With so many albums purchased in a short amount of time, you can imagine that some albums spent less time in my iPod than others. These are the albums—some quite good, others mediocre—that for whatever reason simply didn't latch onto me all the way. As for the worst of the bunch, come back a little later today and I'll run down that list too.
The Fiery Furnaces, Widow City
Kim Gordon put it pretty well when she was asked for her current playlist by the New York Times a couple weeks ago:
“Widow City” feels like a song cycle, the way some things repeat themselves. One song seems to lead to the next, almost like an opera.... This record is incessant, it’s so wordy and dense, it wakes you up. It’s almost annoying and irritating to listen to, but it’s also compelling. The lyrics seem kind of obsessive. It pulls you along with it. The lyrics are fragments of meaning that you could maybe relate to, but I don’t mind that I don’t know what the heck she’s talking about. The lyrics are very filmic. There are images that don’t make sense. It’s kind of an act of suspended disbelief listening to it...
Really, there's not a whole lot else to say. Okay, I'll say this: I think Widow City is bordering on totally brilliant. I would say I was obsessive about this record except for the fact that it is (intentionally) a little irritating and a lot difficult. It's not an easy listen. I actually have interior arguments with myself about whether or not I want to put it on: "I can't get 'Philadelphia Grand Jury' or 'Clear Signal from Cairo' out of my head! I should put this album on!" "Jesus, don't put this album on. It is exhausting; it doesn't know if it wants to sit or stand." I've only had the album for a couple weeks now; perhaps if I'd owned it longer it would have made into yesterday's batch of albums. It's difficult for me to tell, at the moment, whether I'll keep coming back to this album or whether, ultimately, I'll never go back to it again.
- The Fiery Furnaces, The Philadelphia Grand Jury
The Little Ones, Terry Tales & Fallen Gates
I like this album—I swear!—though I do wish it were just a hair better. I still eagerly look forward to the full-length, to be released some time this summer, supposedly. I am confidently optimistic that their best tunes are still ahead of them—hopefully just a month or two ahead of them.
- The Little Ones, Unlock the Door!
The Byrds, Dr. Byrds and Mr. Hyde
The Byrds are probably my #1 favorite pre-1980s band. (Getting into all-time rankings, off the top of my head, they gotta start wrestling with R.E.M. at the very least.) They’re a relatively new discovery for me—my brilliant wife turned me onto Younger than Yesterday about four years ago—but in the last couple years I’ve slowly been picking up their albums in chronological order. Hence last year you've seen me going on about The Notorious Byrd Brothers and Sweetheart of the Rodeo. Now I’m officially out of the original-lineup territory. Dr. Byrds was the first album for which Roger McGuinn assembled an entirely new band—and rather hastily, I might add. Their resulting first outing is… okay. The title of the album refers to constant shifting between the country direction they’d been heading in over the last two albums and a more psychedelic sound closer in intent to Fifth Dimension. The genre-jumping isn’t too jarring—that’s not the flaw. It’s just not that special. I hear it gets better (then worse). Untitled is next on the list, as soon as I see it used at Amoeba.
- The Byrds, This Wheel's on Fire
R.E.M., Accelerate
So, given what I just said above, you can imagine I was in line for the new R.E.M. My expectations were in check, though. I’d heard “Supernatural Superserious” and thought it was okay but not amazing. It’s difficult to talk about a new R.E.M. album without addressing the albatross that is everything post-Bill Berry, so just for the record: I like most of the post-Berry stuff just fine. Sure, Around the Sun was 90% turd, but Up and Reveal—especially Reveal—get a huge bum rap. So my approach to a new R.E.M. is not “will they ever halt their downward slide?” but rather “I hope their one and only crap album was just an aberration.”
That said, Accelerate. It’s perfectly solid and totally mediocre. I won’t skip the songs when they come up on shuffle—does that count for anything? It gets HUGE props for avoiding anything resembling “The Outsiders,” the trainwreck of a collaboration with Q-Tip from the last album which by the way was the lowest point in the band’s history. At the same time, there’s nothing on this album that is better than “The Ascent of Man,” which was the high point of Around the Sun. Points for rocking, but I’m not convinced they mean it. The suit doesn’t quite fit like it used to.
- R.E.M., Houston
The Beau Brummels, Triangle and Bradley’s Barn
The Beau Brummels were a group of also-rans from the the 60s California scene. Perhaps if they'd moved south from San Francisco to Laurel Canyon they might have had a little more success. Their music fits in well with that scene—a mixture of rock, folk, and country (the latter more apparent on Bradley's Barn than on Triangle). Sal Valentino's voice is the defining trait of the band's sound; it's a deep voice with a natural vibrato (think a more masculine Devandra Banhart), up front in the mix and seldom layered with any harmonies. It's a unique voice but iit can also become a little wearying after a full album. I'm finding that I like the BBs most when I hear single tracks pop up on shuffle, rather than listening to ten in a row.
- The Beau Brummels, Are You Happy? (from Triangle)
- The Beau Brummels, Deep Water (from Bradley's Barn)
Chris Bell, I Am the Cosmos
When I became enamored with Big Star’s #1 Record, I had no idea just how much of that was due to Chris Bell. I guess I just didn’t get how much of a presence he was on the album (it doesn’t help that his and Alex Chilton’s voices are not that distinct from each other). Thankfully a few of you commenters steered me to Bell’s one and only solo album. Any Big Star fans out there who, like me, love #1 Record but are cooler on Radio City and Third/Sister Lover, seek this one out. It’s by no means a perfect record—there’s a lot of religiosity that puts me off, and some of the 70s-isms just don’t work—but when Bell goes soft, as on “You and Your Sister,” it’s like returning to the best ballads of Big Star’s debut. Over the long haul—I’ve had the album for almost three months now—I don’t feel drawn to keep putting it on; but I’ve made a little Fantasy Big Star album, made up of my favorite tracks from this, Radio City, and Third/Sister Lover, which does a good job of simulating the ideal follow-up to #1 Record.
- Chris Bell, I Am the Cosmos
Bob Lind, Since There Were Circles
I came across this album via a post by Brendan at The Rising Storm, where I fell in love with the country-inflected "Loser." Lind's voice occupies similar territory as Neil Diamond or Lee Hazelwood—which I'm inclined to describe as "sandpapery." Lind isn't as creepy as Hazelwood or as robust as Diamond, though. He's got a little more ache in his delivery. The majority of this album is solid if not spectacular, with both "Loser" and the title track being the biggest standouts. I get a real kick out the chorus to the latter: "How long have I loved you? Since there were circles." Wow. That's a really long time. In all seriousness, though, I think the song has a real gravity to it. His love is not lighthearted, nor is it stalkerish; he's simply not joking around.
- Bob Lind, Since There Were Circles
Fairport Convention, Unhalfbricking
This was my first Fairport Convention album, though they've been on my radar for quite a long time. I'd been advised in the past to begin with Liege & Leaf, but darn it if the library didn't have that one. So Unhalfbricking it had to be. No matter: I quite like the album, or half of it at least. To some degree it's still sinking in with me; I don't feel like I've fully digested it yet, despite I-don't-know-how-many listens. The freer, looser material resonates with me a lot more than the Ye Olde Traditional stuff. Hence I think "A Sailor's Life," with its rustling rhythms in the beginning morphing into a guitar/violin jam are fantastic, while the more traditional folk style of "Cajun Woman" is, for me, less compelling.
- Fairport Convention, Who Knows Where the Time Goes
The Tough Alliance, A New Chance
Not a bad record, though a little repetitive (and cheesy as all get out). I wish the singer had a little more range or knew a few more melodies, as the tracks get harder and harder to differentiate as the album goes on. That said, not a bad workout record, though it's really just not where my head is at right now. Can you tell I'm not the one in the family that picked this album up? I'm ambivalent.
- The Tough Alliance, Looking for Gold
