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Under
Control
Pedro
the Lion
Achilles Heel (Jade
Tree)
It’s long been said that less is more, and it looks like David
Bazan has finally figured that out. Following the thematically
bound morality plays of Winners Never Quit and Control
(which reportedly took close to a year to record), Bazan,
along with multi-instrumentalist TW Walsh, has pared things
back and made a more straightforward, relaxed record in Pedro
the Lion’s Achilles Heel (due May 25 from Jade Tree).
It’s a stretch less dour and abrasive than the heavy-handed
Control, which, in retrospect, sounds like a family-values
missive from the Bush administration. In fact, Heel
sounds almost upbeat at times, a drastic change of pace for
Bazan, who probably couldn’t write a genuinely happy song
if he were contracted to do so.
Opening with the slow-but-sturdy “Bands With Managers,” where
Bazan applies a spine-tingling falsetto to such defeatist
prose as “You don’t believe when I say it won’t be alright,”
Heel is the closest thing to a straight-up pop record
in the Pedro catalog thus far, and while it may seem as if
Bazan is wrapping the same sleepy melody around every last
chord progression, what a melody it is—just try to turn your
attention away from the captivating arc of “Arizona” or the
breathtaking harmonies on “The Fleecing.” The bouncy, Armed
Forces-era Costello vibe of “Transcontinental” buoys the
grim tale of a man recounting his final hours in the wake
of a train accident (“Engine severs lower legs/Feel my bruised
heart beating/Spinal cord remains intact/Still sending and
receiving”), with acoustic guitar and Fender Telecaster (per
usual) accompaniment.
Bazan is as economical with words as he is with notes, usually
completing his thoughts in about 100 words. Heel’s
closing couplet—“My old man always swore that hell would have
no flame/Just a front row seat to watch your true love pack
her things and drive away”—could just as well say it all.
“I Do” reduces the life cycle to a dreadful, hopeless duty—the
wife gives birth, accomplishing “what she was born to do,”
while the father has to “bury dreams and raise a son to live
vicariously through.” In the heartbreaking “A Simple Plan,”
a father realizes that communism has rendered him unnecessary
(at least in his own mind), driving him to suicide. Elsewhere,
themes of morality (“Discretion”), faith (“Foregone Conclusions”),
and self-abuse (“Keep Swinging”) pervade, and that may just
be this album’s thematic adhesive: No matter how strong or
grounded we think we are, there’s always something that can
break us down. Thanks, Dave, for reminding us of that.
—John
Brodeur
Ian
Matthews
Valley Hi Some Days You Eat the Bear and
Some Days the Bear Eats You (Water
Music)
One can’t help but ponder why Ian (also spelled Iain) Matthews
failed to attain the commercial success of some of his contemporaries.
He was the first to abandon Fairport Convention (followed
an album later by Sandy Denny and two later by Richard Thompson).
He’s worked continuously in the three decades since, hitting
the charts only with his band Matthews Southern Comfort and
their version of “Woodstock.”
Originally released in 1973 and 1974 on Elektra, Valley
Hi and Some Days You Eat the Bear and Some Days the
Bear Eats You were a pair of smartly conceived albums
that should have done as well as Jackson Browne, but didn’t
even reach the modest heights of Poco. The former, lackadaisically
produced by Michael Nesmith, shows off Matthews’ strengths
as an interpreter of other people’s songs. However, he did
pen a couple of the set’s strongest numbers, including the
opening “Keep on Sailing,” which appeared again the following
year on the album that more fully realized his vision, but
still failed to make any commercial headway.
It is perhaps because Matthews was known for singing other
people’s songs that he didn’t fit the popular format of the
day, the often-dreaded singer-songwriter hybrid, and that
record labels and radio were uncertain of what to do with
him. Well, guess what? These two albums sound better today
than most of the early ’70s crop of overtly self-obsessed
troubadours. Matthews recognized good material when he heard
it, and succeeded in making them his own, from Gene Clark’s
“Tried So Hard” to Becker and Fagen’s “Dirty Work.” And were
it not for The Eagles’ take-no-prisoners strategy for world
domination, Matthews’ version of Tom Waits’ “Ol’ 55” would
be the one everyone knows. (Don Henley copped Matthews’ arrangement
and took it to the bank before you could say “pact with the
devil.”)
—David
Greenberger
Ray
Conniff
The Essential Ray Conniff
(Columbia Legacy)
Someday, someone will write the history of music in the ’90s
and aughts, and record that nothing existed but hiphop. Not
true, but the winner gets final say. From the late ’50s to
early ’60s, when rock & roll was supposedly king—that’s
what Rolling Stone says—the three major record labels
didn’t give a crap about it. Decca (now Universal) lucked
into Buddy Holly, but pushed Bing Crosby reissues. RCA (now
BMG) made millions off Elvis Presley, but spent as much corporate
energy on Perry Como—and at the time, with his big TV success,
this made perfect sense. Columbia (now Sony) spurned the big
beat completely in favor of the most carefully crafted, airtight
pop baubles of the era.
Which brings us to Ray Conniff, and this lovingly compiled
two-disc collection. I was a kid in the ’60s, and Conniff—who
died in 2002—seemed like the rankest elevator music. He had
a weirdly insular sound combining big-band instrumentation,
sweet strings and corny choral arrangements. It lacked danger.
It was redolent of a trip to the dentist. Conniff would take
pop standards, movie themes and showtunes, and transform them
into something that ended up sounding unconvincingly safe.
Forty years later, Conniff sounds surprisingly hip. On his
earliest hits, his superb arrangements shine through. “’S
Wonderful,” “The Way You Look Tonight” and his own “Walkin’
and Whistlin’ ” have a real pop snap, and are as representative
of 1957 as any Presley track. Conniff came out of the big-band
era, having been a trombonist-arranger for Bunny Berigan and
Artie Shaw, but he stripped that lush, complex genre to the
bone. Simplicity was key. He employed any instrument he thought
appropriate, from pipe organ to harmonica. He learned all
the then-popular studio tricks, which added even more distance
from the monaural past. The musical result was as utilitarian
as a suburban ranch house—only more interesting.
Disc 1 of this set is a gas. Disc 2, which reveals how the
astute Conniff stayed commercially relevant into the mid-1970s,
is a dud. But let that pass. Believe it or not, Ray Conniff
stands the test of time—at least as well as any of his rock
& roll contemporaries.
—Shawn
Stone
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