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Review
But, literally and metaphorically, Loudon's still the daddy, and his 21st album finds him on typically acerbic and wittily literate form. Throughout, he's ably abetted by a crack team of session musicians, including ace jazzer Bill Frisell on guitar and Jim Keltner on drums. For the most part, the backing is understated, tastefully fleshing out Wainwright's minimalist acoustics, Frisell's guitar chiming like a bell in all the right places.
I'm pleased to report that Wainwright's songwriting is on fine form, whether it's a wry look at fandom ("My Biggest Fan") or the sideways look at relationships in "It Had To Be Her". Would any other writer, for instance, describe love as a lesion, as Loudon does on the latter?
Greg Leisz's swooning steel guitar enhances "No Sure Way", one of the most affecting responses to 9/11 yet written as Wainwright recasts the New York subway as the classical underworld, his train journeying through the closed down stations around the World Trade Centre. As ever with Wainwright, the song is telling in its detail, the East River reconfigured as the Styx.
But the finest moment comes on the title track, in which Wainwright imagines Los Angeles coming under attack from the air, smart bombs raining down on his newly adopted hometown as scared Los Angelinos scurry for shelter through the garbage cans and Miracle Mile disintegrates beneath the onslaught. It's a startling transposition of the horrors of Falluja to mainland USA, and a blackly comic highlight from one of America's finest songwriters. --Mick Fitzsimmons
Find more music at the BBC This link will take you off Amazon in a new window
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Customer Reviews
It's gratifying that, like Leonard Cohen, it's in his late fifties that LW produces his most consumate work - though still singing with the range of a 25-year-old.
expressed how he felt when one of his early heros Bob Dylan made the album 'Self Portrait' with a element of sarcasm as 'an interesting effort'and it appears Loudon
with this album has equaled this achievement!
What is it that I dislike so much?Well I guess its the over production the fact that Loudon's own great guitar playing is buried beneath his 'fellow musicians' interpretation of the work and even Loudons vocals seem sanitised loosing all of the
rich depth and tonal qualities.
Having seen the man live a matter of days before to then find the Genius diluted so
the music would find a home in any elevator I somehow found it quite tragic!
To finally prove my point I ask youto go to 'Youtube' and listen to him perform live
'When You Leave' and then listen to the same track on 'Here Come the Choppers'.On the live performance his voice has such tone,intelligence,passion and perception backed up by own great Guitar playing,it is nothing less than a complete masterpiece!Please please Loudon stay a 'One Man Guy'.
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