CD Odyssey Disc 463: Blue Oyster Cult

Back when I worked sorting bottles at a recycling depot we used to listen to a radio station that had what they called "a house band’ which was basically their adoptive band; first in their hearts and frequently played.  This next band is my ‘house band.’  As this blog attests, I like a lot of different kinds of music, but few are as close to my heart as these guys.

Disc 463 is…Agents of Fortune

Artist: Blue Oyster Cult

Year of Release: 1976

What’s up with the Cover?  This cover is awesome – so awesome I spent fifteen minutes just looking up the artist (Lynn Curlee) who still has a studio in New York City. 

It looks like some sort of cross between the Men in Black, a fortune teller and a Vegas blackjack dealer shows four of his finest cards.  All the while, the dealer is giving the coolest of one finger points down low, subtly drawing your attention to the Blue Oyster Cult symbol that is always featured somewhere on BOC covers.  When I was a kid my older brother Virgil would make a game of taking out his Blue Oyster Cult LPs and getting me to find all the BOC symbols on the cover of each.  No wonder BOC is my house band.

Speaking of Virgil, I’ve always thought this guy looked a lot like him, except that my brother has worn a tuxedo exactly never (I think he once put on a tie for one of his best friend’s weddings.  He’s more the outdoorsy type.

How I Came To Know It:  If you’ve been reading along you’ll deduce that I’ve known this album since I was a kid.  My brother bought it when it came out (I was six, he was thirteen) and I’ve been listening to it ever since.  Admittedly the other kids in Grade One did not know what I was going on about, but I was pretty certain this was cooler than Sean Cassidy and Donnie Osmond.  I think time has proved me right.

How It Stacks Up:  I have eleven studio albums by BOC, which is everything up to Imaginos (as well as three live albums).  “Agents of Fortune” is awesome, but competition is fierce at the top.  I’ll put it solidly in 5^th place, just edging out “Cultosaurus Erectus” (reviewed back at Disc 206).

Rating:  4 stars

After three albums of dark progressive rock, “Agents of Fortune” draws Blue Oyster Cult down a slightly different path, as they incorporate pop and jazz elements into their work.  It is a departure that not all early fans liked, but I think it works fabulously.

The great hit that has sadly overshadowed this album is “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper,” which despite being played with great consistency on the radio for over thirty five years, is as fresh today as it ever was.  You could release that song for the first time ever tomorrow and it would still be an instant classic.  However, I’d prefer to focus on some of the songs readers may not know (likely most of them, if you are not a BOC junkie).

“E.T.I.” is one of the finest rock riffs ever written; a song that grabs you by your tender parts with its first notes and never lets go.  Sure, the topic is some strange encounter with a spaceship (that may or may not have some kind of elder gods or demons onboard – I’m never certain).  That’s just Blue Oyster Cult.  They’re not content to write a kick ass riff and then waste it on such obvious topics of love, death or rock and roll.  If it doesn’t feature a King in Yellow and a Queen in Red it isn’t finished yet – and all the better if you’re not sure who the hell these people(?) are.  Did I mention this is one of the finest rock riffs ever written?  If you don’t like the weirdness that accompanies it then feel free to ignore that part, but I challenge you not to bob your head until your (hopefully) long hair falls in front of your face.

One of my great loves about Blue Oyster Cult is that they are truly a band.  No instrument – not vocals, not guitar, not horn – dominates over any other.  Everything gets a fair shake in the mix, and this in turn allows you to really appreciate how all the parts come together.

Sometimes this means genius guitar playing by Buck Dharma doesn’t get the attention it deserves, but that just makes me like him more as the most unassuming axe-god in rock and roll.  When he does get a tasteful minute or two of guitar solo, such as on “Sinful Love” he reminds you of how great he is, the greater that he knows just when to say when.

Pop elements emerge on songs like “True Confessions” which with its jangly piano and sparse arrangement sounds more like a fifties hit.  Around this time Blue Oyster Cult starts to show their musical roots, and that they no doubt grew up with: Bill Haley, doo-wop and Buddy Holly.  On “True Confessions” Buck even shares his guitar solo time with a horn section.

“Debbie Denise” is a straight ahead pop song, about a girl who waits patiently for her musician boyfriend to come home.  She waits by the window for her man to come home – first patiently, later bitterly – but the singer advises ‘I was out rolling with my band” and not coming home.  Set to piano and cymbals, and sung at times in falsetto (I think by Dharma, who also has good rock chops), this song kicks the crap out of much more famous songs on the subject, like Kiss’ “Beth.”

Despite these dalliances, there is still plenty of prog to go around, particularly on songs like “Tattoo Vampire” and “Tenderloin.” Both songs are about the seedy side of rock and roll.  “Tattoo Vampire” is about visiting a Chinese tattoo parlour.  It starts with a beat that sounds like someone shaking a box of cards before launching into a catchy blues riff.  However, this being Blue Oyster Cult it quickly fades into yet another brilliant Buck Dharma guitar piece, weird and roomy with the hint of Allen Lanier’s keyboards in the background reminding you that in 1976 visiting a tattoo parlour was still a wild, dangerous and edgy thing to do.

“Tenderloin” is more like a beefed up jazz riff, trilling synthesizer and guitar setting the stage for an all-night party that only ends when the drugs runs out.  No sooner does Eric Bloom sing:

“I come to you in a blue, blue room

By some abuse and some heart

You raise the blinds say

‘Let’s have light on life

Let’s watch it fall apart.”

That the music follows suit, with the song descends into a weird jazz odyssey that – despite all the careful effort to pull it in different directions – is always at its core pure rock and roll.

Maybe the greatest testament to this album is that I’ve known it almost my entire life and I still love listening to it in its entirety.  Like most BOC albums, I also own it on vinyl, and when I put it on the turntable I’m never disappointed.  “Agents of Fortune” has great musicianship, a range of style and of song choice spread over a tastefully restrained ten tracks, and music that combines both the simple energy of rock and roll with complex nuances that appeal to an experienced listener.

Bonus Tracks:

 “Agents of Fortune” is one of four BOC albums that were remastered a few years ago and a few extra tracks were added to each.  I’m not always a fan of this, but the added tracks are far more interesting than usual.  Of the four, two are particularly interesting.

The first is the original 4-track demo of “(Don’t Fear) the Reaper,” which is known as the ‘no cowbell version’ for reasons I will let you deduce on your own.  Slightly slower, and all the more haunting for not having any extra production value, I like it almost as much as the one that was included on the original record.  Sheila even has both versions on her MP3 player.

The other cool track is a completely different version of the song “Fire of Unknown Origin” which would eventually appear on the 1981 classic album of the same name.  The lyrics are exactly the same, but the song is completely different.  Musically it is not a different version, but a completely different tune.  It is surprisingly good, and it amazes me with how completely unlike the original it is – opting for a weird and Lovecraftian minor chord structure over the more rock approach the final version ends up with.

The other two bonus tracks aren’t as good.  “Sally” is a bit of strange sixties throwback, and “Dance the Night Away” is a fairly atrocious demo by Allen Lanier that was fortunately never originally included on a studio album in any form.

I prefer bonus tracks on a separate disc, but these ones I can live with, and even enjoy.  Also, it would take a really bad four song selection to wreck the excellence that comes before.

Best tracks:  (Don’t Fear) The Reaper (both versions), E.T.I. (Extra Terrestrial Intelligence), Sinful Love, Morning Final, Tenderloin, Debbie Denise

CD Odyssey Disc 462: Broken Bells

I’m feeling very much in the holiday spirit this week, by which I mean I’d like the holiday season to begin.

I could have reviewed this album yesterday, but I wanted to get a couple listens under my belt.  I hear this album a fair bit in the house (it is a Sheila mainstay) but it is often on shuffle with other music and I wanted to grok it in its fullness as a complete album instead.

Disc 462 is… Broken Bells (Self-Titled) 

Artist: Broken Bells

Year of Release: 2010

What’s up with the Cover?  I have no idea.  Some sort of pink geometric shape, or maybe a microscopic space ship flying through Inner Space (hence the open port in the top left).  It also reminds me of a paper lantern without a proper candle.

How I Came To Know It:  Sheila is a big Shins fan, and I believe she got wind of this spin off project of James Mercer teaming up with Danger Mouse.  I think she heard it on the radio, of all places.

How It Stacks Up:  This is the only Broken Bells album.  In terms of Mercer’s other work, it holds its own with his Shins catalogue, which is saying something.

Rating:  4 stars

Over the weekend I went to my first after-hours party in a while.  Despite good company, I didn’t stay long and the biggest reason was I simply couldn’t figure out how to dance to the music the kids are playing these days (dubstep?).  Those who like it must have their reasons, but for me it just doesn’t have any dynamics or melody to get my limbs moving.  Every time I thought it was about to launch into something interesting it would just subside into that slow, directionless beat forcing me to shuffle along, rather than cut a rug.

Music by James Mercer does not suffer from this lack of direction.  He always has beautiful melodies, although his work with the Shins trends toward the folksy side of pop.  That is where collaborator Danger Mouse comes in on “Broken Bells” giving Mercer’s melodies a nice hip hop groove that infuses them with a disco-like energy.

The result sounds like a cross-breeding of the Shins with the Gorillaz.  This is not surprising given that Danger Mouse also produced my favourite Gorillaz album (2005’s “Demon Days” reviewed way back at Disc 138).

Often drawn in by the Shins haunting lyrics, with Broken Bells I found myself rarely trying to pay attention to the words of the songs.  Even when I lent an effort to doing so, searching for something good to quote for the blog, I was quickly led off of my intent and back to just listening to Mercer’s voice as another instrument, carrying melody over top of the natural groove of the song.

This is not a complaint, either.  This is one smooth record.  In addition to great songwriting, it makes very judicious production and arrangement decisions throughout.  Backup vocals often come in mid-bar, sometimes supporting the chorus, sometimes just a mood-establishing hum.  Danger Mouse knows when a piano is called for, when to go with guitar and when to go full electronica.  In every case the mix is a delicious soup of sound.

The album's opening track, "The High Road," begins with a jazz odyssey on what I think is the organ, but that quickly bounces into one of Mercer’s effortless melodies before too much harm is caused.  Danger Mouse wraps the production around Mercer’s genius like a blanket, shielding out the cold disconnect sometimes present in Shins songs.

“The Ghost Inside” has Mercer’s falsetto on full display, and with its urgent groove and synth-organ riff this song was that most uncommon thing; a radio hit that deserves to be as popular as it is.

Despite “Ghost Inside’s” success it is the album as a whole that casts a larger spell than any individual track.  There is a natural and consistent flow that draws you in, and before you know it it’s over and you’re back to track one pressing replay, wondering where one song ended and another began.  The singles stand out less, principally because of the solidly high standard of the music throughout.  Does it lack a small bit of range as a result?  Yes, but if there were more peaks and valleys it would actually detract from the mood it establishes.  Note to techno: this is proof that you can have this effect and not be boring in the process.

It is no accident that “Broken Bells” only has ten songs, none of which are over four and a half minutes.  In 2010 this type of studio restraint is admirable.  A record is like any work of art; it should be only as complex as it needs to be to tell its story and no longer.  Broken Bells gets this formula right.  I wish more artists were equally judicious in their song choices.

I feel like a lot of what Mercer learned from this record went into the new Shins album “Port of Morrow” and I’m glad that it did.  “Broken Bells” proves that there is still good pop music being made that is both danceable and intelligently composed.  Occasionally, this good music even bubbles up onto mainstream radio. 

Best tracks:  The High Road, Your Head is On Fire, The Ghost Inside, Trap Doors, The Mall and Misery

CD Odyssey Disc 461: Judas Priest

Yesterday I spent the day running errands and listening to this album the old fashioned way; in my car at high volume.  Errands included buying vacuum cleaner bags, dropping off some documents for my strata and doing some banking.  It would seem that adulthood has snuck up on me.

Fortunately, I spent today putting some themed playlists together and generally goofing off.  Thank goodness there will always be music to keep me young.

Disc 461 is… Sad Wings of Destiny

Artist: Judas Priest

Year of Release: 1976

What’s up with the Cover?  This is one of my favourite album covers in all of my collection; certainly top five in terms of heavy metal albums.  An angel falls into hell, seemingly weighed down by that Judas Priest necklace it is wearing.  Unlike the INXS album cover I just reviewed, if I were fifteen I would totally put this poster on my wall.  The colours even match my bedroom now.  Now how to convince Sheila this is a good idea…

How I Came To Know It:  I’ve been a Judas Priest fan since I was a teenager, but only in the last few years did my interest rekindle, largely at the urging of my buddy Ross.  This particular album I bought a bit later, maybe in the last three or four years, and it is just me drilling through their earlier records.

How It Stacks Up:  I have twelve Judas Priest albums.  “Sad Wings of Destiny” is pretty awesome but the competition is fierce at the top.  I’ll put this one about 7^th or 8^th best, depending on my mood.

Rating:  3 stars

Listening to early Judas Priest I am always impressed with how early they discovered the sound that later would become synonymous with eighties metal.  “Sad Wings of Destiny” dates back to 1976, and is a pioneer and harbinger of the heavy that would come to dominate the genre in later years.

At the same time, there are prog and even folk elements mixed in with the heavy, not unlike “Rocka Rolla,” (reviewed way back at Disc 41). I like the presence of both of these other influences, and I think they add an interesting range to the music.

The first track, “Victim of Changes” covers it all in one song.  It starts with a heavy metal riff that would’ve been massive ten years later, but in 1976 must have been like a bolt of thunder thrown by an angry god.  Midway through the song it shifts to a slower, folk-inspired song that sounds a little like Jethro Tull on steroids, before returning to the opening riff to close on a high note.

The rest of the record is good, but it never quite measures up to the greatness of “Victim of Changes.”  “The Ripper” is an up-tempo ditty about Jack the Ripper, told from the killer’s perspective, and has some fine guitar work soaring through it.  Rob Halford’s vocals are tempered down a bit into a more traditional staccato rock delivery, which lets the guitars speak.

The album then descends into a bit of a prog feel, with a series of songs (“Dreamer Deceiver”, “Deceiver”, “Prelude”) that seems to want to build a larger story but doesn’t quite take off.  It reminds me a bit of Blue Oyster Cult’s 1974 album “Secret Treaties” in that it is like half the album is held together by a concept, but the other half is populated with singles and one-offs.  “Secret Treaties” inherent greatness buoys this internal conflict much better, however, and on “Sad Wings of Destiny” I feel like the tension pulls the record apart in places, rather than helping drive it forward.

I do like Priest making an effort to sing about the wild and wacky things that populate hard rock in the seventies and eighties; mythical evil overlords, infernal beasts and historical killers.  In particular, I like “Tyrant” which sounds like something Blue Oyster Cult would’ve recorded on their first few albums.  This song also features some fine guitar riffs and solos – the dual leads of Glenn Tipton and K.K. Downing has always been a Priest strong suit.

The energy of the album is pulled down by the two interlude pieces, “Prelude” and “Epitaph” where Priest comes off as trying to match Queen’s signature sound and falling short.  However, that isn’t to say there isn’t energy.  Halford’s voice can put chills up the spine of a corpse, and apart from these two tracks the album is visceral and powerful.

This is a good album, and it doesn’t receive the credit it deserves from the mainstream. It is later overshadowed by some truly great albums from Judas Priest, but it holds its own and is as good as anything coming out of the hard rock scene in the mid-seventies, and that is saying something.

Best tracks:  Victim of Changes, The Ripper, Tyrant

CD Odyssey Disc 460: INXS

It’s been a wacky week so far.  On Sunday we lost our power and I had to help rescue a neighbour from the elevator who was trapped as a result.  After a couple fumbling efforts with a screwdriver I did what any red-blooded man would do; I called the fire department.  They had him out in about five minutes. 

Then it was three days of frantic work, so I could take Thursday and Friday off and enjoy a long weekend with friends.  I just finished the final redraft in my football pool, and now a torrent of social engagements now awaits, but first  – more music reviews!

My last review was of an album from 1980 that was firmly grounded musically in the 1970s.  Now I’ve rolled an album that is from 1990 but firmly grounded musically in the 1980s.

Disc 460 is… X

Artist: INXS

Year of Release: 1990

What’s up with the Cover?  A giant INXS logo, with a tiny bit of Michael Hutchence’s hair in one corner.  If you fold out this cover it is a very lame poster of the band which no doubt many a teenage girl put up on the walls of her room.  Mine shall remain safely in its jewel case.

How I Came To Know It:  I bought this album when it came out, at a time when I owned very few CDs (I only started buying CDs in 1989).  At that time I had limited money (i.e. I was broke) and I had to like at least three songs before I would consider buying an album.  “X” qualified.

How It Stacks Up:  In my last INXS review back at Disc 362 I only had three INXS albums, but I have since purchased a fourth (thanks to our friends Gord and Dawn, who were liquidating their collection).  Of the four, “X” is probably third best, just behind “Listen Like Thieves” which I reviewed back at Disc 292.

Rating:  3 stars

It isn’t a good sign when after listening to an album for three straight days you find you have less to say about it then when you started, but such is my plight approaching the review of INXS’ “X”.

Coming into the review of an album I’ve known for so long is strange.  I don’t remember buying it; like a very old chair it just seems to have always been in my house.  I think I purchased this album at a difficult time in my life and maybe I’ve blocked a lot of my early listening experience out as a result.  I definitely remember it having more emotional resonance back then.

Now I see it more clearly, which is as another solid entry into INXS’ unique style of eighties pop; although as I noted in the teaser, just slightly removed from the eighties.

The sound is definitely of its time, with heavy drum machine sounds, and proto-electronic bass licks.  The guitar is set back in the mix but that is just as well, since the star of INXS is and always will be Michael Hutchence.  He is the perfect eighties pop voice and he sings every song with gusto, making some pretty basic lyrics sound slightly more important just through force of will.

Case in point is “Faith in Each Other” which may have a groovy bass line, but is also a hot mess of saxophone, drum machine and what I think might be an ill-placed triangle.  Still, when Hutchence tells us to “have faith in each other”, he manages to shine more than a little meaning into the song through the thick glaze of unfortunate production.

Much better is the ballad, “By My Side,” one of my favourite INXS songs.  This is a song about longing, and how you can be surrounded by strangers and still just be thinking of the one person that isn’t there.  When Michael Hutchence sings about the small hours in the dark of night, he transports us there, even as he pines for someone else to join him.  This song is a fitting bookend to the more famous “Never Tear Us Apart” from the preceding album, “Kick.”  “Never Tear Us Apart” is a defiant song about cleaving together despite pressures to the contrary.  “By My Side” is a song featuring a much more intimate closeness, shrouded in night’s cloak, and held together by the tension of longing for connection, without ever quite achieving it.

The two big hits were the upbeat “Suicide Blonde” and “Disappear,” both great pop songs that were fun to dance to but without a lot to say about them beyond that.  I slightly prefer “Disappear”, mostly for the “doo du doo doo du doo doo” background vocals, matched with Hutchence in fine form singing just south of falsetto.  It’s kind of like Fine Young Cannibals, except enjoyable.

The last song worth mentioning is “Know the Difference” which I do remember being an important song when I was younger.  The lyric:

“What you do and what you say?

Do you know the difference anyway?”

Has always appealed to me.  Strangely, I always thought this was a song about the importance of honesty, but closer examination of the lyrics this time around shows it is really about pining for a girl that the singer can’t have, and resorting to belittling her reputation around town.  I guess I never really listened that carefully before.  Now it rings more like sour grapes and jealousy than an insight into hypocrisy.   

Because of a busy work schedule I’ve listened to this album many times over in the past three days, and I can definitively state it is good, but not great.  The songs are easy to listen to, but it isn’t challenging, and I was admittedly a little bored at times.  I’m in the mood for more of an active engagement to the music in my life, either through the music or the lyrics.  “X” just doesn’t have a lot to say, even though it says it very well.

Best tracks:  Suicide Blonde, Disappear, By My Side, Know the Difference

CD Odyssey Disc 459: Emmylou Harris

I am just back from brunch with a couple of friends (Nick and Ross) and a little CD shopping.  I can’t seem to stop getting new albums, even though I am behind in ‘listening time’.  Today’s purchases were K’Naan’s first album, “The Dusty Foot Philosopher” and Eddie Vedder’s “Ukulele Songs” which are in fact, ukulele songs.  I’ll talk about both when I roll them

For now it appears the Dice Gods would like me to stick with the folksy side of country, following up on Gordon Lightfoot with some Emmylou Harris.

Disc 459 is… Roses in the Snow

 Artist: Emmylou Harris

Year of Release: 1980

What’s up with the Cover?  Emmylou can make even that very unattractive seventies blouse look good.  Behind her are some woods or maybe a park, it’s hard to say and harder to care when Emmylou is in the foreground.

How I Came To Know It:  As I noted when I reviewed “Pieces of the Sky” back at Disc 417 I’ve known Emmylou since I was a kid, but it was a combination of getting her later album “Wrecking Ball” and hearing her voice on so many other artist’s albums that led me to start drilling through her collection.

And for the second review in a row a big shout out to Rhino music for doing such a beautiful job of repackaging and remastering all of Emmylou’s early classics so a new generation can appreciate them.

How It Stacks Up:  I have nine of Emmylou’s studio albums, plus a tenth where she shares top billing with Mark Knopfler.  I think of her career in two parts, and “Roses in the Snow” is the last of five albums I have of hers spanning 1975-1980.  Of those five I would put it third or fourth, and out of all nine probably fifth or sixth.

Rating:  3 stars but very close to 4

Emmylou Harris’ voice, so heavenly on its own, has an amazing quality to blend with and support anyone else fortunate enough to sing with her.  It is therefore hardly surprising that she would eventually make an album of bluegrass themed music with “Roses in the Snow.”

The opening and title track establishes the mood, with smooth Kentucky fiddle playing and banjo picking, and those sounds will carry through the entire record.  As with every Emmylou album I have from this early period, the musicianship on this record is absolutely incredible.  Harris’ husband and collaborator, Brian Ahern consistently pulls together the best the country, folk and bluegrass genres have to offer.  He then lets them excel in tight little songs where they selflessly settle down in the mix behind Emmylou’s vocals, taking centre stage when called on, but never showing off unless it serves the song.

The best example of this is on the album’s big hit, the traditional classic “Wayfaring Stranger.” Tiny half-solos of acoustic guitar, mandolin and dobro all work their way around Emmylou’s quavering but powerful voice.  And what a voice it is, as Emmylou shines on this song like she does on few others.  Just like the lyrics to the song, her voice is rough and steep, with the promise of beauteous fields just over the next rise.  I’m not sure how Emmylou is so able to sound both fragile and powerful at the same time; I suspect some sort of alchemy.

Bluegrass music being what it is, there are a lot of devotionals on “Roses in the Snow” all of which well rendered.  “Green Pastures” and “Jordan” are both strong examples of the genre, with high harmonies, and Emmylou first blending in to strengthen them, and occasionally capping the top with a high note no one else can hit.  When she does this it is the vocal equivalent of a ray of sunshine coming in over the top of the clouds after a light rainstorm.

Harris also tackles Simon and Garfunkel’s “The Boxer” putting a bluegrass spin on the arrangement.  It is a solid effort, although I found myself preferring the original.  Harris’ is good, but it is hard to follow on the perfection of the original.

My remastered version of the album also has a remake of Hank Williams’ “You’re Gonna Change” which I liked a lot more.  I think it rivals the original, which is saying something.  She hits the crazy high notes at the end of each stanza with a sharp keen that is just the right amount of imperfect to capture the tension of the ultimatum being delivered in the song.  Harris could easily make that last note more pure if she wanted to, but her decision to keep it just a bit rough is an example of her great instincts as a singer.

The only thing about the album that was a bit disappointing was how often Emmylou sings almost entire songs in harmonies, instead of solo.  The songs are written for that, but she is so strong I wanted to hear more of her.  Songs like “Darkest Hour is Just Before Dawn” would be that much better if it were just her on the chorus, and not having to share verses with Ricky Skaggs.  This isn’t a fault of the record, or even Ricky, but merely my personal taste.

The album ends with another bonus track not on the original vinyl:  “Root Like a Rose” which has a Celtic feel that made me wishing Emmylou did more in this style.  It starts off with a wistful penny whistle, the perfect offset to Emmylou’s voice singing about homesickness.

“Root Like a Rose” had me thinking of my last Gordon Lightfoot review and the track “Hi’Way Song” so I did a little digging to see where it came from.  The song was written by someone named Nancy Ahern, the lead singer of a seventies folk band from Canada called Stringband.  The internet is spotty on details here, but given that Emmylou’s husband and producer is Brian Ahern, and he is also from Canada, I’m going to go out on a limb and say Nancy was his sister.

The Aherns are from Nova Scotia, and the lyrics to “Root Like a Rose” are hauntingly beautiful homage to their home province:

“Take me home

To the sand and the foam

Where my dreams walk in the mist

I’ll fall to the earth and root like a rose

In the salt land

That gave me my verse.”

I’m excited to find the original Stringband version somewhere, but Emmylou’s version sings it with such a passion you’re sure it was her that was born in Halifax.  In fact, hearing her sing it makes me feel like I’m pining for Nova Scotia.  To all those vinyl holders out there that don’t have this track, my deepest sympathies.

Best tracks:  Roses in the Snow, Wayfaring Stranger, Jordan, You’re Gonna Change, Root Like a Rose

CD Odyssey Disc 458: Gordon Lightfoot

Jeff Triplette is the worst NFL referee in the league by a large margin.  He is a flag happy moron that can’t seem to accept the fact that football games should, in fact, be decided by football players.

In the interests of full disclosure, I did just watch him officiate over a 19-14 loss of my beloved Dolphins to the Bills, so I’m a little raw.  Still, that pass interference call on Hartline with a minute to go was bush league, and only the tip of the iceberg on the calls I witnessed tonight.  Jeff Triplette, you suck.

Fortunately this next album does not suck.

Disc 458 is… Old Dan’s Records

 Artist: Gordon Lightfoot

Year of Release: 1972

What’s up with the Cover?  The Big Head Cover – a Gordon Lightfoot favourite.  As his collection of Big Head Covers go this one is up there with the best of ‘em.  Maybe only Gord’s Gold eclipses it in terms of beard and craggy-faced goodness.  He’s even chewing on a stick so you know he is relaxed and easy, just like the record.

How I Came To Know It:  I’ve known Gord through the ubiquitous ‘best of’ album “Gord’s Gold” since I was a kid, but didn’t get into his individual albums until later.  I bought this one about two or three years ago when I found it remastered by music loving label, Rhino.

How It Stacks Up:  I have eleven studio albums by Gordon Lightfoot.  “Old Dan’s Records” is near the top, but I’ve already awarded Gord’s gold to “Don Quixote” back at Disc 110.  I’ll award “Old Dan’s Record’s” ‘Gord’s Silver’, or second best.

Rating:  4 stars

Having lived so many formative years with only a Gordon Lightfoot best of package, I tend to approach understanding his studio albums first from the songs I recognize and then branch out.  That is what made “Old Dan’s Records” so surprising when I first heard it; some of the best tracks were the ones I’d never heard.

This starts with the first track and one of my favourite Gordon Lightfoot songs, “Farewell to Annabel” with its urgent folk guitar strumming and its slow build into a beautiful banjo melody.  Over it all is Gord’s signature voice.  My last review was a Pearl Jam album, and I couldn’t help but compare Gord’s voice with Eddie Vedder.  Vedder sings with that slight vibrato in the back of his throat which is instantly recognizeable and perfectly suited to his style of alt-rock.  Lightfoot is more nasal but with the same slight quaver, and again – perfectly suited to his folksy style.  “Farewell to Annabel” pairs his tremulous voice with lyrics about 1972 style relationships, full of free love and that lack of judgment on the surface that belies some seriously hurt feelings just below:

“How many nights did you cry yourself to sleep,

Why did you hide what you knew would not stay hidden,

How could you put yourself through like you did?

I’m not the kind that would hold you that way.”

Not the kind, but he’d like to be.  Even relaxed hippies like Gord have feelings, and “Farewell to Annabel” shows how they struggle with their own emotional needs.

There are many other great deep tracks as well that have somehow not survived to Gord’s anthology stage.  “Mother of a Miner’s Child” is a love story that, unlike “Farewell to Annabel,” endures.  It is about a miner and the wife he comes home to every night.  This is not Gord’s life as a folk singer, but he captures the blue-collar honour rightfully celebrated by the song’s narrator, who is proud of his family even as he hopes for a better life for his son.  Throughout is the soft rolling of Lightfoot’s guitar, keeping time so smoothly you can’t tell where one line ends and another begins.

And of course, the Canadian in me revels in “Hi’way Songs” which is a song about missing Canada when on tour.  Full of “blue Canadian skies” and the “shade of a maple tree” it would be easy to fumble this song into empty jingoism.  Instead, Gord keeps the song light and easy, and yet still celebratory of his home country.  This is a song that makes you proud to be a Canadian, but in that understated way we prefer to celebrate.

But let’s not forget the album’s ‘hits’ (such as they are), and by ‘hits’ I mean “appear on Gord’s Gold.”  The title track, “Old Dan’s Records” celebrates the music of the generation that preceded Lightfoot’s, as he reminisces about playing the “foxtrot, jitterbug and jive” on 78s.

We often poke gentle fun at “Old Dan’s Records.”  Sheila refers to the song as “old dance records” which always cracks me up.  Having grown up furtively listening (sometimes without permission) to my older brother’s records, I often imagine that the character of Old Dan used to yell at Gord and the other kids to “get the hell of out my records!” This always makes me laugh inappropriately when Gord sings “If Old Dan could see us now, I know he’d shout out loud.”

I suspect the truth, however, is that “Old Dan’s Records” is an homage to someone who helped Gord’s early appreciation music, perhaps a love letter to someone who has gone before.  Whatever the truth, it is a hell of a fine folk song, so when I poke fun, I do it with a sincere affection.

The other anthologized song, “It’s Worth Believin’” is one of my favourite Lightfoot songs, a song about an easy love between two people disrupted by suspicion and mystery.  The song opens:

“There’s a warm wind tonight and the moon turns the tide

When the stars take their ride she’ll be leavin’

Where she goes, I don’t know, she won’t tell me what it is

That makes her act like this.

But I got a funny feelin’ that it’s me

It’s worth believin’”

This is actually a song about suspicion and emotional confusion but it is so gentle in its presentation that it actually feels relaxing when you hear it, as the couple calls in the cat and muses about walks on the beach, even as one of them suspects trouble in paradise.

So many standout songs had me close to giving this album five stars, but there are a few ‘kitchen standards’ like “Lazy Morning” about home life, drinking coffee, and relaxing that don’t hold up to the same standard.  Folk songs are great when they sing about everyday experiences of the working man, but only if they have some emotional or historical connection to something greater.  It is the difference between looking at a bowl of fruit and seeing the same bowl painted as a still life.  The art of a still life is that the fruit bowl has been imbued with a deeper resonance.  Sometimes Gord misses on this resonance – not by much mind you – but a slight miss nonetheless.

Overall, though, this record is a true win, and definitely the second one you should buy by Gordon Lightfoot, if you already happen to won “Don Quixote.”  You can skip “Gord’s Gold” – it’ll just slow you down getting to the deep cuts and besides, you probably already own it.

Best tracks:  Farewell to Annabel, Old Dan’s Records, It’s Worth Believin’, Mother of a Miner’s Child, Hi’Way Songs

CD Odyssey Disc 457: Pearl Jam

In twenty-four hours I will either be elated or depressed.  That’s because tomorrow night is the first half of the regular season version of the Superbowl for me; the regular season meeting between the Miami Dolphins and the Buffalo Bills.

My hatred for the Buffalo Bills is deep and abiding; founding in the countless gridiron wars of division rivals, and cemented with two painful playoff losses (1990/91 and 1992/93) which denied Dan Marino two trips to the Superbowl.

On the plus side, the Bills lost both Superbowls, and two more besides.  Whatever happens tomorrow I have two words for Bills fans, “Wide right.”  Har har har.

Disc 457 is… Vitalogy 

Artist: Pearl Jam

Year of Release: 1994

What’s up with the Cover?  It’s designed to look like a leather bound book of the same name, that was a sort of health and medicine journal from the turn of the century.

The original Vitalogy was full of all kinds of (now) hilariously dated advice, some of which is reprinted in the CD booklet.  Highlights include a warning against ‘self-pollution’ or ‘the unnatural and degrading vice of producing venereal excitement by the hand or other means’ and a suggestion that “if you desire children, fix your thoughts on beautiful things.’  Definitely mutually exclusive with the self-pollution, I’m guessing.

How I Came To Know It:  For the second week in a row, my friend and former roommate Greg gets the credit.  He introduced me to both Pearl Jam and this album.

How It Stacks Up:  I have ten Pearl Jam albums, which I think is all of them.  I currently have my eye on Eddie Vedder’s “Ukelele Songs” but haven’t bought it yet.  In terms of where “Vitalogy” fits in I’ll say 6^th, right after “Lost Dogs.” If you click that link, you’ll see I actually rated “Lost Dogs” as 6^th but having heard “Vitalogy” again I was less impressed than expected, and so there was room for “Lost Dogs” to move up.

Rating:  3 stars

“Vitalogy” is a story that could be called My Three Songs – like the Fred MacMurray TV show “My Three Sons” but without all the drawings of men’s loafers.  I call it that because this is an album that has three really great songs, but like the show, overall it doesn’t stand the test of time like you expect it will when experienced years later.

My Three Songs are so good that I often put them on my MP3 player, party mixes or homemade ‘best ofs’ (yeah – I sometimes make those for my personal amusement).   Over time, those three songs have come to overshadow the rest of the albm, which is still fondly remembered because of the amazing short list it has generated.  Sadly, when I went back to revisit the full recording I found the full length play didn’t hold up to the excitement of the highlight package.

Before I get into what I didn’t like, let’s give My Three Songs their due.  “Nothingman” is a beautiful five star rock ballad about a love lost.  Pearl Jam is always melodic but have that grunge propensity to bury those melodies sometimes too deep in a muddy sound.  “Nothingman” is stripped down, allowing Stone Gossard to show the softer side of his guitar and the band’s greatest asset – the voice of Eddie Vedder – soar over top of the arrangements.  Hearing Vedder croon “caught a bolt of lightning/cursed the day he let it go” is a welcome warning to appreciate how lucky I am to have someone in my life who lights up a room and makes my heart skip a beat (the lovely and talented Sheila) – and not to lose that.  That Pearl Jam can write a song that can sink you into the depression of such a loss (without actually having to lose it) is a fine piece of art indeed.

Its companion piece comes six tracks later with “Better Man,” a song about the other kind of marriage – the loveless kind.  Heartbreaking lyrics like “She lies and says she’s in love with him/Can’t find a better man” and “She practices her speech as she opens the door/she pretends to sleep as he looks her over.”  The tempo of “Better Man” speeds up in a way that “Nothingman” doesn’t, but it is the speed of desperation, not resolution. 

The third great song on the album is the poorly titled (but otherwise excellent) “Corduroy,” a song that captures the visceral energy of the band’s previous two albums.  I’m not sure what this song is about – maybe an encounter with a beggar aware of the painful ramifications of his own freedom, maybe just an attempt for Vedder to understand his audience.  Maybe it is even more personal than either of those things.  You can’t always tell what Pearl Jam is singing about, but the stream of consciousness in “Corduroy” still fills me with a deep rejection of all things false and artificial, even if I’m not sure what direction it is leading me.

Unfortunately, “Vitalogy” is just as likely to have self-indulgent tripe as it is to demonstrate greatness.  The song “Bugs,” which immediately follows “Corduroy” sounds like something composed on a broken harmonium by Adam Sandler’ character in “Punch Drunk Love” and fill me with the same impotent rage his character felt.

“Hey Foxymophandlemama, That’s Me” is almost eight minutes worth of pointless sampling and semi-musical groaning that is about as silly as the title of the song would suggest.  Nearer the end the song becomes almost listenable (Pearl Jam’s considerable talents as a band seemingly shining through their active efforts to wreck stuff) but it is too little too late.

The bulk of the record is neither amazing like “Nothingman” nor frustrating like “Hey Foxymop – whatever” and is solid straight ahead rock and roll very much in the style of their first album, “Ten” although with the exception of My Three Songs, not as good.  There is a good energy to songs like “Spin the Black Circle” “Satan’s Bed” and “Not For You” that hold up well, but not enough to fully pull this record into four star territory.

I appreciate that Pearl Jam is trying new things on this record.  In fact, one of my favourite things about this band is that they are willing to try new sounds and not be afraid to lose their audience.  I own ten of their albums, and play most of them quite often, so they’ve never lost me going in new directions – if anything I’ve enjoyed the journey through sound.  My Three Songs on their own are almost a five star record, but the misses are significant as well, and they have a deliberate pointlessness about them that is hard to forgive.  Take it all together and we have a record that on balance I must reluctantly give three stars, but bordering on four.

Best tracks:  Nothingman, Corduroy, Better Man

CD Odyssey Disc 456: Suzanne Vega

The weekend has arrived!  It is a long one as well, and with very little on my plate I’m looking forward to relaxing with my lovely wife, playing some board games and getting some writing done on my new book.  You know, important stuff.

Disc 456 is… 99.9 F

Artist: Suzanne Vega

Year of Release: 1992

What’s up with the Cover?  A close up of Suzanne Vega looking like some sort of primal fire goddess.  Of course she just had to include a band aid on one finger to remind all of us that she’s really just a vulnerable girl.  Also, is it just me, or does she not look like she's smoking an invisible cigarette?

How I Came To Know It:  I knew about Vega from the song “Luka” that received so much overplay on the radio, but that song is from a couple records earlier.  “99.9 F” came to my attention through my old roommate Greg. I don’t know where he heard about it, but it was another one of those albums that got a lot of play in our apartment since we both enjoyed it.

How It Stacks Up:  I only have this one Suzanne Vega album, so it doesn’t really stack up.  Sheila used to have the “Luka” album (1987’s “Solitude Standing”) on tape, but I’ve only heard it a couple of times.

Rating:  3 stars

Folk melded with early nineties electronica.  If that idea intrigues you, then Suzanne Vega’s “99.9 F” could be for you.  It is certainly for me.

I generally don’t like electronica or ‘techno’ as the kids were calling it ten years ago (I have no idea what kids are calling it now).  I find it repetitive to the point of dull and lacking any emotional content that is a big part of my music listening experience.  However, there was a brief window in the early to mid-nineties where electronica and industrial music was still simple and honest enough that it interested me.

I’ve liked folk music for a very long time, and Vega does a great job of urbanizing the genre and making it sound current, up tempo and – dare I say it? – even danceable.  In fact on my walks to work it took a lot of effort to not do a little back-forward heel-toe action while waiting at lights.  I resisted the urge and frankly, I’m a little disappointed in myself.  When the world affords you a chance to dance, you should dance.

Back to the record, which is great and refreshingly unlike anything else I was hearing in 1992.  After her more straightforward earlier albums, this was a brave new direction for Vega and it really pays off.  The beats are crisp and filled with energy, and reminded me a little bit of the smooth flows of  contemporary rap acts like EPMD, but cleaned up for the non hip-hop audience.

One of the songs, “Fat Man & Dancing Girl” had a particularly catchy bass beat that sounded familiar, and not just because I’ve listened to this album a hundred times.  Earlier in the week a coworker had sent me the video for Fat Boy Slim’s 2001 song “Weapon of Choice” (you will remember it for Christopher Walken’s funky dance moves).  Sure enough when I called it up alongside “Fat Man & Dancing Girl” it was the self-same bass line, with one note cut off the end.  Could there be a Fat Boy/Fat Man connection here?

I needed to do a fat/fact check, but the wiki page for “Weapon of Choice” says the sample is from a 1967 Chamber Brothers song called “All Strung Out Over You” and sure enough, both it and the Suzanne Vega song sound like the Chamber Brothers song.  This is fine – imitation being the highest form of flattery, whether conscious or not.  In any event, here are the three songs – the first two are definitely related – you be the judge whether the third fits as well:

“Weapon of Choice”

“All Strung Out Over You”

“Fat Man & Dancing Girl”

Whatever the case, "All Strung Out Over You" has me wanting to get me some Chamber Brothers.  That is some groovy stuff.  But I digress…

Back to “99.9 F,” which is a good album that is tastefully limited to 12 songs and, at just 37 minutes, is short enough to leave you wanting more.  The songs range from upbeat techno-folk, to more somber songs that use fairly electronic sounding production but are much more clearly folk music.

Lyrically, I found most of the songs established a general mood more than leaving me with a strong sense of a story being told (decidedly un-folk, that).  I did enjoy Vega’s recollection of how your dolls seem to have some kind of life to them when you’re young on “As a Child” and how later on we grow up and feel like sometimes we are dolls in our own lives, in our effort to fulfill the roles we think are expected of us.

Her most touching song is “Bad Wisdom” a sad song about unwanted teen pregnancy and the stigma attached to it that had me thinking of fellow depressed diva Liz Phair.  The song opens:

“Mother the doctor knows something is wrong

Cause my body has strange information

He’s looked in my eyes and knows I’m not a child

But he doesn’t dare ask the right question.

“Mother my friends are no longer my friends

And the games we once played have no meaning.

I’ve gone serious and shy and they can’t figure why

So they’ve left me to my own daydreaming.”

The girl ends up shunned by her family as well, selling her body on the street, and the whole thing resonates in a minor key that makes you feel (rightly) uncomfortable about what happens to some people whose only crime is to be young, foolish and a little unlucky.

Overall the album is a pleasant listen, and I like the way Vega has melded two very seemingly different styles, and showcased how well they work together.  It doesn’t blow me away, but I’m never disappointed when I put it on, even after all these years.  It makes me want to buy more of her work, in fact.

Best tracks:  Blood Makes Noise, 99.9 F, Fat Man & Dancing Girl, As A Child, Bad Wisdom, When Heroes Go Down

CD Odyssey Disc 455: Tom Waits

I have some chores to do at some point tonight, but rather than get them out of the way first, I’ve decided to turn such a Puritanical notion on its head.  First I’ll engage in a writing for pleasure, and when I’m done I’ll turn my focus to the things that ‘need doing.’

And on that note, dear reader, I give you the next review.

Disc 455 is… Mule Variations

Artist: Tom Waits

Year of Release: 1999

What’s up with the Cover?  A dark and troubled Tom Waits fades into the grey backwash of our imagination, but he still looks back and fixes us with his gaze.  This cover perfectly captures Tom’s unique blend of intimate and the strange rolled into one.

How I Came To Know It:  I’d known Tom Waits since back in the early nineties, but I didn’t get this album until much later after my appreciation for him had been re-invigorated by both Sheila and my friend Casey.  I bought “Mule Variations” as I was drilling through his catalogue.

How It Stacks Up:  We have 19 Tom Waits albums.  Of those 19 few can approach the mastery that is “Mule Variations.”  There are three or four that come close, but at the end of the day I’ve got to declare – Tina Turner-like – that “Mule Variations is simply the best, and better than all the rest.

Rating:  5 stars

When an artist has a career that spans nearly forty years you can usually expect a growth in musical style.  “Mule Variations” captures some of the best examples of all of Tom Waits various styles in a single record.

Here you’ll get echoes of Waits’ folksy beginnings with songs like the melancholy “House Where Nobody Lives” and the romantic “Picture in a Frame.”  These songs could fit just as easily on 1973’s “Closing Time” as they do here.

The best of this particular genre however is “Hold On.”  “Hold On” is one of my favourite songs ever, regardless of artist.  My MP3 player only holds about 400 songs, but despite the thousands of tracks competing for space, I’ve never removed it, and don’t see that changing any time soon.  This is a song that grabs me by the heart from the first strum of the Knopfler-like guitar and never lets go.  It is a song that always reminds me that life can throw a lot of curve balls, and sometimes just holding on is victory enough

Beyond how it makes me feel, “Hold On” is also a wonderful narrative of a love that on the surface is defeated by both time and distance, but that down deep will never die so long as the divided couple decide in their hearts that it won’t.  Waits captures the love of the downtrodden with his usual flair for imagery:

“Well, he gave her a dimestore watch

And a ring made from a spoon

Everyone is looking for someone to blame

But you share my bed, you share my name

Well, go ahead and call the cops

You don’t meet nice girls in coffee shops

She said baby, I still love you

Sometimes there’s nothin’ left to do

“But you got to

Hold on, hold on.”

The descriptors of the absent woman make her come alive in your mind, with fantastic turns of phrase.  Hearing about this woman “with charcoal eyes and Monroe hips” and a “broken-china voice” makes me not only imagine her; it makes me want to date her.

The production on these songs is big and soft around the edges, with that room-filling quality you get from Daniel Lanois at his best.  It isn’t Lanois, however, just Waits and his long-time partner in life and song, Kathleen Brennan.  In fact, I wonder how Waits would fare without Brennan’s muse.  On “Mule Variations” she co-writes twelve of the sixteen tracks, and she’s obviously a big part of his continued inspiration.  For Tom Waits fans everywhere: thank you, Kathleen.

Waits is also a master of the re-imagined blues song, and once again “Mule Variations” delivers some of his best work.  “Get Behind the Mule” is to an honest day’s work what “Hold On” is to a true love; you’ve got to just keep plugging away, and damned the obstacles – emotional, physical or otherwise.  “Cold Water” revisits Waits’ well-worn theme of the lives of the truly down and out.  In this case, the cold water is being splashed into a bum’s face by the police, as he awakens in a jail cell.  Again, the great turn of phrase paints an entire life in a single stanza:

“Blind or crippled

Sharp or dull

I’m reading the Bible

by a 40 watt bulb.

What price freedom

Dirt is my rug

Well I sleep like a baby

With the snakes and the bugs.”

And for those who’ve read my earlier Waits reviews like “Swordfishtrombone” LINK will remember that in the eighties he developed a sound all his own; a weird circus of percussion and bizarre topics over which he floats a raspy melody.  Again, “Mule Variations” doesn’t disappoint, delivering some great ‘weird circus’ work, starting with the opening track “Big in Japan” which sounds like a mad and drunken boast, yet somehow within that exaggeration it paints an amazing picture of the character behind it.  

Later Waits will take it one step weirder with the catchy “Filipino Box Spring Hog” a song that makes you feel like you need a shower, partly because the song’s title meat is “basted with a sweeping broom” and partly because you can’t get Kathleen’s ‘criminal underwear bra” out of your head either.

And although not as good a song, “Eyeball Kid” – a song about a kid that is nothing more than an eyeball – is so strange it demands your attention, and at least one throwaway line in this music review.

Waits delivers high quality folk, blues, rock and roll and even one of the finest spoken word pieces he’s ever done (the masterful ode to nosey neighbours, “What’s He Building?”) and wraps it all up into a three ring circus.  Despite ranging across every style he knows – including a few he invented himself – the record shifts gears as seamlessly as a sports car hugging a mountain road.  By the time it ends with the old-time religion inspired, “Come on up To the House” you feel you’ve already seen every room in Waits’ considerable musical mansion.

If you don’t have any Tom Waits and are wondering where to start, I highly recommend “Mule Variations.”  It is a little long at sixteen songs, but I can forgive this minor transgression; it had a lot of ground to cover and does it with nary a mis-step. 

Best tracks:  I like all the tracks, but favourites include Big in Japan, Hold On, Get Behind the Mule, House Where Nobody Lives, Cold Water, What’s He Building?, and Filipino Box Spring Hog

CD Odyssey Disc 454: Mother Mother

I am just back from breakfast out with Sheila and a small shop, during which I picked up some interesting beers and one of the few Okkervil River albums I was missing.  I’m quite excited about experiencing them both.

Disc 454 is… Eureka

Artist: Mother Mother

Year of Release: 2011

What’s up with the Cover?  Is it a tiger, a lion or a Technicolor liger?  Who cares – I find the excess use of colour to create a party vibe too artificial for my tastes.

How I Came To Know It:  Our friends Joel and Sherylyn introduced us to Mother Mother, when they bought me the previous album for my birthday (O My Heart – reviewed back at Disc 167).  Joel and Sherylyn have since moved to Vancouver and we miss them around the place!

How It Stacks Up:  We have three Mother Mother albums.  Of the three, I put Eureka third.  I still enjoy it, but I don’t think it has the range either musically or lyrically of the other two.

Rating:  3 stars

I think every pop band should take their turn at writing a dance album.  After all, dancing is a big part of pop music and why shouldn’t we lighten up once in a while and focus giving our booties a good shake about the place?

“Eureka” is Mother Mother’s dance album, where they turn up the disco and turn down the indie.  The result is something in between Cake and Scissor Sisters, probably a little closer to the latter.

Fortunately I like Scissor Sisters, and “Eureka” has the same fun, seemingly effortless grooves that had me lasciviously swinging my hips around on more than one occasion (albeit principally in the relative privacy of my living room or the building’s elevator).

Lead singer Ryan Guldemond has an airy, lighthearted voice that is well suited to the silly but catchy songs that populate “Eureka” and the background cooing of sister Molly and (distractingly hot) keyboardist Jasmin Parkin are the perfect offset to the music.  This is an album that makes you want to call up friends and go and hit the nightclub scene.

The best song on the record is “The Stand” a playful song featuring ‘women who straddle’ ‘paradise spread out with a butter knife’ and ‘vodka on ice’ the latter tastefully accompanied by hearing the cubes clinking into a tumbler.  The song is filled with synthesizer tracks that would be equally at home in 1977 or 1987, proving that catchy head-bobbers like this song are really timeless.

I also like “Original Spin” which starts with a flamenco guitar riff that reminded me strongly of a similar guitar in Leonard Cohen’s song “Teachers.” The similarities end there, however, as Mother Mother launch into a whimsical look at the Earth, as a planet floating through space so insignificant, yet unique and beautiful.  Jamiroquai would be proud how the band combines a whimsical look at the cosmos with unifying notions of how we’re all down here working it out as one people, spinning together.  Not exactly as deep as “Teachers” but it has its moments, and is way more upbeat.

For all the fun I had on this record, there are only a few songs that really stand out.  The others are great for establishing a party mood, but nothing to really write home about when given a closer inspection.

Also lyrically the songs are fun and catchy, but ultimately empty of much deep meaning.  I don’t hold this against “Eureka” – it is dance music after all – but I also can’t deny I often look for more interesting topics on at least a few of the songs on a record.

I recently bought Sheila Mother Mother’s new album, “The Sticks” for her birthday, and I gave it a quick listen before writing this review.  “The Sticks” returns to their more unique indie sound, similar to “O My Heart” although a bit more polished.  It reminded me that while I like working my middle aged white man’s overbite on the dance floor as much as anyone, I prefer Mother Mother when they tone it down a bit.

Despite some misgivings, I can’t deny that “Eureka” is a great time, and a well written record.  It doesn’t pull on my heart strings but it gets me out of my chair and puts a smile on my face, and sometimes that’s all you need.

Best tracks:  The Stand, Original Spin, Problems.