A tale of two singles with Gentleman Jesse and His Men

Gentleman Jesse and His Men -

(“She’s a Trap”/”I Won’t Say Goodbye” – Douchemaster & “You’ve Got the Wrong Man”/”Stubborn Ghost” – Hozac)

Last October a slew of bands loosely fitting the ‘garage-rock’ tag descended upon Lawrence for a one-day, multi-club event called “Garage Fest.” The first band I heard that evening was Atlanta’s Gentleman Jesse and His Men. It was among the best performances of the night. Jesse and his band offered pure pop pleasure that neither neglected nor exaggerated the power part of the ‘power-pop’ proposition. Their playing and singing was skilled, tight, convincing and miles apart from some folks' notion of what constitutes garage-rock, but for me it qualified. After all, the performers on Nuggets, the quintessential primer of the genre, were American bands who by and large imitated British rockers like the Kinks, Stones, Yardbirds and Them, but certainly among them (the Knickerbockers and Beau Brummels come quickly to mind)  were artists whose chief inspiration was the Beatles. The music of Gentleman Jesse is derived from those Beatle obsessed outfits from the mid-Sixties.

Jesse’s debut album, on the unfortunately named Douchemaster label, was a latter day power-pop treasure. Two recent singles, one on Douchemaster, the other on Chicago’s Hozac label, are the first new music from Jesse and His Men since that 2008 debut album. Between the two singles, four songs delivered in scarcely ten minutes, Jesse proves there’s plenty more in his bag of pop-rock tricks.

“She’s a Trap” is two minutes of pop nirvana, a cross between the pop side of “Nuggets” and the Undertones. Jesse’s vocals have a distinctly trans-Atlantic quality. He doesn’t sound particularly affected; it’s more that he betrays his influences without reservations, and some of those inspirations are British. Figure too, that between his Mick Jones-ish lead vocals and the Clash inspired harmonies on certain songs, Jesse and the band remind of American outfits like the Dils and Channel Three, bands whose pop-punk sounds were equal parts American and British. On the flip side, “I Won’t Say Goodbye” is a mid-tempo charmer that shows Jesse and His Men aren’t reliant on thrash-pop tempos (Jesse Smith also plays bass in Atlanta’s loud, fast punk band the Carbonas).

“You’ve Got the Wrong Man’s” bridge features the sort of compressed wordplay that Nick Lowe mastered so well on albums like Pure Pop for Now People and Labour of Lust.  The b-side “Stubborn Ghost” has a Lennonesque melody and busy, propulsive McCartney inspired bass lines. The spiffy twelve string figure that bridges each chorus and verse evokes the Rickenbacker sound featured on the Hard Day’s Night album.

None of these four songs are epochal or ground breaking. All of them are full of pop charm and performed exuberantly. As lovely filler between albums they are hard to fault, and any fan of power-pop would do well to seek out the singles, available from the Hozac and Douchemaster labels, as well as digitally from iTunes.

Reverberating: 8.7 (cumulative)

Billy Belzer - You Shouldn't Have - But you should ... hear it, that is.

Welcome. I hope you caught my review last week in the Star and on Back To Rockville of the fine new Wire release "Red Barked Tree." This week 'Reverberations' shines its tiny spotlight on a most enjoyable piece of work from local hero Billy Belzer.

His new ep "You Shouldn't Have" is available as a download from bancamp.com (http://billybelzer.bandcamp.com/album/you-shouldnt-have). I suspect it may start showing up at selected local, indie record retailers soon, too.

Billy Belzer – You Shouldn’t Have  (local/indie release)

 "Pop (power ... and not) masterwork from hometown lad."

Those who haunt the Kansas City music scene know Bill Belzer. They know him as one of the city's best drummers, whether it’s from his work (back in the day) with Mongol Beach Party or his recent playing with the New Amsterdams or his own bands Mary Fortune and the Sleazebeats. Bill played on my friend Todd Newman's pretty darn brilliant Temporary Setback. As a drummer Bill is rock solid; he can play in a variety of styles, he even knows how to let up on the 2 and 4 on the hi-hat to visit Charlie Watts town (something you can hardly get a young rock drummer to do). Beyond chops, he's always been a song conscious player. It was only a matter of time before he turned that superb song sense to writing his own material. Actually, he's done so for some time, but You Shouldn’t Have is the first release featuring Bill's songs, singing, and guitar playing as well as drumming. Wow, what took him so long? YSH borders on pop perfection, more because it pushes the boundaries of power-pop than adheres to them. Belzer's songs reflect his service with Mr. Newman as well as a studious absorption of writers like Nick Lowe, Elvis Costello, Marshall Crenshaw, and Matthew Sweet. Whether it's influence or affinity I also hear something in Belzer’s music that reminds me of Mac McCaughan's work with Portastatic.

YSH contains five songs, each distinct, characterized by wit, heart and brevity. Belzer has a concise sense of what makes a great pop song work and he demonstrates it with tunes that embrace a wide variety of moods, personae and tempi.

"Devil Girl," clocking in at a thrifty 2:14, is a corker. Framed by a nifty guitar lick, the lyric describes a wallflower who turns seductive and voluptuous in costume for an office Halloween party. Or as Belzer recounts: the girl "was chubby and lacked style and was very nervous. At the company Halloween party, however, she came dressed as an exceedingly sexy, well put together devil." There's a pregnant pause between the words devil and girl, a little hiccup that works beautifully both melodically and as a lyric conceit. Brisk, frisky and sweet, “Devil Girl” kicks things off beautifully.

"Good Clown" provides excellent personal and professional advice to a rock 'n' roll burnout. Belzer's subtle, half-whispered, sotto voce delivery makes his withering contempt darker, proving that restraint can be deadlier than excess. There's no vinegar in "Concessionaire," a song that Belzer describes being about gay romance and self-acceptance, but frankly it's universal ("What you have in your heart, is it anything to give it all away?"), being about the courage it takes to put your self on the line for love. Its setting is basically folk-rock with a touch of Big Star.

YSH concludes with "Rose of the Rockies," a heartbreakingly beautiful ballad. Belzer says it's "about a couple of friends I knew who had two incredible girls and whose marriage disintegrated." The casual listener might not catch all that; what anyone with a heart will hear is a beautiful song about longing and loss. It’s a conventional and annoying cliché that a given part (instrumental embellishment, for instance) 'makes' a song. My first thought always is that without a good song, nothing added to a song 'makes' it. That said, sometimes something in an arrangement can be so right, so affecting that it can amplify the soul of a song. Such is the case with Betse Ellis's violin work on "Rose of the Rockies;" her playing serves Belzer much like David Swarbrick's nuanced work complemented Sandy Denny's singing with Fairport Convention.

Five songs, right? And I've discussed four. Okay, it's tough. When an album has thirteen songs you don't feel compelled to discuss them all in a review. And honestly, "Someone You Trust" doesn't move me the way the other songs do. It's a fine song really, and it's positioned perfectly in the middle slot (3rd of 5 for you mathematically challenged ... like me), letting the more prepossessing songs stand out.

Belzer play drums, guitar and sings all lead vocals. In addition to Ms. Ellis, Belzer gets empathetic support from Jeff Freling (guitar, bass), Eric McCann (bass), Andrew Connor (bass), Mark Greenberg (keyboards), and Kristin May (backing vocals on 'Devil Girl'). YSH was engineered and mixed ably by Mike Nolte, Andrew Connor's band mate in Ghosty. Kudos to everyone - YSH is a practically flawless short program of power pop and balladry.

Reverberating: 8.8

Wire - Red Barked Tree (Pink Flag), from Back to Rockville, the Music Blog of the Kansas City Star, January 13, 2011

Dear readers: Not, I repeat not, a repetition of the post from the Kansas City Star. For reasons of space my review of Wire's new album Red Barked Tree appeared in an edited form in the Star. However, in the Star's rock blog (Back to Rockville) it appears in its unexpurgated, original form. Oh, and for those of you who would like to see the album artwork - here you go:

The link: http://backtorockville.typepad.com/back_to_rockville/2011/01/new-music-alert-reliable-wire-and-more.html
takes you to the review in its original form.








Again, had the review appeared in "Reverberations" it would have a ...

Reverberating: 8.9

Wire - Red Barked Tree (Pink Flag), from the Kansas City Star, Jan. 13, 2011

I reviewed the new Wire album Red Barked Tree for the Kansas City Star. The review appeared today.

Gee, here's a link to the review:  http://www.kansascity.com/2011/01/12/2577460/new-audio-releases.html

I'm grateful for the opportunity to work with Tim Finn and the Star. For purposes of "Reverberations": consistency I will add a little information. Red Barked Tree is released on the Pink Flag label (I always give label information - labels love to see their names in print). Also, had it originated here on "Reverberations" the album would have been given a ...

Reverberating: 8.9

Sleigh Bells (from Hell): Or Overrated Monstrosities of 2010, pt. 1

 As this silly junk ends up on all sorts of "Best of" lists for 2010 ... I just gotta say ...

Sleigh Bells – Treats (Mom & Pop)

“Umm, Treats … bet ya I can eat just one”

Sleigh Bells. The guy in Pitchfork gave it an 8.7, and metacritic.com, an aggregator of reviews, suggests “Universal Acclaim,” and indicates an average score of 87.

Consider this the con of the year. Sleigh Bells debut full-length Treats is aptly titled, save for the fact that this is penny candy sold as Chocolate gateau. Three bites and you have a sugar headache.  Sleigh Bells serve up mediocre songs combining lame, mid-tempo post-Dre beats borrowed from Nineties hip-hop (and not especially good Nineties hip-hop) with bland distorto-guitar crap and synth bleeps. Less ugly than what used to be called rap-metal, but just as stupid.

Back story: Some dude (Derek Miller, who was in a hardcore band called Poison the Well) runs into a girl at a Brooklyn coffee shop. Collaboration ensues. Miller cranks out generic, crap pop metal riffage (the cute trick being that it’s ultra-distorted) and Alexis Krauss chirp-chants about nothing much. Williamsburg fawns. Files and clips saturate the net. Sleigh Bells mania follows. Now I know why they call it viral.

Simple lyrics, I have no problem with. Bring’em on; I’m a child of Little Richard and the Ramones. But these songs cloy where they should captivate.  Alexis Krauss’s singing shoots for the post-My Bloody Valentine cool of Kirstin Gundred’s Dum Dum Girls, but she’s a one trick filly; every song features vocals with so much echo, delay, and reverb that the effect is sheer aural fatigue.

Critics are tripping all over themselves to tell us how novel Sleigh Bells are. Well, freakin’ nonsense. Loud ass guitars over dope(y) beats - That’s new! This is A.R.E. Weapons meets Chemical Brothers with sugary female vocals. Sometimes I hear Le Tigre with less interesting songs. Anybody remember Electroclash? Didn’t think so. Well, trust me, this crap is close.

It’s not just that Sleigh Bells is undoubtedly a flash in the pan one-joke band that galls me. It’s that they’re not very good even given that. Depressing especially is the herd mentality that prevails among easily duped, ahistorical rock “critics” who fawn at any half-ass hipster thesis that allows them to drop Santogold or M.I.A.’s name. It must be sad to live in fear of being odd man (or woman) out.

Go ahead. Enjoy your Treats kids. But brush your mind after each listening to prevent decay.

Reverberating: 4.4

originally appeared in the KC Free Press

Black Angels - Phosphene Dream is Reverberations No. 1 for 2010!

Welcome to the top 25 for 2010 Countdown! Each day we'll countdown; today we culminate with our (okay, my) Number One album of the year. This review first appeared in the KC Free Press.

When this release was announced I hadn't the highest hopes. I'd found the sound of the Black Angels earlier records impressive, but the songwriting was mediocre. The songs on Phosphene Dream don't necessarily compare to the best work of their inspirations (Beatles, Doors, Velvets, Elevators, etc.), but they're good, and good enough that taken as a body of work they impress with their craft, consistency, and vision.  Producer Dave Sardy, whose credits read like a name check of alternative rock artists, undoubtedly tightened up the band's arrangements. And having signed to Blue Horizon, the new (actually revived) imprint from Sire's Seymour Stein and famed producer Richard Gottehrer, the Black Angels were ready to make a RECORD, not just a recording. Phosphene Dream is just that a RECORD, an album that coheres from start to finish. Like all great records it's comprised of good songs that cumulatively comprise an even greater work. 

Critics seem bent on celebrating Arcade Fire's The Suburbs. Hey, I'm not a hater, but for me the Black Angels vision of what happens when the kids leave the suburbs and move into a college town crash pad with a bunch of questionable characters is just more compelling.

 

25. Jon Langford - Old Devils (Bloodshot)
24. Vaselines - Sex with an X (Sub Pop)
23. Drive-By Truckers - The Big To-Do (ATO)
22. Magnetic Fields - Realism (Nonesuch)
21. Dum Dum Girls - I Will Be (Sub Pop)
20. Peter Case - Wig! (Yep Roc) 

19. Bettye Lavette - Interpretations: The British Rock Songbook (Anti-Epitaph) 

18. Super Wild Horses - Fifteen (Hovac) 

17. Parting Gifts - Strychnine Dandelion (In the Red) 

16. No Age - Everything In Between (Sub Pop)

15. The Fall - Your Future Our Clutter (Domino) 

14. First Aid Kit - The Big Black and the Blue (Wichita Recordings) 

13. Owen Pallett - Heartland (Domino)

12. Mavis Staples - You Are Not Alone (Anti-Epitaph)

10 (tie). J. Roddy Walston and the Business - s/t (Vagrant)
10 (tie). Aloe Blacc - Good Things (Stones Throw)
  9. Roky Erickson & Okkervil River - True Love Cast Out All Evil (Anti-Epitaph)
  8. Deerhunter - Halcyon Digest (4AD)
  7. Wounded Lion - s/t (In the Red)
  6. Diamond Rings - Special Affections (Secret City Records)
  5. Bleach Bloodz - Pure Rock N Roll / Live and Raw / Devil Magick (local
      releases)
  4. Jesse Malin and the St. Mark's Social - Love it to Life (SideOneDummy)
  3. Manic Street Preachers – Postcards From a Young Man (import)
  2. Mystery Jets – Serotonin (Rough Trade)

1. Black Angels – Phosphene Dream (Blue Horizon)

“Austin’s dark troubadours streamline their sound with sharp results”

Naming themselves after the most stridently dissonant song from the
Velvet Underground and Nico album, the Black Angels pledged themselves to menace and drone. They pursued it with vigor and fury on their previous records, sometimes giving too much of a good thing. Their new album Phosphene Dream features shorter, more succinct songs and more detailedperformances without sacrificing any of the band’s maniacal intensity. I think it’s the best distillation to date of their dope-deal-gone-bad and love at the edge visions.


Phosphene Dream is the first release for Seymour Stein and Richard Gottehrer’s revived Blue Horizon imprint. It’s an interesting and complicated saga, perhaps best accounted in my friend Mark Cope’s article (http://www.examiner.com/music-industry-in-national/the-blue-horizon-records-label-is-reactivated-by-the-orchard-and-the-warner-music-group). With that legacy, however convoluted, Phosphene
had to be good. And it is.

“Bad Vibrations” kicks things off in fine fashion, the Angel’s debts to the 13th Floor Elevators and Spaceman 3 quickly in evidence. Amid a swirl of tremolo and Vox Continental organ emanations singer Alex Maas proffers one of the band’s customary tales of lust, love, confusion and destruction’s eve. The Angels are Austinites, but much of Phosphene Dream is suggestive of the curdling of the California dream, a sort of the edge/end of the world sensibility saturates the album. 

“Haunting at 1300 McKinley” sounds like the Mamas and Papas if the Elevators had kicked Lou Alder out of the studio and let the acid flow. Echoes of Sixties classics permeate Phosphene Dream, from the “Season of the Witch” rhythms of “Yellow Elevator # 2” to the “Born the Be Wild” kick start of “River of Blood.” The former takes the Moody Blues on a terror ride up Cielo Drive; the latter echoes such Sixties acid-pop as Bubble Puppy and Southwest F.O.B. (their regional hit “Smell of Incense” sounds like a model for “River.”)

“Entrance Song’s” mutated Hooker boogie delivers a post-apocalyptic take on Chuck Berry’s driving songs, combining the druggy drive of Hawkwind and Blue Oyster Cult into one seductive whole. “Telephone” sounds like a one-off jam between the Yardbirds and Velvets with Paul McCartney in the vocal booth.

Alex Maas has matured as a singer. He’s sorted out that there’s as much terror lurking in the quiet as the maelstrom. Stephanie Bailey’s drumming powers the band like a cross between Mo Tucker and Nick Mason. Multi-instrumentalist Christian Bland is responsible for the album’s graphic package, a psychedelic and blood red metaphor for the music inside.

The Black Angels are a brutally honed doom rock machine, each member contributing on several instruments and chipping in on vocals.The band’s hippie nihilism gets a little thick, but Phosphene Dream kicks butt. It’s a bad trip you just can’t resist. 

Say this, the Black Angels stick to their aesthetic guns. And this time out I’m a willing hostage.

Reverberating: 8.5 (original), upgraded to 9.4

Mystery Jets "Serotonin" at No. 2 on Reverberations Countdown!

Welcome to the top 25 for 2010 Countdown! Each day we'll countdown, today we continue with number 3, culminating with our (okay, my) numero uno album of the year. When they're handy I'll borrow my earlier reviews from the KC Free Press. Their site has gone dark, but I am able to salvage those reviews from my original files, generally. 

 

At No. 2 - A pop masterpiece by the Mystery Jets.



I welcome all comments, criticisms, questions and dialog in general.


25. Jon Langford - Old Devils (Bloodshot)
24. Vaselines - Sex with an X (Sub Pop)
23. Drive-By Truckers - The Big To-Do (ATO)
22. Magnetic Fields - Realism (Nonesuch)
21. Dum Dum Girls - I Will Be (Sub Pop)
20. Peter Case - Wig! (Yep Roc) 

19. Bettye Lavette - Interpretations: The British Rock Songbook (Anti-Epitaph) 

18. Super Wild Horses - Fifteen (Hovac) 

17. Parting Gifts - Strychnine Dandelion (In the Red) 

16. No Age - Everything In Between (Sub Pop)

15. The Fall - Your Future Our Clutter (Domino) 

14. First Aid Kit - The Big Black and the Blue (Wichita Recordings) 

13. Owen Pallett - Heartland (Domino)

12. Mavis Staples - You Are Not Alone (Anti-Epitaph)

10 (tie). J. Roddy Walston and the Business - s/t (Vagrant)
10 (tie). Aloe Blacc - Good Things (Stones Throw)
  9. Roky Erickson & Okkervil River - True Love Cast Out All Evil (Anti-Epitaph)
  8. Deerhunter - Halcyon Digest (4AD)
  7. Wounded Lion - s/t (In the Red)
  6. Diamond Rings - Special Affections (Secret City Records)
  5. Bleach Bloodz - Pure Rock N Roll / Live and Raw / Devil Magick (local
      releases)
  4. Jesse Malin and the St. Mark's Social - Love it to Life (SideOneDummy)

  3. Manic Street Preachers – Postcards From a Young Man (import)

   2. Mystery Jets – Serotonin (Rough Trade) 

 

“Pure, passionate pop magic, impeccably produced by the legendary Chris Thomas”

My friend Josh Baze is a sharp, critical listener with an abiding love for Brit-pop. I’ve been listening incessantly to one particular new release in large measure based on his recommendation. His ardor is contagious, and so is Serotonin, the third album, released by Rough Trade, from the lads from Eel Pie Island (downstream from London in the middle of the Thames) called the Mystery Jets.

Blaine Harrison’s plaintive tenor suggests Win Butler, and the wounded gravitas of Jeff Buckley. But Harrison’s singing style and songwriting talents evidence a more abiding feel for classic pop hooks than either of those artists. He’s been making music since he was a wee lad. His father, Henry, a founding member of the band who still contributes to their studio efforts, inspired him to develop his talents as soul salve to the challenges of growing up with spina bifida. Today, he looks like a dreamy pop icon – just one who rarely performs from a standing position. Harrison’s art isn’t about his disability, though. It’s universal. His songs address the intense yearning for connection that runs deep through the crucible of late adolescence (and sometimes, drugs).

Josh observes that Serotonin would be perfect music for a new film from the late John Hughes. The songs on Serotonin capture those essential moments form youth that you either want to freeze forever or be freed from in a hurry. With the experienced guidance of producer Chris Thomas (Roxy Music, Sex Pistols, the Pretenders, etc.) Mystery Jets have made an album on which every note is perfect, nothing is superfluous; the arrangements are rich, dense, but never fussy or excessive.

A doomed romanticism, reminiscent of Roxy Music, pervades Serotonin. Guitarist William Rees shares Phil Manzanera’s way with combining convulsive, noisy avant-pop elements with tough, spare, soulful rhythm playing (think John Fogerty or Steve Cropper, re-contextualized). Harrison’s synthesizer parts range from perfect mock-horn lines to deep chordal patterns that underscore the band’s gorgeous harmonies to random, jagged noise bits that echo Brian Eno.

On the opening cut, “April Springs,” Harrison pines “freedom is an illusion generated by your brain," making his plea for attachment.  Over five minutes long, “April Springs’ wastes nary a second. “The Girl is Gone” laments lost love with a nod to the Psychedelic Furs. While Harrison can lean too much on lyric cliché, he’s also capable of gems like “the birds and bees have all caught STDs” from “Flash a Hungry Smile.” “Show Me the Light” combines disco beats, slide guitar, acapella vocals and synth-bells – all woven artfully into one peerless pop production.

“Dreaming of Another World’s” soaring melody epitomizes Serotonin’s Hughes-worthy properties; it’s catchy, evocative, and emotionally resonant. “Lady Grey” pumps punk-rock energy and recalls Carole King with it’s “will you love me in the morning” lyric, while Thomas’s production on “Melt” evokes a post-punk version of Phil Spector to accompany the band’s obvious nod to Modern English.

Especially stunning is “Lorna Doone,” a beautiful, brooding lysergic lurch of a song that recalls the droning insistence of songs from “Tomorrow Never Knows” to “Station to Station, “ as Harrison nails the bitter “I wish I could say I believe this is goodbye, but I don’t” lyric with precise passion.

The Mystery Jets are studious pop omnivores. They reference sounds that might make the average dude-rocker queasy (10CC, Supertramp, Hall & Oates, and Depeche Mode). But Blaine Harrison and company make Serotonin more thrill than froth, more bracing than bland. Serotonin is a giddy, kaleidoscopic pop thriller. And, yes, it would be a magnificent soundtrack to that 2015 John Hughes flick.

Reverberating: 9.0 (original), upgraded to 9.3

Reverberations Countdown at No. 3 with the Manic Street Preachers

Welcome to the top 25 for 2010 Countdown! Each day we'll countdown, today we continue with number 3, culminating with our (okay, my) numero uno album of the year. When they're handy I'll borrow my earlier reviews from the KC Free Press. Their site has gone dark, but I am able to salvage those reviews from my original files, generally. 

Okay then, my number 3 record is one that hasn't even been distributed in the United States to date. Like about half of their recordings, Postcards From a Young Man, by the Manic Street Preachers, is mostly brilliant. And the other half of their catalog isn't too bad either. They have qualities that alienate the average American alternative rock fan (James Dean Bradfield's immodestly soaring tenor and guitar heroics, Nicky Wire's ambitious, sometimes over-reaching, agit-pop poetics), but I think the Manics are one of the best five bands of the last twenty years.

I welcome all comments, criticisms, questions and dialog in general.

25. Jon Langford - Old Devils (Bloodshot)
24. Vaselines - Sex with an X (Sub Pop)
23. Drive-By Truckers - The Big To-Do (ATO)
22. Magnetic Fields - Realism (Nonesuch)
21. Dum Dum Girls - I Will Be (Sub Pop)
20. Peter Case - Wig! (Yep Roc) 

19. Bettye Lavette - Interpretations: The British Rock Songbook (Anti-Epitaph) 

18. Super Wild Horses - Fifteen (Hovac) 

17. Parting Gifts - Strychnine Dandelion (In the Red) 

16. No Age - Everything In Between (Sub Pop)

15. The Fall - Your Future Our Clutter (Domino) 

14. First Aid Kit - The Big Black and the Blue (Wichita Recordings) 

13. Owen Pallett - Heartland (Domino)

12. Mavis Staples - You Are Not Alone (Anti-Epitaph)

10 (tie). J. Roddy Walston and the Business - s/t (Vagrant)
10 (tie). Aloe Blacc - Good Things (Stones Throw)
  9. Roky Erickson & Okkervil River - True Love Cast Out All Evil (Anti-Epitaph) 
  8. Deerhunter - Halcyon Digest (4AD)
  7. Wounded Lion - s/t (In the Red)
  6. Diamond Rings - Special Affections (Secret City Records)
  5. Bleach Bloodz - Pure Rock N Roll / Live and Raw / Devil Magick (local  
      releases)
  4. Jesse Malin and the St. Mark's Social - Love it to Life (SideOneDummy)

     3. Manic Street Preachers – Postcards From a Young Man (import)

 

 “A great rock band from Wales, still virtually unknown in America”

A popular and respected act around the world, especially in their native Britain, the Manic Street Preachers from Blackwood, Wales remain a cult band in the States. Their ambitions are too grand and their music too immodest for the tastemakers who set the boundaries of the American underground. Still, all but one of their nine previous albums has secured an American release (2004’s Lifeblood being an exception). The U.S. release of their tenth album Postcards From a Young Man isn’t imminent. Too bad, it’s among their best.

The central fact of the Manics’ career is the disappearance and presumed suicide of Richey Edwards after completing sessions for the band’s third album, The Holy Bible (1995). Bible was a scabrous thing. The lyrics by Edwards and bassist Nicky Wire explored every manner of human folly, barbarism and degradation; they made Joy Division sound like Air Supply. The music was a curious mix of guilty (given the lyrics) pop pleasures and pulverizing rock, a sound that mixed punk and arena rock in a seamless, authoritative way.

Brutal thing it was, The Holy Bible was Edward’s last will and testament. After the album’s release and Edward’s disappearance the Manics soldiered on as a trio, becoming hit makers in the U.K with their fourth record Everything Must Go and its’ generational anthem “A Design for Life.” Everything Must Go (1996) combined rock with a grandiose pop sound. The latter has occasionally overwhelmed the Manics. On albums like This is My Truth, Tell Me Yours (1998) and especially Lifeblood the Manics’ forgot to rock and turned out schmaltz that even Wire’s situationist/Marxist lyrics couldn’t overcome.

The band’s eighth album Send Away the Tigers (2007) struck a fine balance between their classic rock and punk tendencies. Then came A Journal for Plague Lovers in 2009, an album of blistering pop brilliance that was more vital than anything one might have anticipated from a twenty year old band, especially one set for early self-destruction (between Edward’s abuse issues and Wire’s statements about going out in a blaze of young glory). The songs for Journal were based on lyrics that Richey Edwards had left behind. Guitarist James Dean Bradfield and Sean Moore (the band’s consistently powerful, musical drummer) came up with arresting tunes and arrangements and the band’s power was captured by Steve Albini’s verite production methods.

The Manic Street Preachers continue to ride the wave that Tigers began and Journal accelerated. Postcards from a Young Man is a big, swaggering record, full of strong melodies and some of Wire’s best lyrics. The band employs string arrangements on several tracks and a vocal chorus on four songs, but the performances on Postcards From a Young Man are never overwhelmed by such augmentation. The Manic Street Preachers are such a confident, cohesive unit by now that they rock with a punch that can withstand production that would be top-heavy for lesser bands.

Bradfield’s tenor is a remarkable instrument, capable of tremendous tenderness and venom alike, but ultimately too Freddie Mercury for Animal Collective fans. As a guitarist Bradfield is brilliant, but he’s an old school, flash guitar hero. His playing is a cross between Mick Jones, Mick Ronson, Slash, and Eric Clapton at his long gone, most rock incendiary.  His solo on “The Descent (Pages 1 & 2) is beautifully composed. His Mick Ronson-esque licks drive “Auto-Intoxication.” He covers territory from Brian May to Thin Lizzy to Johnny Thunders, all in one song on “A Billion Balconies Facing the Sun,” and melds Lou Reed with Bruce Springsteen (“Badlands, particularly) on “All We Make is Entertainment,” which also features Wire’s brilliantly self-castigating lyrics – words that the song’s passionate performance only subverts.

The Manics’ diverse sensibilities are represented by their choice of musical guests on Postcards, incorporating contributions from a British post-punk icon, a Godfather of the punk underground and a strutting American rock star. “Some Kind of Nothingness” features guest vocals from Echo and the Bunnymen’s Ian McCulloch and interpolates bits of Echo’s “Never Stop.” “Auto-Intoxication” includes keyboard and “noise” performances from John Cale. Duff McKagan (Guns n’Roses/Velvet Revolver) plays bass on “A Billion Balconies Facing the Sun.” Impressionable working class lads from a wee town in south Wales, the Manics embraced each of these disparate characters as heroes.

Wire still converses with Richey Edwards’ ghost on the title track and “The Descent.” The revolution he once believed in seems like a cruel joke on songs like “Auto-Intoxication,” “A Billion Balconies Facing the Sun,” and “Don’t Be Evil,” as Wire stares into the present’s black holes of consumerism and alienation. Weary and disenchanted, Wire nonetheless continues to rage against the dying of the light, rather like another great Welshman Dylan Thomas. According to Wire and the band Postcards From a Young Man is a final Manics assault on the charts – a last ditch attempt to inoculate the world with disillusionment (thanks, Henry Miller). Wire is prone to wild pronouncements, though, so who knows. One senses, however, from the passion that drives Postcards that Wire and the Manics won’t be going gentle into that good night.

Reverberating; 9.2 (original), upgraded to 9.3