Fresh Slice, please - plain & furtive
Jay Farrar, Terroir Blues - Act/Resist Records 2003
Former Uncle Tupelo frontman strums & twangs. It's what he always did best, and what made him the meatier half of the proverbial pie. (The other was Jeff Tweedy, who no one's heard from in years...wonder whatever happened to that guy? Well, whatever; he always was a pussy.) It's no secret: Farrar possesses one of the finer, more blessed voices in alt-country -- hereafter referred to as "Y'all-ternative" -- and when he's hurtin, man, you feel it. NO one knows the trouble he's seen, least of all that pussy Tweedy.
Angle towards track #10 "All of Your Might," or #12 "California:" "Went to San Francisco/Spent the night in a town called 'Weed'." If you've ever driven up I-5, then you know why that's a great line -- NO ONE stays in Weed. Literally, I mean. Keep an eye out for those "Space Junk" interludes; before you know it, you'll be rollin' along w/out a care in the world, next thing you know, you're all "HUH?" They won't hurt, they're just weird, seemingly there to break the album up; at 23 tunes it is, as they say, as 'bloated as a rummy's liver.' Still, it's his best work since, say, the first Son Volt record, easy.
This record is a bleak rumination; gorgeously so. Dour yet optimistic, elusive as a tomcat. And it hurts, like a hard, pinpoint rain stinging your face.
Oh, glorious pain -- man, that feels good.
And oh yeah -- Tweedy's a pussy.
Former Uncle Tupelo frontman strums & twangs. It's what he always did best, and what made him the meatier half of the proverbial pie. (The other was Jeff Tweedy, who no one's heard from in years...wonder whatever happened to that guy? Well, whatever; he always was a pussy.) It's no secret: Farrar possesses one of the finer, more blessed voices in alt-country -- hereafter referred to as "Y'all-ternative" -- and when he's hurtin, man, you feel it. NO one knows the trouble he's seen, least of all that pussy Tweedy.
Angle towards track #10 "All of Your Might," or #12 "California:" "Went to San Francisco/Spent the night in a town called 'Weed'." If you've ever driven up I-5, then you know why that's a great line -- NO ONE stays in Weed. Literally, I mean. Keep an eye out for those "Space Junk" interludes; before you know it, you'll be rollin' along w/out a care in the world, next thing you know, you're all "HUH?" They won't hurt, they're just weird, seemingly there to break the album up; at 23 tunes it is, as they say, as 'bloated as a rummy's liver.' Still, it's his best work since, say, the first Son Volt record, easy.
This record is a bleak rumination; gorgeously so. Dour yet optimistic, elusive as a tomcat. And it hurts, like a hard, pinpoint rain stinging your face.
Oh, glorious pain -- man, that feels good.
And oh yeah -- Tweedy's a pussy.
posted by Jonny Champagne at 1/27/2005 01:22:00 AM
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