An Acute Case: 12 August 2022
New things by old people, old-ish things by new people, and new and old things for and by dead people
beabadoobee: Beatopia
Always charmingly atmospheric, often charmingly tuneful, sometimes charmingly songful. The sparser ones beat the noisy ones only because there's not much room for noise in the bedroom aesthetic she can't leave behind. The closer proves what she'll achieve when she does. Features drums and a choir and everything. * (‘You’re here that’s the thing’)
Broken Hearts and Dirty Windows: Songs of John Prine Vol. 2 (2021)
Brandi Carlile's typical politeness is followed by Nathaniel Rateliff's wet-wipe vocals and mail order horn charts before Margo Price adds her customary gloss, which is pleasant if not suitable for ‘Sweet Revenge’, and Amanda Shires, hardly a born rocker, gives personal fave ‘Saddle in the Rain’ some welly. Valerie June's croaky sibilance packs the emotional resonance that honours Prine. Iris Dement's warble is still gorgeous if a little jaded. As usual, Jason Isbell bolsters his middling tenor with deceptively dense arrangements. Not as usual, Bonnie Raitt undersells herself by taking ‘Angel From Montgomerry’ too slow and overcompensating with her phrasing. Tyler Childers and Sturgill Stimpson do their unremarkable best. The similarly unremarkable John Paul White achieves the unasked-for feat of making ‘Sam Stone’ more mawkish. Only clunker is Emmylou Harris, whose ghost of a voice is nigh on intolerable. Wit and silliness don’t come naturally to any the above, which is a problem when covering a goof like Prine. Yet their love for the material is real. Their best efforts respectable at worst and enjoyable at best. B PLUS
Charli XCX: CRASH
Whether she's playing cyborg, dance queen, bad girl (yawn), sad girl (bigger yawn), luckless romantic, or designated hitmaker, Charli provides front-to-back high energy with nary a dud in sight. Her problem is personality—I'm not sure she has one beyond someone who makes good songs. Who’s who on the Rina Sawayama duet? Beats me. A talented shapeshifter, but one who leaves little trace on her sources. *** (‘Yuck’)
Freakons: Freakons
The first line on this collection of transatlantic mining songs instructs you to google Richard Burton’s 1980 appearance on the Dick Cavett show. And you should. He gives an account of growing up in a Welsh mining family that’s tender, eloquent, and detailed. Over forty minutes of collapsed mines, poisoned waters, and orphaned babies, Louisville’s Freakwater and Leeds’s Mekons strike for the same. Yet for all the tragedy, these are proud songs. Colliers are “dark lords of the mine” and “the aristocracy of the working class”. And though their acoustic-only stab at authenticity precludes Langford and Timms’ slag heap sonics, the spirit of unionism does its galvanising best. The melodies are muscles flexed. The harmonies a show of collective forbearance. Langford’s rasp lined with anthracite. No attempt is made to link labour exploitation of the past to labour exploitation of the present. Too obvious. But modern day monopolists should take note anyway: “When the last hunk of coal has been mined / We’ll be judged by the deeds we’ve done, not the deeds we’ve signed.” A MINUS
Nova Twins: Nova Twins EP (2016)
Prodigy-ous basslines and saw-toothed guitars bloody each other's noses in a fans bring the weapons backyard cage match. Presumably done on the cheap, fewer production options means more riding on the rhythm, and as harder beats equals more rapping equals the snarlier end of Amy Love and Georgia South's truculence, that's a good thing. Their brains aren't as bad as the album art makes out, and here and there they let you know. Outside of those moments, the lyrics are on the level of an Ultimate Warrior interview—all "heads will roll," "slap that look right off your face," and "feed them to the lions" grunts and growls. But as two mixed race women just 19 and 20 at the time, and working in a genre more misogynistic than most, they could snarl about the best time to zest an orange* and still sound progressive. And lest we forget, Ultimate Warrior interviews were still entertaining, even if he was insane. A MINUS
*once it's hardened, I'm told, as the juice has moved from the innards to the outards.
Nova Twins: Who Are The Girls (2020)
Song writing’s advanced, twack’s diminished, but as the former’s a degree or two greater than the latter—and Adele collaborator Jim Abbiss has been judicious with his additions of studio dooberries—welcome developments if not improvements. Filthy basslines, gnashing teeth, and squealing guitars are now accompanied by synth squall, SFX, and more pedals than (bike joke removed, Ed)—all of which push Love’s voice in new directions. ‘Bullet’ is as beat-wise as anything on the EP, while ‘Ivory Tower’ confirms an appreciation for quietness it always seems reasonable to assume of noise lovers. In the year of release, they published an open letter to the MOBO awards questioning why there was no rock or metal category. Articulating dissatisfaction is their big step forward on wax, too. Unapologetic? “I'm meant to be offensive.” A bit aggressive? “It's just part of my aesthetic.” As for “I’m not asking for it”—label execs, cat callers and award committees can take that any way they want. A MINUS
Nova Twins: Supernova
Their third label in as many releases and things smell suspiciously like execs who don't know what to do with them. The hooks rely on quantity rather than quality of noise. Without the rhythms that made them interesting, I'm reminded at least once of Dream Theater, which is terrifying. ** (‘Cleopatra’)
Mavis Staples and Levon Helm: Carry Me Home
Recorded in 2011 as part of the Midnight Ramble shows Helm started as $100-a-pop rent parties after a litany of late-career setbacks: studio conflagrations, six-figure bank debt, twenty-seven radiation treatments for throat cancer. Like that. All songs are covers, the originals spanning somewhere between 93 and 2,168 years, depending on whether you date ‘Hand Writing On The Wall’ to the Feast of Belshazzar. Helm’s loose-wristed tub slapping style sets up a groove for an A-list supporting cast including Larry Campbell’s razor-wire guitar, a conversational fiddle, beatific [crosses self] Van Morrison horns, and ever-present choir gals. But none shine as bright as Staples. Her lungs are still force majeure. Her phrasing proof she’s spent as much time studying the gospel on death as singing it. She and Helm were a combined 141 years old at the time of recording, and though most of these songs are preoccupied with what happens when there are no more years to come, it’s clear they’ve cherished the ones they’ve had. From that, readers of a fatalistic disposition will have concluded that one of them died shortly after. And they’d be right. Spine cancer took Helm the following year, which makes this a monumental performance in more ways than one. Full of life? Of course not. How could it be? But full of the spirit that keeps you alive. Which is a distinction worth making. A MINUS