CD Odyssey Disc 1099: Cake

It’s always bittersweet when I review the last album in my collect from a particular band, because it means I won’t be reviewing them again until they release something new. This next band hasn’t released anything since 2011 so I might be waiting a while.

Disc 1099 is… Motorcade of Generosity

Artist: Cake

Year of Release: 1994

What’s up with the Cover? Cake love their one colour covers, and here’s the one that started them all. It looks like a collection of people you’d see at a wedding. Assuming there was a live band, that is. Is it just me or is the trumpet player overdoing it a bit? Just calm down and play hits from the eighties, buddy.

How I Came To Know It: Sheila introduced me to Cake originally around 1999/2000, and this was just us digging into their back catalogue. We’ve had this record for a long time – at least since the early oughts.

How It Stacks Up:  We have seven Cake albums which is all of them. I had saved spot #3 for “Motorcade of Generosity” but it didn’t live up to the hype so I’m dropping it down to fourth, behind “Prolonging the Magic”. Since this is my last Cake review, here is a full recap:

1. Comfort Eagle: 4 stars (reviewed at Disc 1044)
2. Fashion Nugget: 4 stars (reviewed at Disc 781)
3. Prolonging the Magic: 3 stars (reviewed at Disc 101)
4. Motorcade of Generosity: 3 stars (reviewed right here)
5. Pressure Chief: 3 stars (reviewed at Disc 431)
6. Showroom of Compassion: 3 stars (reviewed at Disc 666)
7. B-Sides and Rarities: 3 stars (reviewed at Disc 865)

Ratings: 3 stars

Nowadays Cake would just be another indie rock band but coming out in 1994, “Motorcade of Generosity” seems innovative and ahead of its time.

The signature sound of Cake is already being formed: a combination of quirky but emotionally honest lyrics, garage rock edge and funky guitar and trumpet riffs. It is a combination that I don’t recall anyone else doing back in the mid-nineties, an era where most bands trying to make it big were trying to invent some bastardized child of grunge. What’s a good verb for that? Temple piloting? Creeding?

Anyway, against this backdrop came a slick bunch of musicians with immaculate timing to drop some grooves that were equally good for dancing or sinking into the couch with your friends and complaining about the sad state of music (it is never that sad, by the way – just look harder).

I find this album uneven, with songs like “Comanche” and “Up So Close” and a few others emotionally detached and obsessed with their own cleverness, but others like “Jolene” and “Haze of Love” visceral, with just the right amount of sad. Fortunately the good outweighs the bad.

Unlike most records the true gold on “Motorcade of Generosity” comes near the end of the record. My favourite song is “Rock ‘N’ Roll Lifestyle” even though it is basically sending up people like me, who are obsessed with music and concerts. Some of these aging rockers go to such lengths as to blog about it. How very self-absorbed such people must be. Best stanza from the song:

“Now tickets to concerts and drinking at clubs,
Sometimes for music that you haven't even heard of.
And how much did you pay for your rock 'n' roll t-shirt
That proves you were there,
That you heard of them first?”

Guilty as charged – mostly. I don’t randomly go to any show, and I only get a t-shirt if I like the design but the point is made. Later the song admonishes that “excess ain’t rebellion” which with all these damn CDs in my collection rings harsh, but fair. If you didn’t want me to buy all your stuff, Cake, then you shouldn’t have made such catchy music.

“I Bombed Korea” is a song about PTSD that creates a juxtaposition between a funky guitar riff and troubling lyrics like:

“Red flowers bursting down below us.
Those people didn't even know us.”

And then from a worn out soldier recalling wartime horrors, Cake switches to “Mr. Mastodon Farm” a song about our need for closure and connection. In it, a man sits watching birds falls past his window, filled with the irresistible urge to get up and look, just to make sure they are safely flying away before they hit the ground. The song is equally funky, even as it instills a lurking sense of anxiety.

These two songs are when “Motorcade of Generosity” is at its best; mixing reassuring grooves laced with discomfort and uncertainty. You can just dance around, or you can be brave and pay attention to the underlying themes.

The album mixes very sparse (dare I say cheap?) production with slick arrangements, and the bright sharp sound on later records still seems far away. This lends a rawness to the songs, but it also annoyed me because it was recorded too low, and the lack of crispness made my ear have to strain to hear individual instruments.

And while the record can feel unfinished and haphazard in places, the high points more than make up for it. In 1994 Cake’s sound was still forming, but they were already pushing boundaries, and already plenty good.

Best tracks: Jolene, Haze of Love, Rock ‘N’ Roll Lifestyle, I Bombed Korea, Mr. Mastodon Farm

CD Odyssey Disc 1098: Hem

Welcome back to the CD Odyssey! Did you take a break and watch the Grammys? If so…my condolences. I didn’t watch because for the most part I don't like the music that gets nominated. However, here are some of the very few highlights for me – none of which I saw live:

• I was pleased to see Aimee Mann get a Grammy for “Mental Illness”.
• The greatest album of last year, Jason Isbell’s “The Nashville Sound” won not one, but two Grammys. That felt good.
• Also great that Leonard Cohen who won a Grammy for “You Want it Darker” in the…rock category? Are these Grammy voters hearing the same records I’m hearing?

On the performance front I was lucky enough to see inspired performances by both Kesha and Lady Gaga. I expect Gaga to blow me away live and she didn’t disappoint, but Kesha was a nice surprise. I hope to see more from both of them down the road.

Disc 1098 is… Rabbit Songs

Artist: Hem

Year of Release: 2002

What’s up with the Cover? It’s a rabbit! Not just a rabbit either, because with the space they saved by putting the song listing on the front of the jacket they were able to expand that rabbit into…

Two rabbits! Don’t be surprised by this. Reproducing is the thing rabbits are best known for.

How I Came To Know It: This was record 94 on Paste Magazine’s “100 Best Indie Folk Albums of All Time.” I did a full tour of that list last year, buying the albums that tickled my fancy. I got lucky with this one. Maybe it was the rabbit’s foot on the cover.

How It Stacks Up:  I only have this one Hem album so it can’t really stack up. They have six out there and I checked out the other ones but none of them appealed to me like “Rabbit Songs”.

Ratings: 4 stars

“Rabbit Songs” has the whimsy and heart-worn wisdom of a fairy tale and just enough darkness around the edges that you think it likely it was written by the Brothers Grimm.

Hem walks a fine line between folk and contemporary pop, but it is anchored by the solid songwriting of piano player Dan Messe. Messe clearly understands standard folk progressions and can employ them in the timeless way they are intended, or put subtle twists on their melodic resolution with equal skill. Not knowing what kind of song you are going to get keeps your ear interested. That curiosity lasts into multiple listens, which is the hallmark of a good album.

The other anchor is the soft and sweet yet powerful vocals of Sally Ellyson. Ellyson has a voice that can alternate so subtly between poignant and atmospheric you don’t notice the shift. Instead you’re left with a lot of confused and complicated emotions. That’s OK though, because emotions are supposed to be complicated.

Together the blend of traditional and modern, both in the writing and the delivery, has Hem hanging somewhere between the Wailin’ Jennys and Sarah McLachlan. It isn’t a tense balance so much as a pendulum that swings lazily back and forth between styles, hypnotizing you until you realize it is all just one thing.

My favourite song on the album is “When I Was Drinking,” a song that is part breakup song, part celebration of youth and part AA confessional. When Ellyson sings:

“When I was drinking

When I was with you

Living it up when the rent was due

With nothing and no one to live up to”

She takes you right back to every wild and reckless youthful moment you lived, and maybe a few you wished you’d enjoyed better in the moment. Except you couldn’t, because you were broke. As Hem reminds us, youth isn’t all gold and roses.

“Betting on Trains” showcases Hem’s ability to combine traditional Americana forms and guitar picking with a lounge-style vocal that fills an old-fashioned road song with the hum of the modern world.

Songs like “All That I’m Good For” stray a bit too far into smooth lounge jazz for my liking, ironically losing a bit of the mood by working too hard to evoke it. Fortunately, these moments are few and far between.

Mostly, this record feels relaxed, unfolding at a slow and even pace even, slipping in more than a little wistful regret. Yet you feel happy to have those regrets. Like I said earlier, it’s complicated.

While this album is a tasteful 45 minutes long it is a distasteful 16 tracks, and I think if three or four more had been shaved off the record would be even better.

However, this is more than made up for by a great CD booklet. I give this album’s booklet an A+. Glued into the inside cover, it opens like a book. Inside are the lyrics of every song, neatly typed, along with the songwriter and any additional musicians that performed on it. “Rabbit Songs” features a small army of guest musicians who are a big part of the magic. Thank you for those subtle flourishes of pedal steel on “Stupid Mouth Shut”, Bob Hoffnar. Thank you for that haunting cello in the background of “Sailor”, Hannah Emlen. I appreciated them!

Near the end of the record Hem throws in a traditional number with “Cuckoo” and show that if they just wanted to do a whole record of straight up folk or bluegrass they could. Instead they add a lot of touches to the form, some swelling salient into the melody, others happy to just be a well-placed string or horn section adding subtle brush strokes in the background. It all works.

Best tracks: When I Was Drinking, Half Acre, Betting on Trains, Idle (The Rabbit Song), Stupid Mouth Shut, Night Like a River

CD Odyssey Disc 1097: The Pack A.D.

I had to do an emergency disc swap this weekend. I had rolled my next album (Hem’s “Rabbit Songs”) without remembering that I was going to see the Pack A.D. on Saturday and hadn’t given their new album a full listen yet. Concerts are way more fun when you familiarize yourself with the album the band is touring on. After all, they’re going to play a bunch of those songs live and just yelling “Freebird!” all night long and hoping for the best ain’t gonna alter the setlist.

With this in mind, I quickly switched to the Pack A.D. (via Rule #5) and gave it most of my spare listening time for the rest of the weekend. So here’s the resulting review and below that are my thoughts on the live performance that inspired the shift.

Disc 1097 is… Dollhouse

Artist: The Pack A.D.

Year of Release: 2017

What’s up with the Cover? Becky Black and Maya Miller recline in a life-sized dollhouse. Of the two, Maya seems to be handling it better, passing the time reading. Becky looks positively deranged. Maybe she’s realized that with one whole wall missing it is going to be impossible to heat the place come winter.

How I Came To Know It: This is just the latest Pack A.D. album. I like them quite a bit, so I bought it on spec when it came out.

How It Stacks Up:  I now have five Pack A.D. albums. Of those, I must put “Dollhouse” at fifth. I still like it, but I like the other four a bit more.

Ratings: 3 stars

On “Dollhouse” the Pack A.D. delivers their signature sound of garage rock riffs, and mix in a bit of ambient fuzz pop for good measure. The record doesn’t have the same furious intensity of some of their previous albums, and is over a little too soon, but it’s still a solid entry in the discography of a band that deserves more commercial success than they have so far achieved.

The Pack A.D. are the queens of reverb guitar, and at their best when they chug away with blues tinged crunch. “Dollhouse” features a couple of good ones with “Woke Up Weird” and the title track punching you between the eyes early on the record. On both songs Becky Black’s guitar sounds so thick it feels like you could pave a highway with it. Drummer Maya Miller hits with a dull echoing thud that is the perfect accompaniment to such distortion excess.

These are two of the album’s first three songs and unfortunately “Dollhouse” doesn’t manage the same intensity throughout. Part of this is the band’s obvious interest in exploring pop elements that had me thinking of the Cure and other bands that were enjoyed by those who liked to wear black in the eighties. The best of these is “Thomas Hardy” which takes on a natural grimness by virtue of its depressing 19^th century namesake, and then further underscores that grimness with lines like:

“You look like death

You’re my best friend”

“Thomas Hardy” is a lot rougher around the edges than any Cure song, however (these gals are rock musicians, not pop musicians) and at times reminded me favourably of Concrete Blonde or Sleater Kinney with its punk-tinged intensity.

The final song “I Tried” is a slow and thoughtful pop song about heartache that could have fallen out of the early sixties if it weren’t for all that guitar crunch. Black’s vocals, which are so often fierce and punked out, are positively sweet here and the song feels like a close-hold slow dance at the end of an evening. Mind you, it’s a dance that’s going to end with one partner telling the other it’s over. So bittersweet, but sweet nonetheless.

While I liked hearing all these influences reimagined into the Pack A.D.’s brand of garage rock, the initial driving energy of the record gave me an appetite for a certain level of oomph that the rest of the record didn’t fully sustain. If I owned this on vinyl (or wasn’t so fiercely committed to Rule #3 (see sidebar) this album would likely end up as a bit of a one-sider.

The record is incredibly short (only nine songs and 28 minutes total) so it doesn’t give itself a chance to make a more lasting impression, but at least it doesn’t have any clunkers in those 28 minutes. It is a solid entry into the musical catalogue of two talented women who refuse to be pigeonholed into any single style.

Best tracks: Woke Up Weird, Dollhouse, Thomas Hardy

The Concert – January 27, 2018 at the Upstairs Cabaret, Victoria

I had seen the Pack A.D. in November 2016 so I had high expectations going in, even more so because the Upstairs Cabaret (formerly Harpo’s) is one of my favourite places to see live music (and in my youth, to dance and meet women). We collected up a half dozen music lovin’ friends and after a quick bite to eat at the nearby Garrick’s Head pub, headed over to find prime seating/viewing territory.

Unfortunately, Upstairs has changed a lot in recent years, and most of those changes seem focused on removing good seats and sightlines for live shows. There were three giant liquor stations around the room and a massive DJ Pedestal in the middle, all of which contributed to less places to stand.

Still, it would take a lot to knock all the charm out of this particular little live venue. Upstairs has a nice high ceiling and well-situated stage that gives you pretty good viewing even if the seating is no longer the greatest. Also, they still have the smoke machines I remember from my dancing days, which brought back pleasant memories.

The Poor Choices

The first of two opening acts were the Poor Choices, an all-woman punk/garage band from right here in Victoria. Tonight they had a guy on the drums because their drummer had just given birth, which as an excuse to miss a gig, ranks pretty high. In her place was a dude in a KISS T-shirt who had just learned their set in the last week or two. He basically kept time and where something more complicated was called for he wisely stayed chill instead of making a mistake.

The star of the band was the singer/guitarist who not only has a great stage presence but played well and has a brassy vibrato vocal that reminded me of Sleater Kinney in a good way. The only mistake they made was not announcing their name to the audience. No one is going to download your music from bandcamp if they don’t know who you are! In the end, my buddy Casey went and asked for their name, but they didn’t have any merch for sale so don’t look for a review anytime soon.

The Helletones

The next opener was the Helletones. I had seen the Helletones once before, as the opening act for Creepshow last November and I remembered them favourably. At that show they were all dressed up in suits but here they went for a punk vibe more suitable to the bands around them. They played great and were very tight. Much love to the drummer in particular, who has mad skills.

Another cool fact about the Helletones: they are basically a classic four-piece lineup (singer/guitar, lead guitar, drums, bass) with a trombonist thrown into the mix. This lends a very cool vibe to their sound, as the trombone provides interesting flourishes at the low end of the mix. It really works. I imagined a brighter world where one day trombones replace all those bad sax solos in rock and roll songs.

The Pack A.D.

The Pack A.D. then took the stage. Drummer Maya Miller does the small talk and crowd engagement, and guitarist/vocalist sticks mainly to singing and playing.

The band was touring their new album (reviewed above) and managed to work well over half the new songs into the set list, including all three of my favourites (noted above). I like a mix of old favourites, deep cuts and new material and the Pack A.D. found a good balance, although maybe a bit light on the deep cuts this time.

For just two people it is incredible how much air they move, and the show was energetic and powerful. When they bear down on those bluesy guitar riffs it feels natural and smooth, but also aggressive as hell.

The crowd was mostly well-behaved. The area in front of the stage looked like a little crazy from a distance, with much random fist pumping and the waving of devil horns. However those of us who braved the area said it was a positive energy up close, with everyone respectful of each other’s space, within the context of being at a rock concert. Fun audience fact: Upstairs ends their live shows at eleven, at which time all the live music lovers file out of the building and a bunch of dolled up club goers file in. The coat check looks like a shift change.

Back to the show, and a quick shout out to whoever was rocking the sound board, because all three bands had amazing sound. Loud enough to know you were at a rock concert, but not so loud as to bounce it off the walls, with a great mix of mid-range and bass to keep the ear interested. Kudos!  

A very cool thing happened that I hope catches on with other bands; Maya Miller called out the silliness of the false encore. As they neared the end of the show she said “we’ve got two more songs for you, followed by a ruse, followed by two more songs.” During “the ruse” the band didn’t even leave the stage, but instead did expressions of mock surprise that the crowd wanted more. Encores have become a joke where the band forces you to yell, all the while knowing they are coming back regardless of how long or loud you do it. This was a fun way to keep the tradition, but lose the bullshit.

Overall, I liked this performance more than the November 2016 one, partly because it was a more intimate setting, partly because of the sound mixing and partly because Miller and Black were in top form. I’ll definitely go see them again!

CD Odyssey Disc 1096: Eric Clapton

When I told my coworker I was going to be reviewing an Eric Clapton album tonight she said “I love him!” but then she added in a conspiratorial whisper and added “but I just can’t stand that acoustic remake of “Layla”.

I feel the same way about that atrocity – let that song rock out the way the Gods of Rock intended! Fortunately, while there are plenty of retakes on classics on this next record, there are no such abominations among them.

Disc 1096 is… 461 Ocean Boulevard

Artist: Eric Clapton

Year of Release: 1974

What’s up with the Cover? A very hippy looking Eric Clapton hangs out in front of what looks like an LA flophouse. However, looks can be deceiving and after a bit of research I found out that 461 Ocean Boulevard is in Golden Beach, near Miami. So it is a Miami flophouse.

How I Came To Know It: For a long time I had an Eric Clapton greatest hits package on cassette. When I moved to CD I didn’t just want greatest hits so I bought a couple of his more famous studio albums instead that had some songs I recognized and this was one of those.

How It Stacks Up:  I have two of Eric Clapton’s studio albums. I used to own 1989’s

 “Journeyman” on tape as well, but I sold it for beer money back when I used to do that sort of thing. Come to think of it, that’s probably what happened to the Greatest Hits package as well. Anyway, of the two albums I do have, “461 Ocean Boulevard” is the lesser record.

Ratings: 3 stars

On “461 Ocean Boulevard” Eric Clapton mellows out, man, and it isn’t just that slow sensuous way he plays the guitar either. This record just feels relaxed all over.

Part of me wanted a bit more of Clapton’s rock side to come out, but he seems content to groove in the blues, throwing in just a hint of boogie rock when he’s feeling dangerous. I have a feeling that middle aged dudes thought this record was ultra-cool in 1974 and as a middle-aged dude 40+ years later it still sounds cool, while also feeling very much of its time.

The record opens with “Motherless Children” which is a pretty rocked out version of the Blind Willie Johnson blues track. Clapton drops some serious boogie into the song and adds guitar accents artfully throughout. This song has been recorded by a lot of people over the years but I think the Clapton version is my favourite, and the rich tone of the riff just feels right. Clapton’s vocals are underwhelming but they are really little more than a rhythm section substitute here. The guitar is the star of the song.

“Willie and the Hand Jive” is a Johnny Otis song from the late fifties that Clapton turns into a picking master class, as he meanders his way on and off the beat but never loses the groove. I love this version, but I will always prefer the balls-out rock and roll version that George Thorogood recorded eleven years later. It had grit whereas Clapton’s has groove. Both are good, though.

Most of these songs are covers of classic blues or rock numbers that Clapton does a solid job making his own. That said, his version of Bob Marley’s “I Shot the Sheriff” is a slightly pale imitation of the original. Clapton’s guitar playing excellence saves him once again but I sometimes found myself wishing it didn’t have to.

The best original track on the record is “Let It Grow” where Clapton embraces his inner hippy. This song soars with a.m. radio glory and it feels like yacht rock before yacht rock was silly (which was pretty much immediately). This is a song for growin’ a beard, swimmin’ in the nude and – of course – makin’ love.

“Let it grow, let it grow,
Let it blossom, let it flow
In the sun, the rain, the snow,
Love is lovely, let it grow”

Sure it is flakey, but if encouraging people to let love grow is wrong, I don’t want to be right.

Despite my admiration for this album, and in particular for Clapton’s skills on the guitar, I have to admit I almost never put it on. When I do want to hear Clapton I tend to default to “Slowhand”. “461 Ocean Boulevard” is recorded a bit low and is a bit too mellow, and there is only so much sagacious appreciation I can have for Clapton’s playing before I’m ready for a bit more meat in my meal.

So I’m going to send this record to a home that will appreciate it more than mine. I still like this record but being the dilettante musical playboy that I am, these days I’m just not that into it.

Best tracks: Motherless Children, Willie and the Hand Jive, Let It Grow

CD Odyssey Disc 1095: King Diamond

I did warn you a couple reviews ago that I overdid it on the King Diamond purchases last year. Now that decision is coming home to roost.

Disc 1095 is… “The Eye”

No I don’t know why the title is in quotation marks.

Artist: King Diamond

Year of Release: 1990

What’s up with the Cover? It’s a spooky necklace. Could this be “The Eye”? Spoiler alert - this necklace is cursed! I would totally wear it anyway, because it is totally bitchin’!

How I Came To Know It: When I blasted through the entire King Diamond discography last year this album was one of the better ones and I was able to get it as part of a cheap 5-disc box-set re-issue.

How It Stacks Up:  I have eight King Diamond albums. Don’t judge me! Anyway, I’ve got a long way to go before I can properly appreciate all eight, but I’m going to take a chance and say “The Eye” is my favourite.

Ratings: 4 stars

It seems like only yesterday that I was going on about the crazy high-voiced metal god that is King Diamond. Actually it was last Wednesday when I reviewed “Abigail”. All the concept album glory of that album is present on “The Eye” but the riffs are tighter, the melodies stronger and the songs more listenable.

This record is a bit more straightforward in its approach to metal, employing a lot of the galloping rhythm of Iron Maiden, crossed with some of the soar of Dio and the crunch of Metallica. I wouldn’t say King Diamond is as good as any of those bands in their prime, but “The Eye” comes close.

The guitar solos occasionally rely too much on pure speed but it is hard to fault Andy Larocque for showing off – the guy can play. He even slows it down on the instrumental “Insanity” and delivers a moody atmospheric song that is just the tonic your ear needs before the album’s final two tracks blast you back into the stratosphere.

This album isn’t quite as focused as “Abigail” in terms of plot, but it is still heavily thematic. In this case the theme is two sets of interconnected stories, the first of which features a cursed necklace called “The Eye”. The album starts with a kind of intro/homage to the necklace, and then gets into what I think is its creation, when a woman is burned as a witch without evidence. Later the Eye pops up in the ashes, promptly killing two children with its evil power. Then we switch gears to follow a nun named Madeleine who is victimized by a creepy priest, goes crazy before we come back to a second song celebrating the necklace.

It's not a single concept album, but rather two stories featuring various innocents suffering fates they don’t deserve at the hands of corrupt authority figures, with a couple bookend tracks loosely holding things together.

The willingness to take even a half step back from full-blown horror musical gives King Diamond the narrative wiggle room to write better lyrics. They aren’t brilliant by any means, but unlike the story-time approach of “Abigail” here we get defined choruses that hold the songs together better.

The opening track is “Eye of the Witch” which is a balls-out riff fest. It is the perfect mix of the crunch of Sabbath, the gallop of Maiden and some kind of doom-laden horror film score.

From there, the album doesn’t let up. The next track, “The Trial (Chambre Ardente)” suffers from a bit too much goofy dialogue, but the chugging riff lets you forgive King Diamond’s excesses and eccentricities.

The third song, “Burn” goes full crazy, with King Diamond exclaiming:

“They say the devil is here tonight

Then let him play his violin so wild”

Followed by some fiendish Bacchanalian style fiddle. Or maybe it is a keyboard – whatever it is, it is the perfect combination of satyr and metal. Generally, the production decisions feel like someone yelled “turn everything up!” but managed to somehow keep it crisp and clean through the excess.

The album has a couple of slower numbers that give the record some variety. Later on there is the aforementioned “Insanity” but before that we get “Two Little Girls” which is the story of two little girls playing the ashes where they burn witches until they find “the Eye” and…promptly die. The song has a genuine creep factor and despite my intellectual dismissal of two kids stupid enough to play in charnel ash I found myself wanting to shout out a warning before it’s too late.

When I reviewed “Abigail” I got a bit nervous about all the King Diamond I’ve bought in the past year, but “The Eye” restored my faith in my former self. This stuff is solid well played power metal. Yes it is a bit over the top, but that’s how metal should be.

Best tracks: Eye of the Witch, Burn, Behind These Walls, The Meetings, Insanity, The Curse

CD Odyssey Disc 1094: Leonard Cohen

My last review was the crazy heavy metal horror opera of King Diamond’s “Abigail” so this next album was quite an auditory adjustment. I’ve been a bit stressed this week, though, and ending it with a little Leonard Cohen is just what the music doctor ordered.

Disc 1094 is…Ten New Songs

Artist: Leonard Cohen

Year of Release: 2001

What’s up with the Cover? Cohen is no stranger to the Giant Head album cover, but this time he goes with Two Giant Heads in deference to the key role Sharon Robinson played in co-writing and performing on the record.

How I Came To Know It: As an avowed fan of Cohen’s music since the late eighties, I just bought his albums as soon as they were released. That’s what happened here.

How It Stacks Up:  I have thirteen studio albums by Leonard Cohen. I love them all including this one. I had originally reserved ninth spot for it but I feel like a few records are better than it after all so I’ve bumped it to twelfth. There is no shame in being the twelfth best Leonard Cohen album, though.

Ratings: 3 stars

I began my walk home tonight in the dark and rainy gloom of a west coast winter with my brain racing with work like a hamster on a wheel, but the soothing tones of Leonard Cohen slowly soothed my troubles. He didn’t get me off the hamster wheel so much as show me there were other avenues my mind could explore that were so much better for the spirit.

High praise for an album I rank so low, but such is the power of Cohen’s art; he lifts you to a higher understanding even amidst the gloom. Or as he puts it on “That Don’t Make it Junk”:

“I’ll listen to the darkness sing –

I know what that’s about.”

This record was written and recorded during a period that Cohen had gone into voluntary exile at a monastery in California. Shed of all worldly distractions he was reconnecting with himself. It feels like the same old Leonard to me – willing to admit his own fallibility and find some wisdom in the wreckage, if maybe a bit more subdued.

“Ten New Songs” is a reflective collection of songs, with Cohen at his best when he explores relationships gone awry. “In My Secret Life” explores that imaginary place we go where things worked out, juxtaposed against the failure of the real world, first about lost love and later about more general human failings. It is a brilliant song that survives a truly horrible drum machine beat – but more on that later.

My favourite song on the record is “Alexandra Leaving,” another song exploring relationships. It is a complicated one and I freely admit my interpretation could be…er…open to interpretation. To me, the song explores one last sexual tryst, followed by the end of the relationship come dawn. Cohen is obsessed with an open and honest exploration of what went wrong. The song is replete with great lines, but the stanza I think most telling is:

“As someone long prepared for the occasion;

In full command of every plan you wrecked –

Do not choose a coward’s explanation

That hides behind the cause and the effect.”

The song reminds me of an earlier track from “Recent Songs” called “The Traitor” and explores a relationship that continues behind falseness after it should rightly end.

“Alexandra Leaving” is based off of a poem by C.P Cavafy called “The God Abandons Antony” which is about leaving the city Alexandria, and the way Cohen and Robinson have reimagined it is gorgeous on its own, and even more layered when you read the poem, then listen to the song.

It isn’t all sadness and loss, though. “You Have Loved Enough” is an intimate exploration of both love and sex. When Cohen decides to put a little allure into that gravelly voice he woos with the best of ‘em and the line:

“That I am not the one who loves –

It’s love that seizes me,

When hatred with his package comes,

You forbid delivery.”

Is a lesson for us all: just cross your arms and let that UPS guy return that stuff to sender.

So what caused this record to tumble to twelfth? The biggest issue is the production. A lot of the recording of the album is done on simple computer equipment with a lot of electronic drum beats where on a lot of other Cohen albums relies on live musicians for everything – usually great ones. There are musicians aplenty on “Ten New Songs” as well but they are a bit too buried in the mix.

Also, while the slow soul-music style croon works on some tracks it gets a little old by the end of the record. I found I was increasingly hoping for a bit less ambient hum and a bit more of good old fashioned strings and pianos.

For all that, I was still happy to revisit this record and – like Cohen’s entire catalogue – I will keep doing so until the day I follow him into whatever comes next.

Best tracks: In My Secret Life, That Don’t Make it Junk, Love Itself, Alexandra Leaving

CD Odyssey Disc 1093: King Diamond

Odyssey Rule #5 allows me to choose a “new to me” disc into the reviews without a random roll. Since I have a considerable backlog, I’ve been alternating a random roll out of the “new to me” section. This time I rolled an album by King Diamond from 2002 called “Abigail II: The Revenge”.

It just seemed wrong to review the sequel first, and since “Abigail” the original album was also in the “new to me” I switched to that album, which I now present for your reading pleasure.

Disc 1093 is…Abigail

Artist: King Diamond

Year of Release: 1987

What’s up with the Cover? If you were to ever buy an album just for the cover this would be it. A horse-drawn hearse careening down some road in the dark of night. Yeah! That’s metal, baby!

How I Came To Know It: This album was listed as the best album from 1987 from a list of “top metal albums of the last 50 years” I read recently in an article. I liked it enough to start exploring King Diamond.

How It Stacks Up:  I went a little overboard exploring King Diamond, buying eight of his 12 studio albums in the space of about four months. This is a lot more than I need and way too many for me to accurately rank them at this early stage of our relationship but since we’re here and I can always change my mind later I’ll say…third or fourth best.

Ratings: 3 stars

King Diamond is an acquired taste and despite the eight albums and multiple listens to “Abigail” I’m not sure I’ve fully acquired it. If you’re looking to give it a try “Abigail” is one of their more famous albums but it is also very much a dive into the deep end of what these guys do.

“These guys” are a Danish heavy metal band named after their lead singer, King Diamond, who is a crazy face-painting screecher who models himself after the bizarreness of Alice Cooper and the operatic singer-storyteller of Bruce Dickinson. Is he as good as either of them? No, but some people go for it with such gusto they draw you in for the ride against your better judgment. King Diamond is one of those.

It helps that the band plays fast, furious and crisp which are key to this style of galloping eighties metal. They lay down powerful riffs that make you bob your head creepily on the bus (sorry fellow riders) although they are often a little eager to move on to the next riff before you’re finished enjoying the last one. All that shifting around isn’t a prog situation so much as they are just excited. And by excited, I mean really excited.

As a result the album is a frantic blend of brilliant and overblown struggling for supremacy. There is a campiness to the overblown parts that make them kind of fun as well. Not exactly radio friendly, or lending themselves to a quiet evening of reading or sitting on the deck at the lake house, but undeniably entertaining.

Like most King Diamond albums, this one is heavily thematic, playing out more like a horror story than a metal album. The basic story of “Abigail” is that a young couple move into a haunted house belonging to the husband’s family, only to have the wife possessed by the spirit of a stillborn child whose corpse is in the basement. There are good ghosts, guardian ghosts, evil ghosts. There are prophecies, portents and flashbacks and a lot of people getting pushed down the stairs to their deaths. Hilarity ensures. In the end there is a possessed baby that eats its former body.

There are a lot of characters in this music and most of them have speaking parts, so you might expect multiple vocalists, but no! King Diamond takes on all the roles, his high theatrical vocals ranging from creepy Alice Cooper through to the shriek of a terrified girl. I imagine on stage he just sings in one direction in one voice and then sings in the other direction to respond. He’s a one man dramatis personae, with a metal band providing the soundtrack.

Fortunately there are a few moments here that are just too great to deny. The title track is a powerful riff-driven piece of fury, with a strange organ solo thrown into the middle of it, and King Diamond himself singing a duet between the husband and the ghost of the baby. It should not work but…it kinda does.

Lyrically all is sacrificed in service to the above noted story. This music could have used a bit more metaphor, or maybe just more chorus, but instead they go all in for narrative. Consider this section from “the Family Ghost”

"Beware of the slippery stairs

You could easily fall and break your neck

Hand me that torch and I will lead the way

To the secret in the dark

Take a look into the vault, the Vault

The sarcophagus...of a child

Abigail has been in here for years and years

stillborn", Born...Born...Born”

It’s an imaginative tale, but not an imaginative telling of it.

Yet for all this batshit craziness, King Diamond draws you in. The lead singer just won’t be denied and seems completely unaware of how nuts it all is. As a result, he gives the whole thing a weird internal logic. This record is overblown, excessive, darkly hilarious and desperately in need of a more disciplined producer, but damn it if it isn’t also a whole lot of fun.

Best tracks: Arrival, Abigail, Black Horsemen

CD Odyssey Disc 1092: Bonnie Prince Billy

Welcome back, gentle readers! Let’s get right to the review, shall we?

Disc 1092 is…I See a Darkness

Artist: Bonnie Prince Billy

Year of Release: 1999

What’s up with the Cover? If you think this cover lacks cheer, wait until you hear the record.

How I Came To Know It: After being introduced to Bonnie Prince Billy I was quickly drawn to this record because it had “I See a Darkness” on it, which I knew from Johnny Cash’s cover on “American III: Solitary Man” (reviewed back at Disc 687).

How It Stacks Up:  I have four Bonnie Prince Billy albums. Of those four, I put “I See A Darkness in at third best.

Ratings: 3 stars

When an album has songs with titles like “Another Day Full of Dread” and “Death to Everyone” you shouldn’t be looking for an up-tempo joy-fest, but on “I See A Darkness” indie folk rocker Bonnie Prince Billy takes somber to a whole new level.

This is a sad, quiet record, and while there are moments of triumph, they are fleeting and spring primarily from the recognition that the world is a rough place, and we might as well celebrate while we can.

The opening track “A Minor Place” is about as upbeat as the Bonnie Prince (real name: Will Oldham) manages. It has such uplifting lines as:

“The scars of last year’s storm

Rest like maggots on my arm.”

If you were an optimist (I am) you’d note that maggots help clean a wound, so that’s…er…good news. The song is a pretty little melody where Oldham expresses that while he’s going to approach the next 38 minutes of music from a dark perspective, it’s home for him, and gives him comfort. Like the rest of the album, there is a deep frailty in the song, but at least Oldham is celebrating something.

Later on “Death to Everyone”, Oldham is pleased to note that this will in fact happen to us all. But before he gets to the punch line, Oldham describes the world’s worst date. On it people watch each other age, balls burn and the lady wears black and possibly only one shoe (also black). It is all worth it, though because:

“Death to everyone

Is gonna come

And it makes hosing

Much more fun.”

If you’re not familiar with the term ‘hosing’ the song seems to imply a couple of meanings – one related to getting drunk and the other to having sex. When Oldham is not singing about death, there is a good chance he’s singing about sex so let’s cover all the bases and go with drunken sex. Oldham’s main point is that sex is a lot better when you know you’re going to have a finite amount of it. You know, because…death.

All of “I See A Darkness’” celebrations are the darkest possible. Like the woman’s clothes in “Death to Everyone” the album’s predominant colour is black, as is the mood. Oldham wants us to get as still as possible, contemplate the foreboding terror of that stillness, and then emerge a little bit wiser. I’m not sure he needs the wisdom part so much as he wants to establish a mood and see what happens next.

In support of that mood, the album is recorded in very muted tones. Occasionally the piano will jangle a bit, or your ear will catch a clever chord change but the main impact is for the record to sound like it is being sung from a distance and through ten layers of cheesecloth. Black cheesecloth.

I expect if you were feeling morose and ready to curl up all alone with a glass of pinot noir and contemplate your sad fate this might be a strange kind of fun, but I found the incredible quietness made it hard to hear the music at all. I played this album at about 25% higher volume than I usually do and I still had a hard time. Given this album came out in 1999 I could’ve used just a little of all that excess loudness that pop and metal artists were throwing around the studio at the time.

I know all that quietness is supposed to draw me in, quiet my mind and let me see the beauty unfurl. However, for every time it succeeded, another time it would annoy me because I wanted to hear the song more clearly. Also, to create additional discord a lot of the songs have echoing vocals coming in just before or just after Oldham sings. I think it was designed to generate anxiety or heighten tension, but it just felt awkward and ill-timed.

As for the title track, it is a masterpiece of self-doubt, with a half-prayer at the end which calls for a better life ahead, but doesn’t promise it will happen. I prefer the Johnny Cash cover, but hearing Oldham’s frail high voice deliver it also had appeal.

Something tells me that “I See A Darkness” is a critical darling, but I think it overshadows other efforts from Bonnie Prince Billy that are just as thoughtful and much more listenable. If you are a huge fan of BPB, then you already know this record and are probably mad that I didn’t rave about how great it is. If you are not yet a huge fan, start with “Ease Down the Road” or “Palace Music” instead.

Best tracks: A Minor Place, Nomadic Revery (All Around), I See A Darkness

CD Odyssey Disc 1091: The Growlers

It felt like I hadn’t had a musical discovery, but this week I had a breakthrough with late eighties/early nineties rapper Big Daddy Kane. I bought two of his albums on the weekend and I’m looking forward to exploring his music even further.

This next album is a far cry from rap, but it is another “new to me” album – a band I discovered last year but I’m pretty excited about.

Disc 1091 is…Chinese Fountain

Artist: The Growlers

Year of Release: 2014

What’s up with the Cover? Chinatown neon in all its splendor! I don’t read Chinese but my guess would be that the characters in the lower right spell out “Chinese Fountain.”

How I Came To Know It: Last year when Sheila and I were planning our trip to San Francisco, I checked to see if there were any bands in town we might want to see while we were there. Nobody I knew was playing, so I started investigating the bands that were playing. The Growlers stuck out immediately and I went to buy tickets but…all three of their shows were sold out. I kept searching and ended up with the Francis Luke Accord (reviewed back at Disc 1051).

While I never got to see the Growlers live, I did get hooked on their sound, and bought their new release “City Club” before we left for our trip anyway. I couldn’t find “Chinese Fountain” until I went to Amoeba Records during our trip to San Francisco, and there it was! There is some beautiful symmetry to that.

How It Stacks Up:  I have two Growlers albums and if you’re paying attention you know which two. Of those “Chinese Fountain” is the best.

Ratings: 4 stars

Listening to “Chinese Fountain” it was easy to see why the Growlers have built an audience so loyal they sold out three straight nights in San Francisco.

It is refreshing when a band can draw on multiple musical influences and blend them into something new and powerful. The Growlers are a blend of echoing surfer guitar, eighties Goth music with a pinch of sixties doo wop and seventies disco thrown in for added flavour. Think Dick Dale crossed with the Cure and you’ll be close. The band’s followers call this “Beach Goth” and that’s as good a description as any.

Whatever you call it, “Chinese Fountain” is my favourite of their albums. On it, the Growlers manage to mix the ‘warm bath’ quality of surfer music with lilting melodies that add a nice swell and dip to the ride. You can take this album lying down, floating in the ambience, or you can catch the wave and aggressively ride the tune into shore. Either way, you’ll have a good time.

Singer Brooks Nielsen’s vocals have a bit of a 60s crooner quality, with a head voice that has a lot of natural resonance and verve. It feels skeevy and romantic in equal measure. The crooner elements are so pronounced that on “Rare Hearts” I had to check the liner notes to be sure it wasn’t a cover (n.b. – it wasn’t: all the tracks on “Chinese Fountain” are Growlers originals).

When the band gets their surf guitar going it is equally compelling. On “Going Gets Tough” the tone of Matt Taylor’s guitar is rich and relaxed. His playing is sublime; a combination of laid back seemingly-effortless groove with a restless energy lurking in the background. The tunes are well structured and give equal billing to everyone in the band, letting you focus in on bass, vocals, drums or guitar with equal ease, although you’ll want to give Taylor’s careless brilliance special attention.

Into this mix of updated surfer rock, “Chinese Fountain” throws in a dark romanticism that reminds you of the Cure. There is an ambient, echoing quality to the sound, with lyrics that are dark and heart-worn.

Then, when you think you’ve got their sound categorized in your mind, along comes the title track, which feels like Blondie in their disco phase, blending dance club beats and New Wave jump. This song is catchy as hell and ought to have been a hit in any sane world. Sadly, when it comes to hit making the world is far from sane. The song is a dystopian view of the music industry, a song that borrows what has come before, while acknowledging there is an inherent emptiness in that process:  

“We are the miners of another generation

Hills scraped dry with no choice but be creative

Everybody’s sick and tired of waiting

Couldn’t get any harder to be patient

Is techno so shitty even disco seems punk

Like the water so filthy it’s no wonder why we’re drunk.”

Rarely is hipsterism so self-aware of its own faults, and the clever recognition that they have made a disco beat dangerous, and wondering – at their own expense – if it was all worth it. When you make a song this good, all is forgiven. And to answer your question, Growlers, yes – techno is that shitty.

What isn’t shitty is “Chinese Fountain” which is an atmospheric groove-fest that shows that there is still gold in the hills around San Francisco, if you’re willing to apply new treatments to find it.

Best tracks: Big Toe, Black Memories, Chinese Fountain, Going Gets Tough, Love Test, Not the Man 

CD Odyssey Disc 1090: Rush

I’ve gone with a couple obvious New Year’s resolutions this year: work out more and read more books. I read 33 books last year, so that’s on track but I seriously need to hit the gym more often than I did in 2017.

Disc 1090 is…Moving Pictures

Artist: Rush

Year of Release: 1981

What’s up with the Cover? A bunch of guys move pictures – get it? Here we have the very emotional scenes of Joan of Arc being burned at the stake and some dogs playing poker. You decide which one moves you more. I would be a lot more moved by cats playing poker but that would never happen, because any cat whose stack got low would throw the rules to the wind and shiv the chip leader. Cats are like that.

How I Came To Know It: This is one of those seminal albums that has always been a part of my life. I’ve known this album so long I can’t remember where I first heard it, although it’s likely my brother bought it first back when it came out.

How It Stacks Up:  I have 19 Rush albums. Of those I put “Moving Pictures” in at the hallowed spot of #1. Gold! Sorry, 2112 apologists!

Ratings: 5 stars

On “Moving Pictures” Rush hits on all cylinders, coalescing rock riffs from their early albums, add in the progressive complexity of their mid to late seventies stuff, and hinting at the synth sounds that would shortly follow. Not only do they successful pull it off, they make one of rock and roll’s finest albums in the process.

The record starts with “Tom Sawyer” a churning rock anthem blended with an almost New Wave synth undercurrent. It would become arguably their biggest hit – this is Rush’s “Don’t Fear the Reaper”, their “Werewolves of London” – the song that would catapult them full force into the mainstream consciousness and enrage purists who want radio stations to play something else once in a while. According to Wikipedia “Limelight” was a bigger hit (more on that song later) but for me, when you ask a casual Rush fan to name a song they tend to go with “Tom Sawyer.” There is a lot to like about it, too, but on an album like “Moving Pictures” it is just one of many great songs.

Every song on this album speaks to me in a different way, sometimes musically, sometimes through the lyrics and usually a lot of both. Rush are masters at crafting music to evoke complex emotions and concepts, and drummer/lyricist Neal Peart is equally masterful at providing words that match that level of excellence.

“Red Barchetta” is a near-future song about the thrill of driving a muscle car in an era where they are outlawed. It tells the story of a young man visiting his uncle, taking the “red barchetta” out for a spin (basically a two-seater open performance car) and leading local authorities on a merry car chase (cars being outlawed since the “motor laws”). The song lifts you through every emotion – the pastoral beauty of the uncle’s rural property, the wild exhilaration of the race, and the eventual return of the car back to its hidden lair.

Every time I take “Moving Pictures” for a drive, “Red Barchetta” has a new set of memories for me. Ten years ago I did a CD Odyssey (which was a lot quicker, because I had a lot fewer albums and didn’t review them). I called my friend and Rush-devotee Kelly from my car to share the moment “Red Barchetta” came on. Last year I had an engaging discussion with indie rocker Trapper Schoepp after a concert about this song and a similarly-themed song that he wrote called "Run, Engine Run". I’ve also been on the look for a dream classic car for about 18 months now. Walking home listening to “Red Barchetta” made me want the search completed so bad it hurt.

The next song, “YYZ” is a lyric-free musical homage to Toronto International Airport. I challenge you to listen to the frenetic, triumphant stop-and-go excitement of this song and not think about a busy airport.

The best song on the record is “Limelight.” I cannot hear this song and not exclaim to someone nearby that it is the “most honest song ever written about the relationship between a band and their fans.” Peart is famously introverted and routinely shies away from the trappings of fame. “Limelight” is his opus to the complex relationship he has with the fans, the music, himself and how it all interacts. He admits that he “can’t pretend a stranger is a long awaited friend” and that “one must put up barriers to keep himself intact” but even amid the hell that Sartre called “other people”, Peart digs deeper and finds a fundamental connection that he can call real. In his words:

“Those who wish to be

Must put aside the alienation

Get on with the fascination

The real relation

The underlying theme.”

There in the music – and nowhere else – there is a real connection. The melody alternates between triumph, wistfulness and a hint of otherworldly guitar solo that borders on the mystical. It also features some of the greatest drum work in the history of rock and roll by a clearly inspired Neal Peart.

The album ends with “Vital Signs,” a song full of complex musical concepts and big words used correctly, mixed with explorations of psychology, philosophy and the complexities of human interaction. This is Rush demonstrating their proggy-brilliance. Best line:

“Everybody got mixed feelings

About the function and the form

Everybody got to elevate

From the norm.”

On “Moving Pictures” Rush doesn’t just elevate us from the norm, they lift their listeners along with them in a complex compelling way that is respectful, thoughtful and powerful as hell.

Best tracks: All tracks, but particularly Red Barchetta, Limelight, Witch Hunt and Vital Signs

CD Odyssey Disc 1089: Volume 10

Last week I reviewed a modern rap artist that deserves more recognition. Today we visit a classic rap artist who deserves the same.

Disc 1089 is…Hip Hopera

Artist: Volume 10

Year of Release: 1994

What’s up with the Cover? This cover answers the age-old question, “what if the Incredible Hulk got into rap?” He is still plenty angry about whatever the Incredible Hulk is angry about (unable to find pants that fit?) but now he takes that rage out in the form of furious rhymes rather than smashing stuff.

How I Came To Know It: Shortly after Rage Against the Machine released their amazing 2000 album “Renegades” (reviewed back at Disc 377) my buddy Spence went out and sourced the original versions of all of the songs on the album (“Renegades” is entirely composed of covers).

One of those songs was the original “Pistol Grip Pump” by Volume 10. It was one of my favourites (both the original and the cover) and I started searching for the album it appeared on. Little did I know how hard the search would be. This record is exceedingly rare. Used copies never seemed to show up in music stores (and I searched in every one, almost every week, for well over a decade). Buying a used copy on Amazon would have set me back over $100 and in more recent years it is simply listed as “unavailable.”

I’d almost given up hope when Sheila and I took a trip to San Francisco last September and went to Amoeba Records – a massive sprawling music store at the western edge of the Haight Asbury district. I brought my usual list of rarities to search through the stacks and sent a partially bored Sheila off to the rap section with a list of a few albums most of which I doubted she’d find – “Hip Hopera” among them. Lo and behold, Sheila and Amoeba came through. Not only was there a copy of the album, it was only $10. Now, after more than 15 years of searching, it is finally mine.

How It Stacks Up:  Over twenty years Volume 10 has only released five albums, and “Hip Hopera” is the only one I have, so it can’t really stack up. I think over the years I’ve investigated others and they weren’t as good, but it might be time to revisit them, newly inspired by my successful find.

Ratings: 3 stars but almost 4

“Hip Hopera” is uneven overall, but the combination of rapper Volume 10’s charismatic delivery and four or five truly great tracks make it very easy to forgive its relatively minor faults.

If you haven’t heard of Los Angeles rapper Volume 10 (real name Dino Hawkins), you wouldn’t be alone. “Pistol Grip Pump” was a very minor underground hit (not even cracking the top 50), and that’s about it. Hearing “Hip Hopera” that lack of recognition felt more than a little surprising. The rhymes on this album aren’t incredibly innovative, but they are solid, and the beats are funky as hell. Volume 10 has a smooth, compelling flow that is so effortless he seems to look for ways to make it harder on himself. He changes up his phrasing from one line to the next, even doing so to the hook of each song. His delivery is a mix of funny voices and deadly serious Chuck D type slams. He is clearly having fun, but never lets all that fun detract from being hard core.

As a result the album comes off a lot like a party. Sometimes it is the early stages of the party, where everyone is being silly, and sometimes it is later when things get a little strange, but it is always a party. Even though the individual songs are uneven, you’ll find yourself having a good time start to finish.

The album is anchored by a few tracks that are brilliant, and fairly evenly spread out (tracks 2, 4, 7, 10 and 15 to be precise). This helps ensure the energy gets restored any time it starts to flag.

Volume 10 is at his best when his beats are hitting hard. “Pistolgrip Pump” drops a heavy bass line that is thick with danger as 10 extolls the virtue of having a shotgun when making your way through a dangerous neighbourhood. “Knockoutchaskull” (yes that is one word) is similarly violent and threatening and while not a positive message for today’s youth it is really hard not to sing along to the angry specifics of:

“I’ll knockoutchaskull

What is left? Nothing but skin danglin’!”

Volume 10 is not all about the gangsta rap, though, and the title track and “Flow Wood” are both exemplary songs in the tradition of “I can rap better than you.” “Hip Hopera” really pushes its luck, with two false endings: the first to take a hit from the bong and the second…for no apparent reason but so awesome you don’t care. I haven’t had a false ending this fun since ACDC’s “Problem Child” never mind two of them. The song’s chorus suggests over and over again that “you can’t fuck with this hip-hopera” but Volume 10 proves he can do just that and make it better in the process.

Unfortunately, the album is not sufficiently focused around these rap gems. 17 tracks is just too many tracks, even if three of them are just skits. Why rap albums of this era feel the need to throw skits into their albums is beyond me. I know it is part of early rap, but at best it bloats an already long album, and at worst it blunts the momentum of the music.

The album is exceptional at establishing powerful beats, with a bit of jazz around the edges, but not enough to blunt the groove, but there were times I wanted more out of the rhymes. Volume 10’s charisma and delivery is so amazing you overlook these flaws because it is just too much fun listening to him perform.

If you ever get lucky to see this rare-as-hell album in a music store do not hesitate; buy it then and there. It may not be perfect, but it has some of the best rap songs you’ve never heard of and you aren’t going to find it again for a very long time.

Best tracks: Where’s the Sniper?, Pistolgrip Pump, Hip Hopera, Knockoutchaskull, Flow Wood

CD Odyssey Disc 1088: Jason Isbell

2017 was a successful year in music. I bought 41 albums released last year, and so far I’ve reviewed 11. Two didn’t make the cut and have since departed the collection. 

I spent the holidays reading other people’s top ten lists thinking I could do better. So here is my Top 10 list out of those 41 albums, and probably another 50 or so that I gave a cursory listen to but didn’t impress me sufficiently for me to add them to the collection.

10.  Joan Shelley – Joan Shelley

9.  Secret Sisters – You Don’t Own Me Anymore

8.  Sera Cahoone – From Where I Started

7.  Mountain Goats – Goths (Reviewed at Disc 1043)

6.  Sheer Mag – Need To Feel Your Love

5.  Run the Jewels – Run the Jewels 3

4.  Dori Freeman – Letters Never Read

3.  St. Vincent – Masseduction

2.  Conor Oberst – Salutations

1.  Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit – The Nashville Sound (Reviewed at Disc 1050)

Honourable mention: Beck – Colors, Courtney Barnett and Kurt Vile – Lotta Sea Lice, Margo Price – All American Made, Torres – Three Futures

Anyone who says no one is making good music these days should go listen to those 10 albums and prove themselves wrong.

Disc 1088 is…Something More Than Free

Artist: Jason Isbell

Year of Release: 2015

What’s up with the Cover? A Giant Head cover leans awkwardly out of frame. Some kind of flower gets equal billing.

How I Came To Know It: This album was my introduction to Jason Isbell, after I read a review a couple years ago. Since then I’ve gone on to buy three more Isbell records. This was also my gateway into Isbell’s former band, the Drive-By Truckers, so it was a pretty successful musical discovery.

How It Stacks Up:  I have four Jason Isbell albums. “The Nashville Sound” is the best (see “best of 2017” list above). 2013’s “Southeastern” puts in a solid argument it should be second but I’ll give the edge to “Something More Than Free”.

Ratings: 4 stars

Compared to other Jason Isbell albums, “Something More than Free” is practically jaunty, but don’t be fooled; the album is as serious and contemplative as any of Isbell’s other efforts. If anything, the catchy anthems on the record just make its explorations of the human condition that much more effective at sneaking up on you.

Isbell’s previous effort, “Southeastern” is a thick and moody blend of folk, rock and country and there are many songs on “Something More Than Free” that follow that formula again with solid results. Isbell is an accomplished guitar player who can lay down a mournful blues-rock riff and an evocative strum with equal grace.

Here he adds pop elements that lift the musical tone of the record in places. This doesn’t detract from his brilliant songwriting, but instead bring more dynamic range to the record. In fact, the album’s two most pop-oriented songs, “24 Frames” and “Something More Than Free” are what initially drew my interest. These are songs that on a very surface level could be mistaken for empty Nashville Nu-Country, but it only takes a couple of verses to demonstrate that Isbell is digging deeper, both lyrically and musically.

On the title track Isbell takes good ole boy working man blues and manly-man topics and blends them with subtle irony that makes it clear that all that hard work, old time religion and clean livin’ are much more complicated than they seem. The character in the song feels “just lucky to have the work” but as an audience we bear witness to the terrible toll a lifetime of subsistence living takes on a man. Isbell manages to create a nuanced mixture of admiration for the working man, and criticism of the system that grinds him down.

Isbell is the master of creative love songs and this record’s entry is “Flagship.” Here Isbell pleads to his lover to not let the magic of their love fade as years pass. The song features an allusion to Springsteen’s “Racing in the Streets” – a song where love has faded over the years – and vows to not fall into the same trap. The Springsteen song laments:

“I met her on the strip three years ago
In a Camaro with this dude from L.A.
I blew that Camaro off my back and drove that little girl away
But now there's wrinkles around my baby's eyes
And she cries herself to sleep at night
When I come home the house is dark
She sighs "Baby did you make it all right"
She sits on the porch of her daddy's house
But all her pretty dreams are torn
She stares off alone into the night
With the eyes of one who hates for just being born
For all the shut down strangers and hot rod angels
Rumbling through this promised land
Tonight my baby and me we're gonna ride to the sea
And wash these sins off our hands”

And on “Flagship” Isbell puts his own spin on the story with:

“Then I see you in that summer when we met
And that boy you left in tears in his Corvette
Baby let's not ever get that way
I'll drive you to the ocean every day.

We'll stay up in the presidential suite
And call ourselves the flagship of the fleet.”

The song shows an appreciation of musical history as Isbell reimagines the story in a way that both honours the source material and adds a fresh twist to the lesson within it. And if you noticed the switch of car models it is worth noting that the Corvette is considered one of Chevrolet’s “flagship” vehicles.

Isbell’s songwriting talents frequently make me think of Bruce Springsteen or Steve Earle, with his ability to evoke powerful emotions out of very specific small-town imagery. On the brilliant “Speed Trap Town” he evokes the restless trapped feeling of a man confronting the imminent death of his father, but lines like...

“It’s a Thursday night but there’s a high school game

Sneak a bottle up the bleachers and forget my name

These 5-A bastards run a shallow cross

It’s a boy’s last dream and a man’s first loss”

...set the mood of those events through specific, grounded imagery that set the emotional backdrop far more effectively than any obvious bedside hospital scene could manage.

The album is book-ended by songs about being on the road. “If It Takes a Lifetime” about how you lose yourself out there (best line: “I thought the highway loved me/but she beat me like a drum”) and “To A Band I Loved” where Isbell reminds himself how as a young man he was inspired by seeing a band and now he is out there every night, weary and beaten like a drum, but hopefully inspiring those that will come after him.

It is a quiet acceptance of the sacrifices we make, whether for life or art, and how those sacrifices matter. It is a subtle blend of admitting and absorbing frailty and trusting it will make you stronger.

The only issue I have with this album is that in the two years since I bought it I’ve played the living hell out of it. Fortunately, it inspired so many other amazing Isbell purchases I can now safely rotate them without overdoing it.

Best tracks: If It Takes a Lifetime, 24 Frames, Flagship, Something More Than Free, Speed Trap Town, To a Band That I Loved