Various Artists
Sons of Rogues Gallery
Ok, second part of the review. Here goes.
After Iggy Pop's hilarious "Asshole Rules the Navy" comes "Off to Sea Once More" by Macy Grey. Yep - Macy Grey still exists. News to me. Anyway, the song is a well-put together reggae take on a traditional sailor's song, and Grey's raspy, whispery voice is right at home. It's not fantastic, but it's pretty good. After that was over, it took me about half of Ed Harcourt's song to realise that his style-over-substance contribution to this album was supposed to be bluesy. Seriously, today's musicians are in desperate need of some testosterone.
Next up, it's Shilpa Ray, Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, delivering "Pirate Jenny" like something out of a particularly gruesome musical. It reminds me of Tom Waits' collaborations with Robert Wilson in its creaky bloodthirst. Patti Smith and Johnny Depp follow, with "The Mermaid," a song that would probably be interesting under the right circumstances. These are not those. Chuck E Weiss, an old freind of Tom Waits, follows. His voice has the same drunken soul as Waits, but it's higher and altogether more country. The Waits comparisons continue - "Anthem for Old Souls" could easily be a Waits composition from more or less any part of his career, and the production/arrangement is very reminiscent of Swordfishtrombones. It's a decent song, and Weiss sings it pretty well.
A Beefheart song up next, performed a cappella by Ed Pastorini. Not quite sure what I think of that one. Check it out. There follows an unremarkable "alt-country" song, and then a wonderfully seasick version of "Ye Mariners All," performed by Robin Holcomb and Jessica Kenny.
I think the main problem with this album is that - with a few exceptions - every musician on it has gone at their song from the same angle. It's not real folk - it doesn't have the rawness or the simplicity to be that - but a sort of Radio 2-freindly, "accessible" version of it. Fake folk for Mumford & Sons fans.
There are exceptions, of course, as I said. Case in point - Disc 2 kicks off with a Mothers of Invention track. Unfortunately, it's a pretty dull instrumental with none of Zappa's usual flair. Fortunately, Michael Stipe follows with a fantastic version of "Rio Grande," proving that not even Courtney Love's lacklustre vocal performance can stop Stipe from being epic. Marc Almond warbles his way through "Ship In Distress" like he's, well, Marc Almond. Good thing Dr. John comes along afterwards to wash the bad taste out of your ears with an eerie spoken track, and just to put the icing on the cake, Todd Rundgren busts out a version of "Rolling Down to Old Maui" that I can only describe as inexplicably awesome. By the time Dan Zanes comes along, it's clear that this disc is where the real gold is. There are too many fine tracks to go into detail, but the quality stays very high until Michael Gira delivers a thoroughly dull version of "Whisky Johnny" that manages the rather impressive feat of making Bellowhead look interesting.
Well, that's enough for one post - the third and final part of this review will be coming up soon. Now, I'm off to listen to that Todd Rundgren track again...
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