THE HARD STUFF the ultimate ROCK REVIEWS section
Fleet Foxes
Shore ANT
Pecknold throws dreamily back to his debut
Dusty mountain treks, snowedin winter cabins and rambles through tangled undergrowth. The sounds conjured by Fleet Foxes’ Robin Pecknold are so evocative of clear-skied Americana mythologies that they connect as firmly with The Band and Crosby, Stills & Nash as they did with the generation of sumptuous shoegazers inspired by their 2008 debut.
After 2017’s experimental comeback album Crack-Up, this fourth record, with its cavernous atmospheres and chorale-like multi-vocal harmonies resembling the Beach Boys lost in limbo, harks back to that early material in an attempt to create a warm, safe sonic shoreline from which to gaze across turbulent times. It can, by nature, feel like drowning in melted marshmallow over 55 minutes, but great moments stick out like ice sculptures in a snowdrift: delicate, rippling ballads like Wading In Waist-High Water; Tymia and It’s Not My Season are sheer pastoral immersion; Jara and Young Man’s Game are white-water roils; Sunblind pays tribute to lost heroes like Judee Sill, John Prine and Elliott Smith on arguably the world’s wintriest surfing song.
Mark Beaumont
Grant-Lee Phillips
Lightning, Show Us Your Stuff YEP ROC
Tenth solo album shows singer-songwriter maturing to fine vintage.
At 56, Grant-Lee Phillips isn’t exactly Father Of The Rock House, but it’s an age at which a person might well feel the passing of time. And the reflective, autumnal hues of Lightning certainly reflect this. Ain’t Done Yet is defiant-ish but subtly weathered by a feeling of age, padding along at the pace of an old dog. What’s great about this album is that it conveys a feeling of lethargy, tiredness, the onset of old age, while never sounding tired, lethargic or clapped out. The musicians assist ably, including bassist Jennifer Condos, Eric Haywood on pedal-steel, and Danny T Levin adding sepia tints with euphonium, trombonium and coronet. The low brass, acoustic swish and enervated country drone of tracks like Leave A Light On offer a sublime whisky comfort in the face of forces beyond our control.
David Stubbs
Ricky Byrd
Sobering Times KAYOS
Hellhound on his tail.
As any recovering addict will tell you, staying sober is a neverending struggle. And this is not the first album that former Joan Jett & The Blackhearts guitarist Ricky Byrd has dedicated to his 33-year ongoing battle – his previous album was titled Clean Getaway.
While Sobering Times’ song titles (Quittin’ Time Again, I Come Back Stronger, Recover Me, Ain’t Gonna Live Like That) and lyrics brook no argument, the music is an open invitation to submit to the addictive power of rock’n’roll as laid down by the Stones and the Faces. There are also a couple of acoustic songs on which he leans into the microphone to reinforce his message, and a fine reworking of Merle Haggard’s Tonight The Bottle Let Me Down.
Hugh Fielder
Bon Jovi
2020 VIRGIN EMI
JBJ reviews the state of the nation – and isn’t afraid to point the finger.
Originally scheduled for release in May, alongside a tour cancelled due to the pandemic, Bon Jovi’s fifteenth album emerges newly sequenced, and improved by two songs written in the interim: the upbeat charity call-to-arms earworm that is Do What You Can, and the altogether darker American Reckoning, a brilliant reflection on the death of George Floyd and its aftermath.
That Jon Bon Jovi ain’t voting for the incumbent president is clear. That he’s prepared to be so political, even given his bluecollar credentials, is admirable. In many places, particularly on Blood In The Water’s view of the impact of Trump, he cleverly asks questions rather than preaches, although on Lower The Flag he doesn’t hide his disgust about gun violence, and on Unbroken is poignantly sympathetic about post-traumatic stress disorder in the military.
All of the above plus three more of the album’s 10 songs he wrote alone, but any ‘solo protest album’ tag is only half the story. Opener Limitless and the sublime Beautiful Drug are brilliant stadium rockers (co-written with long-term associates Billy Falcon and producer John Shanks), but such ‘safer’ ground proves less memorable.
Neil Jeffries
Death Valley Girls
Under The Spell Of Joy SUICIDE SQUEEZE
LA psych band let loose a barrage of weird good times.
While LA’s Death Valley Girls have so far buttered their bread with a creepy-cool cocktail of gothpunk buzz and wobbly, acidgobbling garage rock crunch, on this album they shed some of their signature darkness for upbeat tempos and sunny-side lyrics. At least sometimes. Opener Hypnagogia is a headswirling, ghost-chasing odyssey that floats from the lounge-y space doom of Planet Caravan to the crackling skronk of LA Blues, but is mostly an anomaly. The bulk of the album is devoted to throaty singalong choruses and thick, rattling mid-60s fuzz like Hold My Hand and the frenetic 10 Day Miracle Challenge. If Charles Manson had never graduated to murder, and spent another summer lazing around Beach Boy Dennis Wilson’s pool, he would have eventually produced this album.
While the hazy creep of bleeding skull candles still waft through DVG’s music, this is essentially a white magick album, pulsating with light and sunshine and bursts of ragapunk exuberance.
Sleazegrinder
Pride Of Lions
Lion Heart FRONTIERS
The dude from Survivor has still got it.
Jim Peterik might look a little crazy these days – a 70-year-old with wild purple hair – but this AOR legend, keyboard player and chief songwriter in Survivor’s glory days hasn’t lost his magic touch.
Lion Heart is the sixth album from Pride Of Lions, on which Peterik co-stars with younger American singer Toby Hitchcock. It’s not perfect – certainly no match for Survivor’s 80s classics Eye Of The Tiger and Vital Signs. And Hitchcock’s voice, while powerful, lacks that unique quality that two great singers – Dave Bickler and Jimi Jamison – brought to Survivor’s songs.
While there are weak spots on this album – We Play For Free is so cheesy it whiffs like overripe Roquefort – the best songs are melodic rock gold: Carry Me Back references ’83 in music and words, Unfinished Heart is the obligatory yet masterful power ballad, and with the widescreen epic Rock & Roll Boomtown the old master delivers a latecareer masterpiece.
Paul Elliott
Eels
Earth To Dora E WORKS/PIAS
E’s a slippery
