The Drams - "Jubilee Dive" (New West 2006)

I'm not a fan of giving a recording artist a bad time for changing their sound or style, breaking the mold or whatever. Leonard Cohen did it. Bob Dylan did it to (eventual) resounding success. Gibby Haynes made a pretty good go of it with "Gibby Haynes and his Problem", which is a damn fine record that sounds very little like The Butthole Surfers. I think what makes these changes in direction ultimately successful is that, although the sound or approach may be different, you can still hear whatever essential element it is that makes the artist unique. Dylan may have gone rock, but he's still unavoidably Dylan.

Therein lies my problem with The Drams. Switching gears from the aggressive southern rock/alt.country of Slobberbone to the much mellower, poppier, AAA formatted (that's Adult Album Alternative for all you non-radio geeks out there) sound is pretty much impossible for me to do. When you consider that three Slobberbone guys - Jess Barr, Tony Harper, and songwriter/mastermind Brent Best - created this project it just starts stinking of cashing in. Not that I can blame them - Slobberbone put out a string of great records and toured relentlessly for years while remaining unable to break the commercial ceiling. They're owed some success. I just wish they had not gone about it in such an obvious, pandering way.

The Drams remind me a lot of bands I had pretty much forgotten about - bands like Collective Soul and The Wallflowers. I'd pretty much forgotten about them because they were pretty much forgettable. Generic "intelligent" pop that is deliberately produced to be slotted into AAA format radio stations (in Austin KGSR is the big one of these). Slobberbone could have changed their name and toned down their attack, retained their spirit and vitriol, without slipping into this musical wasteland. Instead Slobberbone broke up, 3/4ths of them started The Drams, and hum drum city got a new house band.

There are moments where Best's strengths as a songwriter shine through. "Fireflies" has a clever turn of lyric: "Finally seen that it's over, See the beauty where you are, Appreciate the fireflies, baby, Just in case we never see the stars". Very nice. Unfortunately there's a completely inappropriate and annoying Nicky Hopkins-esque piano wandering around all over the already over produced song. "September's High" shows some of the old spirit, but again suffers from that bright, shiny, lush production. "When You're Tired" stands out the most - it's emotionally engaging, the lyrics are solid, the music is sparse, and the production fits the song for a change. "Des Moines" has the best set of lyrics and is melodically the strongest - the chorus works really well also, placing it just behind "When You're Tired" in my estimation.

Overall, though, this record just sounds lame to me. I've already beat the dead horse of the production, but that's to say nothing of the fact that Best's typically powerful, sometimes snarling, voice primarily sounds whiny here. "Shortsighted", the song seemingly slated for single status, brings this new vocal quality to an almost unlistenable level. I would never have believed that Brent Best could sound like a wimp, but he sure does on most of this record. When you combine this with the fact that this seems to largely be a confessional record, detailing the isolation, rigors, and ennui of living on the road, it really starts to sound like some whiny kid feeling sorry for himself. I feel plenty sorry for myself most of the time without listening to some guy complain about how hard it is being a rock star.

My old band played with Slobberbone a half dozen times or so before they outgrew us and, man, what super nice guys. They also rocked your face off. I'll wait for the next Drams record before I pass a final personal judgement - maybe they just got saddled with a shitty producer - but if this is Brent Best and the boys' new direction then I'm getting off this ride before the disappointment turns to nausea.

Rating: 2 out of 4

Those Poor Bastards - "Songs of Desperation" (Gravewax Records 2005)

I pissed off a lot of people on Amazon.com for my brief review of this record. I don't really care. I stand by that review and will expand on it here.

Those Poor Bastards have been described as "old time Gothic Country", "sounding like they were recorded in the 1930's on broken equipment", "the background music for themes of sold souls, empty lives, and certain death", a "miserable, primitive duo", and as displaying "hints of Marilyn Manson to Nick Cave, Throwrag and maybe even a hint of a demented Adam Ant with a shot of pilled up Johnny Cash". In addition to the bands named above, they are also compared to Tom Waits, The Cramps, and The Louvin Brothers. I gathered all this from their website.

When I first heard of these guys I thought, "Wow! That sounds awesome!". I'm a huge fan of the darker side of country music, low-fi production when it makes sense, creepy rural American gothicism, apocalyptic themes, and an uncompromising anti-corporate stance. I'm so fucked in the head that I have to take three kinds of psychiatric medication or else the only reason I can find to get out of bed is to try and kill myself - I have a predilection for bleak, depressing music. I love (probably unhealthily so) music that focuses on loss, despair, hopelessness, and failed redemption. This band had everything in place for me to love 'em. So what went wrong?

Well, first of all, they don't sound like they "were recorded in the 1930's on broken down equipment". They sound like they were recorded in the 2000's and used a bunch of tricks to make them sound like they were recorded in the 1930's on broken down equipment. So much so that it's overbearing. Far be it from me to criticise low-fi studio trickery, but there's a point past which such production quits serving the material and starts sounding like a couple of guys fucking around with a 4-track to see how many weird sounds they can get out of it. That "old-timey" sound shouldn't be so distracting that it's easier to get annoyed than enjoy what's happening in the music. Those old Edison tubes don't sound like shit because the people who recorded them wanted them to. Aspiring to reproduce their sound is ridiculous. That's not to say low-fi and studio weirdness can't be used to remarkable effect. Once Lou Barlow got it down he became a master at it, particularly with Folk Implosion. Even with Sebadoh, who I never liked, the songs at least sound cool. The Grifters are another one that sounded great using this kind of production. Burying the songs in a bunch of clearly contrived tape hiss, distortion, muddiness, and other gimmicks makes me wonder what a band is trying to cover up. In this case, unfortunately, it's the songs themselves.

Let's look at the comparisons made:

Marilyn Manson sucks. Period. There's nothing musical going on there - it's all gimmick. There's a place for it, certainly, and Marilyn has an illustrious string of predecessors. All of whom, actually, had a lot more going on musically than Mr. Manson. The comparison works in that way - Those Poor Bastards seem to me to be more about the gimmick than the music also. Style over substance has been the norm in American culture for at least the last half century, so TPB are hardly breaking ground in that regard. Neither is Marilyn Manson.

Nick Cave. A fucking genius. While he may be Australian he certainly did his research into the kind of American back woods mythology that fascinates the listener while making them squirm. His voice alone wrings powerful emotion out of his bleak, existential lyrics causing us to identify with his twisted characters while simultaneously being repelled by them. Just listen to "Mercy Seat". He crafts moody, ominous music to reinforce this, and almost always succeeds in creating a song in which the music and vocals intertwine to paint a compelling, layered and emotional audial picture. Those Poor Bastards lyrics sound, frankly, like a bunch of Goth kids hanging around a graveyard trying to out-Goth one another. Or a couple of guys passing a bong back and forth asking each other, "What's the creepiest thing you can think of?". They're so over the top that they venture into self-parody. When placed in the context of the contrived, scratchy, "old-timey" production it just becomes ludicrous. Lefty Frizzell wrote a simple, creepy, honest to God death song that's ten times better than anything on "Songs of Desperation". It's called "The Long Black Veil". Somebody should give these guys a copy.

Throwrag - no idea. Never heard 'em so I can't comment. If they sound like Those Poor Bastards, though, I doubt I'd like 'em.

Adam Ant - ?!?

Pilled up Johnny Cash - Johnny Cash, pilled up or not, had infinitely better ideas about death, loss, pain, redemption, the unredeemable, and a myriad of other forces at work in the human condition than these guys. I don't recall a single Cash record, even from his pilled up days, that droned on song after song about a bunch of disingenuously freaky, morbid, self reflexively weird crap.

Tom Waits. Another fucking genius. His songs, largely created with unusual, old instruments and found items, carry on a tradition begun by Kurt Weill and The Threepenny Opera. It pulls in a healthy dose of Vaudeville through a Fellini-esque filter. Lyrically his songs span points of view from the down on his luck lounge lizard on the underside of skid row to the frantic, stream of conscious ramblings of a chain gang escapee making his way through some rural hell. He delivers all this with a voice that sounds like Louis Armstrong after a six month crawl through gin mills and heroin flops while smoking five packs of cigarettes a day. Waits admits that his persona is a character he invented, but he pulls it off so well that one never feels shammed or that Waits is delivering something contrived or insincere. This is a lesson Those Poor Bastards would be wise to take.

The Cramps. I love The Cramps. They're a cartoon band. There's nothing the least bit serious about them and they don't try to pretend there is. They're also a shitload of fun, both on record and live. The closest Those Poor Bastards come to The Cramps is Lonesome Wyatt's voice sounds a lot like Lux Interior's.

The Louvin Brothers. Ira and Charlie Louvin made country songs based in Appalachian folk and Gospel music. While they wrote songs of a secular nature also, their hearts were very much in redeeming people's souls through music. When they put out "Satan is Real" (as gimmicky as it looks today) it wasn't a gimmick. They meant it and they wanted to save your soul. Whatever you think of their message or how they presented it there's one thing for certain - the Louvins were very sincere about it. There is nothing on "Songs of Desperation" that sounds the least bit sincere to me. But I think I've covered that opinion quite thoroughly already.

It boils down to this - if I knew that this band was being ironic I might be more inclined to enjoy them. I hope to God they're chrortling at the idea of anybody taking this stuff seriously while they're recording it. It would make a lot more sense and might even make the music listenable.

If you're interested in intense, dark, apocalyptic, Appalachian gothic type stuff you should check out anything by David Eugene Edwards (16 Horsepower, Woven Hand). His music has all the elements that Those Poor Bastards seem to be striving for, but does it a hell of a lot better. It doesn't hurt that he's a true believer in the evangelical sense. If you don't work your ass off for salvation, boy, you ARE going to hell. I don't for one second entertain the idea that he's right about this, but he's deadly serious about it. That alone makes his music infinitely more entertaining than "Songs of Desperation".

Those Poor Bastards are playing with Hank III (one of their biggest supporters) here in Austin on Jan. 5th 2008. Maybe they'll somehow hear about this review and find me and kick my ass. There would certainly be something sincere in that.

Rating: 1 out of 4

Interpol - "Our Love to Admire" (Capitol 2007)

This was the first record I bought when I realized I was losing touch. I found myself saying all the same bullshit the 30 and 40 somethings said that really pissed me off when I was a teenager and in my twenties. I was automatically writing off bands I'd never heard because they were new and had some degree of indie cool. My bad. I went with Interpol first because I saw them compared to Joy Division - one of my favorite bands. They were a good choice for re-entering the contemporary music landscape after a decade.

The Joy Division comparison is an apt one - Interpol clearly draws a large amount of inspiration from Joy Division, from the jagged and repetitive guitar lines to Paul Banks' vocal similarity to Ian Curtis. This is no bad thing, though, as Interpol are not slavish imitators. The production, on this record at least, set them apart quite distinctly. It's layered approach gives the record a full, ominous sound. It compliments Interpol's musicality very well, and brings to the forefront the abundance of hooks these songs have to offer.

There's not a weak song on this. Standouts are "Mammoth", "All Fired Up", and "The Heinrich Maneuver" though, to be honest, they only barely stand out from the rest. Interpol slings a lot of bile - the anger in these songs is almost visceral. It's to their credit that they manage to convey this through the medium of the hook-laden pop song. Not pop in the Britney Spears sense, of course - Big Star pop, Replacements pop. You get the idea.

This was the first I'd heard of the post-punk revival. As a big fan of original post-punk I think it's really cool that this is going on. Apparently there's a lot of stuff out there for me to check out once I get done looking into Interpol's other releases. It's good to know there are angry young bands out there bucking the trend of cultural decline so evident in other art forms. But then, when you get right down to it, that's what rock 'n' roll has always been about.

Much thanks to Interpol for bringing me in from the cold.

Rating: 4 out of 4