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46 of 54 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Lovely reissue of Clark's greatest album from 1974, 16 Aug 2003
Rhino, as any seasoned music fan could tell you, tend to release the most thoughtful reissues- from the mastering to the sleevenotes to an array of extra tracks. & this version of 1974's No Other comes with the wonderful attention to detail common to such Rhino reissues as Everything Falls Apart & Loaded (which far exceeds the Collectors Choice Music version which appeared last year) How such a classic album can be unavailable for so long is a major question- & one that still applies to albums such as Pacific Ocean Blue, Star Sailor & Time Fades Away...No Other was initially designed to be a double-album, though this plan was scuppered by Asylum Records owner David Geffen; the extra tracks are sadly not any new songs- we get six alternate takes of No Other tracks (of academic interest, I suppose) & an alternate take of 1968's Train Leaves Here This Morning. One wonders why? - perhaps it's just put on as The Eagles had covered it on their debut album? No Other is Clark's masterpiece- though Clark had made some almost as great albums previously- notably The Fantastic Expedition of Dillard&Clark and 1971's White Light. But No Other is something else entirely, easily ranking up and beyond with such albums of the era as Exile on Main Street,461 Ocean Boulevard, Fresh ,Greetings from LA, Innervisions & On the Beach. It's an album that fuses rock, country, psychedelia, soul, jazz...there is no other! Opener Life's Greatest Fool takes us straight to the heart of things- the album's themes of existentialism appear straight away ("Do you believe?" koo the soulful backing vocalists); this is a TB Sheets for the 1970s, or the 'cosmic rock' (a blend of country & rock) that Gram Parsons talked up, but never truly delivered. Silver Raven errs more to the southern gothic stream of things, with wonderful backing vocals and a cinematic/folky atmosphere. The title track takes us somewhere else entirely- the missing link between Big Fun, There's a Riot Goin'On & Dead Bees on a Cake. This sounds like the place where Eight Miles High was leading & remains Clark's most cosmic moment! Strength of Strings will be familiar to This Mortal Coil fans, though the original has a wonderful complex of blues and harmonies that build up to the song proper- Clark's voice moving beyond the melancholy common to Here Without You or With Tomorrow and to another place beyond that. If you want to hear the human soul in song form- just play this song... My fave track remains From a Silver Phial, possibly cos it features fellow-ex-Byrd (& Zelig of the 60s/70s music scene) Chris Hillmann on mandolin. Listen to that intro and note that Oasis might have heard this when composing Don't Look Back in Anger! The title is one that alludes to a darkness, though Clark almost refuses to give in to the void, as Neil Young did on Tonight's the Night. Listening to this song, you can only acknowledge how plastic The Eagles truly were...and if you want to hear an artist who is genuine...look no other- Some Misunderstanding is the most epic track here- exceeding eight-minutes and sounding like the missing link between Glen Campbell's classic Jimmy Webb tracks & Screaming Trees lost classic Dust (1996) "There's been some misunderstanding/and I'd like to make it right...we all have souls, yet nobody knows/just how much it takes to fly"- Clark is moving into almost Rilkean territory- or is he Proust with a guitar & those achingly gorgeous vocals? The True One is more traditional country-rock, easily up there with Sweetheart of the Rodeo or GP...Clark never gets the credit in the country/rock sense (though this is changing...) What I love about No Other and what is typified by the songs, even the darker ones, is an idea that one will transcend, overcome...it is not an album that gives in to self-pity or self-destruction. It's an acknowledgement of existence equal to The Myth of Sisyphus (or at least Valis)- though its commercial failure would ironically lead to Clark's protracted alchol-related demise and his (too) early death in 1991. The climax is suitably cinematic, if anyone wondered what Scott Walker would have sounded like had he been in The Byrds- look no other than Lady of the North (composed with old accomplice Doug Dillard and with amazing violin/keyboards...This song drifts across the American landscape, "as a change in the wind MUST come over the mountain/and the seasons roll under the sun, passing the shadows of our tears"- listen to this and realise just how fake people like Richard Ashcroft are (the guys been trying to fake a No Other for over a decade!). The moment where the song cuts just to Clark's voice and that piano, prior to the band coming back in, is truly wondeful- the arrangents thoughout No Other are amazing. No Other remains for me one of the great albums of the 1970s- easily up there with such critics faves as Blue Afternoon, Surf's Up, Todd, Third/Sister Lovers, American Beauty & Blood on the Tracks. This reissue at great value budget price should hopefully lead towards critical reassessment for Clark; as a review in a free NME-book on classic albums noted: no No Other, no Screamadelica. For my money, and despite the endless lists of classic albums (see Paul Morley's Words & Music), I would place No Other in that Top Ten greatest albums. There simply was No Other and here it is again for you to hear in this definitive version...
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~ Gene Clark
~ Gene Clark
~ Gene Clark
~ Gene Clark
