My amazon Reviews: Steve Earle "I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive"

Ghosts Sing Sad, Western Songs
4 Out Of 5 Stars

"I'll Never Get Out Of This World Alive" is Steve Earle's most mortal album in a discography that has shaken hands with darkness many a'time. According to his own liner notes, much of the album is written in response to the death of his father, but other forms of grievous loss play throughout the cycle. It begins with the anxious boy in a military town fearing the draft board ("Waiting for The Sky To fall") and ends with a tribute to New Orleans ("This City"). As per usual, Earle's gruff, passionate voice conveys a richness of emotion that has been his trademark since the days of "Copperhead Road."

I also enjoy the fact that he's taken some traditional folk/bluegrass forms to play with, like the highwayman who robs for his "Molly'O." or that he keeps his political bent on fore with "Little Emperor" and the Gulf Spill tragedy that follows a families ties to the ocean on "The Gulf Of Mexico." His wife Alison Moorer adds to an edgy duet called "Heaven Or Hell," which questions the origin of love. It's all done with the kind of production that T-Bone Burnette used to excel in, and for a change, Burnette doesn't bury Earle under a mountain of murk. The fact that most of the songs were recorded in a marathon single day session probably helped, but "Ill Never Get Out Of This World Alive" marks yet another terrific album from one of America's last great folksong singer/songwriters.

   

My Amazon Reviews: Black Keys "El Camino"

The Finest in Garage Glitter and Grit 

4 Out Of 5 Stars

As The Black Keys have steadily ascended to the garage stomp throne since vacated by The White Stripes, the best thing about their climb has been the increasing coolness of their albums. "Brothers" pulled everything into a tight, thudding packages, and with "El Camino," the duo - again with the help of Danger Mouse - bring everything down to a basic fuzz-guitar pounding. At the same time, everything is in its perfect place, from the raging buzz-saw solos ("Gold On The Ceiling") to the Hives-y raunch of "Stop Stop," this is an album that refines itself to the core.

It also means those who loved the disjointed and unfocused loopiness that the early albums contained will be crying Sell-Out all over the place. The simple truth is, The Black Keys have learned their craft down the a level of cool that most bands never reach. They even know and wink at it; search for the Colbert Report Sell-Out Sell-Off between The Black Keys and vampire Weekend and you'll see what Patrick Carney and Dan Auerbach think of their commercial success. It's only roc
k and roll, and they're going to have a good time with it. "She wants milk and honey/She wants filthy money" cries Auerbach in "Money Maker." It's still all about cars and girls. And volume. And for now, The Black Keys' "El Camino" is the best place to find it.

   

My Amazon Reviews: Tom Waits "Bad As Me"

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.

   

My Amazon Reviews: Fountains of Wayne "Sky Full of Holes"

Power Pop has its 2011 winner  
4 Out of 5 Stars 

Fountains of Wayne have always been a tightrope act, treading the wire between delightfully goofy pop and biting tart lyrical jabs. Songwriters Chris Collingwood and Adam Schlesinger know that they are both pop-masters and satirists, and their "Sky Full Of Holes" both mines that vein and comes off as a surprisingly conformist pop album. Well, at least as conformist as you can get when the first line sung is "She's been afraid of the Cuisinart since 1977."

That song, "The Summer Place," is a darkly funny look at a dysfunctional family and the inverted nostalgia that they have for summer vacations. Then the follow-up is a perversely catchy song about a clueless duo named "Richie and Reuben," who fail at every dopey endeavor they try. That doesn't keep the narrator safe, as Richie and Reuben still managed to sucker him into their crazy schemes. "Sky Full Of Holes" is loaded with these sorts of moments, where the song skips along on an inescapable melody before slipping in the knockout blow.

At the same time, they're writing beautifully sincere songs that should be the rightful hits to follow their top 20 adventure, "Stacy's Mom" in 2004. Both "Someone's Gonna Break Your Heart" and "Hate To See You Like This" should be pop anthems, the kind of songs that Schlesinger drops with scary anonymity into TV and Movie soundtracks. Power Hooks and Killer Choruses in each, and "Someone's Gonna Break Your Heart" is 99% irony free. It's the album's closer that seals the deal, though. "Cemetery Guns" is a touching tribute to a girlfriend's brother lost at war. Arranged with both martial drums and banjo, it's also the source of the album's title, where Adam describes the effect of a 21 Gun Salute. It's a short, sweet song that brings the album to the kind of conclusion that reminds you exactly why Fountains of Wayne are darlings to power pop aficionados, and why this may be my favorite album of 2011.