Botch: We Are The Romans

BOTCH: WE ARE THE ROMANS (1999)

1) To Our Friends In The Great White North; 2) Mondrian Was A Liar; 3) Transitions From Persona To Object; 4) Swimming The Channel Vs. Driving The Chunnel; 5) C. Thomas Howell As The "Soul Man"; 6) Saint Matthew Re­turns To The Womb; 7) Frequency Ass Bandit; 8) I Wanna Be A Sex Symbol On My Own Terms; 9) Man The Ramparts.

I don't think anyone would guess, just by glancing at these song titles, that the underlying album would be metal. I mean, just how many metal artists out there have references to Piet Mondrian or C. Thomas Howell in their song titles? These ones really look like they'd rather belong on a Frank Zappa record, or at least fit in better with some indie poseur like Sufjan Stevens. It is, in fact, a total pity that such a tremendous title as ʽI Wanna Be A Sex Symbol On My Own Termsʼ is completely wasted on three and a half minutes of fairly routine, monotonous metallic riffage and nearly endless head-splitting screaming. Ah well, it was too good to work.

The good news is that Botch's second and final album actually covers more stylistic ground than the first one — and a few of the «artsier» tracks here should actually qualify as some of the finest heavy rock offered to the world at the end of the decade. ʽTransitions From Persona To Objectʼ is the composition that springs to mind first and foremost — starting off with some dazzling poly­rhythms, featuring guitarist Dave Knudson and Tim Latona at their best, it eventually explodes into the stratosphere, as Knudson hits upon a sweet, dry guitar tone and constructs a minimalistic high-pitched solo that is truly mindblowing; later on, as the melody shifts once again and be­comes an angular King Crimson-style trance-inducer, he brews up a few more overdubs that make the guitar(s) sound like a meat-hungry swarm of killer bees for a while. That's a pretty awe­some soundtrack to the process of «transition from persona to object» — "see us conquer all the humans that are left / This is our new home and we're still building", screams Verellen, and we see that the band's rather persistent obsession with the bee imagery (remember ʽThank God For Worker Beesʼ and ʽHivesʼ) still holds on.

A couple of the tracks are not «metal» at all, such as ʽSwimming The Channel Vs. Driving The Chunnelʼ (what could a band from Tacoma know about that contrast, I wonder?) — a slow bluesy shuffle carried forward by low-tuned, scraggly indie-rock guitar, with more of a Sonic Youth in­fluence than any kind of metal flavor, gradually fizzling away into a hazy cloud of electronic hum and hushed feedback. And the epic conclusion, ʽMan The Rampartsʼ, beginning as the most war­like anthem of the album, eventually turns into a sea of industrial bass rumble, then becomes a Gregorian chant of the album title, and then returns to metal for just one brief minute in the cli­mactic coda. But no, this is nothing like Rammstein — Botch have no interest in Teutonic mili­taristic clichés, they have their own equivalent of military brutality.

Even the shorter, more formulaic metal numbers have their surprises. ʽC. Thomas Howellʼ, after an uninteresting minute and a half of bland riffage, is given over to another series of high-pitched guitar overdubs (geez, if only that stupid dick could keep his larynx bolted for just one minute!) that generate a cool psychedelic effect; and in general, I must say that I am impressed by the solos on this album much more than I am by the riffs, which is quite atypical for my metal-listening experience. Whenever Knudson is not teaching his guitar to impersonate a killer bee swarm (which is his preferred trick), he is making it grin, giggle, howl, and go off like an alarm siren, rather than just go off at the usual million notes per minute. Listen to ʽFrequency Ass Banditʼ from about 3:00 to about 3:24 — that's one killer-crescendo solo indeed.

It's not as if the flaws of the record (and the band in general) did not exist, of course — yes, it is still monotonous, yes, the complexity of the riffs is undercut by their inefficiency, and yes, the «singer» should be dragged out into the street and skinned alive (which is exactly what his singing style suggests is happening to him). But that is sort of understood. Maybe some day a good fairy will trot along and issue a record of Botch covers that eliminate the vocals, clean up the riffs, and preserve all the solos. Until then, this is just a very modest, but still somewhat res­pectful thumbs up: I appreciate the effort, and I even appreciate the effort it took to put together relatively intelligent and, occasionally, even poetic lyrics for these songs — despite knowing that nobody will ever be able to decipher one word without some printed help. It takes a while to de­code their message (same old o tempora, o mores! stuff — Cicero would be proud, though), but once you do, it fits the insane, structurally-chaotic music quite nicely. Oh, incidentally, isn't We Are The Romans sup­posed to be a bit of a pun on ʽWe Are The Robotsʼ? I'm sure Kraftwerk must have been one of the influences on these guys in any case.

Butthole Surfers: Psychic... Powerless... Another Man's Sac

BUTTHOLE SURFERS: PSYCHIC... POWERLESS... ANOTHER MAN'S SAC (1984)

1) Concubine; 2) Eye Of The Chicken; 3) Dum Dum; 4) Woly Boly; 5) Negro Observer; 6) Butthole Surfer; 7) Lady Sniff; 8) Cherub; 9) Mexican Caravan; 10) Cowboy Bob; 11) Gary Floyd.

The process of creative unfurling from «probe EP» to «full-blown LP» level is always nice to watch, provided we are dealing with real, not faked, creativity — and in 1984, Butthole Surfers were on a roll, inspired and encouraged by the realisation that they were able to allow themselves just about anything. Punk attitude, offensive demeanor, dirty humor, psychedelic arrangements, and limitless intrusion into the territory of any randomly picked musical genre — these guys had the advantage of taking nothing so seriously that it would impose any unbreakable rules of musi­cal conduct on their career.

Commercial success not being even a distant objective, they were, nevertheless, not properly «avantgarde» — most of the melodies on this album respect regular blues conventions, and could be characterized as pop rock, blues rock, hard rock, punk rock, maybe a little heavy metal on the side, anyway, nothing particularly out of the ordinary; in any case, the band members did not have the chops to play something trickier than that (and how many bands did, anyway?). How­ever, it is not the core melodies, but the irreverent attitude towards these melodies that counts: the band prepares a package of hilarious shock value, inspired grossness, and unpredictable musical seasoning for each song, and have themselves a jolly good time as each package goes off like a shitbomb in the listeners' faces.

Actually, when I say «hilarious», I need to correct myself. The stuff that the Surfers do here is neither very intelligent nor very funny, and if you are even a little bit stuck up or hung up, it will be very easy to dismiss all these songs as pointless hooliganry. I mean, ʽLady Sniffʼ? Okay, some­body will be sure defend the song as a nasty parody on the redneck and/or white trash ste­reotype, replete with grunts, farts, expectorations, and verbal wonders like "lady walk that greasy gravy!", but somebody else will just as easily say that the whole thing is just a sorry excuse for finally putting some fart noises on tape, something so often used as a threatening allegory by us reviewers but, actually, so rarely encountered in real life. And here it is!

The hilariousness lies not in the offensiveness, though, and not in any alleged attempts at joking: the main strength is in the synthesis of various influences, or in the emotional inversion (corrup­tion!) of musical styles. For instance, ʽDum Dumʼ is really a spoof on Black Sabbath's ʽChildren Of The Graveʼ, borrowing the song's rhythm section and crossing it with trebly-wobbly, «clucky» lead guitar that sounds like a cross between Duane Eddy and Adrian Belew. ʽWoly Bolyʼ lifts the distorted descending guitar intro off some garage classic whose name escapes me at present (no, it is not ʽWooly Bullyʼ, as one might probably suggest) and reworks it into the general melody of the song, but that general melody tends to «melt» and become splattered against the wall, only to pick itself up and then be smashed again every now and then (fortunately, the rhythm section is tight enough to allow Leary to do whatever he wants). And ʽButthole Surferʼ is indeed like surf-punk, only much dirtier than your average Agent Orange.

If you get offended easily, the first song to be checked here is certainly not ʽLady Sniffʼ, but the six-minute plus workout ʽCherubʼ, which alternates between power-chord based sludge-metal sections and odd «astral» passages where one guitar sounds like a spaceship, plotting a complex course in an asteroid field, and the other guitars crash and bust around it like those particular asteroids, collision with which was inavoidable. And at certain intervals they even play a chord that makes you expect they will rip into Hendrix's ʽThird Stone From The Sunʼ at any moment, but they're just teasing you. This is really the kind of hilariousness I am referring to, certainly not the fact that they use the word "negro" in a song title or anything.

But the quintessential BS song on this album is probably ʽCowboy Bobʼ, which was already made available earlier in the live version on Live PCPPEP; here, the production is cleaner, but Haynes is delivering his lyrics through a bullhorn, so you can take your personal pick — anyway, the song has it all: silly irreverential title that has nothing to do with the lyrics or melody, a nasty, repetitive, droning hard rock bassline à la Budgie's ʽBreadfanʼ, supported with a saxophone part for contrast, wild screaming in the background (and sometimes in the foreground), psychedelic guitar soloing, and schizophrenic lyrics ("I've always got a knife in my back!", which could be a good tagline for the band's entire career). This is what you get, basically, when you cross Iggy Pop with Keith Moon — yes, that's the very essence of Butthole Surfers.

To call this record an overall «classic» would be an insult to the band itself, I believe: they are not here to amaze you or make you rethink your life, they are here to introduce a bit of creativity and imagi­nation into the old art of grossing-out. But in the somewhat parallel (and sometimes a wee bit perpendicular) universe of flippy-freaky, it is a classic, unquestionably deserving its own flip­py-freaky thumbs up; I am still trying to imagine how that would look on brown paper, but per­haps I have not had my proper fill of ʽCherubʼ and ʽCowboy Billʼ just yet to understand that. 

Built To Spill: Keep It Like A Secret

BUILT TO SPILL: KEEP IT LIKE A SECRET (1999)

1) The Plan; 2) Center Of The Universe; 3) Carry The Zero; 4) Sidewalk; 5) Bad Light; 6) Time Trap; 7) Else; 8) You Were Right; 9) Temporarily Blind; 10) Broken Chairs.

Okay, so this time the songs are shorter. But not that shorter — instead of eight, there's ten, and shortening them does not necessarily mean that they become less complex in structure or more immediately accessible. It does seem that the record is not so hotly bent on making a sweeping musical statement as its predecessor — rather, this time around it is again just a collection of pop-rock songs on various topics, all characterized by Doug Martsch's guitar-and-vocal trademarks but without letting us know that Built To Spill intend to conquer the world in the next 7 hours.

But ambition or no, once again I have to say that Martsch is an efficient generator of ideas in harsh need of a second partner to bring them up to speed. Case in point: the best song on the al­bum is arguably ʽElseʼ, an allegro pop-rocker with romantic vocals, psychedelic guitars, and con­voluted lyrics that seem to concern the protagonist's inability to cope with his love urges, but might as well be about physical illness — anyway, its spiralling lead guitar line and arching vocal modulations bear the stamp of beauty, nay, gorgeousness even, but neither of the two is given a strong enough presence to stand out. The vocals are buried, the lead line is never louder than the unremarkable rhythm pattern, and although the music actually develops along the way (there's a lengthy coda where Martsch tries out several guitar tricks and effects), it does not really feel as if it developed — everything is so smooth. Bluntly speaking, the guy came up with potentially sharp hooks, and then spent his time in the studio dulling them up.

Other than this little detail (namely, that all the songs here kinda suck), all the songs on this album are excellent. Smart guitar melodies, smart lyrics, smartly engineered seams between the different parts — and when I say «smart», I don't just mean «specializing in innovative, but emo­tionally meaningless chord changes»: I mean really evocative, emotionally charged melodies that transfer a whole variety of vibes, most of them positive and uplifting, even if the lyrics usually deal with various personal problems. Only the lengthy album closer ʽBroken Chairsʼ, slowing down to a relative crawl and awash in agonizingly distorted solos, breaks this sequence with the obvious intention of depressing you in the end — not entirely successful, because as Doug goes over the top about piling one psycho-bluesy solo on top of another during the final jam, the whole thing becomes «trippy» rather than «depressing», and you will probably emerge from the experi­ence with your eyes rolled back and your tongue hanging out, rather than with the bitter know­ledge that there is no hope whatsoever for the human race. But did you know, really, that crows are "mirrors of apprehension in the fallen sun"? I didn't. The lyrics sure as hell don't add much to that depressing effect.

Additional highlights — ʽCenter Of The Universeʼ, whose opening riff creates a musical vor­tex of sorts (yes, Martsch is really good at «bends and wobbles», as Robert Fripp would call them); ʽTemporarily Blindʼ, whose cobweb of ringing, sighing, sirening, and grinning guitars will con­fuse your ears before suddenly merging into one single power riff, then exploding once again into a miriad of kaleidoscopic sounds; and the song that most people talk about when they mention this record, because it is so much easier to talk about words than notes — ʽYou Were Rightʼ, in which Martsch collects as many classic rock negative clichés as possible ("all we are is dust in the wind", "we're all just bricks in the wall", "it's a hard rain's gonna fall", "this is the end") and acknowledges their truthfulness over a tired, stuttering tempo, ending the song by repeatedly asking the question "do you ever think about it?". Stupid rocker, if we never thought about it, would we even be coming up with all these trite phrases in the first place?

Anyway, here comes another thumbs up to another album that commands unambiguous respect, but hardly ever gives me any emotional thrills. I have no idea what it would take to make these songs really work — additional instruments beside guitars? a different vocalist? a better mix? a less impressionistic verbal style? atmospheric voiceovers from a resurrected Vincent Price? what­ever. I'd still take the simple, «trivial», but so highly efficient guitar sound of Nirvana over this by default — however, whenever you are in the mood for something that's very Nineties, very pop-rock, very far removed from the avantgarde spirit, but also somehow quite challenging and in­ventive, well... just Keep It Like A Secret, and we'll be able to carry the Built To Spill legacy, untarnished and unspoiled by excessive popularity, through the coming years.

Billy Bragg & Wilco: Mermaid Avenue

BILLY BRAGG: MERMAID AVENUE (w. Wilco) (1998)

1) Walt Whitman's Niece; 2) California Stars; 3) Way Over Yonder In The Minor Key; 4) Birds And Ships; 5) Hoo­doo Voodoo; 6) She Came Along To Me; 7) At My Window Sad And Lonely; 8) Ingrid Bergman; 9) Christ For Pre­sident; 10) I Guess I Planted; 11) One By One; 12) Eisler On The Go; 13) Hesitating Beauty; 14) Another Man's Done Gone; 15) The Unwelcome Guest.

It is, perhaps, ironic that when Nora Guthrie was deciding on the artist to whom she could en­trust her father's trove of unused lyrics, she ended up with an Englishman. Was there really nobody in the United States in the mid-Nineties who could be considered the current reincarnation of Woody Guthrie? Come on now! Not anyone? Not even Eddie Vedder?..

Even Billy himself was a bit scared of the honor, and agreed to set Guthrie's lyrics to music only in collaboration with somebody more authentic. Eventually, his eye fell on Wilco, and since Jeff Tweedy was born in Illinois, which is at least somewhat closer to Woody's Oklahoma than Billy's East London could ever hope to be, and also because the Uncle Tupelo/early Wilco lineage was the closest to a raggedy, authentic, but still modern-sounding rootsy sound that you could get at the moment, a musical friendship was struck — and the result was Mermaid Avenue, an album of 15 modern roots-rock tunes set to hitherto unknown lyrics by Woody Guthrie.

First things first — these hitherto unknown lyrics, practically all of them, have such a contempo­rary feel and are so remote from Woody Guthrie, «the Dust Bowl hero», that I would not be at all surprised to learn that the whole thing was a big scam, or that at least the lyrics were seriously doctored by Bragg and Tweedy before reaching our ears. If it is not a scam, though — and who of us would want to seriously accuse the daughter of mystifications in the name of the father? — then the «non-public» Guthrie was simply a very different figure from the «public» Guthrie: far more intimate, romantic, and complicated than his officially released man-of-the-people stuff would suggest him to be. Pending proper linguistic expertise, let us assume that this is the case (in fact, I am only writing about this concern due to surprise that nobody anywhere has expressed the smallest shadow of doubt), and anyway, it does not matter that much because we are mostly concerned with Billy Bragg here, Wilco coming second and the Guthries only third.

Whatever be, it's a fun, engaging, and catchy record that utilizes Billy's and Jeff's talents to the fullest — the capacity for introspection, the sense of humor, the versatility in arranging and diver­sifying the material, it's all there. The music is roughly divided in half between Bragg and Wilco (represented by either Tweedy alone or the Tweedy/Bennett duo), and, as you could expect, the Bragg half is usually more sparse and closer to the classic folk idiom, whereas the Wilco songs often sound like outtakes from Being There, and this is good, since the shuffling principle allows to keep the proceedings diverse and mildly surprising until the end.

Accordingly, Bragg usually chooses the more repetitive, singalong tunes to set to music — such as the opening comical piece ʽWalt Whitman's Nieceʼ, imagined by him as a rowdy chunk of pub rock with the lads presenting an anti-thesis to each line ("last night or the night before that — I won't say which night", etc., and was that in the original lyrics, too, I wonder?), or the sorrowful acoustic ballad ʽEisler On The Goʼ — a counting-rhyme song about communist leader Gerhart Eisler's tribulations in a post-WWII Western world (I reckon) that was probably not intended by the original writer to sound so mournful, but then Eisler probably wasn't dead when Woody wrote it, and now he's been dead for 30 years; sufficient cause for sorrow.

On two songs, Billy invites old friend Natalie Merchant: she backs him up on the playful (if still a bit sad) ʽWay Over Yonder In The Minor Keyʼ and takes over lead vocals on ʽBirds And Shipsʼ, which is probably the worst decision on the record — unlike Bragg and Tweedy, Merchant is not endowed with a sense of humor (or, if she is, she puts it under lock and key when starting off for the recording studio), and her predictably broken-hearted delivery, perfect for the expectoration of 10,000 Maniacs-style liberal guilt, feels seriously out of place on this record. Still, a friend is a friend, I guess, and she did choose a song for which those plaintive intonations would seem natu­ral outside of the general context of Mermaid Avenue.

Not to slight Billy, though, Wilco in general and Tweedy in particular steal the spotlight more often, starting with the very first number — ʽCalifornia Starsʼ is made into an immediate Wilco classic, what with that tricky way that Tweedy places the repetitive song title «outside» the main melody, creating the impression of one-breath continuity for his intellectual romanticism. ʽHoo­doo Voodooʼ is transformed into a ʽSubterranean Homesick Bluesʼ-type rap number (the lyrics, coming in punctuated bursts of half-folk, half-proto-beatnik imagery, do suggest that kind of treatment); ʽAt My Window Sad And Lonelyʼ is made into an epic ballad that stops just short of becoming a «power» ballad by disallowing the presence of electric guitars; and ʽChrist For Pre­sidentʼ is a delightful country stomp that Jeff delivers in an intentionally cracked, hoarse voice, but the real hero there is Jay Bennett, laying on layers of pianos and banjos, each of which sounds drunker than the other. Verily and truly, could a sober man ask for ʽChrist For Presidentʼ?

Mermaid Avenue is not a «great» record. Both for Bragg and for Wilco, this was a side project, and regardless of whether all the lyrics here are authentic original Guthrie or if some of them were edited, there is too little of the real Woody here to make the music (rather than the texts) of any importance to the Guthrie legacy. But it is at least as good as, say, a Traveling Wilburys re­cord — pleasant, intelligent rootsy entertainment that strikes an impressive balance between tra­dition and modernism, and throws in the intriguing novel aspect of bringing together a British electro-busker, an American revolutionizer of the folk-rock idiom, and the Dust Bowl musical pioneer who, if this is to be believed, was secretly in love with Ingrid Bergman even after she dumped her husband for Roberto Rossellini. Then again, what sort of respect for the solemnity of family values do you expect from someone who had eight kids from three wives? Thumbs up for this shameless violation of the rules of decency.

Brian Eno: The Pearl

BRIAN ENO: THE PEARL (w. Harold Budd) (1984)

1) Late October; 2) A Stream With Bright Fish; 3) The Silver Ball; 4) Against The Sky; 5) Lost In The Humming Air; 6) Dark-Eyed Sister; 7) Their Memories; 8) The Pearl; 9) Foreshadowed; 10) An Echo Of Night; 11) Still Return.

It is not easy, by all means, to find those precious words which would explain the difference be­tween the second Budd/Eno collaboration and the previously discussed first one (Plateaux Of Mirror). Technically, this one does not bear the subtitle Ambient #, which does not, however, make it any less ambient; and also technically, this one was co-produced by Eno and Lanois, which does not, however, imply that Lanois played anything on it or contributed something in the way of production technique that we would never hope to perceive on a completely Eno-produ­ced record. I mean, when it's U2 playing their instruments or Bob Dylan shaking up the musical world with a mighty comeback — yes, that is when Daniel's production really makes its mark. But when it's just Harold Budd at the keys and Eno responsible for synth hums, no, not really.

Which is not to say that The Pearl is somehow deficient in comparison to Plateaux. Thematical­ly, perhaps, its soundscapes are now more closely related to water, rather than air and heights, yet I wonder how much of that impression has been forced upon me by secondary reasons — such as the album cover, or the album title, or ʽA Stream With Bright Fishʼ. Maybe it also has to do with Budd's regular piano-playing occupying even more time here, or with his using the sustaining pedal more often, giving the melodies a «rippling» effect (title track is a good example). In any case, it's a convenient impression that allows me to put both records together as companion, rather than competing, pieces.

Again, if you wish, you can interpret the sequence as an uneventful, but highly impressionistic journey, from the wake of a ʽLate Octoberʼ day, culminating in the finding and blissful contem­plation of ʽThe Pearlʼ and ending with ʽAn Echo Of Nightʼ (this is the one track where Budd al­most completely disappears and lets Eno and Lanois spin a crepuscular web of chirping crickets, chilly night breezes, and deep ghostly sighs), after which, as a post-scriptum, ʽStill Returnʼ offers either a dream perspective or an outsider archangel's look at the sleeping world. None of the tracks stand out, as usual, or offer any particularly stunning musical solutions, but that is not the point — for stunning musical solutions, check out Debussy's Préludes instead. The Pearl is still an exercise in minimalism, where you are supposed to admire the beauty of the overtone rather than the beauty of the chord change. On his own, Budd is hardly a great composer or a great piano player — but Eno (and Lanois) simply use his phrasing as source material for transforming the piano into a «super-piano», enhanced with studio technologies and contrasted with electronic backgrounds for increased effect. It may not work well enough to encourage them to repeat the experiment with Budd playing actual Bach / Schubert / Debussy pieces, but it works well enough with Budd's own pieces, and that counts.

Bruce Springsteen: The Rising

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN: THE RISING (2002)

1) Lonesome Day; 2) Into The Fire; 3) Waitin' On A Sunny Day; 4) Nothing Man; 5) Countin' On A Miracle; 6) Empty Sky; 7) Worlds Apart; 8) Let's Be Friends; 9) Further On (Up The Road); 10) The Fuse; 11) Mary's Place; 12) You're Missing; 13) The Rising; 14) Paradise; 15) My City Of Ruins.

The very idea of a 70-minute long album, primarily inspired by the events of 9/11 and intended to serve as mass spiritual therapy for the aftermath of 9/11, makes me feel somewhat uneasy. There is no getting away from the fact that Bruce Springsteen is the living patron saint of the entire New Jersey area and its immediate surroundings, including New York City — and to ignore 9/11 in his music would have been regarded as a personal insult by most of the people living there and as a bewildering puzzle by the musical press; after all, Springsteen is no Dylan, and occasional con­founding of people's expectations is as far as he is willing to go. And yet, an entire album? Isn't this too much of a temptation to play God — something that Bruce had come pretty close to, but never quite nailed at least a few times in his career?

And maybe the biggest problem with The Rising is also its most predictable problem: striving, as usual, to reach the largest possible audience, the Boss trivializes the issues at stake and addresses them on a very simple (and safe) gut level. There has been a terrible tragedy. Many people have died, and even more people lost their loved ones. The grief is almost unbearable and makes you question the very meaning of your existence and whether it makes sense to go on at all. But, as we have always done before, we will pull through, rebuild our lives from scratch, if necessary, and hold on to our beliefs and ideals because there's nothing wrong with them. This is what The Rising is all about — no less, no more. There is not the slightest attempt here to put the whole thing into a larger context: other than, perhaps, a very thickly veiled lyrical hint at the distance between East and West (ʽWorlds Apartʼ, Bruce's not-half-bad attempt at introducing Near Eastern motives into his songwriting), 9/11 is basically just pictured as an ordinary natural disaster. Like an earthquake or something. Well... nobody said it ain't permissible, right? But then... looks a bit cheap. But then again... since when has Bruce Springsteen been all that expen­sive, anyway? Everything is just the way it should be.

The best thing about The Rising, however, is not that it gives us any new, deep, revealing in­sights into the tragedy of 9/11 or an amazing spiritual instruction on how to overcome the after­shock of that particular tragedy — the best thing is that, somehow, the tragedy inspired Spring­steen into writing his most consistent, powerful, memorable, and just plain interesting set of songs in almost two decades, and also one that he has not been able to top ever since, despite the steady rate of new studio output in the 21st century. These songs are bombastic, but convincingly so, thanks to the definitive return of The E Street Band into the studio; emotionally straight­forward and (usually) not-too-subtle, but diverse and hard-hitting; rhythmically plodding in the same 4/4 midtempo most of the time, and yet still somehow experimental for the man's stan­dards, due, among other things, to the heavy (and thoughtful) use of strings.

Quite a few of the songs here were actually written well before 9/11, but Bruce specifically took the ones that could be directly or indirectly related to the event (ʽMy City Of Ruinsʼ was origi­nally written about Asbury Park, but whaddaya know) and hammered them together into this coherent requiem/oratorio for E Street Band and orchestra, where everything seems organic, and expressions of sorrow, sympathy, and temporary despair regularly alternate with tremendously life-asserting songs — without a single hint of corniness, I should admit.

Some of the sorrowful songs sound like outtakes from the «adult contemporary» era: ʽNothing Manʼ, for instance, with its hazy aura, would have fit in very well on Tunnel Of Love. But when this stuff comes in small dosages, is well produced and armed with a good vocal hook, it works much more efficiently than anything on his lazy breakup record. ʽEmpty Skyʼ is simple, direct, Biblical, and best distinguished by its hoarse, almost distorted harmonica line, Bruce's local ver­sion of the Archangel's trumpet. But maybe the saddest song here is really ʽThe Fuseʼ, a deeply atypical, unconventional, almost psychedelic song for Bruce — hip-hop beats, samples, «cosmic» guitars, by the end it becomes more ʽTomorrow Never Knowsʼ than good old Springsteen, and the lyrics are genuinely disturbing, alternating between wedding night imagery and "blood moon risin' in a sky of black dust", all delivered in a voice that has been intentionally stripped from all emotion, like in a Robert Bresson movie. This is one of those unique Springsteen songs, like ʽAdam Raised A Cainʼ, that shows to what sort of scary psychological depths the man can really go when he lets out his demons instead of keeping them on a commercial leash.

Fortunately, there's much to laud here even about the simple, unadorned, easily accessible stuff. Like ʽWaitin' On A Sunny Dayʼ, whose instantly memorable riff is entrusted to strings (for the first time in Springsteen history, right?) and thrusts a good chunk of sunny hope right in your face before taking it away once again with the next song (ʽNothing Manʼ). Or the ultra-traditionally titled ʽFurther On (Up The Road)ʼ, which has nothing to do with the old Bobby Bland blues song except for also being bluesy in essence, but promises redemption in a gritty, sweaty, grimy way, through brutal riffage and «dirty» harmonica playing. Or ʽMary's Placeʼ, which shows some re­semblance to ʽRosalitaʼ — a happy, exuberant romp in the face of all disasters and calamities, well supported by Clarence's sax (and a whole brass section in the background), even if the pro­tagonist of ʽRosalitaʼ is visibly older now, almost by thirty years. But he still remembers Sam Cooke with fondness, and wants to invoke a bit of his name to help brighten up your day.

As we get to the anthemic title track, the ground has been tilled well enough to make it seem like a gargantuan climax to the whole oratorio — an echo is laid on Bruce's voice to make it sky-high, the background singers woo-hoo like well-trained angels, the lyrics are Catholic to exhaustion, and for those of you who want more rock than soul, the Boss plays a shrill, distorted, ecstatic, Neil Young-ian guitar solo, so that basically just covers everything. And just in case you didn't get it first time around, you will be prompted to rise up one more time, during the long, bombas­tic prayer of ʽMy City Of Ruinsʼ. (The first prayer of the album was already recited near the be­ginning, with ʽInto The Fireʼ, which should probably be made into the International Fireman Anthem or something — it just begs to).

It's all simple and a wee bit manipulative, but it works, and at least it's all for a good cause. In fact, maybe the best thing about The Rising is that it is not tightly bound to its historical context — even the lyrics are crafted thoughtfully, so that they do not have to be associated with any parti­cular details. It's just a very good rock record about tragedy and recuperation in general, taking away Bruce's usual emphasis on «aggrandizing the little man» and replacing it with something even more sweeping and grandiose — the collective experience of tragedy and the collective hope for a rebirth. Amusing, but The Boss never really did anything like this before; certainly he did not have to assume the position of a newly elected military leader, gathering up the remains of his forces after a crushing defeat. And he must be given credit for carrying out the operation in good taste, without descending into simplistic jingoism and paying as much attention to the musical backbones and arrangements of the songs as he does to the lyrics and vocals. All in all, The Rising still remains one of his best albums — no small feat for a rock artist thirty years into his career — and with every new year that takes us farther away from 9/11 and dissipates its con­textual relevance, it seems to sound better and better to me. Thumbs on up for The Rising, al­though we probably should not be thanking Osama bin Laden for rekindling the creative fires of a nearly-has-been rock visionary. The price may have been just a wee bit too steep. 

Brinsley Schwarz: Silver Pistol

BRINSLEY SCHWARZ: SILVER PISTOL (1972)

1) Merry Go Round; 2) One More Day; 3) Nightingale; 4) Silver Pistol; 5) The Last Time I Was Fooled; 6) Un­known Number; 7) Range War; 8) Egypt; 9) Niki Hoeke Speedway; 10) Ju Ju Man; 11) Rockin' Chair.

This is where the Brinsley Schwarz formula undergoes the last cosmetic modifications... and turns out to be a very polite, accurate, and somewhat tepid formula after all. The songs are shor­tened, cleaned up, straightened out, and made to completely conform to the standards of folk- and country-rock, with no «progressive» ambitions whatsoever, and nary a hint of hard rocking, either. So this time around you will never once confuse this band with early Yes or late Steppenwolf, much as you'd want to. However, you might perhaps confuse it with Wildlife-era Mott The Hoople, and probably with several dozen other bands that had this sort of sound at the time — Byrds-Band-style roots-rock, but without the uniquely expressive features of either of these bands, and without a whole lot of impressive songwriting, either.

New member, bass and rhythm guitar player Ian Gomm, steps in here as a supporting songwriter, getting credits for four songs (Nick Lowe has six), and there are also two covers of American singer-songwriter Jim Ford, largely unknown but, apparently, hugely favored by Bobby Womack, who would record a shitload of songs of his for The Poet and The Poet II later on. The Jim Ford covers are actually distinctive — they are the two songs at the end of the album that display the highest energy level: ʽNiki Hoeke Speedwayʼ is a loose, drunk-sounding blues-rocker, and ʽJu Ju Manʼ is an uptempo boogie piece that, in this rendition, kicks about as much ass as the Grateful Dead when they were playing rock'n'roll. Which is not that much, as you could guess, but for those who like their rock'n'roll at low chamber temperatures, very stylish and tasteful.

Unfortunately, there is very little I can find to say about these songs, and what little I can find will not be flattering. As much as I respect Nick Lowe's songwriting in theory, let's face it, it is just a wee bit embarrassing when you realize that one of the most memorable tunes on the album, so humbly titled ʽUnknown Numberʼ, is only memorable because it is built on a joint piano/guitar riff that completely nicks (nick-lowes?) the melodic line from Buddy Holly's ʽWords Of Loveʼ — and adds nothing of serious value on top of it, so I guess the only reason Buddy's estate did not sue is that either nobody knew who Nick Lowe was, or they knew they wouldn't get much out of these guys anyway. In any case, this is just not a good sign.

The album's centerpiece is ʽEgyptʼ, a long, slow, meditative ballad whose point is made perfectly clear in the first thirty seconds or so — still it drags on for more than five minutes, with Bob An­drews' solemn wintery organ lines and Lowe's tender vocals sustaining the atmosphere. Some will find this deep and romantic, but it annoys me how manneristic the whole thing is — they're handling the procedure with such exaggeratedly exquisite finesse, you'd think they were afraid that just a little more strain and the entire studio would crumble around them. It's so goddamn quiet that, in fact, that at the beginning of the third minute you can actually hear a dog barking somewhere near the studio — I have no details, but I'm 99% sure it was just an accident that they decided to leave in, and good thing they did, because it's probably the best bit in the song.

The new songwriter apparently still takes his cues from Nick, because his contributions are large­ly just the same relaxed, generic country-rock — pleasant, but mellow and with little in the way of individualistically-rememberable melody. A typical example is the last track — the instrumen­tal ʽRockin' Chairʼ, which would fit nicely in any average country-western soundtrack, but when I really need my share of such music, as in, for a spiritual uplift or something, I can always have the Allman Brothers' ʽJessicaʼ instead. That's Ian Gomm for you. And Nick Lowe? I actually like ʽMerry Go Roundʼ a decade later when its verse melody was remade as ʽManic Mondayʼ and its chorus melody was made completely anew.

You get the point by now — Silver Pistol sounds very nice, and it may even be the best country-rock (soft-rock? whatever) album produced by a UK band in 1972, but in that range, they did not have that much competition, did they? Well, some; pop music historians will most likely be able to find far more blatantly rotten examples. The sad truth, I believe, is that the band was still way too much dominated by its rootsy American influences to develop their own style — and if they did not want to take a lesson from the dirty ugly Rolling Stones, well, by 1972 you had the Kinks and Muswell Hillbillies to show you just the right way of merging American and British tradi­tions. As it is, contrastive perception forces another thumbs down. 

Botch: American Nervoso

BOTCH: AMERICAN NERVOSO (1998)

1) Hutton's Great Heat Engine; 2) John Woo; 3) Dali's Praying Mantis; 4) Dead For A Minute; 5) Oma; 6) Thank God For Worker Bees; 7) Rejection Spoken Softly; 8) Spitting Black; 9) Hives.

As a rule, the Tacoma/Seattle area is not usually associated with technically prodigious metal bands — the grunge crowds is where it's at, unless you start digging a little deeper, and then, quite early on in the process, you discover oddities like Botch, a band whose commercial career only lasted a couple of years and who were allegedly shunned by the community at the time, yet came to be remembered with a certain amount of reverence over the years. Then again, serves them just right for calling themselves «Botch». I mean, who wants to pay attention to something called «Botch»? At least «Stupid Assholes» would have sounded enticing.

In any case, the band was a tight, crunchy four-piece — guitar, bass, drums (the drummer also played a bit of piano when the «unpredictability monitor» flashed red), and vocals. Vocalist Dave Verellen is actually the weakest link: consistent with the basic genre requirements of «metalcore», he does little other than scream his lungs off throughout, and, as usual, any possible excitement connected with this wears off after the second minute, so, honestly, I'd much rather listen to this with the vocals erased, as they mostly just detract from the complexity of the music. Or, at best, just keep them in a few crucial moments where a well-placed scream can emphasize the effect of some sudden powerful musical blast.

Fortunately, I have listened to so many of these screaming bands over the years that my ears have become largely desensitized to such vocals — a mistake, perhaps, since the vocals are supposed to be a significant part of the statement, but with a band like Botch, the stuff that the three instru­mentalists are doing with their instruments is just so much more intriguing than Verellen's one single trick that I cannot imagine any serious listener wasting nerve channels on that instead of digging all the cool riffs, tricky time signatures, and crazyass solos. Unless you're heading straight for the mosh pit, but then why Botch in the first place? Anthrax will do the job nicely.

Encyclopaedias will tell you that Botch were one of the founding fathers of «mathcore», and, in­deed, I am not familiar with a lot of metal bands before them who would so explicitly use «metal language» to put together song structures of such bewildering complexity and diversity. Because of that language, it all sounds the same, but it really isn't — each song goes through a whole pack of different melodies and rhythms, as the instrumental trio attempts to become a sort of «metal Cream», amazing the world with their freedom flight and faultless technique. On second thought, though, the allegory is not entirely right — Cream improvisations often, if not always, featured the players challenging each other, whereas here everything is tightly pre-coordinated, and all three players are always working towards one common goal.

The monotonousness of the music is a serious flaw: apart from maybe one or two special mo­ments, such as the out-of-place funeral-march piano coda to ʽOmaʼ, it's all brutal metallic riffage, supported by massive percussion attacks. For this reason, unless you eat, drink, piss, and shit metal, American Nervoso is best taken in short, merciful dosages to appreciate its concept of «total creative freedom within a rigidly restricted genre formula». The songs themselves do not pretend to be shapeless avantgarde experimental pieces — they are, indeed, songs, often without choruses, but with introductions, verses, bridges, internal development, codas, the works. How­ever, if your intro is in one time signature, your verse is in a different one, and your bridge dis­penses with rhythm altogether, this certainly creates a disorienting effect. It is not necessarily good: the riffs are not always meaningful, and the rapid variation dissipates the Sabbath-created magic of heavy metal — you gotta give that promising groove some valuable time to sink in, otherwise it's going to be just a juggling lights show. But after a while, once your eyes and ears get adjusted to the razzle-dazzle, it begins to work.

The overall mood of the album is, of course, chaotic-apocalyptic: "These mirrors break / And now we've lost everything / Pieces collect about me / Despite my efforts", Verellen bellows out on ʽDead For A Minuteʼ, except you cannot discern these words without a lyrics sheet — but you can certainly discern the same crazy-panicky feel that does characterize quite a few of their dis­tantly related brethren from the Seattle area, except that Botch exercise strict military discipline, and their chaotic panic is precisely orchestrated — not coincidentally, perhaps, the second song here bears the name of ʽJohn Wooʼ, as some of its rhythmic pulses would make an awesome soundtrack to a martial arts movie. Elsewhere, song titles like ʽDali's Praying Mantisʼ or ʽThank God For Worker Beesʼ show that, conceptually, these guys are much more influenced by avant-jazz people than the hardcore metal crowds (and, just for the record, it is said that they actually played Destiny's Child songs during warm-up before their shows — no wonder they weren't too loved back in ol' Washington State!).

On the whole, American Nervoso is not a great album. Dissecting each of its compositions from a purely musicological stance may be a fun way to kill time, and its total may also be worth more than the sum of its parts — because, after all, most of its songs do sound the same — yet much of the time you do get the feeling that it is, rudely speaking, too complex for its own good, and top­ping that complexity off with ridiculous screamfests is hardly a saving grace. But for a simple bunch of Tacoma kids this is a major achievement, one of those records that can be respected just by looking at what they managed to have done without necessarily «getting» it. Frankly speaking, there are very few heavy metal records that I «love» anyway, but quite a few that command my respect, and Botch's debut does belong in that category. Thumbs up.

Butthole Surfers: Butthole Surfers

BUTTHOLE SURFERS (1983)

1) The Shah Sleeps In Lee Harvey's Grave; 2) Hey; 3) Something; 4) Bar-B-Q Pope; 5) Wichita Cathedral; 6) Sui­cide; 7) The Revenge Of Anus Presley.

Like Kurt Cobain, you just gotta respect any band that calls itself «Butthole Surfers». On one hand, the name is more «irreverently amusing» than flat-out gross (like Anal Cunt, something that requires even more imagination than the idea of a butthole surfer but ends up being disgus­ting in any case). On the other hand, the name totally and utterly precludes such a potential em­barrassment as «commercial success». Let's face it, fame and fortune are for losers — real men find satisfaction in anything but fame and fortune, and what better means are there to get them completely and permanently out of your way than calling yourself «Butthole Surfers»?

This debut EP was originally released in 1983 on the Dead Kennedys' label, Alternative Tentacles; apparently, Jello Biafra was so overwhelmed by the guys that he promised to release their stuff, pro­vided they could find somebody to lend them some studio time — which they did, proving that truly nothing is impossible. The band's lineup at the time included Gibby Haynes on lead vocals and saxophone; Paul Leary on guitar and occasional lead vocals; Bill Jolly on bass; and a whole set of different drummers, some of whom they probably even forgot to mention on the cre­dits. And who'd want to look at the credits, with that album art, anyway?

The music... okay, this is music. Basically, Butthole Surfers play «punk rock», but not «regular» or «hardcore» punk rock — rather something like absurdist or dadaist punk rock. Unlike union­ized punkers, these guys have little concern for the evil grin of The System, or the everyday sweat of The Working Man: what they are more concerned about is testing the limits of the punk idiom, whether it can incorporate humor, purely artistic offensiveness, raffinated craziness, and just about anything else you'd like to insert, at random, inside the idiom. For instance, you might want to play a bit of college-style folk-rock with psychedelic guitar overdubs (ʽHeyʼ), or some repeti­tive one-chord blues vamps (ʽSomethingʼ), and they'll all fit in with the more overtly punkish material like ʽThe Shah Sleeps In Lee Harvey's Graveʼ (does he really?).

It may all seem silly, but the band gets by on the sheer strength of its imagination — their musi­cal and cultural knowledge are undeniable, and they mix small pinches of everything in such incre­dibly unimaginable combinations that it never feels like the only purpose of making this EP was to gross out the audience. So there's a lot of predictable offensiveness thrown at religion, the Pope in person (ʽBar-B-Q Popeʼ — does there exist a Sinead O'Connor cover of this anywhere?), pop icons like Hendrix and Elvis, and dead parents, but it's all funny, and some of it is even catchy: simplistic vamp or not, that "something she said to me last night" bit from ʽSomethingʼ really sticks in the brain. And speaking of surfing, there is a little bit of surf guitar on ʽWichita Cathed­ralʼ, as if they were actually influenced by Agent Orange.

In addition, Paul Leary is quite an in­ventive guitarist who likes to introduce just a wee bit of dissonance in his overall smooth lead guitar playing — not a lot, like Greg Ginn, but just a bit to throw you off balance. That's on the less messy songs, like ʽWichita Cathedralʼ, but then there are also intentionally messy trips — like ʽSuicideʼ, an unlikely marriage between old school rock'n'roll and free-form avantgarde music where, I suppose, rock'n'roll symbolizes "the walls of my life" and free-form avantgarde suggests suicide. Or there's just total hooliganry, like ʽThe Revenge Of Anus Presleyʼ, as full of obscenities as if it were the band's take on an underground rap ritual, while the guitars spiral around you in a psychopathic, but humorous manner. Like a comical, lighthearted take on Stooges-style madness.

In January 2003, the album was re-released on CD together with its follow-up EP, Live PCPPEP, recorded live (indeed) in a club in San Antonio and originally released in the fall of 1984. A sepa­rate review for this EP would be rather superfluous, especially since it mostly just reproduces Butthole Surfers in its entirety, although the show does start off with a ravenously insane take on ʽCowboy Bobʼ which is a preview of the version on their next studio album. There are a couple bonuses on the CD release, though, such as the previously unreleased blues-punk-rocker ʽGary Floydʼ, and a bass-heavy post-punk rocker ʽSinister Crayonʼ which, fairly speaking, sounds rather dull and un-ironic next to the obscene hilariousness of the trailblazing EP, and was pro­bably left off for a good reason — this kind of stuff would rather suit, say, Pere Ubu. Oh, and if your ears are sharp enough to penetrate into the stage banter, you do need this by all means — Haynes is constantly spouting insults to the public, at one point even remarking that they have managed to clear out most of the audience, as if it were a good thing...

In any case, both the original EP and the new, much expanded release get a thumbs up rating — it might be safe to say that in 1983, nobody took punk as un-seriously as these guys, and that is quite a refreshing thing to remember. Of course, as far as irreverent songwriting is concerned, this is not Ween-level quality, but these guys are Ween's spiritual ancestors, and we at least have to respect this, even if we don't necessarily have to enjoy all the jokes or be amazed at all the little experiments.

Built To Spill: Perfect From Now On

BUILT TO SPILL: PERFECT FROM NOW ON (1997)

1) Randy Described Eternity; 2) I Would Hurt A Fly; 3) Stop The Show; 4) Made-Up Dreams; 5) Velvet Waltz; 6) Out Of Site; 7) Kicked It In The Sun; 8) Untrustable/Part 2 (About Someone Else).

By the time Built To Spill's third and allegedly best album comes along, I think I understand what my major problem with Doug Martsch is. Simply put, the man is just not as much of a «guitar sound magician» as he tries to make us believe. Yes, there is quite a bit of experimentation with song structures, overdubs, guitar tones, and chord progressions going on, but all of it is still strict­ly written in «rock language», and when you look at all the separate parts one by one, they are rarely all that special. The melodies are far too complex to trigger immediate gut reaction à la Nirvana (I think Doug Martsch would have died of shame if he ever got caught with an ʽIn Bloomʼ-type riff on one of his songs), yet not «where-the-hell-did-this-come-from?»-sort of com­plex enough to amaze and astound you.

That said, Martsch at least tries to live up to the album's rashly presumptuous title — especially considering that somehow along the line he managed to secure his band a contract with nothing less than Warner Bros., while at the same time retaining the right to creative freedom. So here was an actual challenge to produce something that could be commercially viable and artistically meaningful at the same time, and, fortunately, the man's ambitions burst through the bland indie-rock shell that so thickly enveloped There's Nothing Wrong With Love and carried him to­wards anthemic, psychedelic, and noise-rich heights. This is very clearly an album that wants, oh so desperately, to be the Grandest Serious Record of the decade, and Martsch invests so much of himself in the effort that I fully understand people who like to swear by this record, particularly if they were in their world-sniffing teens at the time, and Doug Martsch was their Pete Townshend, taken to the next advanced level of conscience.

The songs here are lengthy — indeed, way too lengthy for a potentially commercial album re­leased on a major label — and almost always drift from one melody into a completely different one, even if the key will probably remain the same. It's not as if they really needed to do that, be­cause the permeating mood is consistently philosophical and almost meditative, rather than ad­venturous: Martsch states that in the very first song, dealing with the concept of eternity and its relation with the fleeting individual, and then never really lets go until the last minute. These are not cosmic voyages into some flowery parallel universe — they are trips inside the depth of your mind, sometimes guided by rationality, sometimes just going off the deep end without bothering too much where the stream will end up taking you. They often promise genuine depth and occa­sionally hint at real beauty, although, alas, the hint usually remains just a hint for me.

One problem is that, although the album is still essentially a «pop» album, Martsch's singing abilities remain unsatisfactory. Not only does he have this really limited, annoying vocal range, but his vocals are usually mixed «below» the instruments rather than «above» them, which means that your attention is supposed to be focused on the guitars (or even on the accompanying cello, deftly played by guest musician John McMahon on about half of the tracks) rather than on the singing — but that is just plain silly, considering that the biggest hooks are sometimes planted right in the vocal, not instrumental, bits (like the chorus to ʽI Would Hurt A Flyʼ, or the "and it never will, no it never will" bit on ʽMade-Up Dreamsʼ). Honestly, the man should have taken Pete Townshend's example and arm himself with a more suitable vocalist. I am fairly sure that both John Lennon and Tom Verlaine must be among Doug's chief influences when it comes to both songwriting and singing, but he simply isn't big enough to fill the britches of either one, period. I mean, if he were and if he knew it, why hide your voice behind a wall of sound?

Another problem is that — so sue me — much too often, I still have not the faintest idea what the songs are supposed to be about, or even what my own gut feeling should suggest to me about them. Naturally, I am not talking about straightforward lyrical interpretations — but, you know, something like ʽOut Of Siteʼ is just overflowing with grandeur, starting out like Pink Floyd and ending a bit like ʽStairway To Heavenʼ, yet I have no idea to what exactly this grandeur is being applied. There's a lot of raging interlocking guitars that switch almost at random from playful funky pop to psychedelic rock, but I do not have any emotional rapprochement with the material. It's all very clever, but it rings hollow. Or, sometimes, maybe too derivative — that funky, swampy groove that constitutes the bulk of ʽI Would Hurt A Flyʼ offers a respectable variation on the formula, what with the grinning wah-wah guitar licks and the cello complementing each other in a novel manner, yet the overall effect is still not enough to stop me from smirking, «oh, gee, Funkadelic meets Electric Light Orchestra», almost against my will.

One thing I will admit: this is not «bullshit rock», by any means — not just another «deep» album whose creator just wants to come across as a serious artist, without any emotional or intellectual capacities to back up the ambitions. Rather, Perfect From Now On is that «semi-successful» attempt to justify these ambitions which has something like a 50/50 chance to irritate or amaze, depending on one's DNA peculiarities or the particular context in which this album has been heard. I have listed the primary flaws which render it impotent for me — the vocals, the emotio­nal confusion, the emphasis on length and complexity of the structures rather than the individual good parts — but all of this, to a large degree, just reflects personal taste. Objectively, this is still a huge step forward from the genericity of There's Nothing Wrong With Love and, in terms of scale and ambition, from the technical experimentalism of the band's debut album, so there is no way we could leave this without a thumbs up, be it ever more «brainy» than «heartfelt». 

Billy Bragg: William Bloke

BILLY BRAGG: WILLIAM BLOKE (1996)

1) From Red To Blue; 2) Upfield; 3) Everybody Loves You Babe; 4) Sugardaddy; 5) A Pict Song; 6) Brickbat; 7) The Space Race Is Over; 8) Northern Industrial Town; 9) The Fourteenth Of February; 10) King James Version; 11) Goalhanger.

After the relatively colossal (in comparison to everything that preceded it) Don't Try This At Home, Billy's late-coming follow-up at first feels underwhelming. Five years in the planning and making, delayed by personal life events such as the birth of his son, it is a very low-key effort, featuring none of the major guest stars from 1991 and feeling far more intimate, insecure, vulne­rable, and confused. Some reviewers took that for a bad sign, and stated that Bragg's muse must have abandoned him, at least temporarily. I don't think so, though.

See, this here William Bloke (a rough downgrade on William Blake) is not a return to the young and innocent days of electro-busking. Even if the arrangements are stripped, they are varied: Billy makes as much use of the acoustic guitar and piano here as he makes of the old electric, and the songs do not feel underworked and so much in desperate need of a rhythm section as they did on his first records. This is just a regular singer-songwriter album, produced in the intimate-confes­sional singer-songwriter paradigm, but with a sufficient amount of pop hooks to keep things from becoming too boring. It is true that the songs are not quite as well written and produced, but this is somehow to be expected — any record that puts the emphasis on «deeply personal» usually suffers in the hook department, since the artist tends to invest more in lyrics and vocal expression than he does in captivating chord changes.

The good news is that, to an extent, the investment pays off: some of the songs here, while not at all melodically great, show a level of rough sentimentality that was not yet achieved before. Per­haps it is his family life experience or something, but a song like ʽFrom Red To Blueʼ, where the protagonist is forced to either accept his partner's compromises for the Establishment or split ("should I vote red for my class or green for our children?") really does give us a confused, dis­appointed, deeply puzzled individual, who is capable of expressing all that mixed ball of emo­tions in three minutes' time, helped out by a little electric guitar and a little electric organ. If you scrutinize the lyrics too hard, you'll find the man to be judgmental ("the ideals you've opted out of, I still hold them to be true / I guess they weren't so firmly held by you"), but not nearly enough to become repelling — just scratching his head in bewilderment.

Elsewhere, the vaudevillian romantic-melancholic piano ballad ʽEverybody Loves You Babeʼ sounds exactly like Randy Newman (save the accent) and would probably have been much lauded had it been written by the latter. ʽSugardaddyʼ, an indictment of spoiled parents, uses melodic vocal harmonies for the chorus (even some sha-la-la's!) and sounds like a cross between 1970s McCartney and Ray Davies — which, for Billy, is at least an unpredictable novelty, and actually I think it works well. And then there's ʽBrickbatʼ, probably the most personal tune on the album, whose mournful string accompaniment reflects the song's confused introspection: "I used to want to plant bombs at the last night of the proms / But now you'll find me with the baby in the bath­room", Billy either complains of his weakness or acknowledges his maturation.

Anyway, it is easy to see why the critics, expecting yet another powerful anti-Establishment blast from the man, were miffled — but Billy Bragg is not crazy, he's normal, and every normal person sooner or later has to acknowledge that routine and mundane affairs are as much a part of one's life as rallies, protests, and revolutions. Besides, routine and mundane affairs as presented here are merely a natural continuation of the man's romantic side that was there all the way from the start; and it's not as if he's completely settled down, either — ʽNorthern Industrial Townʼ is a half-ironic, half-compassionate look at life you-know-where, and ʽA Pict Songʼ takes an obscure poem by Rudyard Kipling (Billy Bragg covering imperialist scum? No way!) and turns it into the album's only electro-busking anthem, with a thick distorted guitar tone and an anthemic refrain with which Billy does his best to give it a revolutionary stance.

Throw in a couple merry numbers like the brass-led upbeat pop tune ʽUpfieldʼ and the album clo­ser ʽGoalhangerʼ, a cleverly worded exercise in character assassination ("he hangs around like a fart in a Russian space station" is particularly expressive) set to a toe-tappy ska beat — and you get yourself a fairly assured thumbs up type album. Yes, it has to sink in a little bit after the major shakedown of Don't Try This At Home, and there are a few other ballads here that do very little for me, so we're not talking perfection or anything, but the album as a whole makes a sensible, sincere, and heartfelt soft counterpoint to its throbbing predecessor, and besides, every social activist-musician needs to sing about babies in bathrooms every once in a while — it's not as if he were shitting out little red flags every time he goes to that bathroom, anyway.

Brian Eno: More Music For Films

BRIAN ENO: MORE MUSIC FOR FILMS (1983)

1) Untitled; 2) Last Door; 3) Chemin De Fer; 4) Dark Waters; 5) Fuseli; 6) Melancholy Waltz; 7) Northern Lights; 8) From The Coast; 9) Shell; 10) Empty Landscape; 11) Reactor; 12) Secret; 13) Don't Look Back; 14) Marseilles; 15) Dove; 16) Roman Twilight; 17) Dawn Marshland; 18) Climate Study; 19) Drift Study; 20) Approaching Taidu; 21) Always Returning II.

I might be on Brian Eno's payroll, surreptitiously inflating his reputation for hundreds of people who like to be brainwashed by Only Solitaire, but not even a really generous helping from the man's most highly treasured private stash of juicy porn could make me state, poker face-style, that More Music For Films is not an album «for completists only». Originally titled Music For Films Vol. 2, it used to be an even less helpful proposition than it is today — because on the ori­ginal release, about a third of the tracks were simply carried over from Apollo. In 2005, when it came to remastering the material for the CD age, some wise decisions were taken: «doubling» tracks were mostly removed, and in their place Eno shoved lots of snippets that were either com­pletely unavailable up to then, or had been released earlier, as rarities, on the 1993 boxset Eno Box I, which was out of print anyway.

But regardless of this, both the original release and the new one feel scraggly. The original Music For Films, too, was rather heterogeneous, yet Eno managed to put the different pieces together so well that, even if they never had the coherence of Another Green World, there was a certain... well, mood continuity, let's call it. In any case, it was an original and conceptual undertaking, whatever. This «sequel», though, is really just scraping the barrel — gathering together every­thing that, for one reason or other, had hitherto avoided being gathered, and throwing it out with little regard for proper sequencing. All sorts of snippets and outtakes in all sorts of styles: take your personal pick, chances are you'll like at least some of it, but you certainly won't be walking away from it thinking, «wow, that was some album I just listened to!»

Amusingly, around the time of the original release Brian would remark that the second volume is quite distinct from the first largely because the tunes, on the average, are longer — but with the CD release, that distinction has been largely erased, because most of the new tracks are very brief, usually minute-long, snippets that do not have a serious chance to make a lasting impression. ʽUntitledʼ, for instance, sounds like an outtake from Before And After Science, probably with Percy Jones on bass again, but the overall composition only barely begins to find its footing by the time it's over, and ends up sounding like a warm-up rehearsal at a Brand X recording session (as well as the next two tracks, by the way).

Elsewhere, you get some transcendental electronic drone (ʽDark Watersʼ), some transcendental country muzak (ʽMelancholy Waltzʼ indeed), some solemn baroque ambient (ʽFrom The Coastʼ), some menacing industrial grind with Frippertronics (ʽReactorʼ), and then the last third of the al­bum, which is really the only part that overlaps with the original Vol. 2, largely sounds like a con­tinuation of Apollo, if you were all that desperate for a sequel, because, you know, Eno always leaves you with a cliffhanger — many of us are still dying to see the thrilling suspense of Music For Airports resolved, one way or another.

On a concluding optimistic note, I really enjoy the track ʽDawn Marshlandʼ. It might be one of the clo­sest times he ever came to capturing that «nature sound» without there being anything «natural» about the track — synthesized hum and slightly spooky bird hoots, creating a foggy dawn atmosphere that veers between the mystical and the terrifying. As usual, nothing too com­plex about it, just this stunning realization that... you know, so many people are doing these things and so many people have trouble coming up with good semantics behind them. And with Eno... right or wrong, but with so many of these short tracks, logical semantic interpretations just hop inside your brain, easy, focused, like bees inside a hive. How does he do that? He really is one of the very few people in the world who make electronic instruments feel so utterly natural (which, of course, could also be used as a criticism — what's the point of making electronic in­struments sound «natural» when you can just use «natural» sounds instead? which could lead to a lengthy discussion, but that would be well beyond my current point). For the moment, we'll just assume that the man is smarter than most of them (and most of us), pending logical proof, and move on.

Bruce Springsteen: Live In New York City

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN: LIVE IN NEW YORK CITY (2001)

1) My Love Will Not Let You Down; 2) Prove It All Night; 3) Two Hearts; 4) Atlantic City; 5) Mansion On The Hill; 6) The River; 7) Youngstown; 8) Murder Incorporated; 9) Badlands; 10) Out In The Street; 11) Born To Run; 12) 10th Avenue Freezeout; 13) Land Of Hope And Dreams; 14) American Skin (41 Shots); 15) Lost In The Flood; 16) Born In The USA; 17) Don't Look Back; 18) Jungleland; 19) Ramrod; 20) If I Should Fall Behind.

While it is common (and reasonable) to state that the last and, from a certain point, the most stable, predictable, and self-assured stage of Bruce Springsteen's career began with The Rising, which was itself triggered by the events of 9/11, in effect The Boss's transformation into the solidified «elder statesman» of rock began earlier — the most solidifying event being his 1999 reunion, after more than a decade of wandering, with The E Street Band. The «Reunion Tour» was a huge event, and culminated in a series of MSG shows, some of which were professionally shot with all the benefits of modern technology and broadcast on HBO. Since then, Bruce and the camera became almost inseparable on all his subsequent tours, but in 2000, this was still relative news, and thus Live In New York City — the video and the accompanying 2-CD package — has quite a bit of historical significance.

And not just on a purely technical level, either. Most of the young people these days are only really familiar with this 21st century edition of Bruce Springsteen — one for which certain changes had to be introduced, given some limitations imposed by the aging process. Although for a 50-year old he was still in great physical shape (hey, those body-building years couldn't just go to waste, could they?), his voice had aged, and he could no longer sing and strut with the same amount of energy and precision as he used to — not to mention that, had he tried to, it might have looked just a bit silly now. So this new look Springsteen is quite a bit less stage-crazy than he used to, and everybody else in the band has put on a bit of weight as well (literally, figuratively, or both), and the resulting sound is somewhat more «imposing» than it is «invigorating».

Not that this is in any way tragic if you tend to value The Boss for his «Soul» as much as you value him for his «Raw Power». Of the former, there is a lot here — starting with the hugely ex­tended, atmosphere-above-all-else version of ʽThe Riverʼ and ending with the exaggeratedly tear­ful ʽIf I Should Fall Behindʼ, where all standing members of The E Street Band take their turn at the microphone, and Patti Scialfa's hiccupy "wait for me...e...e...e...e" refrain garners as much acknowledgement from the crowds as anything uttered by her husband. Of the latter, there is ex­pectedly somewhat less than there was in evidence on Live 1975-86: in particular, simplistic rock'n'roll-de-luxe crowd pleasers from The River, namely ʽTwo Heartsʼ, ʽOut In The Streetʼ, and ʽRamrodʼ, seem overloud, lumpy, and perfunctory, but how could a legit Springsteen show do away with all of these? It cannot, and you just gotta have 'em.

Bruce does everything in his power, though, so as not to make it all seem like a has-been parade of old glories. The hits are cleverly interspersed with rarities and obscurities: the album even kicks off with an ancient outtake (ʽMy Love Will Not Let You Downʼ) that surprisingly turns out to be a perfectly anthemic, rabble-rousing little gem of an opener, and later on, you get ʽMurder Incorporatedʼ, dating back to the days of Born In The USA, on which it could have easily been the angriest, most fucked-up song, had Bruce decided to make the album any more angry and fucked-up and compromise its commercial success.

New material, premiered during the tour, is also well in evidence — including ʽAmerican Skinʼ, a poignant topical tune based on the shooting of Amadou Diallo; and ʽLand Of Hope And Dreamsʼ, a gospel-rock inversion of the old ʽThis Trainʼ chestnut. And some of the old songs continue to undergo renovations — the formerly acoustic ʽAtlantic Cityʼ and ʽYoungstownʼ are given full band arrangements that work very well: the fanfare-piano riff works brilliantly as a counterpoint to the "meet me tonight in Atlantic City" chorus, and as for ʽYoungstownʼ, well, anything to re­lieve the tedium of a generic Ghost Of Tom Joad number is always welcome, and you just can't go wrong with the fully unleashed fury of a complete E Street Band, even past its prime.

The shows are also almost completely free of story-telling this time (perhaps the stories were simply edited out, but they didn't tell us anyway), which I personally find a blessing — especially since the only track on the album that does have a long spoken interlude is rather embarrassing: in the middle of the overall entertaining ʽ10th Avenue Freezeoutʼ, Bruce takes a lengthy detour, im­personating a gospel preacher of the (sexual) healing powers of rock'n'roll, which goes on for way too long before we eventually understand that this is just a pretext for a really pompous introduc­tion of each and every member of the E Street Band. For a couple minutes out there, the thing is hilarious, but eventually it just ruins an initially fine performance. (The good news is that the other extended foam-at-the-mouth prayer to the delirious god of rock'n'roll, inserted in the middle of ʽLight Of Dayʼ, was left off the album and is only featured in the video version — maybe because the audio ecstasy was already presented to us on MTV Plugged).

Other than this bit of misguided misdemeanor, and a few other minor complaints (such as the attempt to transform ʽBorn In The USAʼ into a steel guitar swamp blues tune — I understand the desire to get away from its arena-anthem appeal, but not at the expense of losing the pop hook, please!), anyway, aside from that, this is a pretty damn good live album for someone reshaping his stage image for age purposes. This is certainly not how the «Bruce Springsteen Live» brand will go down in history in the long run, but it's a fairly accurate picture of it for the age of the Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame, social networks, hipsters, hi-def audio/video, and glamorization, to the latter of which not even Springsteen remains completely immune. No matter how healthy, sweaty, sincere, and «real» it all seems, do not forget that essentially, the B.S. live show is as much an in­tegral part of the show-biz machine as, say, a Rolling Stones show, or even a Britney Spears one, and I am fairly sure The Boss is more aware of this than anyone.

Still, it's a fairly close approxi­mation to «real», and quite a few moments here cause real heart-throbbing — be it the powerful intro to ʽProve It All Nightʼ, or the seconds when Cla­rence kicks in with his frenetic sax solo on ʽBorn To Runʼ, or his extended soulful workout on ʽJunglelandʼ, or the way The Boss gets it so perfectly right at the climactic releases of each verse of ʽLost In The Floodʼ. Since the release of Live In New York City, the floodgates have really opened, and lots and lots of newer shows are now available in pristine audio and/or video quality — but this one is still a bit special, since you can clearly feel the atmosphere of excitement about working with his home band once again, and turning over a new page in his life; if just for this reason alone, the album deserves a thumbs up. For a fuller appreciation of whatever was going on, though, you'd really have to see the video — while Steven Van Zandt's Baba Yaga stage image leaves something to be desired, Clemmons and Weinberg cut even more dramatic figures as they get older, wiser, and grander, and hey, priceless close-ups of thick drops of sweat on The Boss' guitar! The man ain't making his money for nothing, that's for sure.