CD Odyssey Disc 952: The Kinks

After a month of cooling it on CD purchases the holidays have brought a glut of new albums into the house from various sources. I’ll discuss each in detail when I roll it, but here’s a taster:

• Three in my stocking. Two were solid (“Searching for Sugarman” and the new Band of Horses album “Why Are You OK?”). One did not impress (Imagine Dragons’ “Night Visions”).
• One in Sheila’s stocking – a greatest hits compilation of the Thompson Twins that I enjoyed more than I expected I would.
• One gift from my friend Patrick – Scott Fagan’s “South Atlantic Blues”. This record was very cool and I’m looking forward to getting to know it better.
• Five that I purchased with a combination of a gift certificate and cold hard cash. Two albums by modern metal band The Sword (“Age of Winters” and “Gods of the Earth”), Prince’s “1999”, Hard Working Americans’ “Rest in Chaos” and the very hard to find “Live at the West End Cultural Centre” by Scruj MacDuhk.

I’m looking forward to getting to know all these albums better.

Disc 952 is….The Kinks (Self-Titled)

Artist: The Kinks

Year of Release: 1964

What’s up with the Cover? The suits say these young lads are fine upstanding citizens, but just one look at their scandalously long hair should tell you to lock up your daughters. Also, is that orange glow a reflection of hellfire from below? Since this is rock and roll, we must assume so.

How I Came To Know It: When I reviewed the Kinks’ compilation album “Come Dancing” back at Disc 560 it reminded me how great they were and I decided to take a tour of their back catalogue. This album stood out as the best of the bunch.

How It Stacks Up:  Apart from the aforementioned compilation album, this is my only Kinks album, so it can’t really stack up.

Ratings: 4 stars but almost 5

Some albums just feel like the birth of rock and roll, and the Kinks’ debut is one of those.

As I listened to this album I found myself imagining all those future rock icons of the seventies and eighties growing up listening to this record, which holds the seeds of so many styles that would follow.

The album has a restless energy that a decade later helped fuel the punk movement, with short songs that seem to be in a hurry to get in, get on it, and wrap it up and be done with it. On my previous review I noted that five minute Duran Duran songs seemed to drag. Here, songs are over in 2:30 and leave you wanting more almost every time.

The Kinks alternate smoothly between the heavy (for 1964) rock riffs and sprightly pop fare that drive you to hand claps and dancing in your living room.

For all its modern flair, this record is also grounded in what has come before. Classic fifties rock and doo wop are both heavily on display. The first song is a wonderful cover of the 1958 Chuck Berry song “Beautiful Delilah” and Berry’s influence runs deep in the record overall (they also cover “Too Much Monkey Business”). There is also a fair bit of Buddy Holly echoing through the music, although that’s true for most acts at this time. Despite this, the music doesn’t feel derivative. Instead, the Kinks’ restless energy brings a different edge to the sound similar to contemporary acts like the Who.

The number one quality all the songs share is that they are catchy. Principal songwriter Ray Davies has a natural talent for writing a pop hook that makes you want to sing along from the moment you hear it. The guitar sound is light and carefree, although the riffs themselves are grounded in American blues. The combination is a key part of the birth of modern pop and rock music, and it is fun to see it forming.

But if I presented this album as nothing more than a bit of a musical history lesson, I’d be doing it a disservice. This record remains as compelling and enjoyable on its own terms as it was the day it was released over fifty years ago.

My favourite track is “I Took My Baby Home” which has a swing to it that is undeniable, and lyrics that are both playful and sexy, with a forward girl not afraid to invite her man inside after a night on the town:

“She had some pile-drivin' kisses

They really knocked me out

They knocked me oh-oh-over

She had a hug like a vice

She squeezes once or twice and I moan”

Shame about that last line. Next time, think about baseball or something.

Two songs (“Bald Headed Woman” and “I’ve Been Driving on Bald Mountain”) feature references to baldness and specifically a “bald mountain”). I’m not sure if this meant something in 1964 that I’m not aware of, or if I’m reading too much into this and it is just references to losing your hair.

The album has some production issues, most of which I suspect relate to the conversion from mono to stereo. A few songs have weird speaker channel shifts that don’t serve the song. My version of the CD is a special edition and includes a second disc with the original album in mono, but it doesn’t make it better.

Also, there are just too many extra tracks. The original album is 14 songs and 33 minutes long, but the reissue has a bunch of demos doubling both number of tracks and overall duration. A lot of these tracks are great, but as a whole they just add too much content and I’d prefer they had appeared on a separate record.

For those reasons, I’m giving this version only four stars, but if you just had the original 14 songs, and the production issues were cleared up this album could easily score a perfect 5.

Best tracks: So Mystifying, Just Can’t Go To Sleep, I Took My Baby Home, I’m A Lover Not a Fighter, Bald Headed Woman, Stop Your Sobbing

CD Odyssey Disc 951: Duran Duran

Happy holidays! Best present of the year: the Miami Dolphins are back in the NFL post-season and we got there in part while eliminating the hated Buffalo Bills. Huzzah!

Speaking of blind hate, when I rolled this next album I couldn’t help but let out a sigh of disappointment. Sheila (who likes it) sharply reminded me that this odyssey is about keeping an open mind to every album.

That’s true, and I do my best, but my dislike of this next band goes well beyond any logical reasoning. It just…is. With that in mind, here’s my best effort.

Disc 951 is….Rio

Artist: Duran Duran

Year of Release: 1982

What’s up with the Cover? Patrick Nagel art was as synonymous with early eighties pop culture as…well, as Duran Duran. I kind of like this cover although if a girl’s skin is as white as her teeth, you should check for bite marks on your neck after every date.

How I Came To Know It: I knew this album in the eighties when it came out, but chiefly through the practice of actively avoiding it. It came into our collection earlier this year when Sheila decided to break the Duran Duran embargo and buy it.

How It Stacks Up:  This is the only Duran Duran album we currently have [knocks on wood] so it can’t really stack up.

Ratings: 1 star – see below for special calculation procedures for Duran Duran albums

Since my early teens I have hated Duran Duran, both for their music and for the way they took over the consciousness of my junior high in the early eighties. At every high school dance, on every music video channel and on the radio of every other car that passed this band’s blend of borderline New Wave and pop pablum would assault your ears. For a budding young metal head like myself, outside of Much Music’s Power Hour, there was no escape.

Long time readers will remember that I was pretty narrow minded back then when it came to music. I’ve since happily come to my senses over amazing eighties bands like the Police, U2 and the Clash, all of whom I initially dismissed when I was a teenager. Duran Duran is not so lucky.

The album’s first song is the poster child for what is wrong with this record. “Rio” was a massive hit which had all the girls gabbing about how dreamy Simon Le Bon and Andy Taylor were, and all the boys trying to copy their look. Or maybe it was Roger Taylor or John Taylor; I don’t remember and there’s too many guys named Taylor in this band to keep it all straight. Even I would watch the video when it came on (it featured a beautiful woman in a bikini and body paint, after all).

“Rio” has a passable keyboard hook and a solid chorus and could have been an average song, despite all the bangs, bells and whistles that are thrown in an attempt to ruin it. But then at the three minute mark we are subjected to a drawn out and pointless saxophone solo. This may be the worst sax solo ever, a wound to this song so infected that nothing could save it. The solo eventually ends, draining (like a flushed toilet) into a synthesizer doing an impression of a xylophone. We never learn why.

This was my reaction to most of the songs on this record, which load a ton of disparate bells, bangs and whistles into a cacophonous hodge-podge. It is about as tempting as a frittata comprised of ingredients from the three preceding days of leftovers because that’s what happens to be in the fridge.

And this is a damn shame, because the bass and drums (played by a couple guys named Taylor) are actually pretty solid, particularly John’s bass playing, which gives the songs a nice and vaguely funky foundation at the ground floor. The fact that the band decides to build a ziggurat made out of shit isn’t entirely his fault.

So what about my promise to Sheila to have an open mind? Weren’t there any songs I liked? Yes, to my horror there were three. “Lonely in Your Nightmare” has a cool sound that reminded me of the Smiths or the Cure, and while there is a bit too much futzing around with the drum sounds, the melody still shines through. “Hungry Like the Wolf” is also a good song, with one of the better doo-da-doo-doo-da-doos in music. That annoying pseudo-xylophone is in the background throughout, but it doesn’t quite wreck what is a good track.

The album ends with “The Chauffeur” which I also enjoyed, a steamy song full of sexual tension that reminded me favourably of Depeche Mode, despite Simon Le Bon’s one-note vocals. In fact, when Duran Duran are at their best they sound a lot like an inferior version of Depeche Mode. At their worst they just sound like…Duran Duran.

Even the songs that I liked tend to go on too long, and the whole album (which is 43 minutes long despite having just nine songs) tends to drag. Or maybe it is just that I don’t like most of the songs and just want them to end soon after they begin. Maybe the songs are longer because they are meant as dance songs, but I found this shit impossible to dance to in high school and nothing over the years has changed my mind.

Everyone has that one band they hate, and Duran Duran is mine. If I was being fair, I’d acknowledge this record has enough going for it that it warrants a two star rating, but I’m not going to be fair. Would I congratulate the Buffalo Bills on a good effort on Saturday as my Miami Dolphins ended their season? No I wouldn’t.  Would I applaud the Montreal Canadiens for winning a game? Again, no.

Besides, I always give vampire moves an extra star for no reason (it’s how the Twilight movies earned their single star). I also grade up every movie that includes Ron Pearlman by a star because…Ron Pearlman! The universe demands balance. I will provide that balance by arbitrarily giving any Duran Duran record -1 star for equally baseless reasons.  

Best tracks: Lonely In Your Nightmare, Hungry Like the Wolf, The Chauffeur

CD Odyssey Disc 950: Alice Cooper

Another late night, but the Odyssey rolls on, with a return to an oft-visited favourite.

Disc 950 is….Dragontown

Artist: Alice Cooper

Year of Release: 2001

What’s up with the Cover? Alice looks tense, like he’s about to…sai. Get it? Get it?

Man I crack myself up.

How I Came To Know It: I stopped buying Alice Cooper albums for a few years and it took me a while before I got into his later catalogue. I believe someone bought me this album as a gift, but I’m embarrassed to say I can’t remember who. Whoever it was it helped kick start my interest in his more recent catalogue, so thank you!

How It Stacks Up:  I have 26 Alice Cooper albums. “Dragontown” isn’t top tier, but it holds its own. I’ll rank it 12^th.

Ratings: 3 stars but almost 4

“Dragontown” is the final entry in Alice Cooper’s terrifying vision of the future, with the titular location a town on a brutal planet of sin and terror.

The album is Alice at his heaviest phase, embracing the loudness of the early oughts, sometimes to good effect, and sometimes overdoing it a bit (as a lot of metal artists did at the same time). The songs crunch along and tend toward aggressive guitar riffs and rough subjects. Cooper’s voice has even more snarl to it than usual, and sometimes suffers from being given too many treatments in production. He doesn’t need these, as he can still belt out a tune, but on “Dragontown” he is more interested in his trademark rasp than showing off his vocal range.

The title track and “I Just Wanna Be God” are particularly heavy and delivered with both majesty and crunch in equal measure. These are songs about the power brokers of Alice Cooper’s new world order, each of them doomed but unrepentant.

The album is an exploration of bad people and the evil places they congregate (Dragontown being the most obvious). Alice flows freely from the excesses of the present into the decay of a near-future dystopia drawing connections on how we get there.

The record doesn’t just talk about those in charge of the world’s collapse, but also those who empower them. The best of these is “Sex, Death and Money” which despite straying dangerously close to Nu-Metal shows Cooper’s talent for showing hypocrisy even as he plays the villain for our general amusement. Cooper’s character feigns disgusted as he sings:

“When I go to the show

All I see on the screen

Is a stream of pure vulgarity

I wrote down a note

Complained for a day

To the House of Representatives”

And proves his outrage later with:

“I was so offended

As I sat for three hours

It was mental cruelty

I was so shocked”

So terrible, but it took three hours just to be sure. We get the entertainment we secretly desire, and Cooper is happy to be the deranged cheerleader pointing it out. He’s been making songs like this for years, and it continues to amaze me that people are outraged by him, even as they prove his point.

“Fantasy Man” explores the same character from the other side; someone who is perfectly comfortable acknowledging their lack of standards and morals. Both songs are fun and walk a fine line between anthem and hard rock protest. In Cooper’s world, they are fundamentally the same thing.

On “Disgraceland” Cooper even takes a shot at the King, summing up Elvis’ last moments as:

“He ate his weight in country ham,

Killed on pills and woke in disgraceland”

Half the song is sung in a hilarious Elvis impersonator voice, presumably because just singing it straight wouldn’t offend enough people.

The songs don’t show a lot of range in terms of their structure, but they are played with energy and power and there aren’t any true stinkers. “Every Woman Has a Name” comes closest, being a pale imitation of “Only Women Bleed.” Think what you will of “Only Women Bleed” it is a rock classic. Even though “Every Woman Has a Name” is an alright tune, it feels unnecessary and derivative.

While the album is mostly metal in flavour, there are some pure rock crooners as well, and one of my favourite tracks, “It’s Much Too Late” is one of these. Telling the story of the same type of character we meet earlier on “Sex, Death and Money” we hear him now surprised to find himself in hell, still unclear what he’s done wrong. The song has an effortless and memorable melody and could be a pop ballad with a different treatment. The chorus is so infectious I found myself singing along like an idiot on my walk home. Thankfully it was nice and dark, and traffic was light.

My version of “Dragontown” is the “bonus CD” version which contains an extra song (the remarkably good “Clowns Will Eat Me” and live versions and remixes of earlier Cooper tracks “Go To Hell”, “Ballad of Dwight Fry” and “Brutal Planet” all of which are OK, but none of which are indispensable.

“Dragontown” beats you over the head a bit with its message, but the music is solid and it’s funny and troubling in the right proportions. It could use a bit of restraint in the production room, but it’s a good record from rock’s greatest jester; scolding us and thrilling us in equal measure.

Best tracks: Dragontown, Sex Death and Money, Fantasy Man, Disgraceland, I Just Wanna Be God, Much Too Late

CD Odyssey Disc 949: Kasey Chambers

After a lot of late nights at work I’m starting to feel a bit worn down and looking forward to some extended time off. We’re not there yet, so I’m going to write this review and then spend the rest of the night chilling out, or to quote Leonard Cohen “getting lost in that hopeless little screen.”

Disc 949 is….Bittersweet

Artist: Kasey Chambers

Year of Release: 2014

What’s up with the Cover? I’m not sure. Kasey Chambers looking happy? Sad? Bittersweet? The outstretched arms are throwing me off for sure. Is she doing the Don Cherry? Telling a fishing story? About to pull the blinds? We just don’t know.

How I Came To Know It: I read a review of this album on the avclub where they gave it an A-. I liked how it sounded and a few clips on Youtube later and I decided to take the plunge.

How It Stacks Up:  Kasey Chambers has been at this music thing a lot longer than I’ve known her, and has ten studio albums to her credit. However, I just have this one so it can’t really stack up.

Ratings: 3 stars

Is “Bittersweet” a pop record with a country flavour or a country record with a pop flavour? I guess when you can’t tell it doesn’t matter. Fortunately, while this is a dangerous line to straddle, Chambers manages to avoid that corporate Nashville country sound and stays true to her own voice.

The album has folk and blues elements as well, and I found myself thinking of fellow genre busters Lindi Ortega and Patty Griffin. Chambers’ voice has similarities to both of those women as well, although she doesn’t quite manage the same level of sultry playfulness that Ortega does, or the sheer power and range Griffin can draw on.

There are also times when Chambers’ voice has a baby-talk quality that felt a bit too cute, and I liked her better when she belts it out with some force, as she does on “Oh Grace” or the title track. When she is at her best her voice is distinctive, with a lovely rasp and a bit of sweetness around the edges, like caramelized sugar.

The pop elements of the songs are a lot better than anything you’ll hear on mainstream radio, and songs like “I Would Do” could easily be a hit if they were glitzed and glammed up with modern production tricks (i.e. ruined). Fortunately Chambers and producer Nick DiDia resist the temptation and opt for quality. By the way, if you don’t know him already, Google Nick Didia, because this guy is responsible for a truckload of massive albums over the years.

Chambers also shows a fun side with the hilariously troubling “Stalker” which begins:

“I would wear a locket around my neck

With a drop of your blood in it

And show all my friends if I had one

I would stand outside your window

Peeking in while it was dark

And the dogs down the street are howling.”

This should all be very frightening if it weren’t for the up tempo and frantically energetic delivery. Actually, that makes it a bit more frightening, but with a chorus of “can I be, can I be, can I be your stalker?” at least she’s asking politely, if a bit insistently.

Chambers writes all her own songs, which is something I always appreciate, and the range she shows is impressive from rocking tracks like “Wheelbarrow” to evocative folk duets like the title track (sung beautifully by both her and fellow Aussie singer-songwriter Bernard Fanning).

Thematically, the album asks a lot of questions around faith, including a Joan Osbourne-like song with “Is God Real?” Tracks like “Heaven or Hell” imply she thinks there is going to be some form of judgment, although it isn’t clear what. On “Christmas Day” Chambers brings some modern sensibilities to the story of Mary and Joseph. Mary claims it was the Holy Ghost, Joseph claims he believes her and Kasey Chambers…withholds judgment on the whole thing, while focusing the story on the two parents for a change.

Wherever you land on these bigger questions, it is clear that Chambers wants to explore the issues and isn’t in a rush to judgment on who’s right. Because really, this album is more about the choices we make on earth than what happens after.  “Too Late To Save Me” and “I’m Alive” are songs about characters recounting bad choices they’ve made in life. The first resorts to despair, the second revels in the fact that they survived. It’s all perspective, and exploring those perspectives makes the record more interesting on second and third listens.

I might have rocked the rock songs a bit harder, and put more folk and less pop into the country songs, but the bones of the tracks are good, and their core comes from a place of truth and understanding.

There is a lot of good stuff going on with “Bittersweet” and I feel it is just a few turns here and there from greatness.

Best tracks: Oh Grace, Stalker, Heaven or Hell, Bittersweet, Too Late to Save Me, I’m Alive

CD Odyssey Disc 948: Bruce Springsteen

For the second straight review the CD Odyssey delivers a 5 star album. Last time it was a bright and shiny newcomer. This time, it is a music veteran.

Disc 948 is….Nebraska

Artist: Bruce Springsteen

Year of Release: 1982

What’s up with the Cover? A lonely stretch of back road. I’m going to go out on a limb and say it is somewhere in Nebraska, but as a west coast guy all that flatland pretty much looks the same to me. I’d rather have oceans and mountains but since this record isn’t about getting what you want, the cover is appropriate.

How I Came To Know It: Once I was hooked on Springsteen, I began drilling through his collection, starting in the period I liked his sound the most. Coming out in 1982, “Nebraska” fell right into that sweet spot, and didn’t disappoint.

How It Stacks Up:  I have ten Bruce Springsteen albums. This one is my second favourite. It is also the last of his records left for me to review, so let’s recap:

1. Darkness at the Edge of Town: 5 stars (reviewed at Disc 612)
2. Nebraska: 5 stars (reviewed right here)
3. Born in the U.S.A.: 4 stars (reviewed at Disc 769)
4. Tunnel of Love: 4 stars (reviewed at Disc 761)
5. The Promise: 4 stars (reviewed at Disc 305)
6. The Rising: 4 stars (reviewed at Disc 741)
7. The River: 4 stars (reviewed at Disc 654)
8. Born to Run: 4 stars (reviewed at Disc 574)
9. Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J.: 3 stars (reviewed at Disc 506)
10. Devils & Dust: 3 stars (reviewed at Disc 695)

Ratings: 5 stars

When an album entirely composed of remakes of songs from “Nebraska” can score four stars on the CD Odyssey, it is a pretty good bet I liked the original.

This album s a masterpiece, as stark and bleak as the album cover would suggest. Characters struggle to get by, sometimes making good choices, sometimes not.

Falling between hit machines “The River” (1980) and “Born in the U.S.A.” (1984) this record is sometimes overlooked by radio-friendly North America, but that would be a mistake.

“Nebraska” is a quiet record, with light lo-fi production, and a heavy focus on lyrics and sparse instrumentation. If you’re looking for Clarence Clemons to blast a saxophone lick, you’re going to be disappointed. In fact, I found sections of the record to be a bit too lo-fi. The whole record was essentially recorded as a demo tape, and some of those imperfections (changes in volume, Springsteen mumbling a word here and there) pull you out of the experience.

And that quibble is the only one you’re going to hear from me about “Nebraska”. This is a great record, filled with some of the best songwriting Springsteen has ever delivered.

The opening (and title) track is a master class in storytelling. A low and mournful harmonica starts you out on the cold plains of Nebraska, and the colder streets of Lincoln. From there, a broken and damaged man and a young girl tear through Wyoming, murdering ten people before meeting their end in the electric chair. Well, he ends up in the chair. He requests she sit on his lap when they pull the switch, but I don’t think they allow that kind of thing.

Springsteen’s ability to capture the numb disconnect of the narrator is captured at the song’s conclusion:

“They declared me unfit to live

said into that great void my soul’d be hurled.

They wanted to know why I did what I did

Sir, I guess there’s just a meanness in this world.”

Yikes.

Later on the record, a guy down on luck takes his fading love to “Atlantic City” to make a little extra money doing something shady, another man contemplates the local prison on the hill. On “State Trooper” people pray that they don’t get pulled over by the cops, on “Used Cars” kids scowl and lose their innocence watching their parents get chiseled by used car salesmen. On “My Father’s House” the character arrives too late to reconcile with his father, who has died or moved out but either way, is gone.

That stark production I complained about earlier fits these desperate stories like a fingerless glove held over a burning barrel on a winter night; stained and frayed but serviceable with a sense that it ‘belongs’.

The record’s best song is “Highway Patrolman.” It is about two brothers: one a highway patrolman, and the other a ne’er-do-well. Again, Springsteen tells a tale of honour and sacrifice through the prism of one man’s moral dilemma, letting the specifics of that story represent those bigger concepts. The song begins:

“My name is Joe Roberts, I work for the state.

I’m a sergeant out of Perrinville, barracks number eight

I always done an honest job, as honest as I could

I got a brother named Frankie, and Frankie ain’t no good.”

Watching Joe Roberts try to reconcile his commitment to justice and his inability to get his brother to walk the straight and narrow is both heart-rending and emotionally complicated. That complicated feeling persists until the song’s end, when (spoiler alert) Joe lets Frankie escape to Canada.

For all the bleakness, however, Springsteen’s core of optimism remains, even if it is shining through in distorted ways. Joe Roberts holds onto his humanity even though he has to violate his sworn oath to the state to do so.

The record ends with “Reason to Believe” which on a record as stark as “Nebraska” is the perfect tonic for the troubled mind. “Reason to Believe” doesn’t offer up any easy solutions either. A man runs over a dog, a woman is left by her man. A boy grows up and lives his whole life in poverty, and a man gets left at the altar. Yet the musical backdrop to all this misery is an up-tempo almost hopeful tune. As Springsteen triumphantly sings in the chorus “At the end of every hard-earned day, people find some reason to believe.”

It isn’t much of a victory, to be sure. It should ring hollow given all the human misery we’ve heard on the record, but somehow it makes us feel a little better – that somehow enduring through tough times is its own reward.

The real reward here is the masterpiece of mood and music that is “Nebraska”. Beautiful to listen to and as affecting and though-provoking on the tenth listen as the first time you hear it.

Best tracks: all tracks

CD Odyssey Disc 947: Dori Freeman

For the second straight review the CD Odyssey sends us into the realm of country, this time for one of the best albums of 2016.

Disc 947 is….Dori Freeman (Self Titled)

Artist: Dori Freeman

Year of Release: 2016

What’s up with the Cover? No frills, just an honest young woman inviting you into her living room for a few songs.

How I Came To Know It: I read an article about Dori Freeman in American Songwriter magazine and decided to check her out. I liked what I heard so I sought out her album. It wasn’t easy to find, so I resorted to online purchasing. Sorry, local record stores; even I fall down sometimes.

How It Stacks Up:  I only have one Dori Freeman album. I hope she makes many more in the years to come.

Ratings: 5 stars

I’ve got a lot of music in my collection, and within that collection more than a few beautiful female voices. Dori Freeman is one of the best. She may only just be starting out but she is every bit as inspiring to listen to as Emmylou Harris, Patsy Cline or Capercaillie’s Karen Matheson. Freeman’s voice is sweet and strong, never straining to hit a note but still hitting every one with an easy power and a tone that was stolen from the angels.

I suspect Freeman could sing equally well in any style, but she’s chosen to sing folk-tinged country songs that are simple, direct and from the heart. Like the album cover implies, this is an artist not afraid to invite you into her private life. Despite this, she yet never makes you feel uncomfortable while sharing her hopes and fears.

Those hopes and fears tend to be tales of broken or unrequited loves, and a woman who still stands unbroken through all of life’s romantic storms. The songs have an easy and lilting flow, and you feel secure in their embrace as Freeman’s powerful instrument sings you a lullaby and assures you that everything is going to be just fine.

Producer Teddy Thompson (a folk singer in his own right) seems to intrinsically understand to keep out of the way and let Freeman’s voice work its magic. Some songs are just acoustic guitar, some have a tasteful piano and some have a little violin. In each case, Freeman’s vocals are front and centre in the mix (as though you could deny them). One song – “Ain’t Nobody” – is entirely a capella and finger snaps, yet as powerful as a full orchestra.

It would be enough just to hear Freeman sing, but equally impressive is that she writes every song on this record. These songs show none of the awkwardness or rough edges common to songwriters early in their career. Each of these songs is a carefully crafted combination of melody and lyric, sometimes resolving at the end and sometimes leaving you wanting more, and intrinsically knowing when to do which.

The style is fundamentally country, but it is clear early on that Freeman isn’t obsessed with genre or definitions. Introspective singer-songwriter folk songs like “You Say” and “Where I Stood” blend seamlessly with seventies throwbacks like “Go On Lovin’” and fifties crooners like “Lullaby”. All the songs have a timeless quality that feel like they’ve been around for decades, and not written in the last year or two by some relatively unknown singer from the tiny town of Galax, Virginia.

On an album loaded with standouts it is pretty hard to pick out favourites, but “Where I Stood” qualifies with its haunting tale of a woman recognizing that her love for her man is one way, and needs to end:

“Whoever said you were breaking the law?

Can you really hurt somebody if nobody saw?

Somehow we’re dreaming and dreaming so deep

When neither of us ever gets any sleep.

“What happened to your dreams, what happened to mine?

Your wastin’ my love and I’m wastin’ my time

I know you’d go back if you could

And you’d leave me standing right there where I stood.”

Ouch. The idea that your lover would have left you there if they could only go back. At the altar? On the day they approached and said hello? It isn’t clear but all the options are devastating.

I’ve rarely experienced such oft-traveled roads sound so fresh and poignant as Freeman’s exploration of these themes. The songs underscore the childlike innocence we have when we love, and how careless and foolish it can make us, even as it inspires us and fills us with awe.

The whole record is over in a crisp 10 songs and 33 minutes, and left me hungry for more. If you have the same experience, just go back and listen to it a few more times; it only gets better.

This morning I read the AV Club’s top 20 albums of 2016. There were a couple of records I was glad to see included (Leonard Cohen, Angel Olsen), but I mostly found myself scoffing at the choices. Not a single vote for Dori Freeman’s masterful creation. This is not only one of the best records of 2016, it is one of the best records I’ve heard.

Best tracks: all tracks

CD Odyssey Disc 946: Mary Chapin Carpenter

Last night on the walk home from the pub my compatriots and I all agreed to go boldly into London Drugs and buy a CD with little forethought. Everyone else welched, but I am now the proud owner of Meatloaf’s “Bat Out of Hell” for the low price of $5. Not sure if I won or lost. I guess I’ll decide when I review it.

A definite win was getting four Harpeth Rising albums direct from the band, who kindly shipped it to me from their home base in Indiana. Harpeth Rising is one of the finer contemporary folk acts out there – check them out here.

Now, with the Dolphins game safely on pause I offer you up a little country…

Disc 946 is….State of the Heart

Artist: Mary Chapin Carpenter

Year of Release: 1989

What’s up with the Cover? Mary Chapin Carpenter confronts a version of herself from an alternate universe. In that universe, Carpenter is a tough-as-nails police detective with a penchant for bad boys and the blues.

No, wait…sorry, I was temporarily thrown off by Carpenter’s unexpected eighties rocker girl haircut. This is just her looking in a mirror.

How I Came To Know It: I’ve reviewed three Mary Chapin Carpenter albums already and each time can’t remember how I got to know her. Sure my buddy Norm liked her, but that wasn’t the birth of it all; I already had one album when he mentioned her.

“State of the Heart” was the first record of hers I hever got, and finally jogged my memory. Back in university I was chasing after this girl (as one does at that age). She was friends with my buddy girlfriend at the time, and was a Ph.D. student in something or other (I can’t remember what). I was smitten with her and she was smitten with Mary Chapin Carpenter (particularly the early ‘folk’ years – she was a hipster before her time). I decided to check out Mary Chapin Carpenter so we’d have something in common (being a lowly undergraduate, I was having a hard time impressing her with my usual mix of manic banter and quotes from Tennyson).

So I got into about Mary Chapin Carpenter and tried to talk to her about that – which is when I learned it wasn’t the subject matter that was at issue, but rather the source. Turns out she was more interested in talking with another guy in our circle who was taller, better looking and - against all odds - had better hair. Ah well, at least Mary Chapin Carpenter worked out.

How It Stacks Up:  I’ve gone on a bit of a Mary Chapin Carpenter binge in the past year and now have eight of her albums (last time I reviewed one I only had 5). Of the eight I now have, “State of the Heart” is pretty awesome. I’ll put it second.

Ratings: 4 stars

Mary Chapin Carpenter has always straddled the worlds of folk, rock and country and “State of the Heart” is a fine example of her skill at walking in all worlds and mastering each.

Sadly, the Soulless Record Execs convinced her (or she decided) to start the record with the most Nashville country of the lot with “How Do” a playful and flirty song which is good, but not what makes Carpenter great.

Fortunately the rest of this record is exactly what makes Carpenter great; strong songwriting, sparse production (particularly for 1989), and a low sweet tone that draws you into the stories of ordinary people making their way in the world.

The album’s second track, “Something of a Dreamer” has all of that and more, a poignant song about a woman picking men that are no good for her because, well, she dreams it could be better. The guitar work on this song is relaxed and easy, and the flourishes of violin are tasteful and restrained. Carpenter’s vocals climb high up into her range and never lose their power.

It is this folksy side of Carpenter that has always appealed to me first, with songs that have strong and evocative lyrics that drew me in when I was young and impressionable and still draw me in now. On “This Shirt” Carpenter shares vignettes of her life through the recurring presence of a favourite shirt. I’ve heard these lines:

“This shirt was the place your cat

Decided to give birth to five

And we stayed up all night watching

And we cried when the last one died.”

Countless times, but they still had me welling up thinking of all the cats I’ve said goodbye to over the years.

And while these folks songs hit me the hardest, the up tempo country side of the record is also great “How Do” is a lesser track, and even it is still OK. Better still is “Too Tired” a song about acquiescing to an ill-advised booty call. The song has that fifties rock swing that is all too common in mainstream country. Despite this, Carpenter makes it work, with clever lyrics and a melody that takes the tired Nashville formula and twists it just enough to make it interesting again.

“Slow Country Dance” is a waltz about an aging beauty still trying to find love, lost in the moment of the dance, and “Quittin’ Time” a pop song which somehow makes the regret of a collapsing love soar with conviction. Genres are an afterthought, as Carpenter masters each with ease.

The songwriting on “State of the Heart” is some of the best you will ever find, and the range Carpenter shows (both vocally and stylistically) is impressive. This is a record I’ve heard a hundred times and every time I play it I enjoy it as much as the first time.

Best tracks: Something of a Dreamer, This Shirt, Quittin’ Time, Down in Mary’s Land, Too Tired, Slow Country Dance

CD Odyssey Disc 945: Twisted Sister

This next album has been dear to my heart for over thirty years. The fact that Tipper Gore doesn’t like this band makes it even better. If you’d like to see lead singer Dee Snider and her go at it head to head, here it is. Spoiler alert: Dee wins.

Disc 945 is….Stay Hungry

Artist: Twisted Sister

Year of Release: 1984

What’s up with the Cover? Frontman Dee Snider crouches in the corner of a house (that is apparently undergoing renovations). Dee has a large bone and judging by the look on his face, he is not interested in sharing. It’s all yours, Dee. I’ll happily stay hungry.

How I Came To Know It: I grew up with this album. It came out when I was 14 and I bought it (on record) and played the living hell out of it. I only recently bought it on CD, getting inspired after hearing “Burn in Hell” on a radio show in my buddy Spence’s car on a trip to Seattle.

How It Stacks Up:  Twisted Sister has seven studio albums but I’ve only got this one, so I can’t stack it up.

Ratings: 3 stars but almost 4

1984 was the height of eighties metal, and “Stay Hungry” is one of the quintessential albms of the time. If you were a teenage metal head in the eighties, chances are you owned this record or knew someone who did.

This is also one of those records (like Kiss’ “Destroyer”) where I have a hard time being objective about. I’ve owned it too long and heard it too many times to properly separate my critical voice from my fan voice. Maybe that’s for the better.

With disclaimers aside, “Stay Hungry” is a solid metal album and a fine example of its genre. Power chords, songs of rebellion and a dynamic frontman that walks the line between theatrical performance and street protest leader.

Of course, I’m talking about Dee Snider, that crazy guy seen on the cover above. Only Snider is far from crazy, he is a smart marketer of his brand and (more importantly) a natural and charismatic lead vocalist. Snider’s style is theatrical and he sings each song with the full commitment to the role, whether he is raging (“We’re Not Gonna Take It”, “I Wanna Rock”, sad (“The Price”) or just plain creepy (“Captain Howdy”).

Snider doesn’t have huge chops but he uses it well and he knows well enough to write songs that fit well within his vocal range.

Musically, these guys play tight together, but they don’t blow me away with their virtuosity. Drummer A. J. Pero is the best of them, hitting with the correct combination of snap and power that eighties metal demand. There are two guitarists, Jay Jay French and Eddie “Fingers”” Oyeda, but this pair is no Glen Tipton and KK Downing. Both French and Oyeda are good rhythm guys but neither was born to play lead.

The solo for “We’re Not Gonna Take It” is particularly sad. Soloists for metal sometimes commit the sin of losing the core of the melody while noodling around. Here, we have the opposite problem, with a note for note match for the vocal melody. It is like listening to Snider sing, but without the benefit of his showmanship. This is too bad because “We’re Not Gonna Take It” was a huge hit and one of my favourite songs of rebellion growing up. While it is still good fun, the guitar solo is impossible to overlook.

Fortunately, the album’s other hit “I Wanna Rock” is still as kick ass as the first day I heard it, with Snider’s triumphant cry at the beginning and one of metal’s most iconic riffs. The drums on the song are the best on the record and hearing Snider refusing to turn the volume down takes you back to all the glory of your teenage years. It feels good as an adult too. Even the guitar solo is solid.

Both “I Wanna Rock” and “We’re Not Gonna Take It” benefited from hilarious videos featuring Mark Metcalf reprising his role as Niedermayer from the 1978 classic movie “Animal House.” The videos are basically just scene after scene of a rock and roll hating Niedermayer, (who six years after “Animal House” is now a father and a high school teacher), getting pummeled and embarrassed by the band.

As I’ve gotten older, I still love this record, but my favourite tracks have shifted a bit. As a teenager I loved “We’re Not Gonna Take It’ but it feels like a novelty song now. Nowadays I love the heaviness of “Burn in Hell” and the creepiness of “Captain Howdy” which is one half of a song called “Horror-Teria (The Beginning)” about a child-killing clown (it is never suggested he's a clown, but I always imagine him that way based on the name) who is brought to justice by the townsfolk after getting acquitted on a technicality. Captain Howdy is the stuff of nightmares, abducting and terrorizing kids, with troubling elements reminiscent of Alice Cooper. Tipper Gore would not approve. The only part that falls flat is this line from the second half of the song (“Street Justice”):

“The man’s description did little good

A local stranger from the neighbourhood.”

What the hell is a ‘local stranger’? The guy is either a local, or he’s a stranger. Does the guy live in the neighbourhood or not? If he does, no one can describe him? Because I’m pretty sure he’s a clown. Or is he a stranger, which would mean he isn’t local at all. But I digress…

My favourite song (then and now) is “The Price,” a rock ballad bemoaning how nothing in the world comes for free and life is a constant struggle. Whether you are 14 or 40 we all have our moments, and “The Price” lets us wallow in it for four minutes before we (hopefully) dust ourselves off and get on with whatever needs doing.

My CD copy of this record was inexpensive, but it is also one of those records transferred to CD early on, and the recording volume suffers for it, taking away some of the impact. I’ll keep an eye out for a remastered version in my music shopping future.

Nevertheless, this is a solid rock album from a band that doesn’t always get the street cred they deserve.

Best tracks: Burn in Hell, Captain Howdy (the first half of Horror-Teria), I Wanna Rock, The Price, S.M.F.

CD Odyssey Disc 944: Seasick Steve

I am in the middle of a perfect storm of professional and personal demands on my time. I call such times the Wormhole Effect. It is like being in the gravitational well of a wormhole. The pressure feels overwhelming but the only way out is through the centre of it. A stolen interlude with a bit of music will help make sure I get to the other side intact.

Disc 944 is….Man From Another Time

Artist: Seasick Steve

Year of Release: 2010

What’s up with the Cover? Seasick Steve himself aka Steve Wold (or Leach, depending on who you believe), looking rather contented with himself here at the tender age of 70 (or 60, depending on who you believe).

How I Came To Know It: A few years ago the HIFI channel gave a free preview to try to convince viewers to sign up. This was back when the HIFI channel was actually about music – nowadays they just air a bunch of random crap – and I taped a whole slew of episodes of “Late Night…with Jools Holland.” Jools brought on all kinds of cool musical acts and one of them was Seasick Steve. I bought this album because two of the songs were featured on the Jools Holland episode I watched. I never signed up for HIFI though, nor have I ever regretted it.

How It Stacks Up:  Seasick Steve has eight studio albums, but I only have two of them. Of those two, “Man From Another Time” is my favourite so…#1!

Ratings: 3 stars

Music has many currencies, but authenticity is the most precious of all. Seasick Steve’s career has always traded on authenticity, and he displays his deep and abiding love of boogie woogie and blues on “Man From Another Time” that feels natural and carefree. Is it really natural, though? There is an alternative narrative about Seasick Steve – which reveals him as a career session musician who reinvented himself with a created backstory as a traveling bluesman.

Fortunately, here on Creative Maelstrom I could care less. If the music sounds authentic, that is authentic enough for me. Just sing it like you mean it, and be true to the moment when you’re performing. By this test, “Man From Another Time” delivers.

The album opens with “Diddley Bo” which was the first song I saw Steve play live on Jools Holland. It isn’t that this song is particularly amazing, it is just a basic rock-blues riff with a bit of drums in the background and the vocals are forgettable and a bit kitschy. But you forgive all of this, because the entire song is played on a board with a single guitar string nailed to it, played (without frets) by Steve with a slide. He throws that slide down with what can best be described as precise abandon, never missing a note. It should be just about the music but I’m sorry, that’s just too damned cool.

Many of Seasick Steve’s other songs are played on guitars (or guitar like objects) with only three or four strings that he’s tuned to overcome the shortcoming. Proof that once you can bar chord you can slide up and down most anything and play some version of the blues. Sure it’s a bit of excess showmanship, but it’s also a lot of fun, and it doesn’t take away from the fact that Seasick Steve is an accomplished guitar player. He’s doing the musical equivalent of tying one hand behind his back and still sounds great.

The themes of the music are about workin’ hard and travelin’ free. Seasick Steve sings about his John Deere tractor, being grateful for having a job (which he notes, is performing for us), and how to pick a good direction when travelling.

My favourite song on the album is on this latter topic. “Never Go West” is a gritty southern rock blues number, with an infectious riff and a cautionary tale of life on the road for the down and out. Seasick Steve’s voice is at its gravelly best, drawing you in as he reminds you to “never whisper when you know it’s time to shout.”

“Never Go West” is book ended on the record by two quieter numbers that showcase Seasick Steve’s slowhand. On both “Just Because I Can” and “Dark” Seasick Steve still sounds good even though he smooths out his vocal delivery into something mid-way between Merle Haggard and Eddie Vedder.

For the most part, the record features basic vocals that do a good job of serving their working class themes. The title track is a song about realizing you’ve become the old guy in the room and Steve does it in a way that pokes a little fun at himself without invoking any false pity that usually comes when a middle aged guy complains about getting old.

Other times the lyrics feel a bit forced. On “That’s All” he sings “now freedom for most/is just a word…like toast.” It is a painfully forced rhyme made worse by the delay before he goes there.

But this record is not about lyrics anyway, it is a record about feel. The guitar riffs are steeped in the blues and gorgeously played and the songs have a simple timeless feel despite being new creations.

The record ends with a ten minute track which is a combination of a rambling and forgettable track called “Seasick Boogie” I could’ve lived without, married to a cover of Hank Williams’ “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry.” The latter is a duet with Amy La Vere. It is a solid enough cover (it’s hard to go wrong with that song), but there is no value in putting it on the same track as the other song.

On balance, “Man From Another Time” is a laid back easy listen that displays the right combination of musicianship, grit and humour. The record doesn’t forge a lot of new ground, but it walks well-worn roads with an easy gait that’s hard not to like.

Best tracks: The Banjo Song, Man From Another Time, Just Because I Can, Never Go West, Dark

CD Odyssey Disc 943: Sera Cahoone

I have had one of those days that was so bad it wasn’t a case of me eating dinner late, it was a case of me not eating dinner at all. It is 9:00 p.m. and I’m too worn out to care.

Despite all this my desire to write about music lives on, like a corpse’s fingernails, long after my brain has turned to mush…

Or not. That first bit is what I wrote last night before I curled up on the couch and fell asleep watching a bad Chinese action comedy. Sometimes even my corpse fingernails need a break. With a bit of sleep under my belt, and daylight (at least as much as winter will allow) seeping through the window, I’m ready to give it another shot.

Disc 943 is….Only As the Day is Long

Artist: Sera Cahoone

Year of Release: 2008

What’s up with the Cover? An eagle on a bouquet of flowers. I imagine there was a garden wedding and the bride closed her eyes and tosses the bouquet high in the air only to have an eagle swoop down and carry it off. No bridesmaid would find love that day, my friends, but all is not lost in the world of romance: eagles mate for life.

How I Came To Know It: I don’t actually remember, but since I took this album from my “new music” section it can’t have been that long ago. I think I read an article about her in a songwriter magazine and looked her up on line. Finding her albums locally was impossible so…I asked my local record store to order them in! Old school! Support your local record store!

How It Stacks Up:  I have two Sera Cahoone albums (she has three but her eponymous debut is devilishly hard to come by). Of the two I have, “Only As The Day Is Long” comes in second. It may yet come in first, but I have a feeling that “Deer Creek Canyon” is going to edge it by a nose.

Ratings: 4 stars

This somber and thoughtful record was the perfect soundtrack for my last two days, giving me a quiet place for introspection as life presented a series of challenges, as life is wont to do.

Sera Cahoone is one of those “indie” acts who blend folk, country and rock elements. She reminded me at times of both Blue Rodeo and Cowboy Junkies and I wouldn’t be surprised if she was secretly Canadian. She’s actually from Washington State, which is about as Canadian as America gets. Like the Cowboy Junkies, Cahoone falls closer to folk and country, with songs that feature soft guitar strumming and touches of banjo and steel guitar drawing a melodic line through the slow roll of the guitar strings.

Cahoone is a late bloomer, making her first album in 2005 at the tender age of 30. “Only as the Day is Long” came out three years later and it shows the wisdom and craft of a musician who has been at it for a while. At their core, these songs incorporate very old country and bluegrass structures but Cahoone makes them current, juxtaposing classic steel guitar runs with meandering melodies that sound dreamy and disorienting at times, but always walk you safely home in the end. It’s called “resolution” and many indie bands that choose to end their songs with clashing and clangor could learn a lot from Cahoone’s songwriting skills.

Cahoone has an accomplished background as a drummer (even playing briefly with Band of Horses, which is a bit of a thing in the indie world). The drums aren’t high in the mix on “Only as the Day is Long” but the way Cahoone uses percussive sounds in general shows her understanding of its importance. The beats serve the songs, and the guitar is played in a way that sometimes enhances the percussion, sometimes replaces it, and sometimes plays off it, as the song demands.

She has a breathy vocal style that makes you feel like she does a lot of her singing while staring at the rain. She sings with an edge of sadness, but there is a lot of soothing, reassuring qualities as well. A good example is “You’re Not Broken” a reassuring song to someone who is being weighed down by life:

“All this wondering how and why

Has made me lose a little heart

Oh you got it right

You're just still there aching and there's nothing I can do

“I don't mean to sound unkind

But it's driving me mad

To see you walking so slowed down”

This song also shows how adept a songwriter Cahoone is. Its foundation is a five note guitar piece that walks you down but feels like it is missing a couple of notes. It isn’t jarring so much as…incomplete. Later, violin and guitar pieces offset this with full melodies, underscoring the song’s themes of damage, and the promise of hope and restoration.

Many of the songs are about relationships, particularly ones where there is trial or trouble. Things can be rocky at times, but as Cahoone notes on a later track, “I’ll just keep tryin’ to make things alright.” At times it’s probably not a good idea, such as on “The Colder the Air” where she admits:

“I know, I know

What you got, it ain’t nothin’ I want.”

Sometimes it feels uncomfortable because you’re getting such a clear look into her fears and insecurities, and sometimes it is uncomfortable because it feels like she’s looking into yours. It’s OK, though; Cahoone’s soothing voice and keen understanding for how a song should unfold will give you comfort in whatever darkness you might find yourself.

Best tracks: You Might As Well, Baker Lake, Only as the Day is Long, You’re Not Broken, The Colder the Air, Seven Hours Later