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Friday October 5 2007
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REVIEW
29
Baby Shambles
Shotter’s
Nation
Album
★★★★★
Album
★★★★★
It would be easy to dismiss
this mini album/ep as a mere
cash-in afterthought, containing
as it does six unreleased
tracks from the sessions that
produced their last album,
Thirteen Cities, and a couple
of tagged-on extras. Easy, that
is, if it weren’t completely
brilliant.
Though they fall in line with
the Americana/alt country
mood that that had produced
so many solid bands and artists
over the last couple of
years (Ryan Adams, Wilco,
Willy Mason, Bright Eyes to
name but a few), Richmond
Fontaine manage to stand out
by sheer brute quality. Though
sometimes the whisky soaked
croak of lyricist Willy Vlautin
tends to wheeze out countrified
clichés (occasionally it’s
Babyshambles’ second album
effort was never going
to be perfect. After the scatterbrained
highs and lows of
Down in Albion, the appointment
of Stephen Street as
producer was probably a wise
choice, but it is his excessively
clean and shiny approach that
often stops the songs reaching
the dizzying heights of the
Libertines’ previous efforts.
Earlier this year, fans were
rewarded with the fantastic
Richmond Fontaine
$87 and a guilty conscience that
gets worse the longer I go
as though he’s simply listing
lonely-sounding American
towns), there’s an intangible
presence to his voice that
makes you do more than
listen, it makes you really believe.
It only takes a couple of
lines to evoke a whole sprawling
patchwork landscape of
drifters, drunks, and endless
highways stretched out under
smoky skies, whilst at the
same time pulling you in to a
sudden narrative so sharp it
cuts to the core (My roommate
was sleeping. I took his keys,
and a hundred bucks. Headed
out till his car broke down,
outside of Tousanne). This is
a songwriter who hasn’t just
been compared to legends like
Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen,
he’s been compared to
the great American novelists,
Raymond Carver, John Steinbeck,
and Charles Bukowski.
Now that’s heavyweight class.
If you were ever duped into
the ridiculous hype surrounding
Cold War Kids, make
amends by switching to this.
Richmond Fontaine are the
overlooked but infinitely superior
underdogs, singing out
their poignant songs from the
bottom of a broken bottle and
the dark heart of a broken
continent.
Josh Farrington
Stookie & Jim Bumfest demos
posted on the web, and many
of the same songs feature on
this album. Regrettably, songs
such as There She Goes, with
Drew McConnell’s unnecessarily
jazzed-up walking bassline,
suffer from their studio remodelling,
and UnBiloTitled, a
Libertines-era demo, feels far
too radio-friendly in its latest
reincarnation. Nevertheless,
it’s a stand-out track, and a
refreshing change of tempo.
Jack Peñate
The Junction
Live Review
★★★★★
This was, Jack told us, mopping
sweat from his brow, “by
far the maddest gig of the
whole tour”. With infectious
energy, an arresting stage
presence, and a pair
of crazed eyes that
screamed serial
killer, Peñate
delivered a
performance
that swept
a hitherto
restrained
crowd into
a rapturous
frenzy.
The night,
however, had
not begun so
well.
Two hours
earlier, the lights
had dimmed, the audience
fallen silent, and a squat
fat man appeared from stage
left. He played with some wires
and then waddled back off.
Five minutes later, Wild Beasts
emerged to a tangibly tame
reception, despite their name
promising a leonine roar of a
voice and dance moves that
would turn heads in the jungle.
The reality was a hyena-laughable
disappointment.
Juxtaposed against this,
Jack stormed the stage with
such an overwhelming, energyinfused
spectacle that nobody
had time to pause and consider
that he perhaps didn’t
French Dog Blues, co-penned
by no less than Kate Moss and
Ian Brown, shines with star
quality and is sure to be a live
favourite.
Doherty has lost none of the
lyrical flair which is so often
overlooked by the press in
favour of his more sensational
private life. It is ably displayed
in Baddies’ Boogie, essentially
a tragic song about romantic
despair (it’s a lousy life for the
washed up wife of a permanently
plastered pissed up bastard).
One thing lacking is the
noodling guitar work of Patrick
Walden (which characterised
much of the material on the
first album), now replaced
by Michael Whitnall’s more
schoolbook stylings. UnStookie
Titled is another sterling effort,
which arguably references
Carl Barat’s Doherty-less
Libertines residency (since
you vowed to back it and you’re
too proud to sack it you have to
carry on on your own).
Some weaker tracks such as
Side of the Road and Crumb
Begging Baghead highlight
the deficiencies of yet another
almost-but-not-quite-brilliant
album. Listening to Shotter’s
Nation, it’s easy to appreciate
Doherty’s considerable talent
as both a musician and
lyricist but it’s hard to resist
longing for the Libertines to
reform.
George Grist
have the songs to back it up.
While fast-paced and lively, his
lyrics are sometimes worryingly
emo. His heartstrings are
even plucked at the prospect
of catching a train (My
eyes, eyes, eyes, are
not dry, dry, dry
he tells us in
Torn at the
Platform).
Elsewhere,
he laments
she never
wanted me
(Second,
Minute, or
Hour), and
the concert
concluded
on a similarly
sombre note,
with the song
When We Die. Yet
despite the subject-matter,
Jack Peñate’s style is not going
to leave you sobbing into the
speakers. One member of the
audience threw his fizzing can
of Red Stripe onto the stage
in a fit of ecstasy; and another
member cast aloft his shoe, the
jubilation wiped off his face
only when someone stamped
on his foot.
Few will be provoked to
throw missiles at their hifis,
but add in the writhing
lunatic behind the guitar, and
it proved a very special night
indeed.
Tom Bird & Julia Tilley
albums
every right-minded person
should own
Graceland
Paul Simon
1986, the year before my birth,
and Paul Simon releases Graceland.
Since then, it’s followed
me everywhere; “are we nearly
there yet” car journeys, family
holidays, Christmas days. So,
it’s a genuine and often disheartening
surprise to find that
many have a rather nonchalant
attitude towards this masterpiece.
Graceland too often
seems to pass under the radar,
which I find inexplicable.
You might know of Paul
Simon as one half of the duo
Simon and Garfunkel, but
don’t judge him yet. For this
solo album he shunned Garfunkel,
and rightly so. Instead
of continuing the folky twangs
heard in songs such as Scarborough
Fair (what were they
thinking) he chose to record
this album in South Africa and
immerse himself in the influences
surrounding him. In fact,
Ladysmith Black Mambazo
shot to worldwide fame as a
result of collaborating with Simon
on many of the tracks on
Graceland. So, not only was it
groundbreaking in terms of its
musical direction, but also in
its pioneering of the talents of
black South African musicians
in the midst of apartheid rule.
But don’t feel that you
should love this album on
account of any political dogooding.
The elements that
make it a work of art are the
intensely moving yet uplifting
melodies, and the steady
contemplation of his own (at
times) depressing life embedded
in some of the best lyrics
I’ve ever heard. Well you don’t
feel you could love me, but I
feel you could - it’s simple, it
doesn’t rhyme and yet it’s able
to reflect an everyday thought
accurately without losing its
train of thought amidst poetic
crap. For those of you who
think Garfunkel was the creative
genius of the two, you’re
wrong. It only takes a cursory
look at Graceland to see who
that title really belongs to. The
title track, Graceland, which
recounts a pilgrimage to Elvis’
home, is probably the best on
the album; it’s truly captivating.
He talks of his “travelling
companion”, nine years old and
the child of his first marriage,
which launches him into a
verse about his ex-wife (and
she said losing love, is like a
window in your heart, everybody
sees you’re blown apart).
There’s so much more to be
said about the brilliance of this
album, further tracks to be
delved into, yet more wonderful
lyrics to be explored, but to
write it all down would be a
work approaching an epic. Anyway,
it would spoil it for those
of you haven’t yet discovered
why Graceland is a must have.
Verity Simpson