BLITZEN TRAPPER: VII (2013)
1) Feel The Chill; 2) Shine
On; 3) Ever Loved Once; 4) Thirsty Man; 5) Valley Of Death; 6) Oregon
Geography; 7) Neck Tatts, Cadillacs; 8) Earth (Fever Called Love); 9) Drive On
Up; 10) Heart Attack; 11) Faces Of You; 12) Don't Be A Stranger.
Yes, we can: two years into the disappointing
disaster of American Goldwing,
Blitzen Trapper once again redo their image, and come out with an album that
honestly sounds nothing like any of its predecessors — confirming our trust in
Eric Earley as a musical force to be reckoned with, at least on a formal level.
However, the change is somewhat bizarre. Without abandoning their roots-rock
orientation, the band now crosses it with modernistic elements of hip-hop, trip-hop,
and various electronic sub-styles. The result? Now they sound like lately-discovered
children of Beck, which begs the question — are we finally past Eighties
nostalgia, and advancing now into the age of Nineties nostalgia?
Seriously, at least half of these tracks might
have been accepted as filler on Odelay
or Midnite Vultures: swamp guitars
crossed with dance beats, rapped vocals crossed with bluesy harmonicas, earthy
country moods crossed with urban swagger. Most of the instrumentation remains
live, and the album is hardly ever burdened with the stuffy digital overload of
mainstream production, which is why the Beck analogy springs to mind before
anything else — he, too, would always take time to bother that the songs
sounded like advanced-updated variations on all their predecessors. The standard
problem, however, remains: on individual levels, the tunes are not particularly
memorable; not on a level, at least, where I could single out highlights and
lowlights.
The overall sound is beyond complaint: even at
his worst, Earley would always retain professionalism, and now that he's found
a new old way to fool around, the band seems re-energized from the slackness of
American Goldwing. On ʽFeel The
Chillʼ, stinging electric guitars, tasty slides, banjos, organs, harmonicas, and
whistling synthesizers generate an impressive polyphony, over which Eric's
rapped verse vocals and nursery-rhyme chorus resonate with irony and humor.
There may be a bit too much happening here to successfully latch on to a
distinct hook, but this feeling of overwhelmed ear canals is quite strong in
itself.
Then the second song, ʽShine Onʼ, comes on, and
it's like... uh, okay. The time signature is ever so slightly changed, but other
than that, we have the same electric riffs, slides, organs, harmonicas, rapped
vocals... the song hardly ever makes its own point. ʽEver Loved Onceʼ follows
at a slower pace, in a more sentimental mood, but other than fewer synthesizers
and more slides, the difference is not that big, either, and seems to become
less and less as the song becomes louder and Eric's singing gradually slides
towards the same rapping style.
There is no need whatsoever to mention any of
the other tracks until we get to ʽHeart Attackʼ: the last three tracks somehow
manage to dispense with the «retro-modernistic» sheen and simply plunge us into
pure archaic retro — ʽHeart Attackʼ is like an old-fashioned glam-rocker
crossed with country elements, sort of a cross between T. Rex and the Flying
Burrito Brothers; ʽFaces Of Youʼ is a gloomy keyboard-dominated blues-rocker;
and ʽDon't Be A Strangerʼ ends the album with a bit of friendly fast-tempo acoustic
bluegrass (the Avett Brothers do this kind of stuff sometimes, although this
one does not quite have enough heart on its sleeve for Avett level).
Still, I give the album a light thumbs up.
It is much less innovative than it seems to think it is, and the hooks take
ages to sink in, if they ever do, and the «trendy-hopping on your country house
front porch» vibe is already fully disclosed on the first couple of minutes —
but at least they got some energy, some tact, some humor, and sorting out all
these endless overdubs can also be fun, in a technical way at least. Rest
assured, though, Blitzen Trapper VII
is in no way poised to displace Beck from his properly guaranteed position of
king of this particular mountain.
Check "VII" (CD) on Amazon
Check "VII" (MP3) on Amazon
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