ALBUM REVIEWS
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ALBUM REVIEWS |
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Elizabeth Cook
WELDER PROPER RECORDS 14.06.10 @www.vanguard-online.co.uk
You know those clichéd images of country music I alluded to in that other review – well hang to your hats, and grab your partners by the hand!! This new album by Elizabeth Cook makes no bones about using those hackneyed old ideas of Country & Western, and in no way attempts to update or add anything new to the genre. This album is named after her dear daddy’s occupation (which apparently he learned in the state pen – prison to us non US citizens) and alludes to how she enjoys to meld together the different aspects of the musical creative process to form the finished article. After the tender poignancy of the Mary Gauthier album, this is a total contrast. It’s rockier, ballsy and at times somewhat smutty. The tracks are a mixture of raucous hoedowns and more restrained attempts at grittiness. The former being the worst examples of clinging desperately onto those old trite Country and Western styling’s - ‘El Camino’ contains one of the worst lyrics I’ve heard in some years – Elizabeth concludes a time-honoured tale of hooking up with the wrong guy again by declaring that ‘If I wake up married, I’ll have to annul it / Right now my hands are in his mullet’ Tracks like ‘Heroin Addict Sister’ and ‘Mama’s Funeral’– subtle titles apart fall into the latter category. These are more acoustic and understated yet harrowing accounts of…well you can imagine from the titles. These style tracks are infinitely preferable to the previous throwaway tosh. ‘Snake in the Bed’ is terrible – and does not belong in the collection of any self respecting modern thinking music fan. The yee-ha-ing subsides for a moment though with smouldering ballad ‘Follow you Like Smoke’ but soon returns for the awful twanging, Dolly Parton aping ‘I’ll Never Know’. I wonder if her daddy had any other jobs in his time – if so I’m looking forward to her follow up albums ‘Plumber’, ‘Gas Fitter’, and ‘Panel Beater.’ www.elizabeth-cook.com |
