BLACK LIPS: UNDERNEATH THE RAINBOW (2014)
1) Drive By Buddy; 2) Smiling;
3) Make You Mine; 4) Funny; 5) Dorner Party; 6) Justice After All; 7) Boys In
The Wood; 8) Waiting; 9) Do The Vibrate; 10) I Don't Wanna Go Home; 11)
Dandelion Dust; 12) Dog Years.
And here it is — why deny it? All these years,
deep within their hearts, despite all the lo-fi pretense, despite all the
«experimentalism», despite all the rebellious image issues, there was one
simple thing that Black Lips really wanted to be: a cross between The Squires, The
Swingin' Medallions, and a couple other bands prominently featured on Nuggets. This is the music they loved
most of all, this is the music that they finally give all their hearts to on
their eighth album, where about half of the songs sound exactly like mid-Sixties garage pop and the other half sound like a
21st century tribute to Sixties garage pop. Clean, though. Very clean.
Understandably, the album got some negative
reviews. For those who miss the old days of lo-fi, Underneath The Rainbow is almost an insult, full of simple,
faceless pop ditties that show little of the band's personality. They used to
be unpredictable hooligans, and now they are making an album that is almost
respectable — not to mention produced by Patrick Carney of The Black Keys at a
time when The Black Keys themselves are threatened by a loss of face, with
their last two albums decried as way too glossy and commercialized.
To a certain extent, this is true, but only if
you really believe that the band's original schtick was truly as great as their
fans proclaim. As far as I'm concerned, these guys had always been jesters —
sometimes friendly, sometimes mean-spirited, but never to be taken too
seriously, and from that angle of view, they certainly do not cease being
jesters on Underneath The Rainbow.
"As long as your butt's clean, it's all good", they sing on the first
track, and that could very well pass as the overall motto of the album, and it
is also well in line with similar mottos from many a similar band in the
mid-Sixties. And what's wrong with that?
Now, of course, you have to keep in mind that
this here reviewer has always favored pop over punk and melody over noise — in
general — and this would make me predictably biased towards this kind of music
over that kind of music. But, honestly, just as there are some punk-and-noise
bands that seem to be born for this style of life, Black Lips, to me, sound
like a band that has long wandered in search of a goal in life, and finally came
into their own with Arabia Mountain,
and now they are having a party of a lifetime with this new record. No, they
seem to still be struggling a bit with songwriting, but at least now they seem
to get a good grip on whatever it is that they are doing, and, above all else,
this is nowhere near a loss of personality: on the contrary, they seem to have
finally found what they were looking for.
Okay, so it is not a lot, what they were
looking for. But it's fun! ʽDrive By Buddyʼ sounds like a long lost B-side to a
Who single, with Joe Bradley pulling a Keith Moon and the guitar player laying
on Townshend-style power chords a-plenty. ʽSmilingʼ is an equally fast folk-pop
rocker where bass player Jared Swilley entertains us with an amicable story of his
jailtime experience (if only he were a slightly better singer, the song would
have had even more impact — then again, maybe the somewhat off-tone nasal bleat
is more in line with the band's jester image). ʽMake You Mineʼ (produced by Tom
Brenneck rather than Carney), set to a melody reminiscent of Lindsey Buckingham
circa Tusk, is a charming clownish
love declaration, perfectly fit for an evening serenade if your chosen one
values a good sense of humor over generic sentimentality. And that's just the
first three songs — and there is a little something to be said about just about
every other one that follows.
Only one of the tunes sounds like some sort of
anthemic generational statement, and no wonder that it is the one that bit me
harder than the rest of them, since it shares its siren-like ringing guitar
tone with the classic Squires number ʽGoing All The Wayʼ, one of the best songs
to come out of the entire garage movement, as far as I'm concerned. The song in
question is ʽWaitingʼ, and its chorus slogan, even if stated a bit clumsily
("I don't wanna wait, waiting for it, waiting for the change"), still
sounds convincing — nostalgic, perhaps, and a little outdated in its
fight-the-power cockiness, but perfectly capturing that «proud idealistic
stance» of the days of yore. For a bunch of guys who used to confuse
songwriting with binge drinking, nailing this feeling so well is one hell of an
achievement, I'd say.
Sometimes they do get a little stuffy: ʽBoys In
The Woodʼ is a slow, draggy blues-rocker with some potential of becoming an
eerie swampy bogeyman of a tune, but the boys do not have the musical expertise
to pull it off properly, and the end result is repetitive and boring (worst of
all is the misuse of the brass section, most of it lost in the mix and missing
the mark). But usually they are saved by the humor, the speed, and the chorus
hooks, and sometimes Carney makes them sound like El Camino-era Black Keys (ʽDandelion Dustʼ), which does not hurt at
all: glossy, but bass-heavy blues-rock can be fun if played in a lively manner.
On the whole, different as it is from early
Black Lips, Underneath The Rainbow
finds the band inspired and happy, and this, in turn, makes me inspired and happy, at least a little
bit. Of course, there is some irony at work here — the old garage pop style that
they worship so frantically used to be all about letting one's hair down and
enjoying life without setting up formalistic barriers, and now, by imitating
their idols so closely, Black Lips end up introducing such barriers. Thus,
rather than renewed self-liberation, the album, like so many other Sixties'
revival efforts of the new millennium, celebrates nostalgia. But then again,
maybe we do need more of those
celebrations nowadays — at the very least, I'll take efficient Sixties'
nostalgia over ridiculous Eighties' nostalgia, so prominent these days as well,
any time. And any album with ʽDrive By Buddyʼ and ʽWaitingʼ on it deserves at
least a moderate thumbs up in my book.
Check "Underneath The Rainbow" (CD) on Amazon
Check "Underneath The Rainbow" (MP3) on Amazon
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