Random album review #4 - Adventure (a follow-up review to Marquee Moon)

There's a moment in the film version of Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas that always makes me laugh. Thompson and Gonzo are flying down an empty highway, being chased by the police. They put the (left?) blinker on for a few minutes ... waiting ... waiting.... and then they turn the other way (right?). Its expected in that nobody would ever put their blinker when being chased by the police and acttually turn that way, but its unexpected in that the entire sequence is completely insane.

Television's second album, Adventure (released in 1978), feels like that to me. The first album lays out a clear trajectory, a clear and distinct sound, sonic bliss through guitar interplay... the second album shatters every expectation in good and bad ways. Its a the sudden and "unexpected" turn that you've been expecting... its just not the direction anyone saw coming... though they should have.

The album gets knocked for glossy production. Eh, that's not the problem. There's definately more revberb to the drums and more layering due to the keys and the simplicity of the song structures in comparison to the previous album is striking, but the guitar work is far from simple: its complicated in the exact same way the first album was, but there's something off about the entire enterprise if you are looking for a follow-up to Marquee Moon.

Glory (3:11)
Days (3:14)
Foxhole (4:49)
Careful (3:19)
Carried Away (5:14)
The Fire (5:57)
Ain't That Nothin' (4:53)
The Dream's Dream (6:45)

The album begins with Glory. This song doesn't sound like the same band that did Marquee Moon less than a year earlier. The song begins like some simple riffer tinged with repetive lyrics and ultra clean sound. It grows on you, not just with each successive listen, but as the song itself progresses. The guitars revel in the fact that you can barely discern the intricacies that are constantly thrown about. Great tune.

Days is gorgeous. Probably the single most accessible Television tune, this is a song that anyone would like to see their favorite band cover at any time. Its just wonderul. The song is all picking rhythm, even the solos just blend out of the main riff and back in again. Great tune.

Foxhole is sick. It centers around a very Stonesy main riff, big and bold and in stark relief to the beauty of Days. This is another guitar song. It, like Glory, is repetitive but just gets more and more interesting every second. Absolutely astounding solos just past the midpoint. The band goes into a bridge section and then just breaks into an entirely different groove for about 30 second. The song glides effortlessly back into the main riff again and continues back and forth with wild solos and lyric sections. Great tune.

The band seems to be channelling some combination of the Beatles and a TV commercial on Careful. The tune bounces too much, its too happy, its too carefree, and again, its totally disengaged from the songs it follows which, honestly, is really disconcerting. The guitar work of course is beyond flawless. Midway through the song the gorgeous solo brings it all home... and then like a puff of wind its gone. Great tune.

Carried Away feels like Days mellow little brother but with an Island twist. Keys on a Televsion song??? Marvelous. There is a certain sparsness to this band which is brought out nicely in this song. Verlaine's got a weird voice, but you can't immagine anyone else singing over these tunes. Their too clean, too strange, and his wacky way of singing really does do it. The guitar work on this song is delicate, very delicate. There's something ironic in the fact that nobody gets carried away on this tune which could easily have featured endless soloing and balladeering. Great tune.

The Fire is hard to pin down. Its super slow. Its incessant. Its kind of scary. This is the type of song that would make for a terrible song in a movie because you'd get none of the effect and its not a sound byte song, but a whole that can't be taken into parts, but imagine if you were walking through a burning house in slow motion... this is the sountrack for that moment in time. Not a fun song, but another great tune.

Ain't That Nothin' was the "hit" off this album. It like the other songs seems to have little or no associationg with anything else on the album. Another big riffer that just keeps building and building and building. The guitarwork just flows and flows. Oh one last thing, the jam at the end of the song is one of the coolest moments in jam history. Great tune.

The album concludes with The Dream's Dream. I think this is the coolest track (not necessarily the best, but definately the coolest) on the album. It was originally an instrumental dubbed Cairo and was supposedly supposed to recreate the feeling a Westerner would have had 100 years ago walking around Cairo. That's exactly right. What an odd concept, but its great. The song has a very sort of mid-east jammy feel to it - to the ears of a Westerner no less. Great tune.
Verlain's lyrics are obvious at times and at other times quite wrapped up in poetic mumblings. "The elevator called me up, she said you better start making sense"... what does that mean? It works wonders with the style of the music though. Its simple and completely intricate at the same time throughout, beginning with the song structures, but all through the individual instrument tracks, solos, lyrics, etc.

So what's wrong with Adventure? Nothing. All of the songs are great, but there is a huge disconnect factor from song to song and especially from Marquee Moon. The songs, the guitars, everything is there, but each song has a totally different sound. The effect is planned chaos. If that's your thing - and you dug Marquee Moon, this is a great album. Oh and the guitars are so good.

Wilco's Sky Blue Sky Is An American Classic

The most divisive art often turns out to be the art that forces those consuming it to use their imagination - if you want proof, just take a moment to examine the public reaction to HBO's The Sopranos. Weeks after David Chase ended the Sopranos saga with nothing but a cut to black, people are still debating about what ultimately became of Tony Soprano.

Wilco's magnificent sixth studio album, Sky Blue Sky, is not exactly the sonic equivalent to a cut to black, but it has gotten longtime fans of the band debating its merits in a similar fashion. In contrast to the band's prior two albums, A Ghost Is Born and Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, founder/songwriter/vocalist Jeff Tweedy has settled into a more peaceful, organic groove this latest batch of songs. Nowhere to be found are the freakish loops and white noise found on Yankee, nor the schizophrenic mood swings and noodling that so often cluttered Ghost. In their place are a soothing, smooth sound, punctuated in nearly every track by peaks and valleys of two-guitar interplay by Tweedy and the very talented multi-instrumentalist Nels Cline.

In counterpoint to the album's cohesiveness, and often soothing sonic tones, Tweedy's poetic lyrics create nearly all of the tension out of which the guitar segues are launched. Where Tweedy's lines in the past were all direct and self-assured (even the most depressing among them), Sky Blue Sky is filled with uncertainty. "Maybe you still love me/maybe you don't/either you will/or you won't", he sings on "Either Way", a building tone-setter of an opening track that questions the devotion of a loved one. The uncertainty continues on "You Are My Face", perhaps the album's strongest track. "I have no idea how this happens," Tweedy rasps as the song launches into a McCartney-esque piano shuffle, "all of my maps have been overthrown/happenstance has changed my plans".

Aside from the sea change in lyrical tone, what really stands out about Tweedy's performance on Sky is the quality of his voice. Soothing in all the right places ("Impossible Germany", "What Light"), raspy and even strained in others (the impeccable "Side With The Seeds"), and sometimes all at the same time ("Hate It Here", "Shake it Off").

But even though, as is always the case with Wilco's albums, the songs on Sky Blue Sky center around its beloved founder, perhaps the most striking thing about the album is the prominent part that the band plays. This is not an album filled with obvious overdubs and a "Jeff Tweedy & The Wilcos" feel - this album rings with the vitality that only comes from a band playing live music in the same room, face to face, inspiring and pushing each other to create and explore. Sonic exploration here rivals that of even Wilco's acclaimed live shows, with multi-instrumentalist Nels Cline providing a mix of kickass lead guitar, pedal steel, with Tweedy and the band's other multi-instrumentalist, Pat Sansone, often providing guitar interplay that would make most jam bands envious.

As a whole, all of these things add up to make Sky Blue Sky an American classic, and easily Wilco's best, most cohesive effort since 1999's Summerteeth.

Happy Fourth Of July.