This next band is named after a character in the novels of William S. Burroughs. I can’t stand William S. Burroughs, but the band is great. So great I delayed this review while I gave the record a few extra listens.
Disc 1532 is…. Your Favorite Music
Artist: Clem Snide
Year of Release: 1999
What’s up with the Cover? These guys are in trouble in one of two ways.
If their tuxedos are rentals, they’re going to get billed for all that water damage. If they’re not rentals it means they own these tuxedos.
How I Came To Know It: I got into Clem Snide through their 2020 record, “Forever Just Beyond”. I didn’t dig into their back catalogue at the time, but I was meeting a friend at my local record store and doing a bit of shopping. Sheila doesn’t usually CD shop, but she was idly digging through the miscellaneous ‘C’ section while she waited for our friend and found this. I took it for a sign and bought it on spec.
How It Stacks Up: I have two Clem Snide albums. They were released more than twenty years apart, but both are amazing. Fittingly, I’ll put “Your Favorite Music” as..my favorite music. By them, at least.
Ratings: 4 stars
“Your Favorite Music” is a record that sneaks up on you. On my first listen I wasn’t sure I was going to like it. The warbling, sometimes flat vocals had me longing for more, the lyrics took unlikely tangents, and the tunes had a country drag that ambled in a way that left me feeling anxious about whether they’d get to their destination.
However, the more I listened the more the things I had thought were bugs ended up being features. This is a record full of introspection and uncertainty; themes best approached thoughtfully, and from a slow amble.
“Bread” is a good example. A single guitar moseys its way through a song with plenty of minor notes bouncing about. Vocalist Eef Barzelay won’t blow the studio doors off their hinges with power, but he sings with honesty and integrity, and the more you listen the more you appreciate his tone as well. Also, Eef Barzelay is a great name. Better than Clem Snide, at any rate.
The band mixes up the arrangements from song to song, so while the slow plaintive mosey is present for most of them, they have a subtle variation I appreciated more and more on every listen. The secret weapon is Jason Glasser. He plays cello, violin and keyboards (not at the same time of course). This adds texture and emotional nuance, splashing deep blue and indigo into the corners of the songs. The more I listened the more I appreciated the choices Glasser makes on not only how he plays, but how he chooses which paintbrush to use for each song.
The tunes are good for a wallow, but they have a core of hope and happiness in them that will leave you satisfied at the end. The title track is the best example, starting out with a downcast “your favorite music/it just makes you sad” but ending with:
“I can't teach you
To learn to love yourself
But here's a sad song
That I wrote for no one else”
It’s like a hopeful and reassuring hug, and a reminder a sad song can be a healing experience.
The album has one up tempo number as well. “I Love the Unknown” comes right in the middle of the record and serves as a perfectly timed palate cleanser. It is a song about carefree adventure, with Barzelay singing with an unlikely joyful head voice, and Glasser dropping timely chops on the cello that made you think of the swell of the orchestra in the grand finale of a classical piece.
Immediately after they’re back to their slow and considered approach. The album’s latter gem is “Loneliness Finds Her Own Way”. It features the snap of the snare drum common to this era of blue-eyed soul. This song is lyrically one of the record’s best, opening with:
“Loneliness finds her own way
Cause her skin is so soft
I'm cutting my teeth on her shoulders
And cracking my knuckles while holding her hand”
This is very early Clem Snide, and they wear their influences on their sleeve. I got strong hints of Uncle Tupelo and (unsurprisingly) a long finish of early Wilco. However, they don’t sound derivative, they just sound like they’re part of the same musical school. They’re peers, not pupils.
There are a dozen or so Clem Snide releases between this one and the only other one in my collection, but based on the two bookends of their discography, I am looking forward to exploring everything in between.
Best tracks: Your Favorite Music, Bread, I Love the Unknown, Loneliness Finds Her Own Way, Sweet Mother Russia, The Water Song
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