Tim Brough's Black Leather Bookshelf

Forward into The Past
4 Out Of 4 Stars

ZZ Top are still best remembered for their flashy videos, that crazy car and the buzzed out synths riding atop songs about legs and sharp dressed men. What most forget is that they started as a Texas blues and boogie outfit, making the most of their three piece line-up. That led to such great albums and songs like "Tush," "Tejas" and "Fandango." "La Futura" is a look back to that era, with producer Rick Rubin nudging Dusty Hill, Billy Gibbons and Frank Beard towards s stripped down electric blues, letting the trio wail away like it was 1974.

That doesn't make "La Futura" a great album or a return to form, as they've been doing this music under the radar on discs like "Rhythmeen" and "Mescalaro," just without the hype. The sound is still instantly recognizable with Gibbons and Hill trading lead vocals and Gibbons' snarly guitar licks sounding exclusive to him. The songs are also appropriately snappy, with the growl of "Gotsta Get Paid" and "Have A Little Mercy" again sounding like no band except ZZ Top. And finally taking the shackles off of Frank Beard may be the best thing about "La Futura," as he can now freely whack his snare drums without worrying about a drum machine.

I guess what bums me out here are two things; that the songs all sound recycled from other ZZ Top tunes, and that the album barely clocks in at a 40 mins for 10 songs. With almost a decade between discs and the hype of Rubin behind the boards (one of the few times Gibbons has shared the bench with any other than Bill Ham), I was expecting something more. fans will enjoy this, non-fans will scracth their heads, while classic rock radio will Que up "Sharp Dressed Man" for another spin.


This entry was originally posted at http://www.dreamwidth.org/12345.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

One will never be as bad as Tom Waits 
5 Out of 5 Stars

A clattering bumpy ride of an album, this is Tom Waits at his visceral best. "Bad As Me" as the Waits persona as God's last drunken bluesman rising from the gutter to try and find what is better, even if even he knows it's all a myth. All you have to imagine is the man with the beaten suitcase at a train station, aware that baggage follows you everywhere you go, bit "maybe things will be better in Chicago." It's a theme that rolls along from beginning to end of "Bad As Me," with the final chorus of Auld Lang Syne fades from the lament of losers gathered on "New Year's Eve." It's a collection of songs worthy of Waits best albums, like "Rain Dogs," "Swordfishtromboines" or even early work like "Blue Valentine."

Tom has also assembled what could be his best band in many a year. Marc Ribot leads an all-star cast of guitarists, including Keith Richards and Los Lobos' David Hildago (who gets the best licks in the rocking "Let's Get Lost"). It's Ribot's typical pick and stab style that makes the greatest impression on the tougher numbers, including the exceptional "Hell Broke Luce." Punctuated by Ribot (and Richards) guitar snap, New Orleans Brass and sampled machine gun fire, Waits barks about the soldiers we've dumped in Iraq and Afghanistan and then forgotten.

"The Big **** bomb made me deaf,
A Humvee mechanic put his Kevlar on wrong?
I guarantee you'll meet up with a suicide bomb."

Then ends with the soldier/narrator home, blind, deaf and broke, cursing "What is next?" It could be the most powerful song he's ever written. Waits does have a sense of humor, though, and that comes through in the non-sequiturs that make up the title track, but goes a bit overboard when he quotes "Mr Jagger, and Mr Richards" while singing a song about getting "Satisfied" as Keith riffs away behind him. It's "Bad as Me's" only misfire, the rest of the album is just a kick. Given the usual long waits for Waits, "Bad As me" is well worth the time it took to arrive.



This entry was originally posted at http://www.dreamwidth.org/12345.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

Sample all the Entrees
4 Out Of 5 Stars

Brett Every is a roughhewn, last call at the bar singer songwriter, and I've been a fan since I first heard "Camping Out" a few years ago. Possessed of a moaning, hopeless voice, he seems crossed with Mark Weitzel and a gay Tom Waits. Every's deep, shaky voice drips pathos and emotionalism, with frequent guest Estelle Noonan adding a similar female foil to add to the bluesy burn of his writing. "Menu," his third album, continues this course in a solid fashion, offering few changes from his first two distinctive albums.

On his previous album, Brett pulled Bette Midler's "Come Back Jimmy Dean" and wrapped his smokey longing around it to perfection. On "Menu," he takes an even bigger risk by hauling out Concrete Blonde's new wave one-hit "Joey" out and turning it on its head. On the original, singer Johnette Napolitano was confronting a junkie boyfriend, trying to pull him out of a destructive relationship. Here, Every is locked into a tense battle with Joey, trying to convince him that his desperate love is worth kicking the habit over, even if you know that Joey has no intentions of being the better man. Brett's version tugs harder at the heart that CB's ever did.

There are also some stunning original compositions, including "Man Walks Into a Bar," where the 40 year old Brett discovers his 20 year old self, and tries to convince him that being careful will avert future heartaches. You know full well that the 20 year old Brett is blowing the old geezer off, and the elder Brett aches to know that his youthful self needs to make his own coming out path, pains and all. Just as delightful is when he tackles this in first person fashion during "Rough Road," hoping his life is restaurants and country clubs, where 'all they have are chili dogs." There's a romantic streak here just struggling to get out from the back of the bar, and Brett's "Menu" is another fine album from this out Aussie performer.

Looking for Something True
4 Out Of 5 Stars

The scout for Blue Note Records must have flipped out when he found Amos Lee. "Oh my God," he likely squealed in delight. "I've found the male Norah Jones!" Which is pretty much a description of Lee's debut. It follows the blueprint for the ultra-successful Jones, to the point where she even sings on a couple of the songs here. While this is no dig on Lee's admittedly extraordinary talent, that shout serve as signpost to whether or not you'll be interested in listening to Lee's 2005 debut.

Lee is a bluesy singer-songwriter, positioned somewhere between the confessionals of James Taylor and the soulfulness of Al Green. He also possesses an expressive, folkish voice that occasionally soars into a strong falsetto, and (like Jones) is a strong, emotive songwriter. On this debut, he glides on those strengths, which makes the album easy to digest but not needlessly forceful. That kind of music you hear in a Starbucks? Amos Lee delivers it in smokey quotients.

Just don't let the easy listening trappings fool you. Like Norah's "Come Away With Me," "Amos Lee" has a sophisticated underpinning that gets more noticeable on repeat listenings. In the years since, Lee has become a formidable blues singer/player. His 2011 "Mission Bell" has him maturing as a singer and letting some of the tougher aspects of his writing come to the surface. However, as an easy listening debut, "Amos Lee" makes for a solid introduction.



This entry was originally posted at http://www.dreamwidth.org/12345.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

Howl and Growl with The Black Keys
4 Out Of 5 Stars

The Black Keys are the latest incarnation of garage-band boys to discover the gritty blues. "Brothers" is their best to date, having distilled their influences down to basics, at the same time not jettisoning the hipster production stlye of Danger Mouse and his ilk. The atmosphereic wooshes that swirl underneath the best songs here (especailly "Too Afraid To Love You") eliminate mone of the primal yearning from the songs, and pull them into a more modern sound. Even the update of Jerry Butler's "Never Gonna Give You Up" maintains a reverence for the original; other than being recorded in this century, there's not much difference between the way the two songs feel.

Which is one of the many reasons I enjoy "Brothers." The big echoing drums, the fuzzy guitars, the less than perfect singing (there's no auto-tune on this album) make it more of a feel album than a technical one. When something chugs like "Sinister Kid" or reaches to the falsetto heavens like "Everlasting Light," you can tell that Patrick Carney and Dan Auerbach are trying more to make the album sound right more than having one more go at that perfect take. Or that they feel no shame in taking a Gary Glitter drum stomp and attatching it to "Howlin' For You." "Brothers" takes to the same mold that Jack White seems to have gone for with Dead Weather in that anything worth using is good in service to the song.

Fans of slicked up blues or even the uber-purists will likely not like this, as the music is raw and blunt, without much thought for replicating tradition in a narrow sense. "Brothers" rumbles along its own stream, engrossing everything in the water like so much swamp moss.