There is tons of buzz on the new X album Smoke and Fiction. That should not be surprising as the band announced it was their final album and they would commit to one last tour.
2020s Alphabetland was a good album that had showed up 27 years after the last X “reunion”.
Quick internet searches revealed perhaps it was so good because it consisted of a lot of spare parts from earlier in their career and thus it was able to accurately capture the band.
Smoke and Fiction has come out to near universal acclaim. That buzz of media set me up for some disappointment. In relation to the band's classic work, the new album feels a bit generic. Pitchfork had no problem in comparing it positively to the band's first two amazing albums.
Yet, most, if not nearly all albums I will listen to reach out those heights and it is perhaps unfair to hold X to their best albums (or maybe even some of them not quite as good but still great 80s albums) when Smoke and Fiction is a good listen.
Billy Zoom's guitar bursts with energy throughout, as John and Exene exchange lines. In this way, the band does capture a lot of what made them great. And in terms of late-career reunion albums, this certainly matches up with those contenders. (A lot of those good not great later Buzzcocks albums would probably make a proper comparison).
At least I don't see it as the big “mic drop” as apparently other reviewers and fans do. It still works as a decent enough send off, an occasional future listen and in “Big Black X” a decent enough final track to include on band compilation playlists. (It seems to be the track most critics have picked up upon, a coda for a career that started with the fantastic “Los Angeles” single. Though I prefer the similarly thought out “The Way It Is”)
It's a shame the expectations hang up there for me. With Billy Zoom at age 76, I can't say I blame them for calling it while they can. Still, it's not like it's a bad album and it feels like the creative juices flowing. For example, one assumes John Doe has a few more albums in him and the song “Face in the Moon” here is the kind of songs that will make you anticipate his next release.
Bluegrass legend David Davis died from injuries caused by a car accident on September 15, 2024 at the age of 63. He led the Warrior River Boys (a band originally founded in 1960) beginning in 1984 and has been honored for being the closest practitioner of Bill Monroe style Mandolin. (Davis’s uncle Cleo played in the first lineup of Monroe’s Bluegrass Boys).
The band came to prominence by releasing two albums for Rounder Records in the early 1990s. After their success had subsided and the band self-released a couple of albums, the band with a new lineup had a post- O Brother Where Thou renaissance releasing a self titled album in 2004 for bluegrass label Rebel Records, then two more in 2006 and 2009.
Bluegrass has had a jump in popularity recently with artists like Billy Strings, Greensky Bluegrass and Trampled by Turtles.
But before that, the Warrior River Boys were keeping the genre alive in that prior decade with a traditional sound along with the likes of IIIrd Tyme Out, the Country Gentlemen, and the Seldom Scene.
What will be the last studio album of Davis’s lifetime is hands down my favorite and in my mind, the band’s masterpiece. 2018s Didn’t He Ramble is a collection of songs from 1920s country music pioneer Charlie Poole. Praised by Paste magazine as one of the best Bluegrass albums of the year and awarded four out of five stars by Allmusic users, it has a sound that would appeal to modern rock ears- think of Del McCoury’s early 00s albums or any number of throwback indie folk bands who appreciate old time country.
There's probably not a more unusual album that I loved this year than An Unnatural History by LYR.
LYR (Land Yacht Regatta) is British Poet Laureate Simon Armitage, producer Patrick Pearson and multi instrumentalist Richard Walters. I really am not familiar with Armitage though he seems like someone who is modern and accessible- a perfect kind of poet for the 21st Century. Raised on Britpop, where I heard of Armitage was the infamous 2010 Guardian interview he did with Morrissey. That particular interview seemed to be the crossing of the Rubicon for which the outlandish Mozzer seemed to pass from controversy to being blatantly racist.
Album reviews seem to try to counter the idea that it's all that odd. John Betjeman made a “pop” album in 1974 with longtime Gerry Rafferty producer Hugh Murphy.
Now, I did give some listens to Neil Gaiman's 2023 Signs of Life album which took his poetry and prose to String Quartet backing. Plus, if we are being honest, rock artists like the Fall, the Smiths, Pulp, British Sea Power and Tindersticks wed literature to modern music.
But I also feel like this is the kind of album I wouldn't have picked up. I am not necessarily a fan of spoken word but somehow this works.
The music is compelling as is Armitage's words on top. The subject is the Natural History Museum in Barnsley, South Yorkshire, England which documented local flora and fauna until it closed in the 1960s. The album imagines the area, plants and animals past and present. The band's Bandcamp lists a series of fantastic (and sometimes Fantastic) animals- elephants, rare moths, urban foxes, whales, pigeons, two headed dogs and Phoenixes.
Dream pop is a genre that is huge in the music circles I run in. It’s a genre that really begins in the late 80s and early 90s when you think of bands like Cocteau Twins, Slowdive, Lush and Galaxie 500. The 4AD record label being synonymous with the sound, which surely evolved from post punk bands like the Cure and Siouxsie and the Banshees, but also drew from so many places- the multiple facets of the Velvet Underground of course, but also weirdly the country rock of the Byrds, Gram Parsons and Neil Young.
In many ways, Dream Pop is linked with shoegaze, and over time, the importance of both (as well as the nitpicking gatekeepers) seems to have grown in leaps and bounds. While this has benefited those original bands, it also benefits lesser known bands that seem to have accrued diehard audiences.
Dream Pop was also a perfect antidote to the Oughts style of indie rock, leading to a next wave of popular and artistic heights with Beach House being the most notable face of the genre this time. While that wave probably hit its peak in 2010, its influence lives on with bands like Japanese Breakfast, No Vacation and Hatchie.
But even without discussing these popular bands, the sound of the genre is deep and widespread at this point. Dream Pop is entrenched beyond 90s fans’ wildest expectations.
Still Corners, the British/American duo is among some of the best known bands in the genre. Beach House formed in 2004, released their first album in 2008 and got signed to Sub Pop in 2010. Still Corners formed in 2007 and Sub Pop signed them for their first album in 2011.
Still Corners never got the attention Beach House got.
After the second album, they left SubPop and some of the big online sites stopped reviewing them.
But they’ve remained at it, and album # 6, 2024s Dream Talk is a hidden gem of the genre. Cinematic, psychedelic and even some New Wave-ish pop- all based around “dreams”
A lot of the songs sound familiar. I think that it’s an ok thing. I would also say that unlike many of the bands I mentioned above, this album really leans into Dream Pop and online reaction really reflects that with genre fans raving about it, while a lukewarm reception from indie heads.
Still if you love the genre as much as I do, this is well worth checking out.
Charlie Risso is an Italian singer who came on to my radar due to a recent duet with Hugo Race, the guitarist for Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds in the 1980s.
Like Cave, Race has had quite a career making dramatic and cinematic music. Risso is very much in the same vein and the Race collaboration is logical.
The 2024 album Alive is her third full length, I believe, and follows a noteworthy EP The Light which came out in 2022.
There is not a wealth of info on Risso online, which is shocking given how good of an album Alive is. Of the reviews online, seemingly every single one mentions David Lynch.
I am not sure if the reviewers are sharing a press kit or if she mentioned this in an interview or “Lynch” is acceptable shorthand for cinematic, ethereal music. (In which case, I am guilty too, as I throw around Nick Cave’s name.
Alive though is a great piece of noir pop. Risso has found like minded contributors like Race and R&B singer/songwriter H.E.R.
The creation is a bit genre fluid and in a year where you have new albums from artists like Mick Harvey, Barry Adamson and even Nick Cave himself (not to mention adjacent artists like John Cale and Isobel Campbell), this album still stands out. Hopefully, it will get some of the attention it deserves.
Steve Earle is probably my favorite musical artist. Now, he wasn’t my favorite artist at the formative ages of 16 or 21 but by 30, he likely had taken the position, and one assumes, that won't change again with age at this point. Art is fluid, so the term “favorite” is subjective, of course, and listening will fluctuate.
Surprising to me, I was able to meet him in a post concert meet and greet. These in-person events are awkward and seemingly a recipe for disappointment, but I don’t have anything negative to say about the encounter. Like many artists with long careers, it’s hard not to think of his different eras. Earle will still always be most likely known for his 1980s peak chart period where he took a Springsteen singer songwriter approach to country music.
Many diehard Earle fans surely became that way in the 90s as Earle was one of a group of artists that was creating a new brand of country music. In a four year time frame, he put out four of the finest albums that I have ever heard - the span from Train A Comin’ that lasted to The Mountain. Earle has a new live album. He released a live album in 1991- the lightly regarded Shut Up and Die like an Aviator- the critics aren’t wrong as it serves as a book end to his first act and isn't particularly essential. His next major live album was a two disc album Just An American Boy in 2003 which sort of book ends that phase in his career. That album takes me back to 2004- a particular place and time.
For me, life seemed amped up. The Bush-Kerry election. The War on Terror. Fahrenheit 9/11. Web 2.0. I constantly played the two discs. While they don’t measure quite up to his 90s work- the three early 00s albums - 2000s Transcendental Blues 2002s Jerusalem and 2004s The Revolution Starts Now come pretty close. Overly political (not that Earle was ever apolitical) buzz formed around brash ideas like “John Walker’s Blues” and “Condi, Condi” After that flurry of activity, Earle returned in 2007 and also had quite an acting career appearing in two HBO series The Wire and Treme.
There have been 11 albums in those 17 years since 07s Washington Square Serenade. There have been some great moments. Four of those albums have been all cover tributes to Earle influences and friends Guy Clark, Townes Van Zant, Jerry Jeff Walker and his son Justin Townes Earle. 2020s Ghost of West Virginia- his last studio album which featured songs that were written for an Off Broadway play is among his best work. I would also rank 2016s self titled collaboration with Shawn Colvin and 2017s So You Wannabe an Outlaw as right up there with the aforementioned early Oughts records
Earle has often been backed by his band the Dukes. Longtime bassist Kelly Looney died in 2019. Guitarist Bucky Baxter passed in 2020. Chris and Eleanor Masterson who have their own band went their own way in 2022. But most famously after the 2023 Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival, the rest of the band emailed their resignations. I am not sure Earle is easy to get along with or what, but regardless he seems to always fight his way through and he landed on his feet by touring alone now and releasing some of the results as an album On top of that, though I know not all fans share the opinion, most critics seem to rank it as a career highlight. Good chunks of dialogue make it feel like one of those “Storyteller” albums. There’s also a good chunk of his whole career.
In interviews, Earle said he doesn’t understand how artists won’t perform their hits, which is why Copperhead Road and Guitar Town are here among many others. Still hearing, say “I Ain’t Ever Satisfied” here reminds you how even the greatest artists- Lou Reed, Springsteen, Dylan, McCartney and so on- had long careers but they also had those indelible early hits. Even at 15 songs, it’s hard to get everything covered. Though the double shot of I Feel Alright is not only some great songs but is a nice acknowledgment of the rough years Earle lived through and equally doesn’t fall for the “romantic self-destructive artist” trope that some may fall for. The recent Ghosts of Virginia only gets one song which is It’s About Blood- but it sounds better live here than in the studio and has an extra benefit to the new listener as Earle explains the project.
Most critics have raved over this album but a select few have said Earle sounds tired and old. Even then for a country singer, that probably wouldn’t be a deal breaker for me- but I think he sounds great here in this setting. I tend to skip 2007s Washington Square Serenade which mainly is overshadowed by the two previous albums that had such a political bent. “Sparkle and Shine” from that album is a nice inclusion for the flip side of so many of the political songs. There are no surprises which pop up on the longer tour set lists, say covers of the Pogues or Justin Townes Earle. As a huge fan, I would have appreciated those, but this does make things as close to a “Where to start with Steve Earle” primer as it is likely intended to be.
In retrospect, I likely don’t rate Rocket from the Crypt as high as I should. sure
I played the heck out of Scream Dracula Scream, but come to think of it, I played a lot of the RFTC and All Systems Go records too.
Somehow, as Indie Rock evolved into a serious Pitchfork rock critic concern in the 00s, Rocket might not have been the type of group that got mass attention. John Reis is sort of an opposite coast version of Jon Spencer. He does what he wants regardless of prevailing styles or trends, even if it means a different band name or record label.
It means I lost track of him as he largely focused on Hot Snakes, the Sultans and the Night Marchers instead of Rocket. Up until 2015 when he collaborated with garage punks the Blind Shake for Modern Surf Classics- the kind of album that does what it says on the packaging. It wasn’t quite Rocket and definitely wasn’t the Ventures but somehow an intersection of the two.
In 2022, Reis made his first “solo” album Ride the Wild Night and to my ears, about as a good album as any I know- a pretty straight forward take on garage rock with pop hooks. It had the Rocket From the Crypt vibes but with more Nuggets and less post punk edge.
All of this Awaits You is some of the same. While it reminds me of the recent work of peers like King Khan, but with radio friendly production.
Ironically, this blast of fun comes from sadness. Rick Froberg passing away unexpectedly was the catalyst for recording. Froberg had been in bands with Reis like Drive Like Jehu and Hot Snakes.
So Reis who is running at least four bands now, decided he was going to bang out some rock n roll. All of this… is in the mold of his debut solo album. The opener invokes a classic Rocket from the Crypt with a peel my heart like a banana or onion metaphor.
Write what you know I guess and if you are prolific as Reis, you don’t have time for the kind of Lauryn Hill, Tom Scholz or Axl Rose style writers block.
The notorious reputation of Harbor Freight Tools? That’s a song. What do you put on your Hot Dog? That’s another song.
But why overthink it. This is 23 minutes of rock fun and it’s hard to quibble with that. More accessible than the fury of Hot Snakes ( though original drummer Jason Kourikounis and Tommy Kitsos, an occasional Snakes fill- in is on bass). Let’s just rock and have fun.
