Arkansas native JAMES APOLLO’S previous album “Sweet Unknown” was one of this reviewer’s quiet favourites of 2002 and actually it’s hard to imagine four years have since slipped by with little word, although (while this writer didn’t hear them) it seems Apollo has released two EPS “Camilla” and “Pull Down The Curtain” to keep the pot boiling in the interim.
But then, he’s nearly always on the move is the nomadic Apollo. New album “Good Grief” was predominantly laid-down in a mere 2 days at Analog Electric Studio high above the Mississippi with Adam Lazlo (Low) at the controls while Apollo and his compact trio completed by drummer/ organist Noah Strom and bassist Nate Lamusga took a quick breather from touring and the results capture the fleeting muse of a talented character with a wandering eye and an eye for detail who clearly enjoys jotting down the strange minutiae he sees and feels as he passes from town to town.
Musically, “Good Grief” is live, potent and economical. The framework is broadly Americana and dog-eared beat group, though there’s plenty of variation and enough to satisfy over the course of a rich and vivid 40 minutes. Brief opener “Prelude, Colonel Travis” spills ominous Mexican blood and can’t fail to recall both Calexico and the kind of scene-setting instrumentals Stan Ridgeway sometimes employs. It’s intriguing, and clears a path for the history-soaked “The Alamo” which employs more electric guitar and is heavier than Apollo’s usual trio sound.
Third track “Spring Storm” finds Apollo on slightly more familiar ground, building on a two-step featuring brushed drums, funky bass and accordion, while “Dead Men Weigh More” is a real drifter’s blues: cracked, slow and sparse with more than a neat shot or two of Steve Wynn or Chris Isaak to wash it down. It’s not the only time Apollo slows it down to great effect, actually: witness also tracks like the ultra-sparse vibrato guitar and lazy drums of “Loneliness” (“loneliness is contagious and no-one seems to care”) and the deathly space of the fantastically evocative “Long Rope”, which is every bit as brooding as its’ title suggests. Arguably even better is “All The Pretty”: a drag-along slow blues akin to “St. James Infirmary” with added Eastern European accordion and the drums sounding like rulers on packing cases. That’s the way to do it.
|
Of course, Apollo also knows when to raise the tempo a little, as he does with “Mercenary Tango”, an actual tango with drums, bass and upright piano taking their partners and the song’s execution reminiscent of “Sweet Unknown”s best moments. “Slow Burn” is good too: the initial Neil Young upright piano giving way to a hot-blooded Tex-Mex murder ballad wrapped up in the kind of mystery that you get with the best film noirs like “A Touch Of Evil.”
He saves arguably the most immediate moment for the finale with “Good Grief” itself. Although the song begins as barely a murmur, by the 1-minute mark the band are throwing raggedy Americana-rock shapes, there’s a sneer in Apollo’s vocal and tremors in his hips. It’s arguably the most rock’n’roll thing here, but still full of the cracked tenderness Apollo infuses his best songs with and must surely be a favourite in his live set by now.
James Apollo is very much the old-fashioned American troubadour, working it up through perma-touring and dropping in at every backwater that most tour buses avoid like the plague. The boondocks suit his wandering muse, though, and fuel him with ideas for when he finally gets around to a recording pit-stop like this. Without wanting to turn him into Robert Pollard, the inspired end results make you wish he could get around to it a little more regularly.
|
