Specs & Pricing

Music
Rock etc.
albums for Silvertone—efforts that
sold well and won Grammies but which
have little of his trademark rawness,
soulful inspiration, or eyebrow-curling
magnetism. Reeling off showy histrionics
and formulaic takes, Guy becomes what
the blues had become: watered-down and
sanitized for white suburban audiences
who consumed it as genuine hooch. The
chinsy pop hooks and vanilla-flavored
superstar collaborations of “Mustang
Sally” and prophetically named “The Price
You Gotta Pay” bear little resemblance to
the adventurous, impassioned shows he
puts on every January at his hometown
Chicago club. A few cuts from Sweet Tea,
Guy’s superb return to his juke-joint roots,
break up the losing streak.
The sonics greatly vary, from the roughand-tumble
perspectives of the Chess
material to slick-backed smoothness of the
modern fare. On the former, instruments
crackle and snap even as balances fade
and drift; the latter skate by with a clean,
dimension-zapping polish that robs what
bite they had. A 40-page booklet and
performance DVD accompany a package
that should’ve offered much more. BG
Further Listening: Buddy Guy: The
Complete Chess Studio Sessions;
Junior Wells: Hoodoo Man Blues
The Decemberists:
The Crane Wife.
Tucker Martine, Chris Walla, and the
Decemberists, producers. Capitol
53984.
Colin Meloy was born in the wrong
century. On the Decemberists’ fourth
album, the frontman’s Dickinsonian lyrics
160 December 2006 The Absolute Sound
imagine burials at sea, bayonet-toting
soldiers, and saber-wielding tenants.
Despite its turn-of-the-century dialect, The
Crane Wife is significantly less precocious
than its predecessors, with the gypsy
waltz of “Summersong” taking its place
among the simplest, most melodic tunes
the Portland quintet has ever recorded.
That’s not to say that the album—the
group’s first since signing to a major
label—sacrifices creative ambition in the
name of commercial gain.
Meloy and company make this clear
early on with “The Island,” a 12-minute,
three-part mini-suite reminiscent of The
Tain, an 18-minute, one-track EP the
band released in 2004. The murderous
tale opens with an ominous warning and
ends with the landlord’s daughter slipping
away to a watery grave. The musicians
match this lyrical ambition lock step, the
song shifting from a distorted boogie to
a prog-rock keyboard freak-out before
closing with an orchestral flourish, Meloy
delivering the knotty verses with all the
levity of an undertaker. A second suite,
“The Crane Wife 1 & 2,” appears near the
end of the album. Inspired by a Japanese
folk tale, the song sounds like a summer
meadow slowly coming to life, sunlight
stretching over gentle guitar and chirping
bells.
In between these epic bookends, the
Decemberists drift further from the sea
chanteys and folk musings that populated
its first three albums—with varying
results. “The Perfect Crime” is a perfect
mess, pairing 1890s prose with 1980s
new wave. “When the War Came” is a
faux-metal bore, leaden guitar marching
solemnly in place. Better is the acoustic
“Shankill Butchers,” a sadistic bedtime tale
designed to scare children into minding
their mothers’ words.
The sonics range from excellent to
fair, with the acoustic cuts displaying a
wide soundstage that seems to be lacking
on the harder-edged tunes, particularly
the pancaked “When the War Came,”
which sounds as if it’s been run over by
a flatiron. By comparison, the imaging on
slower tracks, like the redemptive “Sons
and Daughters,” is first rate, accordion
spilling out and filling the room. AD
Further Listening: Laura Veirs:
Year of Meteors; Shirley Collins:
Anthems In Eden
HOT
WAX
Bob Dylan:
Modern Times.
Jack Frost, producer.
Columbia 82876 (two-LP and CD).
Funny how life works. Back in 1992 and 93,
few paid attention when Bob Dylan released
two of his finest albums—Good As I Been To
You and World Gone Wrong—solo outings in
which he put his all into some of his favorite
historic blues and folk songs. Today, it seems
the 65-year-old chameleon can do no wrong.
In actuality, few but the die-hards paid any
attention for a long time. To the casual listener,
the man who took the 60s by storm might as
well have gone fishin’ from his late-70s bornagain
phase up through 1997’s Time Out Of
Mind. But Dylan hadn’t gone anywhere, he
kept on being Dylan—as mercurial as the
sound he once said he was aiming for on
Blonde on Blonde. Sure, his records were largely
forgettable up until 1989’s under-appreciated
Oh Mercy, and his live performances, with
unrecognizable melodies and mumblemouthed
lyrics, had turned into what
sounded like deliberate perversions of his
greatest songs. But for those keeping score,
those records of 89–93, and the so-called
Never Ending Tour that soon followed (and
continues to this day), signaled that Dylan
had been back for some time.
His most recent elevation to God-like
status began last year, with the publication of
Chronicles Volume One and Martin Scorsese’s
documentary, No Direction Home. Now we
have Modern Times, over which critics have
been drooling with superlatives and five-star
ratings. Dylan’s 43rd studio effort isn’t a bad