kansas. The only time Edwards really falls short is with "Athens County," and there only because it's the only Edwards composition on the album that plays entirely as expected. Former Sugar Creek bandmate Malcolm McKinney contributes a couple songs as well. They lack Edwards's imagination, but "Sometimes" is pretty just the same. I didn't have too many expectations for this album, but I did have hopes, and those hopes have been met. Jonathan Edwards is clearly a talented guy, and likely one who deserves more success than he's gotten. His debut album is another fine addition to my early seventies folk collection. And the good news is this: Edwards has recorded a number of albums. I have much more to find. Let's see what I can do to ensure another decade doesn't pass before the next one. "The King":

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Travis -- Travis (2007) (Neil CDs) (Harrison Reviews 2015 #69)

Prior to listening to this album, I'm not sure I'd ever heard a Travis song, but I did have an opinion of them. Opinion is probably the wrong word. It was more like an impression, and of course an entirely unfair one given my likely total lack of awareness of their work. There's a particular brand of indie musician that thrives on atmospheric mid-tempo guitar pop, and a lot of those who gain acclaim for that don't really seem to earn it. And it bothers me because, fundamentally, what they seem to be trying to do is what I like: intelligent, well-crafted pop/rock. But a lot of the bands that remain indie do so not because they're too artistic and/or misunderstood, as their followers might suggest, but rather because they lack the craft and melodicism to take their songs to the next level. (Of course that's not to say that bands that do break through necessarily have that. Most don't either way.) And this was the impression of Travis I had based on whatever passing knowledge I've absorbed over the last however many years. Completely unfair. The truth of the matter is that Travis isn't even an indie band. I didn't know this until the research that followed my listen, but it turns out that Travis has been a legitimately commercially successful band in the U.K., scoring fourteen top forty hits in the span of just over a decade. In the U.S. they never broke through at all, only twice reaching (and just barely) the top forty on the alternative charts exclusively, but clearly globally they're more mainstream than I'd imagined. So to sum up, I prejudged Travis without having any actual idea of who they were and what they'd done. And yet--somehow--I think I judged them right. Travis, released in 2007, is another of those Mail on Sunday compilations, pulling five tracks from a live album and the rest from several Travis albums. The organization is a bit random but the focus is largely, though not entirely, on the singles, so as Mail on Sunday compilations go it's reasonably sensible. But sensible only takes you so far. The album opens live with "Why Does It Always Rain On Me?," a laid-back 6/8 track that represents the band's first top ten hit. And it's not terrible by any stretch, played with competence and delivered well in singer/songwriter Fran Healey's imperfect, but pretty enough voice. The problem is that it doesn't really go anywhere, repeating its predictable progression through to the end. The live version includes a bit of singalong, and complex singalong at that--more offbeat lyrics than an audience is usually expected to remember--and maybe that speaks to the devotion of the fanbase, but fundamentally the problem is that this is an entirely unremarkable piece of work. This is pretty much how things go through the early tracks. The second track, the studio version of "Re-Offender" (another U.K. top ten single), is a bit hookier, but it falls into exactly the same trap I anticipated: predictable, indistinct, atmospheric acoustic guitar-driven pop. I've read that Travis is considered a forerunner for bands like Coldplay, and I can absolutely hear that. "Re-Offender" is exactly that kind of dull. And "Sing," another live track, is very similar. I've wondered recently if it's better to be bad or to be boring. Travis aren't bad, but in the first three tracks of this self-titled compilation, they're definitely boring. Healey is the mastermind here, co-writing with a bandmate only once (lead guitarist Andy Dunlop on "3 Times and You Lose"), so it's really his work I find myself criticizing. Even setting the music aside, Healey doesn't have much to offer as a lyricist--he avoids cliches, but doesn't do much more. But Healey is not without some ability, and the truth is that, once those first three tracks are out of the way, things turn around for this compilation--not entirely by any stretch, but enough to move things from unpleasant to uneven. "All I Want to Do is Rock," for example, is a reasonably enjoyable mid-tempo electric guitar number, featuring a genuinely unexpected and engaging progression at the end of its verses. "Somewhere Else" has a compelling chorus to save its predictable verses, and the introduction of bells elevates the material. I'd suggest that the best song here, though, is "My Eyes," which was the new single at the time of this release. Clearly a song about Healey discovering that he's going to be a father, "My Eyes" utilizes some interesting strings and a solid pop construction on its way to some genuinely pretty sounds. The chorus, in fact, is very nearly lovely, which suggests to me that Healey, while not a stellar songwriter to begin with, improved over time. But I'd be remiss not to single out "Slide Show" also--not a single at all, and released on 1999 album The Man Who. The verses aren't great, but the chorus definitely has its moments, and the strings make it work. It's all relative, though. The good songs on this album stand out by virtue of not being as dull as most of these tracks are. I understand why Travis has some fans, but I'm not sure how generic tracks like "Turn" and "Side" made the mark they did. "Side" has its moments too, its hook a lot more in the rhythm than the melody, but it still all has the air of a decidedly lesser version of the kind of music I like. The arrangements don't help either--Travis is sterile and modern in the way of much current production, and I find myself wondering if their sound played a role in influencing that style. It's not dissimilar in that way from, say, U2's Songs of Innocence (2014), which also bored the hell out of me. I was wrong to prejudge Travis, but now that I know who they really are I can't say I see them any differently. There's not a lot more to say. I'm glad now to be properly informed, but I can't really see myself ever picking up a Travis album, and I can't really recommend anyone picking up this one. "My Eyes":

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Dar Williams -- The Beauty of the Rain (2003) (Harrison Reviews 2015 #68)

For years my best friend would tell me about her favorite musician, Dar Williams, but it's not until last year that I finally picked up one of her albums: 1997's The End of the Summer. And when it came down to determining the next Williams album to buy, it came down to my best friend again. She showed me a terrific song called "The Mercy of the Fallen." When I did my research and found that song as the opening track of 2003 album The Beauty of the Rain, I knew that was the album I needed. "The Mercy of the Fallen" is an outright beautiful piece of work, opening with the kind of quiet, modern keyboard sound that can distract and detract when used badly. But Williams uses it well, singing a very strong melody above the sounds. The acoustic guitar and bass kick in, the momentum builds, and with the arrival of a quiet drum kit comes a gorgeous chorus that takes the song to another level. The arrangement fills out after the first chorus, developing into a full pop arrangement, but above all things it's the melody that propels the track. The sound is really very much like good Sarah McLachlan. Recently I reviewed, and pretty well panned, McLachlan's 1993 album Fumbling Towards Ecstasy, and for good reason, but I also know full well that, when McLachlan is able to focus her atmospheric sound and heavenly voice upon a well-developed melody--something she does on a number of tracks on 1997 album Surfacing--she can make magic. That's the sound Williams captures with "The Mercy of the Fallen," and it makes for a compelling start to the album. I came in to The Beauty of the Rain fully expecting to adore "The Mercy of the Fallen," but of the rest of the album I was less certain. End of the Summer is a good album, but it's not a great album, its few standout tracks surrounded by a lot of similar-sounding folk pop (although the lyrics are almost always excellent). And the truth of the matter is that The Beauty of the Rain is not dissimilar. Second track "Farewell to the Old Me" is pretty good, but it doesn't distinguish itself terribly. Compositions like "The Beauty of the Rain" and "The World's Not Falling Apart" have their moments, but the musical directions they take are altogether expected. But this is certainly not to say that there aren't highlights. Outside "The Mercy of the Fallen," the album's strongest track is "Your Fire Your Soul." An upbeat composition driven by acoustic guitar and wurlitzer, "Your Fire Your Soul" hits hard on two fronts: first, in its striking lyric about your emotional burdens being your own, not those of the family that demands you deal with it their way; and second, in Williams's most memorable hook outside the chorus of the first track. Williams doesn't write a ton of bridges, but "Your Fire Your Soul" has a good one, and one that blends wonderfully into an already well-constructed piece of work. "Your Fire Your Soul" hit a personal note for me, as the struggle described feels very similar to things my aforementioned best friend has described to me from her own life. And I realized on listening to the song that this is what makes Dar Williams special. It's not just that she's a brilliant lyricist, though she is, and it's not just that she's a talented musician. It's that the viewpoint that guides her work is warm and wonderful in a way that makes me feel like Williams is someone I would really like--someone who would fit amongst me and my friends. She's one of us--one of our tribe, as my friend put it. So even most of the tracks that don't offer an incredible melody offer that. "I Saw a Bird Fly Away" is a bit of a cacophony in its arrangement, burdened by an odd-sounding harmony from Blues Traveler's John Popper, but it also includes a really terrific lyric in its chorus: "And so I asked the light of the day, / what's this rush for heaven? / Then I saw a bird fly away, / and I could not ask again." "The World's Not Falling Apart" may not be extraordinarily memorable in melody, but I love the second verse: "I have watched the kids who make their scenes. / I have met the riot grrls who print their zines. / They write the world, they raise a thought, / they say what they are, they try what they're not, / because life is a changing art." The only outright failure here, to my ears, is "Closer to Me." Co-written by album co-producer Rob Hyman, of the moderately successful eighties band the Hooters, "Closer to Me" loses itself in an indistinct melody and sub-par lyrics (for Williams anyway). But it's easily forgotten two songs later when Williams launches into a stellar harmonic cover of the Band song "Whispering Pines." It is a bit unfortunate, as on the last album I heard, that the most compelling chord progression here is a cover (previously, "Better Things" from the Kinks), but the track is so strong it's hard to care especially. And it's not as if Williams herself hasn't provided some really good stuff here--not just the above, but also the acoustic love song "The One Who Knows." Something else that makes Williams endearing is the liner notes. Williams has a habit of including alongside her lyrics the locations in which she started and finished the song, and also a blurb that in some way relates. This can be trivia about the song, as with "The World's Not Falling Apart": "I know I started writing this in Canada, where some young women approached me with their 'zine. They showed me the quotation from one of my songs, a quotation from Ani, and then a photocopy of someone named Kira's vagina, 'which came out so well, don't you think?'" Sometimes it's just a passing comment, as with "Your Fire Your Soul": "Have you ever read the book, The Dance of Anger by Harriet Lerner? It's great!" This kind of warmth makes a big difference, or at least it does for me. So like End of the Summer, The Beauty of the Rain is not a perfect album, or even a great album really. The truth of the matter is that Dar Williams is a terrific lyricist all the time, but a terrific musician only some of the time. But that's enough, clearly, for a few great songs per album and a pleasant and enjoyable listening experience otherwise. That's good enough for me. My next Dar Williams album is already in my used CD stack, and I think I'm going to be picking up her work regularly for some time to come. "The Mercy of the Fallen":

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Five for Fighting -- Slice (2009) (Harrison Reviews 2015 #67)

Five for Fighting is definitely one of my favorite contemporary artists. Big surprise, right? That I should go for the piano-centric pop? But Five for Fighting, which is less a band than a stage name for singer/songwriter John Ondrasik, is capable of some very strong music, and in 2009 Ondrasik was coming off his fourth, and best, album: Two Lights (2006). Two Lights was the first time Ondrasik geared his talents toward a set of songs with a clear theme, in this case raising a family in a post-9/11 world, and it resulted in his most beautiful and consistent work to date. Slice came three years after. Radio listeners may be familiar with "Chances," which got some decent airplay despite not being a hit on the level of Five for Fighting's earlier work. To an extent there is a reason for that: "Chances" sounds a lot like Five for Fighting's other hits. It wouldn't be fair to say all of Ondrasik's songs sound the same, because they don't, but his hits often do, and "Chances," with its rolling piano and driving drums, played like a less distinctive version of "Superman (It's Not Easy)," or "100 Years," or my favorite of the bunch, "The Riddle." That said, it's a good song, with a very pretty singalong chorus and a solid emotional tug. It may not be better than the earlier hits, but it stands fine alongside them. One might wish, though, that Ondrasik wouldn't go to that well quite so often. And if one didn't wish that, they might after hearing the opening title track. "Slice" is a pretty good song too, a slower piano melody playing beneath nostalgic lyrics evoking Don McLean's "American Pie." Honestly, these lyrics are a little too preachy when it comes to the condemnation of the splintering effect of technology, but the music is pretty enough. The problem here is actually the arrangement, with a low-playing electric guitar somewhat distracting from the melody and chord movements. The combination of this and a somewhat mixed vocal performance from Ondrasik, speaking one too many of the lines, makes "Slice" less than it could have been--even though the best it was going to be, really, was a lesser version of "Chances." Ultimately, the title song reveals the issues with the album--not in the repetition relative to Ondrasik's songs, but in the audible shortcomings. Slice is simply not very well produced, or at least its production much of the time seems to undercut the material. "Tuesday," a song about September 11, largely lies underneath its plodding drums, and the string section doesn't do much to save it. "This Dance" is played on solo piano, but Ondrasik's playing is heavy-handed. And "Transfer," something of a story song, is just plain awkward rhythmically. As a fan of Five for Fighting, I'd really love to blame this on someone other than John Ondrasik, but Ondrasik is the producer here--a role he handled fine on the last album. He's the one putting together the unimaginative arrangements, and the one giving into his own lesser tendencies as a performer. And honestly, I think these shortcomings would be overcome if the material were there, but it's not--even arrangements aside, most of the songs on this album are unimpressive. That makes Slice a pretty big disappointment. There are exceptions, of course. "Above the Timberline" is a favorite. Stylistically it's pretty standard stuff for Five for Fighting, but the melody is sharper than elsewhere and Ondrasik seems a little more engaged with a song about escaping the world for a little while. Really it's the chorus that makes it work, a horn section playing very nicely against Ondrasik's skillful falsetto. In the bridge, the chords and horns take on a surprisingly jazzy tone, building the last piece of an altogether satisfying piece of work. "Hope" is a good one, too, as Ondrasik allows a less familiar time signature (3/4) to take his chords in a less familiar direction. And it's hard to find a ton of fault in closing piano song "Augie Nieto," although it could be more memorable. But most of the songs are less successful. Slice shows Ondrasik's insistent patriotism increasing in conjunction with a downward turn in the craft of his lyrics--a problematic combination, especially in "Note to the Unknown Soldier." Burdened also by another plodding arrangement, "Note to the Unknown Soldier" gets by on awkward lines like "you make me happy and sad; / if you were here, I'd buy the beers." This is especially disappointing knowing that Ondrasik is capable of some terrific lyrics, a talent in full display on the previous album. On this one, at times, Ondrasik doesn't seem to be trying, which is again a fault that lands squarely on Ondrasik the producer. I wonder what happened here. I wonder if Ondrasik knew at the time that he was pushing forward with sub-par material, and I wonder if that affected his drive as a producer. Either way, I'll just mark this off as a misfire. Most musicians have them, and the rest of Five for Fighting's work is still strong enough to pursue. His subsequent album is Bookmarks (2013), and I have every intention of picking it up. But Slice I cannot recommend. "Chances":

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Shawn Colvin -- Fat City (1992) (Harrison Reviews 2015 #66)

The first Shawn Colvin album I listened to, A Few Small Repairs (1996), was the commercial breakthrough, and though following by a full five years, the next, A Whole New You (2001), was the pop-oriented follow-up. But Fat City is a project of a very different context. Following her Grammy-winning debut Steady On (1989), Fat City features an artist not yet widely known to the average radio listener, yet also prominent and respected enough to earn guest appearances from musicians like Joni Mitchell, Bruce Hornsby, and Richard Thompson. These musicians had realized what everyone else was in the process of discovering: that Colvin is a seriously good songwriter. Fat City opens with "Polaroids," perhaps the most obviously folk song on the album by virtue of its repeated acoustic guitar progression and its storytelling. (The delineation between pop and folk is, to my ears, pretty vague most of the time.) It's a compelling piece, weaving a lyrically beautiful story of an inevitably fading intercontinental relationship. From a musical standpoint, I enjoy the way the music of the verses tenses toward the end, but not at the end, returning to the steadier, calmer progression for a few more bars after. Featuring also a beautiful guitar solo on, evidently, Weisenborn Hawaiian guitar (I don't believe I've seen that credit on an album before), "Polaroids" is an effective start to what proves to be a very good album. There are a number of highlights here. After the comparably subdued "Polaroids," Colvin kicks up the tempo with the country rock-styled "Tennessee," an engaging track featuring prominent banjo and the aforementioned Richard Thompson on electric guitar. One prominent element of this album, perhaps first on clear display here, is that Colvin's vocal performance is terrific. She seems especially engaged with the material, and the sound is very much as if the performance is live, guitar in hand, leading the band behind her. I don't know how producer Larry Klein actually recorded this album, and given the litany of session men providing the instrumentation Colvin was most likely not working with a full unit at any time, but it feels that way and that's what counts, because it creates a tangible energy that takes the material at times to another level. "Round of Blues" is a winner too, a driving composition with an airy, breezy chorus that not only engages on its own, but also works wonderfully as a lead-in to a fantastic harmonic bridge. It's a favorite, as is "Orion in the Sky," a six-and-a-half-minute track that earns its length with a poetic lyric and a hell of a climax in the last couple minutes. But maybe the most effective piece here is "Monopoly," not so much for its music (though the music is perfectly strong) as its lyric. The lyric is a jagged-edged reflection on the frustration of the emotions that follow a break-up and, even more than that, the need to write a song about it. The writing here comes across as intensely personal, with Colvin singing of how "I would rather do anything / than write this song for you / and perpetuate this thing / in my head." As someone who has recently been in the position of having to write that kind of song for someone--because, really, when the emotions are that strong, what else can you do with them?--this one resonated with me. The piece is emotionally naked, and it's beautiful. This is a very good album, but for all that I don't think it's as strong as A Few Small Repairs. It's the melodies that make the difference--not that there aren't good ones on Fat City, but nothing on this album is quite as indelible as the best tracks on the later album. There are also a couple missteps here. "Climb On (A Back That's Strong)" is the most frustrating of these, wasting a couple very strong verses and guest piano and vocals from Bruce Hornsby on a chorus awkward both musically and lyrically. I'm not huge on the repetitive seven-minute "Set the Prairie on Fire" either, and honestly the back half of this album in general could be stronger--not that tracks like "Object of My Affection" and "Kill the Messenger" are especially flawed, but they're not extraordinarily memorable either. But any concerns are well-countered by "I Don't Know Why," the album's beautiful closer. The heavy keyboards and use of drum machine may be a bit dated--"I Don't Know Why" is the only song on the album that feels this way--but the composition is excellent, and also familiar in a way that makes me think I may have heard it in a film or TV show at some point. It wouldn't surprise me. I'd use it in that context. It's a striking piece, and a fine closing number to end a fine album. Fat City isn't perfect, but it's very strong, and it reinforces a fact about Shawn Colvin that has become very clear. Shawn Colvin is good, consistently, in a way few musicians are. She writes intelligent, substantial songs, and her fair share of hooks as well, and she delivers the work with passion. She's an artist to be admired, hugely. And I already quite suspected this, which is why Steady On is already in my stack, waiting to be heard. I'm pretty sure I'll like it. And if you're into smart folk and pop, I'm pretty sure you'll like Fat City. "Round of Blues":

[friendlyfiremusic]

Dennis Wilson -- Bambu (The Caribou Sessions) (2008) (Harrison Reviews 2015 #65)

The first album I listened to in 2015 was Dennis Wilson's 1977 solo album Pacific Ocean Blue. A strikingly beautiful album, Pacific Ocean Blue revealed in Wilson a genius on par with his more recognized brother Brian, so naturally I've been looking forward to the day when the second disc from the Legacy Edition I purchased, Bambu (The Caribou Sessions), would make its way back to the top of my pile. That said, going into Bambu expecting another Pacific Ocean Blue would have been a mistake. Pacific Ocean Blue is Dennis Wilson's one and only solo album away from the Beach Boys. Bambu isn't an album at all. It is, instead, a collection of material from the album Wilson was working on--an album he'd never complete before his demons led to his death in 1983. So let's get the flaws out of the way here. Some of this material isn't finished. It's certainly not arranged in an order and fashion that would make the album engaging and absorbing in the same way as the preceding album. It's a work in progress, and at times definitely feels like a work in progress. But it is work that reflects the musical idiosyncrasies of Dennis Wilson, generally in a very good way. Consider "Are You Real," which emerges around the middle of this disc. The track opens up with piano and vocals, Wilson's rough voice singing a beautiful melody bolstered, in short order, by some dramatic synth and drums. This leads into some striking electric guitar work, transitioning eventually into a driving closing instrumental. It's impossible to say if Wilson intended to develop the latter sections any--if he meant for there to be a melody and vocals--but these unexpected transformations are innate to Wilson's songwriting, and they make his work consistently exciting. Like a lot of material from Pacific Ocean Blue, "Are You Real" is co-written by Gregg Jakobson. Jakobson is also a co-writer on "I Love You," another track that demonstrates the unpredictability of Wilson's music. The first half of the track has a piano-driven blues feel, with some subtle guitar and slow, but heavy, drums emphasizing that atmosphere. But then, just about halfway through, a choir kicks in, the guitar and bass drop out, and the piano transforms into this absolutely gorgeous composition at which the first half of the song did not even hint. It's a stirring piece that, finished or not, is absolutely on par with the material from the previous album. It demonstrates very clearly what Bambu might have been. But not all the material here comes from Dennis Wilson, which is one of the surprises of this album. Four songs are contributed by jazz pianist and Beach Boys sideman Carli Munoz. Naturally these tracks lack Wilson's sometimes otherworldly unpredictability, but that doesn't mean they aren't good songs. "It's Not Too Late" is especially memorable in featuring Wilson's brother Carl on the beautiful chorus. Carl's voice is a lot purer than Dennis's--a lot closer to what you expect from a member of the Beach Boys--and it provides a particular poignancy set against Dennis's lower register in the verses. Munoz also contributes "All Alone," a striking piano ballad that emerges as one of this collection's finest songs. Altogether it's not difficult to see why Dennis Wilson found himself gravitating toward Munoz's work. It's consistently good, and the arrangements and performances ensure that it feels of a kind with Wilson's own compositions. Naturally not everything on this unfinished album is amazing. "Time for Bed," on which Wilson at times sounds oddly like Tom Waits, is fun, but but its rollicking piano and brass never really develop into anything. The straightforward rock of "School Girl" is endearing, but certainly not spectacular. Yet most of the work here really is good, or at the very least good enough to indicate the potential of the Bambu project. The chorus in "Love Remember Me" packs a serious emotional punch. "Album Tag Song," though clearly unfinished, is another of the several tracks on this album combining a pretty song with an unexpected closing instrumental. Even "Piano Variations on Thoughts of You," which is exactly what it claims to be--piano based upon the previous album's best song, "Thoughts of You"--is engaging. Only one track here does not emerge entirely from these long-ago sessions. One of the bonus tracks of the previous album was terrific instrumental "Holy Man." The bonus track on this disc expands upon that, with Jakobson recalling the intended melody and writing a new set of lyrics. Vocals are provided by the Foo Fighters' Taylor Hawkins, selected due to his vocal similarity to Dennis Wilson--and it really is quite a likeness. Now, it's impossible to say, thirty years on, if the melody Jackobson remembers is really what Wilson intended, but maybe that speaks to the tragedy of Dennis Wilson. As "Holy Man" demonstrates--as everything here demonstrates--Wilson was hugely talented. I'd argue that he was every bit as talented as Brian Wilson. Like Brian, he sometimes seemed to be channeling music from another planet. Like Brian, he let his demons overwhelm him. Unlike Brian, he never recovered. Later this week, I mean to try to put together a complete Bambu album as I'd imagine it to be, utilizing the best material from these sessions and a few of the absurdly good bonus tracks included with Pacific Ocean Blue. The results will be interesting. But I don't need that to see how much great work Dennis Wilson left in the studio. Bambu should have been the second album of a brilliant solo career. Instead, this is the last Dennis Wilson solo work I or anyone else will ever hear. How sad is that? "Are You Real":

[friendlyfiremusic]

Justin Currie -- Lower Reaches (2014) (Harrison Reviews 2015 #64)

The esteem in which I hold Justin Currie cannot be overstated. Like a lot of people, I discovered Currie through his work as singer/songwriter for Del Amitri, but while there is a lot of great work in that catalogue, it's his solo work that has really blown me away. His 2007 solo debut What Is Love For is an absolute masterpiece, one of the greatest albums ever recorded. The 2010 follow-up The Great War isn't quite on that level, but the second half of the album is. Currie has an extraordinary gift for capturing emotional pain and conveying in his music its complexity and beauty. He's one of my favorite musicians. That said, I was wary going into his third solo album, Lower Reaches (2014). There are a few reasons for that. The reviews I'd seen, songs I'd heard, and clips I'd listened to suggested a decidedly lesser effort. That the album was only a half hour or so concerned me--though the version I have contains two bonus tracks to fill out the time. Basically, following two truly terrific albums, all the ingredients seemed in place for a third album letdown. Unfortunately, I was right. Lower Reaches, while not a bad album by any stretch, is simply not on the same level as the first two Justin Currie albums. The album kicks off with "Falsetto," which in its defense contains one of Currie's more compelling lyrics. At times, Currie crafts songs with a very particular setting, in this case the singer supporting a friend at an abusive father's funeral. The opening stanza conveys this very well: "I didn't want to be here. / I never liked your dad cause he never loved the fact / that you were you / and you liked to sing falsetto / which real men shouldn't do." The accompanying music is pretty good, thudding drums underneath an atmospheric haze of electric guitar. It's really a fine song, but listening to this, you want the chorus to take you somewhere more powerful, and more distant, than it does. The bridge has the same issue, and it's indicative of the overarching issue with this album. That is, Currie has a baseline from which he's not likely to stray. His talent and skill ensure that the craft will always be there. He doesn't put out bad songs. But what you see at times with Del Amitri is that Currie is quite capable of putting out similar, nondescript songs--perfectly good compositions, but unspectacular. Sometimes I think Currie needs real-life inspiration to tap into his greatness. What Is Love For, for example, is clearly the result of genuine heartbreak, and Currie is able to mine that to craft arguably the greatest heartbreak album ever written. But when recording music slips back into being simply Currie's job, the results are less inspiring. Lower Reaches is the first Currie album to feel like lesser Del Amitri, and the first one to feel like a job. "Bend to My Will" is interesting in the way its 6/8 acoustic guitar-driven opening verse transitions into the driving 4/4 chorus, but it's not an extraordinary chorus. "Priscilla" runs acoustic guitar underneath drum machine percussion, but the melody it weaves doesn't really take you anywhere you don't expect to go. "On My Conscience" is fun by virtue of being essentially Currie's first straight-ahead country song--the album at times flirts with country, and Currie recorded this one in Austin, Texas, but only "On My Conscience" embraces it fully--but there's nothing really to recommend the piece beyond its novelty. This doesn't mean there aren't highlights. Original closing track "Little Stars" (by which I mean that it precedes the two bonus tracks), a song I've had for some time on account of a free download on Currie's website, is a masterful composition. Utilizing a similar sound as "Priscilla"--acoustic guitar underneath drum machine percussion, this time bolstered by keyboards--"Little Stars" crafts a striking melody, leading into a beautiful falsetto-sung chorus. Currie's voice is always strong, husky and impassioned, but here he sings softly in a way that brings out everything that makes this music special. It's a very interesting lyric too. The titular "little stars" appears to refer to camera flashes upon a figure Currie loves to the point of worship. As he sings, "And I swear, against my will, / I will be hers / until the disbelieving ones are dead." This song doesn't go off in any unexpected directions either, but it doesn't have to. It's a great song, and maybe the only one here to display truly Currie's capabilities. "Into a Pearl" is a standout too, though. Mostly it's a solo piano song, with some synth percussion above, and Currie puts together one of the album's best and most compelling melodies. It's a sound similar to songs from the last couple albums, but ultimately that's a good thing, and it includes a moment in the bridge where an unexpected chord and a striking falsetto create something magical. The laid-back acoustic guitar track "Every Song's the Same" has its moments as well--I can imagine it being a grower--and I also particularly enjoy bonus track "Guess." In fact, "Guess," with its distinctive descending melody and offbeat progression, is strong enough that its absence from the actual album--an album that, with its short running time and uninspiring song selection, could really have used another great track--is baffling. Regardless, "Guess" is on my copy, and I'm glad for that, because it provides another highlight on an album that doesn't have too many. Definitely part of the problem here is lack of inspiration. I think lack of focus is a factor too. There's no overarching theme to this album--not that an album necessarily requires that, but Currie has found these things in the past, driven usually by his cynicism. It's the lack of purpose that makes Lower Reaches feel like just another job. And really it's a job generally well done. If you've never listened to Currie's work before and stumble upon Lower Reaches, you probably will enjoy it. But Currie is capable of a lot better. To suggest that I want Currie to experience more real-life inspiration for the next album would be cruel and self-serving, because Currie's inspiration seems generally to be very painful things. But I do hope Currie is able to get back to the quality of his first two solo albums the next time around. Either way I'll be there, putting that album at the top of my list, because whatever flaws exist in Lower Reaches, Justin Currie is a brilliant musician and one of my absolute favorites. This just isn't one of his best. "Little Stars":

[friendlyfiremusic]

Randy Newman -- Sail Away (1972) (Harrison Reviews 2015 #63)

One of my better discoveries last year was the fact that Randy Newman wasn't just the guy who wrote and sang "You've Got a Friend in Me" for Toy Story. Okay, that's a little facetious. I knew there was more to Newman than that. I knew he had a couple minor hits, and wrote "Mama Told Me Not to Come" for Three Dog Night. But although a quirky piano-playing pop songwriter would seem to be exactly my thing, Newman was entirely off my radar until I found 1977 album Little Criminals for some obscenely low price. I quite liked that album, and immediately began looking for his more critically acclaimed work--specifically, much lauded 1972 album Sail Away. There are a number of important things you don't know about Newman when you only see him in the periphery. You begin to get a sense of it with his elaborate song titles, like "Simon Smith and the Amazing Dancing Bear," "Dayton, Ohio - 1903," and "God's Song (That's Why I Love Mankind)." But it's in really listening to the songs, and reading through the lyrics, that you learn that Newman is a darkly funny, cynical songwriter casting his eye at a variety of deserving targets. Opening track "Sail Away" is perhaps the clearest in that respect. Someone listening to the song passively may hear the references to life in America and imagine something positive about the new world, but mentions of "no mamba snake" and people being "as happy as a monkey in a monkey tree" reveal a song from the perspective of a slave trader in Africa, endeavoring to trick natives into slavery. It's a dark piece, but this being Randy Newman, it's also musically quirky, full orchestration in the background contemplating the gentle piano underneath Newman's distinctive, heavy voice. This is the Newman critics responded to: the satirist proposing we "drop the big one" on the rest of the world in "Political Science," and celebrating the polluted, flammable Cuyahoga River in "Burn On," and presenting a God in "God's Song (That's Why I Love Mankind)" who finds it hilarious that people keep praying to him despite the horrible things he keeps doing. It's not difficult to be engaged by such a particular voice. There was no one in pop at the time writing songs like Newman's, and I think that's most likely still the case. You'll notice that I'm focusing on the lyrics a lot more than usual. Part of that is the fact that Newman has such a particular character to his lyrics that it's almost impossible not to. The other part is that the lyrics are clearly the strongest part of this album. Musically, Sail Away, for all its acclaim, strikes me as decidedly less than Little Criminals, and the reason is stylistic diversity. Little Criminals was surprising musically as well as lyrically. It certainly included the jaunty, showtune style for which Newman is best known, but you also had extraordinarily poignant pieces like "In Germany Before the War," sincere love songs like "I'll Be Home," and upbeat pop/rock tracks like "Baltimore." Everything on Sail Away, by contrast, sounds pretty much as you'd expect from Newman--a position, granted, the critics at the time wouldn't have had, the album only being his third. "Lonely at the Top" does it with brass, "Simon Smith and the Amazing Dancing Bear" with solo piano, and "Political Science" with a full band, but it's all the same reasonably tuneful, bouncy work that defines a lot of what Newman does. That's not to say it isn't good, because it is, but there aren't really any hugely compelling melodies to be found here. And when Newman does go for something in a bit of a different style, it falls short, as with the tedious relative rocker "You Can Leave Your Hat On." All that said, there's really a lot to like about this album. I find myself particularly intrigued by "Dayton, Ohio - 1903." A tiny song--many of these songs are less than two and a half minutes long, and the twelve-track album lasts only a half hour--"Dayton, Ohio - 1903" is rendered distinctive by its title. On account of a novel I once edited, it has been drilled into my head that 1903, in Dayton, is when Orville and Wilbur Wright built the world's first working airplane. But the song makes no mention of airplanes, or the Wright Brothers, instead recalling, in very quiet solo piano, a bucolic Sunday afternoon. I think the idea is that, once the airplane came into being, the world became a lot smaller, a lot faster, and a lot more complicated, making the song sort of a paean to the moment before. Musically, like a lot of these songs, it's not hugely memorable, but by title and lyric alone it's a really compelling tack. "Political Science" is a very strong track too. It's a very, very Randy Newman kind of song, but probably the best incarnation of that sound on the album, combining the jaunty rhythm with the self-centered idiocy of American politics. "Old Man" is a very good one too--very pretty, with a gorgeous string section that reveals why Newman would later follow his uncles Alfred and Lionel into film orchestration. And "Burn On" is fun, posing as a celebration of the joys of a river on fire--something not even "the Lord" could do. "Burn on, big river," Newman sings, "burn on." So I like this album. And I know I'm going to want to keep picking up Randy Newman albums. But if I seem less than rhapsodic about it, it's probably because Newman's greatest strengths don't align quite right with my favorite elements of music. It's also perhaps because Sail Away is too exactly what I'd have guessed it would be, lacking the extra melodic punch that would make it, in my mind, worthy of the tremendous acclaim the album has earned. It's good though. I recommend it. And I suspect Newman will have a place in my album stack for years to come. "Political Science":

[friendlyfiremusic]

The Explorers Club -- Grand Hotel (2012) (Harrison Reviews 2015 #62)

One of my favorite discoveries last year was little-known South Carolina band the Explorers Club and their delightful debut album Freedom Wind (2008). The Explorers Club, led by singer/songwriter Jason Brewer, are masters at the art of pastiche, and their first album was for the most part a dead-on recreation of the sound of the Beach Boys. That makes the band fun, but what made them impressive is that they didn't just hit the mark on arrangements and harmonies--they also put out genuinely good songs. If Freedom Wind were a Beach Boys album, it would have been one of the best Beach Boys albums. So what of Grand Hotel, their 2012 follow-up? Well, if you read the reviews you may find elsewhere, you'll see comments about Brewer and company broadening their sound into the seventies, and the reason for these comments is clear. Intermingled amongst the music here are sounds very consistent with what you might have heard on the easy listening side of early seventies radio. The opening instrumental "Acapulco (Sunset)" sets the tone with its bells, soprano brass, and percussion, and tracks throughout the album, like the laid-back "It's No Use" and "Weight of the World," with its Latin rhythm, keep it going. I could see comparisons here to the work of Burt Bacharach. But what I think a lot of people forget is that the Beach Boys' sound changed as well as they moved into the seventies. No longer reliant on surfing songs or Brian Wilson's elaborate aural landscapes (though not entirely removed from them either), the Beach Boys became a far more democratic outfit in the seventies, and in doing so put out a wider variety of pretty, well-constructed pop. And to me, the Explorers Club circa Grand Hotel sounds like nothing so much as seventies Beach Boys--the band familiar from albums like Sunflower (1970). Take "Run Run Run," the first song following the opening instrumental. An upbeat track featuring lead vocals from bassist Wally Reddington III, "Run Run Run" drives a melodic verse into a harmonically perfect chorus. Focused on acoustic guitar and bolstered by brass in the bridge, "Run Run Run" is all kinds of fun. It may not be quite as instantly wonderful as "Forever," the track that kicked off the first album, but it's more than solid and entirely believable as a song that would have been at the top of the charts in the era it recalls. "Anticipatin'," which follows, is even better, with a piano/organ-driven sound well complemented by Brewer's surprisingly soulful voice. On this track, vocally, he recalls Daryl Hall, but the song is more a tight pop construction, with Brewer trading off in the chorus with an unspecified high-voiced bandmate. It's a terrific piece of work. There are a number of highlights here. My favorite track is the quiet, emotional "It's You." The chord progression and melody in the chorus actually has something of an Electric Light Orchestra thing going for it, but the arrangement and harmonies are all Beach Boys. Now, I keep saying that, and some will interpret it as indication that the Explorers Club are nothing more than copycats, but it takes serious talent and effort to craft harmonies that level of perfect. The Explorers Club doesn't just imitate the sound--they match it, and make it theirs, and that's what makes a song like "It's You" so effective. Or, well, it's that, and the fact that, once again, the band rises above mere imitation by virtue of the quality of the material. The material comes from Brewer and regular co-writers Ian Troy Stains and Michael Williamson. Stains and Williamson are not official members of the band, despite playing a wide variety of guitars on the album, and I'm not really sure why. It's also honestly difficult to tell who is playing anything at any time. Kyle Polk is credited as the band's drummer, for example, but former Explorers Club drummer Neil Thomas is also credited for drums and percussion "on all sessions," and Matt Goldman and Justin Chapman provide drums and percussion as well. The group is bolstered by no fewer than eight additional vocalists (Stains and Williamson included). So you don't always know what sound at what moment comes from where. But it all comes down to Brewer, clearly the mastermind here. Aside from co-writing every track and handling some variety of guitars, keyboards, and vocals, Brewer is the album's producer, and clearly he knows exactly what sound he wants. That's why the sunny "Go For You," with its handclaps and brass, sounds so good. That's why closer "Open the Door" feels appropriately epic. And that's why even the album's less memorable tunes are fun in their own right. "Grand Hotel" is an instrumental that you'll swear belonged to some 1970s cop show. "Any Little Way" is pure Beach Boys atmosphere, and even without much of a melody it's an effectively calming piece of work. So my response to Grand Hotel is basically the same as it was for Freedom Wind: If you like the Beach Boys, you will like this album. If you're a fan of radio music from the early seventies, too, you will like this album. The Explorers Club do what they do better than anyone else, and if this brand of music is your thing, you need these albums. As for me, I learned during my research for this album that the Explorers Club has one final album coming out maybe next year. Part of me is sad that it will be the last, but I'm much looking forward to it--and, for that matter, whatever Jason Brewer decides to do next. "Anticipatin'":

[friendlyfiremusic]

Seal -- Seal (2007) (Neil CDs) (Harrison Reviews 2015 #61)

As a point of clarification to begin this review, British singer/songwriter Seal actually has three self-titled albums: his 1991 debut, his 1994 follow-up, and his fourth album in 2003. This is none of them. This Seal, released in 2007, is another of those oddball compilations put out by The Mail on Sunday. Like most of these releases, it's a somewhat perplexing combination of tracks, but unlike most of them, the source of these tracks is plainly explained. Thus I can tell you that all of the studio tracks featured on Seal are, in fact, from those first two self-titled albums, except for closer "System," from the then-forthcoming 2007 album of the same name. The six live tracks are from One Night to Remember, a 2006 album documenting a 2005 concert in Germany. As random as this may seem--sometimes, I really think these compilations are based entirely on whatever The Mail on Sunday happens to be able to attain rights to--the compilation actually provides a pretty decent overall view of Seal, at least in my estimation, which isn't entirely uninformed. I grew up with "Crazy" and "Kiss from a Rose" on the radio (both featured here as live performances), and some years back I picked up Seal's third self-titled album, often referred to as Seal IV. I was interested in the album due to songs like "Waiting for You" and "Love's Divine," and both of these are good songs, but the album itself left me disinclined to seek out anything more from Seal. To be clear, Seal IV wasn't bad, and Seal is at times a pretty good songwriter, but what I found is that, when the melody isn't there--and more often than not it isn't--then his work is a pretty dull mishmash of same-sounding keyboards and soulful vocals. "Killer," the live track that kicks off this compilation, is pretty consistent with that image. In the U.K. "Killer" was a top ten hit, but in the U.S. it made no impression outside the dance charts, and the live take is not inspiring. After some reasonably dramatic keyboards and guitar to start with, "Killer" settles into something of a driving atmosphere, compelling at moments but mostly just monotonous. Now it must be said that Seal himself sounds fantastic--the man has always had a tremendous voice, and what the live tracks on this album demonstrate quite effectively is that he is every bit as on-point and passionate in a live setting as he is in a studio recording. There aren't that many singers who sound so perfect. But the material isn't there. How "Killer" became a top ten hit across the pond, I have no idea. It doesn't impress, but it sets the tone for a decidedly mixed compilation that plays out pretty much exactly as I expected it to. Most of the other live tracks are familiar. "Crazy" is well-performed, if overlong, featuring, as always, just enough of a melody to avoid sinking into the repetition of a lot of the other material. "Love's Divine," played softer than on the album and given more of an acoustic guitar emphasis, is quite beautiful, and "Get It Together," also from Seal IV, has a very convincing drive to it, bolstered by the horn section backing Seal throughout the live recordings. The most familiar of the live tracks is "Kiss from a Rose," and it's also the only song that shows any kind of mortality in Seal's voice, as it's performed in a lower register. But don't take that for a criticism--Seal sounds terrific, and his voice soars over an acoustic arrangement that works very well for the weaving hooks and melodies of the song. While nothing from Seal has ever been quite a favorite for me, "Kiss from a Rose" is a song I have generally liked, and the distinctiveness of the composition marks it as a clear indication of what Seal can do when his melodies are clicking. The lyrics are interesting though. For years, singing along to "Kiss from a Rose" on the radio, I've tried to figure out the words beyond the title, never able quite to gasp them. Reading through the lyrics as I listened to the live version, I realized that the reason I've never been able to figure out the lyrics is that they're frequently nonsensical. My brain had rejected the line "I've been kissed by a rose on the gray" because that couldn't possibly be the line, but it is the line. And though I don't recall quite reaching this conclusion listening to Seal IV, I realize now that this is true of all Seal's lyrics. He's the kind of poor lyricist who seems like a really good lyricist if you're not paying attention, the reason being that he avoids cliches, throws interesting words together, and tries to render intelligent commentary on issues like racism and ideas like love. But he's a lot more distinctive than he is eloquent, and there's flatly not a lot of actual meaning in any of the material. But then I don't care much about the lyrics, and lyrics are not why most of these tracks don't resonate. What we see on "Killer," we see throughout the studio tracks. There's usually a solid atmosphere built with keyboards--"If I Could" displays this very well, as does "Show Me"--and little distinctive melody to make any of it memorable. The newer song "System" does this too, albeit with a lot more of a modern electronica influence. "Future Love Paradise" isn't bad, even though its progression makes it sound a little too much like "Crazy." "Whirlpool" is distinctive by virtue of its focus on acoustic guitar over keyboards. And the newer track, "System," is a bit heavier in its dance/electronica sound, but ultimately pretty consistent with the rest of the material. The only outright failure here is "The Beginning." "The Beginning," interestingly enough, was the first track on Seal's first album, and how listeners got past it to find that Seal was a talented songwriter I do not know. Actually, "The Beginning" was a single, and moderately successful in that form, mostly in a dance context. But its an awful piece, generic and monotonous and, as such songs often are, so long (almost six minutes) it's outright painful. Maybe its inclusion, and release has a single, has to do with the audience Seal was trying to capture at the time, but listening to it at this vantage point is an ordeal. But it's also an aberration. The problem with Seal isn't that it's bad. It's that it's dull, in the same way that Seal IV was dull, and in the same way I imagine any Seal album would be dull. Seal is an outright brilliant singer, and as a songwriter he has his moments, but there is a cap on his capabilities and a compilation like this only proves it. It's good to have versions of "Kiss from a Rose" and "Crazy" to add to my collection, but I don't think there's reason for me or anyone to pursue Seal's work beyond the hits. "Kiss from a Rose":

(I don't know that this is the version from this compilation, but it might as well be.)