CD Odyssey Disc 1511: Kacy & Clayton

Over the weekend my friend Casey remarked, “don’t be petty, be Tom Petty.” Seemed like pretty good advice to me. However, if you can’t find it in yourself to be one of the greatest American songwriters in history, just make sure you manage the other half of the statement.

Disc 1511 is….  Strange Country

Artist: Kacy & Clayton

Year of Release: 2015

What’s up with the Cover? Kacy and Clayton stand on a large rock. The dirt is red, but does this country really qualify as “strange”? “Likely to stain your jeans” I’ll grant you, but I think “strange” is a stretch.

How I Came To Know It: I discovered Kacy and Clayton through their 2019 album, “Carrying On”. That caused me to dig into their back catalogue, and this is one of the records I decided…to not get. But then I found myself in the record store without my list and decided to give it a chance anyway.

Shopping for records is a lot like groceries – if you go without a list, you’re sure to pick up something you don’t need.  

How It Stacks Up: Not counting their recent collaboration with Marlon Williams (which I see as separate) I have two Kacy & Clayton albums: this one and the aforementioned “Carrying On.” I must assume “Carrying On” is better, as I didn’t like this one very much.

I have two other albums of theirs on my “to get” music grocery list, but they’ve been on there for a while, so I think I’ll give them another listen just to make sure.

Ratings: 2 stars

Kacy & Clayton are a Saskatchewan duo that have all the qualities of a band I should love. Simple folk music, singing tales of ordinary folk with a backdrop of minimalist production. Despite all this, it did not turn out well.

I think if I had somehow heard this record back in the early nineties I would’ve been more favourably disposed. Back then, I was heavily into ‘pure’ folk music. No contemporary sounds of any kind, thank you very much, and certainly no pop! I delved into the artists on traditionalist record label Green Linnett, sometimes picking them based on how many songs were in Gaelic (note – you couldn’t try records out on Youtube or Spotify back then – leading to all kinds of selection methods as arbitrary as that one, or worse).

Anyway, the singsong and high soprano vocals of Kacy Anderson is exactly the sort of thing you’d hear on Green Linnett. Anderson has a beautiful voice. It is light and pure like a Speyside whiskey.

The problem is that since then I’ve drifted to preferring a bit more peat in my Scotch, musically speaking. Here I found her vocals too pure, and while the songs tell many a traditional tale of tragedy and woe (as one expects from these kinds of tunes) I wanted a more grit in delivery. On my one other K&C album the production is a bit more complex, and it provides a counterbalance to Kacy’s singing. Here, she is on an island unto herself, and you either soar with her or she loses you in the high notes. More often it was the latter.

There are some standout moments on the record. The title track has a busker-style thump and strum to the guitar that fills it with energy, and the melody is well suited to the vocals. I felt like I was taking in an intimate show at some small outdoor concert venue.

“Brunswick Stew” is gloriously dark, as it tells the story of a young woman who gets pregnant out of wedlock, and to hide her shame sneaks out one night to the river and drowns the child as it is born. It is the kind of dark stuff you expect from 400-year-old folk ballads despite being a K&C original. They do a great job of capturing the timeless quality of these old traditional numbers. The song is grim, yes, but it is high quality grim.

Other than these two bright spots, (and some bonus points for cheekily naming the last track “Dyin Bed Maker”) I rarely felt drawn in or emotionally connected to the music. I kept wanting more of the thump of the title track, or the creep factor of “Brunswick Stew” and not getting it.

Objectively, this record is good, and I know from my continuing quest for more Kacy & Clayton albums that I like what they are going for. However, the heart wants what it wants. And so I’ll pass this along to someone who will appreciate it more than I did.

Best tracks: Strange Country, Brunswick Stew

CD Odyssey Disc 1510: NQ Arbuckle

Howdy! It is Sheila’s birthday this week so let’s start with an enthusiastic happy birthday to the love of my life! I’m such a lucky guy to have found my split-apart.

I don’t usually buy her music as a gift. My rule is if I was going to buy it for myself anyway, it isn’t really a gift, and she’s generally happy with the reams of music I bring home on my own. However, this year I knew she wanted a particular band, so I grabbed her two albums by eighties Canadian band, The Box. We’ll be giving those a spin tonight!

Disc 1510 is….  The Future Happens Anyway

Artist: NQ Arbuckle

Year of Release: 2014

What’s up with the Cover? This album is called “The Future Happens Anyway” and based on the cover, that future involves the earth being devoured by a disembodied tiger head of intergalactic proportions.

My personal favourite way for the world to end is to be suddenly engulfed in a black hole created in an experiment gone awry. However, as extinction-level events go, “devoured by an intergalactic tiger head” is definitely a close second in terms of awesome.

How I Came To Know It: This was an impulse buy. I was in local record store Lyle’s Place (now closed) digging through their bargain bin of $2 CDs. There was a whole whack of NQ Arbuckle in there, who I knew from an album where they partnered up with Carolyn Mark (reviewed back at Disc 1209). I’d also bought one of their records earlier in the year at a different record store (Ditch – still open). I liked them both and based on that I grabbed up everything available in the discount pile – three albums for $6. This was one of them.

How It Stacks Up: I have four NQ Arbuckle albums (not including that one with Carolyn Mark I just mentioned). Turns out this is all of them, so thanks to whoever parted with their NQ Arbuckle collection.

Of those four, I put “The Future Happens Anyway” in at…fourth. Nothing wrong with it, I just like the other three more.

Ratings: 3 stars but almost 4

NQ Arbuckle is a roots rock band with a natural talent for storytelling. Some of these stories have an autobiographical feel, while others are more character driven, but they all have a natural ability to draw you into their narratives.

A big reason for this is lead singer Neville Quinlan’s vocals. Quinlan has a tone that is rich and resonant, but also emotionally raw. The combination allows him to deliver songs that are fragile and full of doubt without sounding like he’s whining. A good example is “Panic Pure,” a song about living with anxiety. The song is a cover of a Vic Chesnutt original and hearing it you feel the burden the original songwriter would have carried all those years. Chesnutt died of a drug overdose at the age of 45, and the NQ Arbuckle cover is a fitting tribute.

On the originals front, “Death” covers similar ground, but despite a chorus of:

“Knock me down in your sunshine
The last thing I had on my mind
The bottleneck of dreams is trying to kill me
O death, I'm scared of you tonight”

The song’s tune and approach is triumphant. This is a song of fear, but it is about facing that fear down and pushing through until the sun rises.

There are missteps, however. “I Wish that My Sadness Would Make You Change” is a song about a guy hoping that his sadness will convince his lover to not leave. It is a sappy notion that isn’t worthy of a song, and Quinlan’s tone cannot overcome its cringeworthy theme. We’ve all been there but yeesh, let’s not memorialize it in song, people.

The record has some great tales on it. “Art O’Leary” is the true story of the 1775 murder of Irish soldier Art O’Leary, told from the perspective of his wife. Gorgeous and full of grief, the tune also had me off surfing the internet learning some history, which was also nice.

Also beautiful is “The Civil War Is Over” the story of an angry old man, fighting old battles as he slowly loses touch with the world. Told in the third person, you get to see him through snippets of the town growing around him, as NQ Arbuckle gives you a deeper insight into a town crank that you might ordinarily just pass by.

Musically, the record has a nice mix of guitar and piano, straddling the world between country and rock with an easy grace. The individual playing is solid, but it is the way NQ Arbuckle melts into a single sound that impressed me more. While Quinlan’s vocals and lyrics are the star of the show, NQ Arbuckle is a cohesive band, where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

I liked this record more on every listen, and it made me keen to dig even deeper into the band’s discography.

Best tracks: Back to Earth, Red Wine, Art O’Leary, Death, Panic Pure, The Civil War Is Over

CD Odyssey Disc 1509: Loretta Lynn

Welcome back to the CD Odyssey. I just watched part of an episode of “Penn & Teller: Fool Us” while eating dinner, which is appropriate, since this next album went and fooled me.

Disc 1509 is….  Van Lear Rose

Artist: Loretta Lynn

Year of Release: 2004

What’s up with the Cover? Ms. Loretta Lynn herself, looking absolutely resplendent in a seafoam dress. With guitar in hand she looks ready to get married, and then play at her own reception.

How I Came To Know It: This record got a lot of hype because of the Jack White connection. I heard a couple of tracks and decided it was worth giving it a shot.

How It Stacks Up: This is my only Loretta Lynn album, so it can’t stack up.

Ratings: 4 stars

Loretta Lynn has been a fixture in my life for as long as I can remember. My mom had a bunch of her records, and I grew up listening to her tales of love, heartache and threadbare poverty. “Van Lear Rose” came out a good twenty-five to thirty years later but captures every bit of the vitality of those early records of my childhood.

In fact, this record sounds so timeless and classic, it messed me up, and left me convinced I’d known these specific songs as a kid. So convinced, in fact, that I spent a good amount of time trying to prove myself right. Despite some intensive Googling, I couldn’t find a single cover. It was downright unnerving, and more than a little humbling. A good reminder that no matter how certain something may seem, we all kneel before the power of cognitive dissonance.

I hope I can be forgiven my error, which was made a lot easier by just how good these songs are. Any one of them could have been a Loretta Lynn chart topper back in the sixties or seventies.

Back then, Lynn wrote unabashed songs about love not only failing, but failing ugly, with songs like “Fist City” where she threatens her husband’s mistress with a beating. “Family Tree” is the natural inheritor, but this time no fight is in the offing. As Lynn notes:

“No I didn't come to fight
If he was a better man I might
But I wouldn't dirty my hands on trash like you, no
Bring out the babies' daddy, that's who they've come to see
Not the woman that's burnin' down our family tree.”

The song is a sequel right down to the trash metaphors, (“Fist City” goes with “But the man I love/When he picks up trash/He puts it in a garbage can”). 35 years later, she holds both the cheater and the mistress equally below her contempt.

Lynn has variations on the theme throughout “Van Lear Rose,” including the sadness of broken communication (“Trouble on the Line”), a “Fist City” style barroom beatdown (“Mrs. Leroy Brown”) and a decision to graduate from fisticuffs to full-blown murder (“Women’s Prison”). Lynn has always told her stories from the perspective of unapologetic women, but in her maturity the dirtbag men that inspire her ire fade even farther into the background. On “Women’s Prison” the tragedy is not the murder of the philandering husband that inspires the tragedy, so much as the mother crying out as she loses her daughter to the electric chair.

Lynn also revisits themes of the poverty of her youth. That poverty is a long way in the rearview mirror by 2004, but on songs like “High on a Mountain Top” you can hear loud and clear how those early experiences continue to shape her worldview. Covering this same theme with less success is the spoken-word piece “Little Red Shoes.” You can tell Lynn likes telling another story about the struggle to afford shoes as a kid, but it feels trite and out of place amid the amazing melodies and vocals elsewhere on the record.

For all that poverty and heartbreak, it is the celebratory title track that steals the show. “Van Lear Rose” is a traditional “how I met your mother” song that celebrates good old-fashioned love at first sight. Like a lot of Loretta Lynn songs, it is a simple tale that she fills with colour and texture.

Loretta Lynn’s vocals hold up beautifully, with that mix of sweetness and quaver that rightfully made her famous. Added to this, Jack White throws in flourishes of his country blues stylings. They mesh particularly well on “Portland, Oregon” another love song that is a lot more ribald than “Van Lear Rose” but no less heartfelt. White’s work on the electric guitar is the perfect addition here, hazing up the song with boozy wisdom. Love at first sight, but this time with the aid of pitchers full of gin fizz.

White’s production is brilliant overall, as he adds flourishes here and there but never messes with the purity of Lynn’s songwriting. He never forgets that if you’re looking at Loretta Lynn, you’re lookin’ at country. The result is a record that is fresh and new, but feels so familiar it is like you’ve heard it a hundred times. You may even convince yourself you have.

Best tracks: Van Lear Rose, Portland Oregon, Family Tree, High on a Mountain Top, Women’s Prison, Mrs. Leroy Brown

CD Odyssey Disc 1508: Too Short

This album would occupy space on my CD shelves right beside my last review (Told Slant). Will it earn a spot, though? Is it shelf-worthy? Read on and find out.

Disc 1508 is….  Life Is…Too $hort

Artist: Too $hort

Year of Release: 1988

What’s up with the Cover? Too Short himself, looks down into the grave of a sucker MC who has apparently “died on wax”, presumably after being defeated in a rap battle by our titular hero.

“Died on wax” was a new expression to me, inspiring a bit internet sleuthing. Only a bit, however, as befits my modernist and direct approach to writing these reviews.

Turns out “dead wax” is that part of a vinyl LP after the band’s music stops playing, but before the label in the middle. It’s the place where information about the album is printed (important for record collectors to see if the record is a re-issue, or other details). So I guess if you are a sucker MC and you run out rhymes, you have metaphorically “died on wax”? That’s my best guess, anyway.

How I Came To Know It: My friend Ross brought some Too Short over for a game night. I remembered liking it, but not enough to go seek it out. However, I was in the local record store and saw this album up for sale at the low price of $9. I decided to give it a chance.

How It Stacks Up: This is my only Too Short album so it can’t really stack up.

Ratings: 2 stars but almost 3

Too Short had been in the rap game for some time when he released “Life Is…” but despite his sterling reputation, and strong sales (the record went double platinum) the record never pulled me in like I had hoped.

This is surprising because late eighties/early nineties rap is totally my jam. This is the golden era of the style, where you get a beat, a few samples, and then let the MC take over and spit some clever rhymes.

All those ingredients are in place on “Life Is…” but – and I never thought I’d say this – it is a bit too simple. There are a lot of basic heroic couplets here, and generally they land on the end of the bar (fine), but a bit sparse when it comes to clever metaphor. Too Short is content to tell his stories with very plain street language. When the narrative intrigued me, it worked, but often I wanted a bit more poetry in amid the rhymes.

The worst offender is “I Ain’t Trippin’” which feels almost like he’s just talking. That isn’t to say Too Short doesn’t have flow. He has a laid-back slide to his vocals and a natural talent for sitting down in the pocket. It is the overall style I tend to favour, and I can see why he is well loved, but for most of the first half of the record I wasn’t feeling it.

Things start to improve with “Oakland” at Track 5, which didn’t satisfy me with its rhymes, but has a killer beat and an insistent organ sample (and sexy backup singers cooing “Oakland!” that together make the song feel like an instant party.

“Don’t Fight the Feelin’”, “Cuss Words” and “Pimp the Ho” are all also solid (all appearing on Side Two) and also all step up their game on both lyrics and metaphor. They also all have unpleasant misogyny in their lyrics, so be forewarned that this is how Mr. Short rolls. “Don’t Fight the Feelin’” balances things out with female rapping duo Danger Zone. Danger Zone matches Too Short’s various nasty suggestions with a litany of disses that include references to Too Short’s bad breath and small dick.

Finally, this record has some sketchy production, with the songs sounding distant and generally lacking ‘oomph,’ taking away from the impact the killer basslines demand. I’d like to hear this record on vinyl, because 1988 was not the best era for artists understanding how things will sound on CD. Even so, there are fluctuations in overall volume level, which pulled me out of the experience.

This is unfortunate, because “Life Is…” has a lot of solid songs, they just come a bit too late on the record, and too infrequently. I thought of keeping it, but then I compared it to some of the other rap records I have from 1988. Here’s a list (with links to those I’ve already reviewed):

• Big Daddy Kane – Long Live the Kane (Disc 1108)
• EPMD – Strictly Business
• Eric B. & Rakim – Follow the Leader
• Ice-T – Power (Disc 639)
• NWA – Straight Outta Compton
• Public Enemy – It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back (Disc 513)

If you’re not into familiar with late eighties rap, any of these amazing records are a fine place to start. Because of this, I can’t see myself pulling “Life Is…Too Short” off the shelf over one of them. As a result, I’m going to pass this record along to someone who will appreciate it more. It deserves more love and playtime than it will get from me.

Best tracks: Oakland, Don’t Fight the Feelin’, CussWords, Pimp the Ho

CD Odyssey Disc 1507: Told Slant

This is the second straight review of an album released in 2020, but it is very different from the heavy metal bombast that is Eternal Champion. Let us instead turn our attention the softer joys of indie folk-pop.

Disc 1507 is….  Point the Flashlight and Walk

Artist: Told Slant

Year of Release: 2020

What’s up with the Cover? Two frightened girls are out for a walk in the dark. They look they could have used the album’s titular flashlight, but instead have chosen to go with a bucket of rags and a book. Not sure how they plan to read in the dark (again, without that flashlight) but neither item is going to protect them from anything lurking out there in the night. Usually I’d go with vampires, but these kids look pretty rural so instead I’m going to assume they later die at the hands…of a werewolf!

Well, the teeth and the claws of a werewolf. He won’t have hands until he’s turned back into Mr. Bradshaw, the local baker, who later will help organize the search for the missing sisters.

Then again, on the album’s inside fold there is second painting, this time with the girls down at a lakeshore about to push a boat out with a man’s corpse in it. So maybe the girls got the better of Mr. Bradshaw’s werewolf. When he turned back into a person, they realized no one would believe them and decided to dispose of the body.

How I Came To Know It: I read a review of the album (I think on Pitchfork) and decided to try them out. Then I had my record store order it in for me - shop local!

How It Stacks Up: This is my only Told Slant album, so it can’t really stack up.

Ratings: 4 stars

Told Slant is one of those “bands” that is actually just one person – in this case singer-songwriter Felix Walworth. Walworth also plays all the instruments although, we must assume, not at the same time.

Walworth sounds like a folksier version of Will Sheff (lead singer of Okkervil River), possessing the same slight warble. He is quieter than Sheff but has that that same “almost out of tune” quality that generates additional layers of uncertainty on songs that have a lot of doubt and apprehensiveness to begin with.

Wrapped around this folk quality, Walworth adds a “sad anthem” ambience that would feel at home on a John Hughes movie. These are songs for staring wistfully out at bleak existence – potentially while sitting alone in the high school cafeteria, or from high in the bleachers at the homecoming dance.

There is a lot of angst on this record, and at times it gets so overwrought you want to shout, “get over it!” at Walworth’s characters. However, more often I just fell into that pleasant wallow created when sad music is done well.

It helps that Walworth avoids the common danger of the detached indie voice and sings with honesty and vulnerability. He helps his cause with some delightful guitar picking. These serve as the songs’ hook, pulling you into a reverie. He plays a lot of different instruments (organ, bass, various percussion) but it is the guitar that’s the star of the show.

The record also has a gift for a turn of phrase, and while these songs are often more mood pieces than stories, you get the feeling of real characters inhabiting them. The anxiety of the opening track, “Meet You in the City”:

“Gotta take a pill just to meet you in the city
If it's too heavy can you carry it with me?
Beauty is a heart that you want to stay beating
Ugly is the sun coming up for no reason”

Or the hard conversations that can take you through to dawn on “Moon and Sea”:

“We can talk until the birds are waking
Up with the sun, another day the earth has taken
And learn about the things that only moonlight can draw out
That set the page on fire when you try to write them down.”

The album cover plus these images confirms Told Slant is not keen on daytime.

That’s just as well, because these songs work better as hymns or prayers whispered in the dark. The record doesn’t answer those prayers, and you’re left with the impression that his characters’ poetic expressions of doubt are left hanging in the night air, unresolved. It sounds like it could be unpleasant, but it is a strangely cathartic experience.

I started out wanting to poke fun at all the angst on “Point the Flashlight and Walk” but instead Told Slant won me over, leaving me with appreciation for his songwriting talent, and a restful heart from what he had to say.

Best tracks: Meet You in the City, Bullfrog Choirs, Run Around the Schools, Family Still, No Backpack, Moon and Sea

CD Odyssey Disc 1506: Eternal Champion

I’m tired and bit worn down today, but my week doesn’t show any signs of slowing down, so I better get this review out to you while I still can.

Disc 1506 is….  Ravening Iron

Artist: Eternal Champion

Year of Release: 2020

What’s up with the Cover? That is not the cover above – just the band’s logo. The cover comes with a warning (see full description below).

The cover you’re not seeing has pretty much every fantasy novel trope you can imagine and then some. It has not one, but two voluptuous women, a throne, a pyramid of skulls, a giant snake AND a dragon all crammed into one over-the-top painting courtesy of artist Ken Kelly. I’m pretty sure one of the women is in charge (she’s seated on a throne and gesturing imperiously). However, she either runs an empire where the climate is very hot or clothing is in short supply, because both her and her servant girl are mostly nude, and 100% topless.

Given all the casual nudity, I wasn’t sure if this was too racy for Blogspot, so I haven’t posted it as I usually would. I considered censoring it with some strategically placed black strips, but that’s not how I roll either. Instead, you have a choice – you can settle for my description above, or if forewarned you decide you still want to see it for yourself, you can visit Eternal Champion’s Bandcamp site here and do just that.

How I Came To Know It: I discovered the band through a review, but I bought it through Bandcamp, where Eternal Champion teased that they would periodically put up 25 CDs at a time for purchase and to “keep checking back.” I did exactly that, for several months, in fact, only to find it sold out again and again. I was about to lose faith when I saw it was finally in stock, and quickly ordered one. I’m glad I got one when I did, because even that offer is now over, and it is digital only.

When my CD arrived it came with a bonus lapel pin featuring the cover I describe above. Guaranteed to spice up any outfit. Thanks for the swag, Eternal Champion!

How It Stacks Up: I have two Eternal Champion albums, this one and “The Armor of Ire” from 2016. I love them both pretty equally, but I’ll give the edge to “Ravening Iron”.

Ratings: 4 stars

I don’t know what’s in the water down there, but Texas is making some killer heavy metal these days. Eternal Champion is my latest discovery from the Lone Star State, and like my previous obsession (The Sword) they play a form of metal called “New Wave of Traditional Heavy Metal” or NWOTHM.

To witness NWOTHM is to revel in metal’s origins of power chords, heavy thump and anthemic melodies, and Eternal Champion is as good as any at all these ingredients.  These songs are chock full of crunchy riffs, galloping beats and drums (courtesy Arthur Rizk) that thunder at you like the charge of a company of heavy horse with lances lowered.

These are not complicated songs, but dear gods, are they ever played with gusto. These guys will make you want to swing your hair at every traffic light or crosswalk. The tunes crash down like heavy surf, battering and invigorating you at the same time. John Powers’ guitar solos are not complex, but he plays them with impeccable timing and energy, knowing just when to come back to the main tune for another round of mosh pit merriment. His riff on the opening track, “A Face in the Glare” is particularly awe inspiring, but the album has plenty more where that came from.

According to the liner notes singer Jason Tarpey is also responsible for “war horn” and “hammer & anvil”. I can’t comment on those, but his vocal style is reminiscent of Rob Halford. He doesn’t have the chops of Halford, but he has that same staccato delivery and high vibrato. He sings a bit back in the mix, which lets the band shine as a unit. It also adds an element of otherworldliness to his delivery, as though he’s singing to you from the other side of a dimensional portal.

That effect is intensified by the subject matter of the songs, which ring out like a fantasy adventure throughout. There is plenty of sword fighting, ancient gods and references to people and places that I mostly haven’t heard of (Vagar, Arhai) and failed to successfully Google. However, I did recognize “Worms of the Earth” as a Robert E. Howard fantasy story I read as a youth.

Eternal Champion read a lot of the same stuff (their band name is a reference to the main character of a host of books by sixties fantasy writer Michael Moorcock). They wear these influences on their sleeves, and the record has much sword fighting, sorcery and pillaging throughout. With songs titled “Banners of Arhai” and “War at the Edge of the End” you can expect more than a little lyrical excess, but if you like that sort of thing (which I do) you’ll happily get your fill.

The record is over after only eight songs and 37 minutes, but while short, it is a lovely bit of escapism throughout. That said, the music, like the cover, is not for everybody, so be prepared for a serious journey into metal if you brave this one.

Best tracks: A Face in the Glare, Skullseeker, War at the Edge of the End, Worms of the Earth, Banners of Arhai

CD Odyssey Disc 1505: Blue Oyster Cult

This next entry is the last unreviewed record of my favourite band, but the first album they ever released. And so, on your feet or on your knees. Here they are, the amazing Blue…Oyster…Cult!

Disc 1505 is….  Self-Titled

Artist: Blue Oyster Cult

Year of Release: 1972

What’s up with the Cover? This cover is trippy as fuck. As a kid I would stare at it and let my mind drift on thoughts of the cosmos. Like, is this one massive expanse of one bedroom studio apartments, or is this just the same one-bedroom apartment, if you could see it connected to all of its fellow iterations across the multiverse?

Did I really contemplate the multiverse as an eight year old? I can’t remember, but it seems likely. I was a weird kid.

How I Came To Know It: I grew up with Blue Oyster Cult and they have been a fixture in my life almost as long as music itself. My older brother Virgil owned the record, and I listened to it with him. As an adult I bought it on various formats over the years, and currently own it on CD and vinyl.

How It Stacks Up: As you might expect, my Blue Oyster Cult collection goes to 11. Competition is fierce, but their self-titled effort still manages to land in 4^th place overall. Since this is my last BOC album to review, here’s the full recap:

1. Secret Treaties: 5 stars (reviewed at Disc 866)
2. Fire of Unknown Origin: 5 stars (reviewed at Disc 751)
3. Spectres.: 5 stars (reviewed at Disc 514)
4. Self-Titled: 4 stars (reviewed right here)
5. Agents of Fortune: 4 stars (reviewed at Disc 463)
6. Cultosaurus Erectus: 4 stars (reviewed at Disc 206)
7. Tyranny and Mutation: 4 stars (reviewed at Disc 1273)
8. Mirrors: 4 stars (reviewed at Disc 685)
9. Imaginos: 4 stars (reviewed at Disc 838)
10. The Revolution by Night: 3 stars (reviewed at Disc 1159)
11. Club Ninja: 3 stars (reviewed at Disc 780)

Ratings: 4 stars but almost 5

I’ve listened to Blue Oyster Cult’s 1972 debut many times, but every time I put it on, I am struck anew with just how weird it is. Weird and wonderful.

While BOC would go on to make many a stadium anthem through their career, in the early years their music was a mix of acid trip rock, prog and bar blues. Unsurprisingly, Wikipedia notes that this record peaked on the charts at #172, with no singles. It is a travesty that people didn’t understand how amazing these guys were until much later, and even then, few would become devotees willing to drill backward to see what they missed.

What they missed was some innovative music, played with precision and passion. A key element of Blue Oyster Cult is that they are first and foremost a band – a cohesive unit, where everyone brought value. Every member also contributed meaningfully to the writing, and four different members take on lead vocals at various points on the record.

In fact the most “radio friendly” (although apparently not played) song, “Cities on Flame with Rock and Roll” isn’t even sung by Eric Bloom, but by drummer Albert Bouchard. Bouchard has that less-than-perfect grimy voice that is perfect for this riff driven tune. Almost fifty years later, it also has one of the most recognizable guitar riffs in rock and roll. It is so awesome, the lyrics even come with a warning:

“Three thousand guitars they seem to cry
My ears will melt, and then my eyes.”

So, you know, listen responsibly.

The song features guitarist Buck Dharma rocking out, but his finest ever moments are captured on the bluesy and dreamlike “Then Came the Last Days of May”. The song is about a drug deal in the desert gone wrong, but the rather straightforward tale is lifted to new heights by Dharma’s incredible playing. If you ever want to know what musicians are talking about when the reverently talk about “great tone” then look no farther than this song, which is easily one of my top 5 favourite songs by BOC of all time. Probably top 3.

These are two of the more accessible tunes, but the record is full of other treasures once your ear adjusts to the weird mixture of sounds I noted earlier. “Transmaniacon MC” has the weirdest mix of groove and prog you’ll hear to start a tune, and while at its core it is bar blues, it is so dressed up with crazy flourishes and musical shifts you’ll start to suspect the bar they’re playing in is not of this world.

They double down on “I’m on the Lamb, But I Ain’t No Sheep” a song I always liked as a kid because it mentions the RCMP (“Canadian mounted, baby!”) but gets progressively weirder from there, and by the third stanza we have lines like:

“Hornswoop me bungo pony on dogsled of ice
Make a dash for freedom baby”

I have never been sure what this song is about. I think it is sex. Also drugs. So sex, drugs, and rock and roll.

Subject wise the record has all kinds of range. Science fiction references on “Stairway to the Stars”, more sex and drugs (“Before the Kiss, a Redcap”), and something between kink and cannibalism (“She’s As Beautiful as a Foot”).

The crazy topics and brilliant musicianship come together on one of the record’s best tracks, “Workshop of the Telescopes.” Dharma’s guitar lays down a complicated mix of blues solos and sixties psychedelia in one of the best sneaky-good guitar bits you’ll hear from a guy who has made a career of being sneaky-good. This one is sung by “main” vocalist Eric Bloom, who’s excessive rock style knows just how to infuse lyrics like:

“By Silverfish imperatrix whose incorrupted eye
Sees through the charms of doctors and their wives
By Salamander Drake and the power that was undone
Rise to claim Saturn, ring and sky.
By those who see with their eyes closed
You’ll know me by my black telescope.”

With import and meaning.

The record ends with the relatively straightforward jangle tune “Redeemed.” The words are fanciful in ways that would take too long to explain, but after all the psychedelic prog, the band finds one last way to surprise you, playing something with a very traditional sixties hippy sound that they twist into something delightfully grotesque.

When I am trying to get someone into Blue Oyster Cult, I do not start them with this album. It is wild and wonderful, but your first reaction may well be, “what the hell?” I implore you to keep listening, because this is some of the most innovative, thought-provoking and – yes – enjoyable music made in the past half-century. It is the redcap after the kiss – take it and see just how deep the rabbit-hole of this amazing band can go.

Best tracks: Transmaniacon MC, I’m on the Lamb But I Ain’t no Sheep, Then Came the Last Days of May, Stairway to the Stars, Cities on Flame with Rock and Roll, Workshop of the Telescopes, Redeemed

CD Odyssey Disc 1504: Garbage

This next record was long, but through the combination of a few lunch-time runs, and being stuck in heavy traffic on my drive home, I was able to get in a couple of solid listens. So…here we are.

Disc 1504 is….  No Gods No Masters

Artist: Garbage

Year of Release: 2021

What’s up with the Cover? An art photograph taken by Garbage lead singer Shirley Manson. Here we have an angel, looking a bit portly around the middle. I am not judging. As a middle-aged man I wage a constant war against my expanding middle. I can’t even imagine how hard it is to stay trim over several millennia.

How I Came To Know It: I have a couple of Garbage albums dating from the mid-nineties and early oughts but I haven’t exactly been a loyal fan for the intervening twenty years or so. For whatever reason this latest record caught my attention.

How It Stacks Up: I now have three Garbage albums. Of the three, I put “No Gods No Masters” in at #3.

Ratings: 2 stars but almost 3

Would I have been more favourably disposed to “No Gods No Masters” it if had come out in 2001 instead of 2021? Probably, yes, but it didn’t, and so here we are.

First of all, this record is loud. Loud in that early-oughts kind of way where it felt like the guy in the sound booth said “fuck it,” pushed all the dials north, and hoped for the best. I think it is going for that thumping rave/club sound, but when you turn everything up at once you take away any nuance the songs may possess.

A good example is “Uncomfortably Me” which has all the bones of a great song, but where the emotional content gets battered out of it. It is like going to a show where they’ve overamped the room and the sound is bouncing off the walls at you like a fusillade of concussion grenades. There is a lot of good in this song, but they needed to let it breathe a little to make it heard.

There are times I do want that heavy industrial dance sound, like when I’m listening to a band like KMFDM, but that stuff is more for dancing and strobe lights. The tunes on “No Gods No Monsters” aren’t danceable enough to pull it off. The one exception to this is “Godhead” which is danceable as fuck, and definitely had me thinking of the clubbing days of my early twenties. Regrettably, it is the exception, and most of the music is what you might hear played too loud at a strange party where you don’t know anybody. Eventually, you seek shelter in the kitchen, secretly hoping one of the speakers blows under the strain, so you can return to the living room and have a human (non-shouted) conversation with that interesting punk girl reclining on the couch. I digress, but you get the idea.

There are some good songs on the record, notably “Flipping the Bird” which gives voice to said punk girl’s inner voice as she absently nods to the drunken advances of randos at the aforementioned party. 

“You tell me who you think I am
And I agree with you but deep inside
I am flipping you the bird again”

Nice. Somehow just mentally flipping the bird is even more dismissive. Like the dude in question isn’t worth her bothering to lift a finger, even if only to tell him off.

Thematically, the record lives up to its name, with a lot of songs exploring the problem of religion and authority in general. There is also an apocalyptic quality that leaves you with the distinct feeling that everything is not going to turn out OK. I’m reading a dystopian future sci-fi horror by Jeff VanderMeer called “Borne”. The book features the complete collapse of society, with terrifying bio-engineered monsters including a gargantuan bear called “Mord” that is worshiped like some sort of vengeful God. “No Gods No Masters” would be a good soundtrack for the movie version.

This record is actually a two-album set, with a whole extra CD of “bonus tracks” that collectively add up to a very bloated 83 minutes of playing time.

The ‘bonus’ songs are mostly more original compositions, but there are two covers: a plodding and forgettable version of David Bowie’s “Starman” and an inspired version of Patti Smith’s “Because the Night.” The latter is a duet with the Screaming Females. I’ve always loved the vocals of Screaming Females frontwoman Marissa Paternoster, but haven’t always loved their music. Getting her singing alongside Manson is a real treat, and while they don’t beat out the Springsteen or Patti Smith versions, they put themselves in the conversation.

The second CD wraps up strong, with a hard rock murder ballad (“Destroying Angels”) that I’d love to hear as a folk song, and a little more industrial dance action with “Time Will Destroy Everything” (complete with some metallic synth effects on the vocals as though some robot from the future has come back to deliver the song’s titular message).

“No Gods No Masters” has the material for one good 50-minute record, but it is bloated with a whole lot of unnecessary and indulgent content. Even the packaging can’t resist excess. It comes in a small box containing a lyrics booklet, a foldout poster, four head shots of the band with pink shapes superimposed on their faces (?) along with the two albums. I found myself wanting to part with it for space considerations alone.

As for the music, I spent a lot of time mining for the nuggets (see “best tracks” below), all the while wanting to dodge lesser songs that were like pockets of bad air, threatening to turn the whole experience sour at any moment. As I’ve said many times before - less is more.

Best tracks: Godhead, Anonymous XXX, Flipping the Bird, This City Will Kill You, Because the Night, Destroying Angels, Time Will Destroy Everything

CD Odyssey Disc 1503: Lyle Lovett

This is my second review in a row featuring an artist with the initials LL. Cool, eh?

I admit that was weak. Let’s pretend it didn’t happen and get on with the review.

Disc 1503 is…. The Road to Ensenada

Artist: Lyle Lovett

Year of Release: 1998

What’s up with the Cover? Lyle clutches his hat to his breast. He would have liked to wear it, but as you can see, he has no head above the eyeline.

It looks like a fairly large hat as well - should we infer anything as a result? More on this later.

How I Came To Know It: I’ve had this album a long time, having been a Lyle Lovett fan since the early nineties. I still remember where I bought it; local record store, Lyle’s Place, which is a rather nifty bit of coincidental nomenclature. Even more so, given that Lyle’s Place announced last week they are closing after 40 years in business. I’ll miss Lyle’s Place – thanks to the Lyle family for all their great service over the years and all the best to whatever they decide to do next.

How It Stacks Up: I have 11 Lyle Lovett albums. This one is a top contender, coming in at #2. When I first bought this record, I probably would have placed it in the middle of the pack, but like any great record, I enjoy it more with each successive listen.

Ratings: 4 stars but almost 5

Lyle Lovett occupies a unique and hard to quantify place in music, somewhere halfway between country crooner and lounge singer. “The Road to Ensenada” is Lyle showing some of his best work in both worlds.

Lovett starts out country, with the opening track, “Don’t Touch My Hat.” This song has a decidedly western swing, and also gives us an early example of Lovett’s self-deprecating humour, which is such a huge part of his music. Here, we have a man that has lost a woman’s affection to an unknown rival and is making his final stand in search for a shred of dignity. This stand amounts to:

“I wear a seven and you’re out of order
Because I can tell from here, you’re a seven and a quarter
If it’s her you want, I don’t care about that
You can have my girl, but don’t touch my hat.”

Clever touch that the guy’s head is slightly bigger. Is this suggesting the rival’s head is fat, or is there a bit of a dick joke going on here? Yes.

This album comes out on the heels of Lovett’s whirlwind romance with Julia Roberts (they were married for a couple of years just prior to the release of “Road to Ensenada”) and while the divorce was amicable, the record has its share of both clever love songs, and deep heartbreak. Even an amicable divorce stings.

The album’s second track, “Her First Mistake” brings out Lovett’s lounge side, with a tiki lounge sound, that will make you want to get up and swing your hips on the dance floor, but not so vigorously to stain the pits of your suit or dress. Just a light and easy wiggle, decorated with a half-smile to show you’re having fun, but you’re not gonna scuff a shoe or spill your drink or anything. The lyrics features a guy trying various pick-up lines out on a woman at a party; I imagine leaning into her ear while they engage in the aforementioned dancing.

The arrangements demonstrate a lot of different approaches, and they all work equally well. The light lounge sound of “Her First Mistake” gives way to tunes like “Fiona” and “Private Conversation” which are dominated by soaring fiddles. At other times you’ll get big band horns as on “That’s Right (You’re Not From Texas)”. This style-jumping happens throughout the record, but never feels jarring.

It's not all sweetness and light. Lovett will also break your heart, without the humour to help it go down easier. His vocals are sneaky good. When he’s having his lounge-y fun, you just follow along on the story, but on songs like “Who Loves You Better” and “Christmas Morning”, his croon is laden with a complex and fully realized sadness.

Finally, a sincere shout-out to all the musicians that play on this record. Over twenty people contribute, and while some are more famous than others (Jackson Browne and Shawn Colvin both appear) every one of them is exceptional. When I saw Lovett in concert a few years ago, I marveled at the talent he had assembled around him, and “The Road to Ensenada” shows that he’s been doing this for years, maybe never better than here.

Listening to this record you get the impression that Lovett has been through a lot of peaks and valleys in the years prior. We’re all fortunate he was able to take all those laughs and tears and turn them into a collection of songs that just get better with age.

Best tracks: Don’t Touch My Hat, Her First Mistake, Fiona, Private Conversations, It Ought to Be Easier, I Can’t Love You Anymore, Christmas Morning, The Road to Ensenada

CD Odyssey Disc 1502: Lydia Luce

Welcome to the long weekend! Let’s get right to the review, as I have a game of Ultimate to play.

Disc 1502 is…. Dark River

Artist: Lydia Luce

Year of Release: 2021

What’s up with the Cover? Lydia Luce, looking verklempt. She may be wondering, “Why, o why did I wear this shoulder-less gown to the river. I knew there would be a chill breeze!”

The river behind her looks a bit like its dried up and turned into a stretch of blown sand to me, but wadi I know? Get it? Get it?

Man, I crack myself up

How I Came To Know It: The boring way. I read a review and decided to check her out. The album was hard to locate, including not being posted on her own bandcamp site for some time (I think maybe the review preceded the release?) but eventually she put up a digital copy for download. I turned it into a CD because hey, that’s how I like it.

How It Stacks Up: I only have one Lydia Luce album so it can’t really stack up.

Ratings: 3 stars

When I first heard “Dark River” I thought it was going to be one of my favourite albums of 2021, but on subsequent listens cracks began to show in my enthusiasm.

I was initially drawn in by Luce’s smoky and mysterious voice. When she sings it feels like she’s trusting you with a secret, particularly in her low range, where she reminded me favourably of jazz chanteuse Holly Cole. In her upper range her voice takes on a pop quality, although this is aided by the overall production which has a lot of bells and whistles. The arrangements are a little by the numbers, and the additional flourishes of sound effects and horn are OK, but don’t add anything significant to the experience.

The album starts strong, with two tracks (“Occasionally”, “Dark River”) that walk the line near jazz but remain grounded in music that I can, you know, enjoy. “Occasionally” has a delightful up-turning hook as she sings the title with the whimsy and uncertainty the word deserves. “Dark River” is driven by a drum-heavy mix, and while there is a bit of eighties-era Heart in this tune, I have a soft spot for eighties-era Heart.

“Something to Say” is another strong entry, and the folksiest song on the record. Luce’s vocals on this tune are sweeter than usual, and she puts a lilting quality into the verses that underscores the theme of lost love. In later verses she introduces a bit of excess production that threatens to crowd the song, but it has strong enough bones to hold it off.

Unfortunately, there are an equal number of songs that were not my cup of tea. Not objectively bad, but since its my music blog, I’m going to tell you all the ways they annoyed me anyway.

First off, some tunes don’t have a hint of jazz, but instead dive right in. “Tangled Love” and “Just the Same” both have strong jazz qualities in their melodic structure. It is that old-school Sinatra jazz that I prefer, not the anxiety-inducing modern stuff at least. I felt like Luce had been listening a lot to “In the Wee Small Hours” when writing these tunes. I love “In the Wee Small Hours” (see my review at Disc 1211) but the style doesn’t translate here.

Elsewhere (“Somehow”, “Maybe in Time”) the tunes are just as jazzy but have an additional cloying quality. On both, I had a vision of Luce – in the same gown as on the cover – holding her hand to her breast as she sings a “I’m so alone” soliloquy from some musical theatre production. If you like musical theatre, you would likely find these songs quite beautiful. I do not like musical theatre.

“Dark River” shows a lot of range, as Luce tries out her impressive vocals a whole suite of styles, and this alone makes the album worth a listen. However, some of the styles she tries out end up sounding overwrought, losing me right when they mean to draw me in. Overall, a good record, but not a great one.

Best tracks: Occasionally, Dark River, Something to Say, Never Been Good