BEACHWOOD SPARKS: THE TARNISHED GOLD (2012)
1) Forget The Song; 2) Sparks
Fly Again; 3) Mollusk; 4) Tarnished Gold; 5) Water From The Well; 6) Talk About
Lonesome; 7) Leave That Light On; 8) Nature's Light; 9) No Queremos Oro; 10)
Earl Jean; 11) Alone Together; 12) The Orange Grass Special; 13) Goodbye.
With the kind of fame that Beachwood Sparks had
been able to earn (each of their albums has amassed from 10 to 20 customer
reviews on Amazon, to give a rough picture), one might get a little puzzled
about why this band felt the need to get back together under the same old name,
ten years after they'd all dissipated to test out various alternate projects. A
«Pink Floyd reunion» or a «Fleetwood Mac reunion» or an «Eagles reunion» — that
kind of makes sense, whatever the actual results might be, but a «Beachwood
Sparks reunion» just sounds weird.
However, just one listen to The Tarnished Gold, the band's third
album, is enough to set things straight. This is not a reunion because the band
never really felt apart. What they did was take their own advice and go back to
a tree-like state — that way, no matter how long the breaks between albums,
time stands absolutely still, and the next one picks up where the last one left
off even if the tectonic plates themselves had relocated in the meantime. There
is only one problem: the more time you spend standing still, the deeper your
roots sink into the ground, and thus, ten years of phantom existence resulted
in the band's third album becoming their dreamiest — nay, their most lethargic
— creation thus far.
With the exception of maybe just one or two
mid-tempo soft country-rockers, and a highly artificial and unfunny excursion
into Latin territory (ʽNo Queremos Oroʼ), all
of these songs are slow, atmospheric, brooding segments of psycho-folk, and all of them could be roughly described
as spiritual variations on the theme of ʽConfusion Is Nothing Newʼ. Except that
there is neither any confusion here, nor
anything new — the Sparks still place their trust in tender, caressing mixes of
acoustic guitars, echoey slide leads, retro-sounding keyboard tapestries in the
background, and hushed, relaxating vocal harmonies. No individual part of this
sound is ever great by itself, and when they are all merged together, The Tarnished Gold is, at best, a
pleasing, instantaneously forgettable lullaby. Listen to it every evening,
seven days in a row, and by the end of the test period you will probably not be
able to remember a single song — but you just might get a week of healthy,
eco-friendly sleep.
Where this album fails, as far as I see it, is
in its goal to generate transcendental magic — the very goal to which
everything else, like lively tempos and catchy melodies, is sacrificed without mercy.
In ten years, Beachwood Sparks have not managed to pick up any new tricks: they
think that their three cherished muses — Echo, Repetition, and Tenderness —
will somehow do the job for them. But, like all responsible muses, all these
three can offer is a helping hand — they cannot teach the band to learn new
chords or implement original instrumentation. Hence, another disappointed thumbs down.
Put it this way: good taste may be a virtue, but who needs good taste if
there's nothing on the horizon to be tasted?
Check "The Tarnished Gold" (CD) on Amazon
Check "The Tarnished Gold" (MP3) on Amazon
I swear, one and only time when I actually fell asleep on a plane was when I played this album. This was in 2008, back when it was released. It wasn't an early morning flight, mind you.
ReplyDeleteChrist, why do I distinctly remember listening to it in 2008? 2012 of course, but I guess there must be something to it...
Delete