Save A Dying Album – Recommend A Great Record That Everyone Else Ignored
It's not surprising the Veils' Sun Gangs didn't get much attention when it came out last month. It's the third album from a band whose first was blustery Jeff Buckley-lite, and whose second, Nux Vomica, featured an ill-advised and unconvincing foray into jaunty, Coral-style guitar-pop. The Veils are neither new nor cool. There are no hipster points to be won by raving about them. I'd be astonished if Sun Gangs sold more than a few hundred copies.
It didn't get ignored, exactly--Drowned In Sound gave it 8 out of 10. But few magazines gave it more than a cursory downpage review. Which is a shame, because it's a quietly enthralling record, gripped by some of the opulent, tranquilized romance of Suede album Dog Man Star's weirder orchestral moments, and propelled by a jagged guitar sound that recalls the rancorous, evil jazz cooked up by Angelo Badalamenti for the druggy club scenes in Twin Peaks.
Frontman Finn Andrews possesses a startling vocal rasp, of a kind you'd be tempted to tag with a cliché like "whisky-ravaged"--only it's not an affectation, it feels genuinely impassioned. As a lyricist, too, he has a filmic visual flair, and something of Nick Cave's blazing-eyed, Pentecostal delivery. One song, "Killed By The Boom," opens with the line: "He stared at the skyline with a look of avarice/And smelt the diesel of a passing train…"
There aren't many songwriters around right now who could begin a song as arrestingly as that, or deliver it with such full-throated intensity. Perhaps it's just me, and no one else really cares--but, however pointless, it feels good to rescue an album you love, even in the tiniest way possible, from the howling abyss of indifference.
In that spirit, then, which recent albums are worthy of a second look? Consider this blog a home for music's underdogs and unloved strays--those under-the-radar, unhip albums that no one made a fuss of at the time but which you keep coming back to…
Others nominees: Love's FOREVER CHANGES, Jeff Simmons' LUCILLE HAS MESSED MY MIND UP, Crispian St. Peters' THE PIED PIPER (1966 power pop at its' best, with some great guitar work from Big Jim Sullivan), The Dictators' GO GIRL CRAZY, and Sweetwaters' debut album.
The 13th Floor Elevators - Easter Everywhere
Grant Lee Buffalo - Mighty Joe Moon
Thanks
MJ
Quote: "SAVE A DYING ALBUM... well, there's my own two albums, FALCON (2000) and METAMORPHIC (2001) which despite my having a healthy following after 20 years of playing coffeehouses, bars, and outdoor festivals and which sold okay while I was still capable of gigging... And you know what? I could use some [profane] INK! Somebody, somewhere, PLEASE write me up. "
You've GOT to be kidding me...
"healthy following"??? -- the same six people at every gig?
"sold okay"??? -- you mean to tell me that one CD every six months is 'selling okay'???
SO...7+ years after the second CD was available for sale, almost 6 years since you "retired", and more than 3 years since your wife left you because she couldn't stand the mental illness, alcoholism, and abuse anymore, you're still begging people to review your "work" because you "need ink"?
Save up some damned money and get a tattoo, then, if you need ink. Have the words "metamorphic folk rock" tattooed across your ass, 'cuz it's the only way either of those vanity projects are going to get any 'ink.'
Are you using the CDs as coasters yet (probably for your gin and tonics)? Christmas tree ornaments, perhaps?