Side one:
“No Hiding Place” — Wait. This is really good. I wasn’t really expecting that. (Charity: “This is really old-school. But not like he’s trying to sound like his old records or something.”)
“American Gangster Time” — Well, surely a song with a title like that is going to be a waster. Hm…no, actually, again, this is kinda awesome. Great garagey organ line. (Charity: “I am really enjoying this.”)
“Turpentine” — (Charity, on hearing the opening tribal-style drums: “This sounds weirdly like Kate Bush.”) See, had this been on anything from Spike onwards, this would have been a giant, overproduced mess. But here it sounds more like, say, XTC‘s “Travels In Nihilon”: ambitious, but on enough of a shoestring that it doesn’t sound bloated. I’m thinking this much-publicized strategy of recording and mixing the album inside a week actually might be salutary to the man’s creativity.
(Charity: “Okay, as much as I’m liking this, I’ve been up since 4:00 am. Good night. Play the rest of this for me tomorrow night.”)
The lure of the Costello/gatefold/vinyl fetish combo is driving me mad with desire. I may have to go out and buy this thing today. Thanks for sharing, Great One.
I heard “Turpentine” on the way into work on WXPN. The drums reminded me of an older EC song but couldn’t place it…wasn’t digging it too much. The song didn’t seem to go anywhere really… I can’t stand the album title and I haven’t even read that restaurant profile yet…
He did seem to be in fine voice though. (But didn’t I hear he was doing some music for some silly dance piece recently? WTF?)
My (Jaded) 2cents.