Album Review- Marc Almond and Chris Braide

 I have spent a great deal of time recently talking about Marc Almond so I probably don’t need to recap.

Still, one of the more interesting developments has been his recent partnership with Chris Braide. As esoteric as some of his work is, Marc has always kept an ear to pop radio.

So Braide doesn’t seem like an obvious match. He’s most famous for another collaboration- his work with Sia. Besides Almond, most of his other work is a who’s who of radio stars- Halsey, Lana del Rey, Britney, Christina Aguilera, Beyoncé, David Guetta, Selena Gomez, Nicki Minaj and a multitude of movie and advertising work.

Braide is also an accomplished pianist and so Chaos and The Hits- credited to both- a January 2020 Royal Albert Hall concert stays pretty close to what you expect.

At 37 songs,it’s a wealth of Marc. Fans who haven’t heard the recent material get their chance to hear the Almond/Braide collaborations (which feature heavy, obviously- Last year’s Chaos and a Dancing Star but also 15’s The Velvet Trail) alongside with the greatest hits and a few surprise detours (Sia’s “Unstoppable” and some deeper Almond cuts).

As big of a fan I am, I reckon that this really is for the fans. While I love his music and have the CD of a previous Royal Albert Hall concert, he released in 92 as 12 Years of Tears, I would surely advise potential new listeners to the studio records first, or at least that earlier disc which plays almost as a Greatest Hits.

But if you’re looking for a hook, this album offers two. First, Marc pays tribute to the other Marc with a quick (about four minutes total) sojourn covering T Rex’s Children of the Revolution and Dandy in the Underworld.

The second is someone who has also started to work with Almond and is as unlikely as Braide- Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson.

Anderson adds flute to Almond’s most well
known songs as well as recent single Lords of Misrule and a cover of Tull’s Witches Promise.

This is a good document of where Almond has been in recent years. It does all the things live Records traditionally did- hypes the recent records and brings old fans up to speed, while providing an overview to more casual fans. So hardly essential but nothing wrong with that.

Album Review- Tindersticks

 Tindersticks were a band I didn’t immediately like. I heard their first album out of the gate. I did come around, and would say they are a favorite band. To the point, I consider their third album Curtains one of my all time favorites.

Nick Cave was always a touch point for the band - baritone voice and dramatic lyrics. Of course, any deeper listening revealed there was more to it. There was always a bit of Leonard Cohen, and for that matter, a bit of Lee Hazelwood to the band.

For a band that seemed to take root with the British indie movement of the 90s, they have had an incredible run. I don’t think there really are much in the way of ‘down moments’ for the band or even Stuart Staples solo career.

That said, 2019’s No Treasure But Hope was a surprise- their best album in over 20 years. An all time tearjerker in “The Amputees”, going full Scott Walker in “Pinky in the Daylight” and “See My Girls” a paranoid build up that achieves a new level in terror in the band’s discography. The band are hitting on all cylinders again.

2021’s Distractions feels like a logical next step. I would say it’s a less accessible record with only seven songs but a 47 minute running time. Add to it that three of the songs are covers.

It likely doesn’t get better than the opening track - the original 11 minute Man Alone -a pulsating workout that will probably the closest we get the Tindersticks to doing No Wave. A continuation of the bands previous move from early career romance to cinematic menace. (Almost every reviewer has made some mention of this being a “Covid” record and though the band had to be nimble, I don’t think their artistic vision here would have been changed in any way).

The selection of Television Personalities’ You’ll Have To Scream Louder is inspired. Already a great late 70s post punk Mute Records song, Staples captures all of that to make it his own.

Neil Young’s A Man Needs A Maid and Dory Previn’s Lady With The Braid are well picked covers too. Still, I think they add to this album to be ‘for the fans’. Distractions stands as the next step in the path for the band. Newcomers should start elsewhere but longtime fans should still be excited where this band may still go.

Album Review- David Olney and Anana Kaye

 I wasn’t familiar with David Olney when he passed in January of last year.

Streaming services and internet certainly help fill out those blanks. I don’t think it’s an insult to say Olney was an under appreciated singer songwriter in a genre full of same.

Olney was a successful songwriter though and his style resembles his friends and peers who sang his songs like Steve Earle, Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell- the next generation of Townes Van Zandt influenced writers (Olney and Townes were mutually appreciative), and a ton of their unheralded brethren like Tom Russell and Buddy Miller.

Like so many talented Americana tinged singers, comparisons are hard and don’t do justice, but it is also what we do to get people to listen to unfamiliar music.

John Hiatt is probably a good comparison. Olney released most of his records for Rounder (and its folk imprint Philo) and he’s definitely in line with the roster of Iris DeMint, Bill Morrissey and Ray Wylie Hubbard. I detect a bit of Joe Ely in him too.

A solid back catalog might not have prepared me for Whispers and Sighs as good, even as his recent work was.

Olney sings as if he knows the end is coming on the posthumous 2021 release paired with east European folk singer Anana Kaye. Not that he needed the extra gravitas, but at 71, his voice resembles a latter Leonard Cohen; and he knows it. At time, he leans in for his best Tom Waits. The effect can be other worldly.

Olney seems the focus but even when Kaye takes vocals on her own like the title track or the Franks Wild Yearseque Thank You Note, there is no effect or change in the mood or tune of the album. A mood that is most unlikely a strand of country goth. Even at its most conventional- the mostly Kaye sung songs Why Cant We Get This Right and My Last Dream of You fit into Americana territory with no detour in quality.

Given enough time spent listening, it’s hard not to appreciate it all, but it is certainly Olney’s turns that are the most instantly compelling. My Favorite Goodbye is perfect in near every way- a song that fits comfortably with the likes of Townes, Hiatt and Zevon. Then later comes The World We Used to Know evoking wars past and dialing up the dramatics, Lie to Me Angel which rock and rolls, and the Great Manzini which matches Richard Thompson style lyrics to an ethereal melody.

With credit as well to Richard Dodd (engineer of Tom Petty's Wildflowers and Jimmy Duck Holmes's Cypress Grove, cellist for the Foo Fighters, Iggy Pop and Smashing Pumpkins to name a few. He literally has worked in some capacity with a who’s who of the top country, rock, rap, blues and Christian artists), this is destined to be a cult album with raves from anyone lucky enough to hear it.

Album Review- Too Much Joy

 One of the more unexpected reunions of the Covid era was Too Much Joy.

TMJ were one of my favorite bands of the Nineties. The band had a reputation in my college town (no surprise that they made an impact where they went. MTV would later extensively cover the band performing As Nasty As They Wanna Be in Broward County and the band’s Wikipedia reads as a series of pranks and stunts).

I actually first heard them on MTV as they crossed over with a cover of LL Cool J’s “That’s A Lie”. Son of Sam I Am was a fun romp hitting every note correct in the otherwise difficult world of joke rock.

1991’s Cereal Killers, the follow up, was much more traditional musically. It was peak 91- college rock defined in the vein of REM and the dbs and all that jangle pop afterwards- Connells, Judybats, Let’s Active, Game Theory and the like. (Like REM, TMJ also had their own KRS1 cameo) Whereas they were always going to be labeled joke rock and constantly compared to the Dead Milkmen (and other contemporary peers like Mojo Nixon and Dread Zeppelin), it’s actually a strangely accessible and very clever record.

I was not impressed with 92’s Mutiny- which was poised to follow up on their success and take them to the next level. Allmusic confers 4.5 stars on that record but it did not connect with me or a bigger audience.

I did eventually pick up 96s Finally- the return to the studio following being dropped from Giant Records. I consider it one of the worst records that I own.

Revisiting TMJ feels like reuniting with a high school friend. I undoubtedly listened to Cereal Killers as much or more than Out of Time.

It’s hard not to compare the band’s career to the Barenaked Ladies- a band with similar goofy ideas who ended up in arenas. I can think of a dozen reasons that one made it and the other didn’t, but it does speak to the unpredictability of things.

I have also recently pulled out Fluting On The Hump- another record I haven’t listened to and hardly given any thought to for 20+ years. With time in the mirror, there’s a lot of similarity in TMJ to King Missile, especially lyrically.

2021’s Mistakes Were Made is probably best explained as being exactly what it is. It’s audience should begin and end with diehard fans from the band’s heyday. That said, it’s a decent enough record- a fun record that is at least worth the time to listen, and then invoke a nostalgic dive into the bands other records.