Acid Tongue: Perhaps a Bit More Base?

As I continue to catch up on albums from 2008, I have been listening a lot lately to Jenny Lewis' second solo effort, Acid Tongue. Having enjoyed exploring some of the work of Rilo Kiley last year, I was hopeful about getting into Lewis' solo work. The album was getting a solid set of reviews and as the year was coming to a close, it was showing up on a lot of top "this and that" lists.

Now surely you are hearing the sound of the other shoe getting ready to drop. Only kind of. It isn't that I dislike this album or think it is undeserving of some of the praise it received, but rather that I found it inconsistent and my reaction therefore is a bit ambivalent (leaving me unable to weigh in on either side of the haiku debate over the album in Paste). Much of the debate about this album seems to be related to those who were positive about her first non-Rilo Kiley effort (they don't like this one as much) and those who didn't like the first effort (they loved this one).

The album opens with, in my opinion, what is one of the weakest tracks, "Black Sand," which is simply too sparse and repetitive for my taste. The second track is an improvement, but at this point of the disc my first impression was "really underwhelmed" (and that hasn't changed much after many, many listens). Albums with a track or two that don't measure up to the strongest parts of the album are neither uncommon nor unbearable, but when an album opens with one or two of those tracks, it is harder to get past.

The disc takes a decided turn at this point though, with the third track, "The Next Messiah," being the single that has garnered some of the most attention. It is an 8 minute-plus, three part bluesy-gospel-rock affair that starts with a Doors-like guitar riff (think "Love Me Two Times"), followed by a section that has a Talking Heads "Take Me to the River" feel, and then a section that has an INXS sound to me, with a final culmination of the song's theme to wrap it up. The song's story, involving a "troubled relationship" sets up the next song, "Bad Man's World," both thematically and musically.

At song five, the album finds its stride. As the UNCUT review puts it "from that point on, fortunately, there’s a perceptible sense of Lewis finding gear." The next three songs, which are those sampled below, are by far the best on the album and show Lewis' best songwriting ability. Honest and revealing, simple and straightforward but with an edge to the character sketches and stories, and beautiful. And the mix at this moment of the album is wonderful--with "See Fernando" perfectly framed by the revealing title cut and "Godspeed."

From there, I hang in on the strength of these central songs. The next tune "Carpetbagger" is a great rollicking tune that I was all into until who should appear? Elvis Costello of course, who appears to be making a new career out of guest appearances. Now, as I have said before, I love Elvis, but this obsession of apparently everyone to have him on their album is getting a bit obnoxious--it even made me laugh when I read Pitchfork's assessment:

The first minute or so of the shit-kicking "Carpetbaggers" is pretty thrilling, too, at least until Elvis Costello shows up to wheeze all over everything.

That said, the last three tracks are interesting and round out the album quite nicely. In addition the live-in-studio recording gives the album a nice intimacy and energy. Definitely going to go back and pick up the first Lewis solo effort and will follow her in the future as well. If you haven't, you might want to pick up this album too.

Acid Tongue

See Fernando

Godspeed

Rilo Kiley: Indie (to) Pop?

So I am the kind of guy (I think the guy part might be important here) who likes to delude himself into believing that he can understand things better by going back to their origins and then following their neat, linear and chronological path forward to their current state. So when David over at IndieMuse recently posted on Pierre de Reeder's new solo effort, I immediately needed to go back to the discography of de Reeder's home band, Rilo Kiley.

The two albums in question here are their 2001 effort, Take Offs and Landings, and their 2007 effort, Under the Blacklight, and I want to set my comments in the context of UNCUT's review of the more recent album.

UNCUT starts their totally favorable review with a tortured narrative about Neil Young to finally arrive at the point that a popular album shouldn't necessarily be equated with a sell-out, by noting that "Under The Blacklight is by far and away the most accessible album that Rilo Kiley have ever made. But, d'you know what? This is a GOOD THING!"

Why? Well, apparently RK had previously been "slightly irritating" with "an affected kookiness to Jenny Lewis' vocals" and thank goodness they like the Eagles "stopped listening to their coked-up peers on the LA scene, cut loose of their fears and started listening to the radio."

So here is the thing. I totally agree with the assertions that pop doesn't equal sell-out, but I just don't quite agree with the revelation and transformation narrative here. Mainly because while I do enjoy Under the Blacklight and I get the whole "dark lyrics hiding amongst the pop trees" here, if I were to recommend an RK disc, it would be the earlier Take Offs and Landings by a mile. I don't find Lewis' vocals to be either irritating or affected, but rather personal, contemplative and funny. I like the rockier and more basic R&B feel of the earlier disc as opposed to what feels like a bit too produced throw-back disco of the latter. And while the music on Take Off's has a bit of an indie feel to it, it is certainly not all that far from pop, if at all.

As Lewis notes in her interview with UNCUT when asked about the pop nature of Under the Blacklight:

I've always been a fan of pop music and if you listen to our earlier recordings and our early demos, we started out as a pop band and sort of moved away from that a little bit. I don't think we've ever really been an indie band, it's just that we've made records that were released on independent labels and we kind of worked with what we had at our disposal.

I confess, I don't know the middle albums in RK's discography (there are two other albums between these two releases), but I would suggest that you have two pop albums here, one on an Indie label, Barsuk, and the other on a major label, Warner. Whether that and/or the band's development are the driving factors in any of the differences here, I am going to stick with recommending the earlier album.

But hey--just one guy's opinon. Here are a couple cool tracks from each album to give you a taste. The first two from Take Offs and Landings and the second two from Under the Blacklight. They might not sound all that different put together here, but I think you will agree the albums do if you listen to them side-by-side. And no matter how you slice it, Rilo Kiley is definitely worth a peek.

Science vs. Romance
Pictures of Success
Close Call
Give A Little Love