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Content by russell clarke
Reviewer Rank: 17
Helpful Votes: 7221
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Reviews Written by
russell clarke "stipesdoppleganger" (halifax, west yorks)
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More humdrum torture porn, 25 Jul 2008
Captivity is another addition to the torture/gore porn cinema genre pre-dated by the likes of the Saw franchise or Hostel . What is most surprising about this addition is that acclaimed director Roland Joffe ( he directed The Mission lest we forget ) has attached himself to it. Mind you i think he had a different type of film in mind -something along the psychological thriller lines because the head of Dark Films( Courtney Solomon) , the production company behind the film, re-edited the movie adding more gore and violence .Subsequently Captivity is a very nasty film , but rather crucially omits any allegorical evidence ( at least as far as i could see) from the screenplay (written by Larry Cohen and Joseph Tura)
The unlikely monikered Jennifer Tree (Elisha Cuthbert) is a catwalk model and cover girl giving vacuous interviews about nothing in particular . Her life seems empty and rather lonely .She resorts to taking her little pooch to a nightclub where she is drugged and abducted , ending up in a basement prison where she is subjected to a series of controlling torturous ordeals including being force fed blended down human body parts. This does,nt go down well in both senses of the meaning.
Hope arrives in the shape of Ben (Pruitt Taylor Vince) a fellow captive who she immediately bonds with as they plot their escape.There then comes a twist , or should i say a supposed twist -except i, and no doubt many others,will have twigged straight away what was going on so safe to say it,s not much of a twist. More of a straight with a slight kink. Then the whole thing gets incredibly silly , if it was,nt already .
I am at a loss to explain what this films central precept is. Is it making a point about vacuity of celebrity? Or is it just extreme torture-porn for the sake of it ? Either way it,s not especially successful . It,s not tense or frightening and if it does have a hidden sub-text it hides it carefully under a clod-hopping script and fatuous characterisation including dunder headed character decision making - a staple pre-requisite of poor horror films.Some ropey acting does,nt help either.
Curiously an alternate ending available in the extras hints at a meaning , not particularly obvious in the standard cut of the film. Not only that it helps explain the opening scene far more clearly . Captivity is not a good enough film that it can afford to pass up these opportunities. As it is someone should have abducted Courtney Solomon from the editing room and let in in someone who understands the process. The subsequent torture is optional.
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HMS Fable
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| Price: £11.98 |
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| Availability: In stock |
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
When it crys it pulls me through, 23 Jul 2008
Walking to work the other day when "Comedy " by Shack popped on my MP3. What a tremendous song i thought as i weaved in and out of the malodorous piles of dog poo littering the pavement. And it is a tremendous song - i believe the correct term is uplifting and slightly clichéd though that may be it, like most clichés it is resoundingly true. What is also true is that the album that "Comedy" is taken from is an absolute classic of acerbic working class British pop.
Released in June 1999 HMS Fable followed on from the album "The Magical World Of The Strands" -which is Shack in all but name. Now that was a terrific album but HMS Fable took the song-writing excellence of that album onto an entirely different level. Michael Head was to use sporting parlance in the zone .
"Comedy " is probably the album highlight but there are several other songs that run it damm close. Glossily produced by Hugh Jones and Youth HMS Fable may be too overblown for some palates but that's partly what i love about it. Guitars thrum with melodic tension and the bass and percussion is meaty without intruding unnecessarily. It resonates with folk tinged ambience while revelling in sumptuous pop hooks.
Given that this album , despite it,s apparent nautical theme, is in fact a reference to heroin addiction some may view it as glamorising drug addiction but i just feel it is honest about it. So the track"Captains Table" has the crew of the fabled ship setting sail under a captain happy to let them at the rum ration."Streets Of Kenny" is a swaggering tune about scouring Ireland for friends who might have the drugs needed to make the night complete. "Lend Some Dough" is a lurching bleary eyed bar anthem while "Since I Met You " is more a dishevelled nursery rhyme about a drug deal gone wrong yet is set to a soaring melody.
If all this sounds slightly tawdry ( believe you me it does,nt literally sound it) "I Want You" is a pure blast with coruscating arteries of guitar and varnished harmonies . "Re-Instated " is just a great pop song while "Pull Together" is anthemic with none of the bluster and chest beating usually associated with the adjective."Beautiful " is ....just well beautiful i suppose.
HMS Fable is the sort of album that British artists just don,t seem able to make anymore. It has a been there ,done that energy , but is saturated with a refective ruminative patina. It,s a great pop album, it,s a great rock album ...lets just say it,s a great album. It cheers me up no end. It lightens the load. To paraphrase "Comedy"-when it crys it pulls me through.
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I like this book ....it has lots of Brian in it. , 21 Jul 2008
Let me lay my metaphorical cards on the table ( metaphorical as well I suppose) and state that I think Brian Eno is a genius . I've said it in other reviews of his work so I see no reason not to say it here. He has produced a body of work that is staggering in it's artistic integrity , complexity and innovation and I can tend to go into gushing fan mode when talking about the domed one. Yet for all this I know absolutely sod all about him as a person so this book is , for me , a god send. Yet that doesn't necessarily mean to say that it's any good ....thankfully though I can honestly report that while On Some Faraway Beach is occasionally over written and obsequiously flattering of it's subject it is an educational and entertaining read for any one interested in this most fascinating of artists.
Everything any budding but discerning Eno-phile could want to know is covered . For instance the younger Eno,s sexual proclivity came as something as a surprise, I don,t know why , it just did. Same for his fathering a daughter at a young age ( who he largely ignored after splitting from her mother ) .The fact he was run over by a car suffering a serious head injury or that her earns £24.50 a week royalty's for "Arena" using his track "Another Green World" for the title music. The fact he is great dancer and created his own dance called "The Static".
Most astonishing is the fact that Eno cannot read or write music ( something we have in common , that and a tendency for catastrophic hair loss) and that his improvisational approach to recording rely,s more on his instinctive grasp of sound and sonic textures. For all that he does posses genuine aptitude for thinking up innovative ways to record and manipulate sound , though as the book points out he's not above pilfering ideas that have gone before and melding them to his own ends.. The chapters on the recording of his solo albums are incredibly intriguing.
The years with Roxy Music are extensively covered as is his fall out with Bryan Ferry which led to Eno as he put it "falling on his sword" ( though it's more of an uncomfortable mutually acceptable parting of the ways) plus there's plenty of text on his relationship with cohorts John Cale, Robert Fripp , Gavin Bryars and Talking Heads amongst many others. His recording work with David Bowie ( the funniest man he knows apparently ) on "Low "and "Heroes" plus his tremendous recordings with Cluster and David Byrne are very well covered too.
The book is predisposed towards his work in the seventies and the early eighties -his most artistic fertile period and rather glances over his later production work for artists like U2 and Coldplay , though I can't say I blame the author for skimming over those associations.
So who is Brian Eno?...a complex polymath, an infuriating nerdish knob twiddler, a pioneering artistic futurist, a talkative esoteric dabbler, a renaissance leading media-genic dilettante ...frankly according to this weighty tome he's all these things and more. Yet for such a prolific , innovative and impishly erudite an artist as Eno this should come as no surprise. What is surprising reading On Some Faraway Beach is that someone decided to take on the task . David Sheppard's meticulously researched book is remarkably thorough and a boon for any Enophile. John Cale once said "I like his records, they all have Brian on them" May I add I like this book ...it has lots of Brian in it.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
He does,nt regret killing them, he regrets killing them badly ., 19 Jul 2008
You Kill Me is a curious little movie. A noir/ gangster/ black comedy hybrid that skilfully integrates all these incongruous elements into a subtly pleasing whole. It may not be funny enough for those wanting copious belly laughs, it may not be viscerally exciting enough for aficionado's of the gangster genre and i doubt it's brackish or labyrinthine enough to cut it as classic noir . Despite this i rather enjoyed this tale of a hit man whose personal demons impinge on his work. It has quality performances from a solid cast and keeps you on your toes enough to maintain interest.
Frank (Ben Kingsley) is a hit man working for the Polish mob in Buffalo. He is also an alcoholic. We first see him downing bottles of vodka before a hit .Unfortunately while staking out the proposed victim -rival Irish mob boss (Dennis Farina) -he falls into a sozzled slumber and misses his chance. Knowing they can no longer rely on him his bosses send him to San Francisco to dry out and get his act together.
Once there he is overseen by officious real estate agent (Bill Pullman) who insists he join the local AA and gets him a job in a morticians dressing up corpses ready for burial. At the AA meetings he meets laconic fellow alcoholic Tom(Luke Wilson) and through his new job he meets Laurel (Tea Leoni) whose father has recently deceased. They form an unlikely bond , especially unlikely since he , deciding that honesty is the best policy tells her about his real job. But events back in Buffalo mean he will have to give up his new life and friends and return to sort things out once and for all.
Director John Dahl cleverly holds this slight and ,frankly implausible, plot together dexterously helped by writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely who add lots of dry dark banter between the characters. The final scenes are truly ridiculous and no matter how darkly mysterious Frank is it's hard to believe that a woman like Laurel would fall for him. It,s also hard to see this film rewarding repeat viewings. Yet for all this You Kill Me is a slyly amusing tale of a man on the wrong path in life being offered redemption and grabbing it with both hands...only it's not that straightforward .Now that is just like real life.
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The pleasure principle, 19 Jul 2008
In the midst of reading the Eno biography "On Some Faraway Beach" -about page 120 if you are pedantic - i came to the section where the narrative deals with Roxy Music,s 1973 album For Your Pleasure. Described as a "gruelling and disquieting experience|" by Charles Shaar Murray on its release ( that was a compliment) Roxy,s second album is easily the best of their career melding Bryan Ferry,s art rock styling's with Brian Eno,s sonic sculptures and dissonant tweaks.
The Roxy line up at that time had the classic elements of Ferry , Andrew Mackay and Phil Manzanera along with the soon to depart Eno , bassist John Porter-who would soon depart also, Roxy going through bassist ,s like Spinal Tap through drummers and Paul Thompson on drums. The band were able to revel in the extra studio time they could spend on this album, certainly compared to the rush in which they recorded their first, .and were aided greatly by producer Chris Thomas who knew his way round a studio.
Opening track on the album "Do The Strand" is an urgent vociferous song in the vein of "Virginia Plain" but was curiously never released as a single in the UK, even though it saw the light of day in Europe and the U.S. ( It was eventually released as a single in 1978 to promote their best of album) The song features Mackay,s trademark squealing sax and rapid fire piano notes. The other more up-tempo track-"Editions of You" showcases attention grabbing interludes by Mackay, Eno and Manzanera.
It,s actually on the more sedate tracks that the true soniferous delights of this album emerge to tittilate the ears."In Every Dream Home A Heartache" - Ferry,s creepy ode to a blow up doll- fades out , then back in again with peculiar phasing effects on all the instruments, like the songs beamed back in from another dimension. "Bogus Man" is acknowledged by Eno as having similarities to material by Can and it does furrow a Kraut -rock like groove although in a more sibilant manner. "Grey Lagoons" and the title track are sinister ballads , so much so that they have you looking over your shoulder for something that exists only in the imagination the music has given you.
Eno left soon after the making of this album and Roxy Music were never the same band after his departure ( some will feel they improved while others like myself will deduce otherwise) Eno went on to even greater things but while he was in Roxy Music , even though the urbane Ferry wrote the material his contribution was vital to their sleazy galmour. Never better illustrated than on "For Your Pleasure".
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
A gorgeous hypnotic odyssey, 16 Jul 2008
I felt in two minds about watching this film , half expecting it to be dolorous ,sombre, dull art-house exercise requiring resolute cinematic stamina . Not for the first time I was completely wrong .The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford is as gorgeous and hypnotic a film as I have ever seen .
The title does of course give way what is going to happen in this film but the real drama comes from the way the narrative explores the relationship between the two men and how circumstances dictate what fates befall both of them.
When we meet them both its September 1881 and they are both preparing to rob a train as part of the infamous James gang . Most of the gang we are informed by the films lyrical voice over ( Hugh Ross)are either dead or in prison but the two remaining James brothers Frank (Sam Shepard) and Jesse(Brad Pitt) are leading the heist. Also part of the gang are the Ford brothers Charley (Sam Rockwell) and Robert (Casey Affleck) Robert has a fan worship thing going on with Jesse and this marks the start of their bond , though not before the more worldly wise Frank says of Bob Ford "I don't know what it is about you, but the more you talk, the more you give me the willies."
It's a perspicacious comment as Bob is a bit creepy and is brilliantly portrayed by Affleck as such - ostensibly a sort of cowboy stalker. Jesse finds him amusing at first then comes to trust him before an all round paranoia and brooding malevolence takes over his character . These two borderline psycho's are well matched in many respects but the film adapted by director Andrew Dominick from the book by Robert Hansen takes its time in getting under the skin of these two characters so we understand implicitly how Ford comes to shooting Jesse James .This is complex and fully requires the lengthy running time in order to do it full justice.
Interestingly the film also explores Fords life post the shooting where he becomes a media celebrity in his own right yet is wracked by guilt and is thoroughly miserable.
The acting is top-notch throughout. Affleck as I alluded earlier is spookily good while Pitt is someone I often find irritating because he mumbles, but in this he's terrific- veering convincingly from wide eyed boyish enthusiasm to menacing glowers or explosive rage. Paul Schneider as gang member Dick Liddil a laconic poetry spouting lothario is especially good, though Mary Louise Parker as James wife Zee is given an underwritten role.
The real star of the film though is the cinematography of Roger Deakins, whose work with the Coen brothers has garnered plaudit's .He gives the film a sepia nostalgic glow but captures the landscape , vast fields of swaying corn or barren snow covered homesteads , magically. The landscapes become more frigid echoing the increasingly frosty relationship between the characters. The scene of a train robbery at night is one of transcendental and startling beauty. The soundtrack by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis is eerily spot on too.
Yes this film is slow but it's also thoroughly engrossing . It is truly insidiously compelling and though many will feel it's padded out , which is often my opinion of many films,I feel that not a frame is wasted in this movie. It truly is a masterpiece of the cinematic art -an all too rare commodity nowadays. Hugely commendable .
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REM triumph over adversity , 13 Jul 2008
After recording their first two albums with the same producers( Mitch Easter and Don Dixon) and mining a inchoate but wonderful brand of American independent rock the band decided to record their difficult third album in London , overseen by folk producer Joe Boyd. As it turned out their difficult third album was indeed difficult. The band hated the miserable winter weather, were unsure about Boyd and this air of fractious disharmony meant the band started to rub each other up the wrong way . The reviews for the album were mixed and one or two of the band confessed to hating it (Bill Berry even went as far as to say "it sucked") but for all that the album has undergone deserved widespread re-appraisal. Michael Stipe has even gone as far as to say that he thinks it contains some of their best songs.
Fables is virtually a concept album exploring the mythology and landscape of the Southern United States .It makes references to Southern life- the trains on the hectic jangles of "Driver 8" the migrant farmers of the Byrdsian "Green Grow The Rushes" the story telling references in "Life And How To Live It" . The slightly comic "Can't Get There From Here" not only reveals a more playful side to the band with Stipes affected vocal , but uses a popular Southern saying for it's title.
All of the composite elements of the usual REM sound were present for Fables, but there are flirty bursts of brass in "Can't Get There From Here" and the use of banjo in "Wendell Gee" is a further nod to it's Southern inspiration. Peter Bucks silvery jangles are still utilised extensively but there is less of Mike Mills melodic bass counterpoints and his backing vocals are more subdued , though in Wendell Gee they are crucial to the songs structure. Excellent opening track the vivid striking "Feeling Gravity's Pull" ushers in menacing violin and cello for the songs last third.
The extra tracks for this CD edition are worth hearing too. A series of b-sides their cover of Pylon's "Crazy" has true chromatic energy. "Burning Energy" is redolent of the undiluted honest rock of "Document" .Only the jingle/jangle by numbers of "Bandwagon" fails to live up to what has gone before.
Many are critical of the albums muddy sound and the albums more oblique textures yet in some ways the album improves on their previous two albums. Stipes vocals are more distinct , he is far less inclined to mumble like a guilty teenager , and the album see's a tangible progression for them with supplementary variety in the songs and the arrangements.
Fables Of The Reconstruction isn't REM ,s greatest album -I prefer the first two , "Life's Rich Pageant " and "Automatic For The People" but it's way better than it's reputation and it's way way better than anything they have done since Automatic. It's also far superior to over lauded albums like "Green " and the most over lauded of the lot "Out Of Time". Taken away from the context of REM ,s catalogue Fables Of The Reconstruction is a great album in it,s own right and actually gives weight to that hoary old saying -A triumph over adversity .
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Brian Wilson
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| Price: £7.98 |
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| Availability: Usually dispatched within 7 to 11 days |
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Your blues will melt away , 12 Jul 2008
Having recently purchased and thoroughly loved the overdue re-issue of Dennis Wilson's "Pacific Ocean Blue" I felt compelled to revisit Brian Wilson ,s 1988 solo album . Released after a period with notorious therapist Eugene Landy who on the album's release was given several song co-writing credits( Removed after Landy,s ejection from Wilson's life in 1991 ) the album was critically lauded but didn't do that well on the sales front. Why the hell not I feel duty bound to ask ? For while this album doesn't have the depth and wracked majesty of Dennis's album ( not that comparisons are that valid) it has a lavish pop splendour of it's own. It has tunes that would make an extremely irate scorpion sheathe its sting.
From the first glistening notes of the fantastic "Love And Mercy" the listener is sucked into a billowing comfort blanket of melody , colourful chimes , stratospheric harmony and sheer musical indulgence. But no guilty pleasure this. Sumptuously co- produced by veteran producers Russ Titelman and Lenny Waronker ,along with Andy Paley ( who also co-writes three tracks) Brian Wilson is opulently embellished by flutes, saxophones, accordion , violin, flute , piccolo trumpet , banjo and more keyboard variants than you could shake a giant tambourine at.
The songs are just terrific. "Walkin The Line" co-written with Nick Laird-Clowes of tasteful English popsters The Dream Academy has a doo-wop edge while "Melt Away" is a gorgeous cascade of harmonies and Christmassy jangles and is described by Brian in the superb liner notes as a philosophical sing , along with "Love And Mercy". I just love "Baby Let Your Hair Grow Long" -described in the notes as s sequel to "Caroline No " it has a truly ecstatic melody and always , always make me feel better than I was before playing it, even if I felt great anyway. " Little Children " is a touch twee with some rather cringe worthy lyrics ( " If it's gets too floody they get in their boats") but is still a skipping joy of a song. The acappella "One For The Boys" leads into the twinkling ballad "There's So Many" before the swinging "Night Time"." Let It Shine" is written with Jeff Lynne and is yet another stunning stack of harmonies before a song about a dream lover set rather aptly to a dream effervescent melody. "Rio Grande" is the most ambitious track on the album and a concerted effort to ignite the same artistic fire that infused "Pet Sounds" and "Smile" .Clocking in at over eight minutes it's a rock opera that veers from twanging good old boy country , to woozy choral overload via warped pop/rock doo -wop . Its an extraordinary piece of music.
The extra tracks on this CD version constitute Brian Wilson talking about a track on the album "Love And Mercy" which is interesting but kind of ruins the flow .That would have been better left till the end of the album I feel. Plus there are other previously unavailable tracks as well as demo and instrumental versions of many album tracks. "He Couldn't Get His Poor Old Body To Move" written with Lindsey Buckingham was the b-side for "Love And Mercy" and is jolly though predictable romp , while another b-side "Being With The One You Love" is a comparatively stale pop song .However its better than Let's Go To Heaven In My Car" a dreadful song redolent of the eighties with horrendous guitar solo's and an overproduced glossy sound. "Too Much Sugar" is about healthy eating so is way ahead of it's time though it's ironically way too sugary for my palette. "Night Bloomin Jasmine" sounds like a song in transition which is what it was- as the hook was transfused into "Rio Grande".
Brian Wilson stands alone as a great solo album -the extras are nice as curio's but have little intrinsic value unless you are a real Wilson completist. I'm more interested in hearing great music who ever it's by. This just happens to a true musical legend at the top of his game after many years in the wilderness. Fair to say it,s an unmitigated triumph all around...unless your name is Eugene Landy .
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
"Just sit on this groove and chew", 12 Jul 2008
The saying in the groove means if I have understood it correctly that someone is on the top of their particular game, that they are performing as well as can be expected. It could also mean literally that you are in a groove but that's unlikely so we'll put that to one side. The reason I mention this is because on Directions To See A Ghost The Black Angels are very much in the groove ...but by that that I mean they hit a musical groove of linear proportions and stay there. Whether this constitutes being in the metaphorical groove rather depends on which song you are listening to at the time.
The six piece from Austin engage in an motorik drone like rock that will invite comparisons to Spacemen 3(Though they remind me most of Loop) or maybe The Velvet Underground . The band even use an instrument called a drone machine as well as multiple guitars, organ, percussion and vox .Despite this the music is limited stylistically with relentless banks of fuzz, wah wah etc.Its like walking into the demonstration room at a guitar convention,.However when they hit a true locked in furrow of sound, one that they can develop and build on , rather than one that actually dissipates the longer it buzzes on like the album closer , the sixteen minute plus "Snake In The Grass". this band are a formidable proposition. "You On The Run" ,"Doves" and "Science Killer" are all sonic bombardment of real quality . "Deer -Ree Shee" spangles sitar into the turbid whirl of cacophonous sumptuousness. "Never/Ever" hints at a My Bloody Valentine apocalyptic mother lode but spoils it with some scuzzed up noodling ."Vikings " attempts for threatening significance with deliberate interment heavy drums but is merely stodgy.
The music is doubtlessly influenced by the heavy political themes that govern the albums ambience . The lyric sheet gives each song a sub-title .So for instance "You In Colour" , a bracing blast of fuzzed like coils of guitar, crashing cymbals, and turgid bass is sub-headed "The confusion of black and white" and has themes of colonialism and subjugation . The band cogitate on war, alienation, conquest and moral ambiguity with Solemn intensity , the vocals of Alex Maas delivered are delivered with true gravity, often with a disconcerting echo effect. I feel given the albums unremitting claustrophobic atmosphere it might have been better with some judicious editing. At over seventy minutes long even the most ardent lover of these all enveloping fortified grooves will struggle to listen to it all in one sitting . Still with the finger poised over the skip button /switch there is much to lose yourself in on Directions To See A Ghost. Tracks like "Mission District" and the organ heavy "18 Years" carry a particular inexorable thrill. As the band say on "You On The Run": "Just sit on this groove and chew".
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Something got hold of Nick Cave,s heart, 9 Jul 2008
Watching the recent Nick Cave special on BBC4 brought home to me, if indeed it needed bring home, what a phenomenal band the Bad Seeds are. It also started a conversation between my partner and i about what Nick Cave song we would have played at our funerals( We,re jolly like that us) My favourite is "The Mercy Seat", hardly ideal funeral fodder( unless you have a warped sense of humour) , but hers was "The Ship Song" and that led to me re-visiting Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds 1990 and sixth album The Good Son, from which the "The Ship Song", incidentally the first single released off the album , came from.
Many critics and fans felt Nick Cave had gone a bit soft when they heard The Good Son and there is no argument that it is a far mellower album than it,s predecessor 1988,s claustrophobic and intense "Tender Prey". This was put down to Cave falling in love with Brazilian stylist Viviene Carniero and going through rehab. Whatever prompted this new relaxed Cave it also aided his song writing for The Good Son is consistently superb.
The incarnation of The Bad Seeds for this album included stalwart Blixa Bargeld on guitars, Mick Harvey on bass, guitar, percussion and vibraphone .He also aided Cave with the fulsome string arrangements. Thomas Wylder on percussion and drums and Kid Congo Powers on guitar complete this particular line up .
The album opens with the stately "Foi Na Cruz" -based partly on the Brazilian protestant hymn of the same name which roughly translated means "It was on the cross".The title track is also based on a traditional song , though this time its the African/American song "Another Man Done Gone" which is adapted for the chant like verse. "Sorrows Child" is a truly gorgeous emollient ballad with a lovely string coda. "The Ship Song " is one of the most purely beautiful songs in the Cave canon centred around tender piano , subtle funereal percussion, and some surprisingly delicate vocal backing. As ever with a Cave love song the lyrics are darkly romantic- "Come loose your dogs upon me/ And let your hair hang down/You are a little mystery to me every time you call around".
"Lament" would be the song to weep to on this album if there was,nt actually a song called "The Weeping Song". Essentially a duet with Bargeld providing the vocals of the "Father" this is one of the albums more dramatically strident tracks along with the grisly scowling "Hammer Song" . "The Witness Song" is like the exhortations of a deranged preacher which is not too surprising taking into account it,s traditional American gospel roots. Piano led closer "Lucy" is the one song on the album Cave co-wrote with the rest of the Bad Seeds.
The critics who viewed The Good Son as a sell out for embracing these croon led opulent jewels are missing the point. These songs may not stagger through the wracked old testament landscape of his earlier work but they are brilliant songs none the less. Despite their lush textures these songs are as lyrically and thematically compelling as anything that had come before. Besides, the portents for this were already there in his album of covers "Kicking Against The Pricks". Something had indeed gotten hold of his heart and its from there that this superb album was born.
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