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Many
Happy Returns
By
John Brodeur
Tindersticks
The
Hungry Saw (Constellation)
This
was unexpected, to say the least: Tindersticks were supposedly
a done deal after their last album, with bandleader Stuart
Staples having moved on to a solo career. But old habits die
hard, thankfully, and Staples has returned to the Tindersticks
brand to produce one of the best records of the band’s great
career.
The
Hungry Saw is a record about the soul, and about soul.
Following the mournful piano melody of the album’s “Introduction”
(“mournful” kind of describes the entire Tindersticks oeuvre),
“Yesterday’s Tomorrows” flickers to life with staccato guitar
stabs and tambourine, blasts of horns, layers of flute, and
Rhodes piano, and a tight, dry bass guitar. It’s like Nick
Cave and the Bad Seeds doing R&B, with basso profundo
Staples sounding perpetually wounded as he croons, “Our yesterdays
tomorrows, they’re here.” It’s hopeful, or at least as hopeful
as Tindersticks get.
While Hungry Saw doesn’t quite reach the sublime heights
of 1997’s Curtains, it finds its own place in the Tindersticks
canon by introducing new textures to replace elements that
may have fallen by the wayside. Dickon Hinchliffe, responsible
for so many of the lush orchestral arrangements of past Tindersticks
releases, is gone; longtime member David Boulter steps up
with a pair of instrumentals that frame the album’s centerpiece,
“The Other Side of the World,” with Sally Hibbert’s noirish
violin creating a palpable sense of foreboding that’s elsewhere
only hinted at.
“The
Turns We Took” lets the album go out with a sigh; it’s a plainly
gorgeous ballad, with (possibly) unintentional echoes of Grand
Funk Railroad’s “Closer to Home.” For all the possibility
presented in the first tracks, “Turns” puts a bit of a past-tense
cap on the proceedings. Let’s hope that’s only a figurative
past tense, as the revamped Tindersticks clearly have a lot
of life left in them.
James
Hey
Ma (Mercury/Decca)
Speaking of unexpected reunions, James are back with Hey
Ma, their first release in seven years. And the album
is everything you’d expect from the Manchester, England-based
troopers—you’ll think it’s 1993 all over again when you hear
tracks like “Whiteboy,” with its 16th-note hi-hat beat backing
vocalist Tim Booth, reaching for the sky as ever. Album-opener
“Bubbles” is as full of bravado as anything they’ve done,
with the band building the chorus to an anthemic fever pitch
under trilling trumpet and piano; the title track finds Booth
waxing political about the war in Iraq (“Hey ma, boys in bodybags,
coming home in pieces”). Despite a few subpar tracks (“72”
sounds like a Charlatans knockoff; lead single “Waterfall”
just sounds lazy), Hey Ma is a pretty solid release
from a band who’ve been around for more than 25 years, and
that’s no small feat.
Sing
It Loud
Sing
It Loud EP (Epitaph)
Maybe I’m too old for this shit. The singer can’t sing. The
lyrics . . . what’s the point, even? They have the nerve to
call this power pop? I swear, there must be a rock-band-by-numbers
kit being handed out to high-school students in California.
Oh right—it’s called ProTools.
Jason
Reeves
The
Magnificent Adventures of Heartache (WEA/Reprise)
Twenty-two-year-old balladeer Jason Reeves already has a handful
of self-released discs to his credit, so his recent major-label
signing could be viewed as a reward for all his hard work
to date. Or, it could be a reward for crossing the 4-million-views
mark on MySpace. (By contrast, the Rolling Stones—who have
been a band for twice as long as Reeves has been alive—have
just over 3 million views.) But it’s obvious after listening
to The Magnificent Adventures of Heartache that Reeves’
success has to do with his songs. The majority of the music
here is polished-clean and radio-ready, wrapping Reeves’ appealing
voice (reminiscent of Jason Mraz without the white-soul junk)
in acoustic guitars and organic keyboard sounds. Reeves is
an earnest but likeable writer—at times too precious, as on
the half-spoken verse of “The Fragrant Taste of Rain” and
the full album title, which adds And Other Frightening
Tales to the already unwieldy moniker—with enough big,
bright hooks to win him over to a nation of Gossip Girl
viewers. (Yours truly included.) Fans of Duncan Shiek and
Crowded House might be pleasantly surprised by this precocious
“debut.”
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Two
Dark Birds
Two
Dark Birds (Vfib)
Steve Koester’s latest project is a sublime slice of pop-Americana—the
style is perhaps best summed-up in the song title “Pernod
Blues.” Enlisting help from NYC-scene regulars like Don Piper,
Craig Schoen, and Len Small, Koester sings from behind bleary
eyes, his voice like a less-defiant Graham Parker, about friends
in low places. Almost every song finds its way into the bar
(sample opening lines: “Want to go out and get loaded?”; “O
Brother where am I?”; “There is no weather inside a bar”);
few find their way back out. And that’s just fine: With a
“drunk bed” made of Wurlitzer electric piano, moaning lap-steel
guitar, and Lambchop-esque string swells, you might as well
just down another whiskey and listen to the band play. They’re
here all night.
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