|
Continental Drifters
Better Day, Razor & Tie (3 out of 4 stars)
In the course of three superb albums, Continental Drifters, which hails from New Orleans, has evolved from a fractious assemblage of players from kinda-famous bands - The Cowsills, The Bangles, Dream Syndicate, The dB's - into a faceless emsemble, a band whose fanciful sum well exceeds the past contributions of it's "say-didn't-you-used-to-be" parts. The band's new album, Better Day, is its most realized and balanced, a collage of great singers and songs whose distinctive nature is amplified by seamlessly soulful folk-pop arrangemetnts that unite heaven and earth. The covertly conceptual Better Day echoes, and on occasion rivals, Fleetwood Mac's Rumours and Richard and Linda Thompson's Shoot Out The Lights, well-crafted albums dedicated to the forthright examination, if not exhumation, of true loves gone terribly bad and their lingering aftershocks. One can only speculate on the inspiration for the album. Two of the band's primary singers and songwriters, Peter Holsapple (a native of Winston-Salem) and Susan Cowsill, are married, thus are instantly suspect. Still, Holsapple's best work with the dB's nearly always focused on thee dire consequences of faded love, and the songwriting, all of which is strong and unified in theme, is share bandmates Vicki Peterson (who contributes three songs) Russ Broussard and Mark Walton. Unlike the work of the Thompsons, long as obvious influence on the Drifters, heartache and anger is amplified, not through the barbed guitar solos so eloquently executed by Richard Thompson, but solely through evocative singing. Cowsill and Peterson are two of the most absorbing vocalists in moderen pop, and Holsapple is developing into a singer whose technical chops equal the raw expressiveness that has long distinguished his best performances. Surprisingly, the disc is not a study in bleakness such spry songs as "Too Little Too Late" and "(Down By The) Great Mistake," manage to add a degree of wry, biting humor to a subject sorely lacking in yuks. Still, the album's strongest tracks, all by Cowsill - "Cousin," "Snow" and "Peaceful Waking" - pack a poignant emotional punch that sounds drawn from a dark and deeply personal space. No doubt about it - Better Day spins the wheel of human emotion and lands on hard truths, sometimes bitter, other times wistful, that are delivered without compromise. That the songs are all smartly written and arranged, so melodically alluring, almost seems beside the point.
|
