Lynch called this a blues album at heart, and despite the beats and effects and Badalamenti-ready atmospherics, I'm inclined to admit that he's got a point. You can feel the blues here: its weariness, its simplicity in form and message, its texture. This is less like the Zooropa-ism of Crazy Clown Time and more like the bizarro twin of Cash's American songs series. Where Cash dragged modern tales into a timeless space, Lynch drags timeless songs into a moment, possibly one still in the future, where they are rendered awobble and strange. Unsurprisingly, the feel evokes Lynch's films: much like Lost Highway's born-again mechanic, the pulse of the uncanny undercuts everyday gestures. The music's menace evokes the seething madness that swirls around Inland Empire's imperiled heroine. The industrial hum and crackle is the sound of Henry Spencer's brain at its most idle moments.
But if you take away all the projection and metaphor and listen to the actual songs, you're left with some impressive slabs of unsettling atmosphere that are nearly impossible to listen to. The dissonance is relentless, headlined by Lynch's impossibly nasal twang. On Crazy Clown Time it was molded into a menagerie of goblins, but here it is just laid out, blues-raw, and it cuts through every song like piano wire. You'd be half tempted to liken this album to something Tom Waits would put out if the vocals at their center were not so fundamentally opposed. Where Waits growls and imposes, Lynch snivels and squirms.
David Lynch's never been one for accessibility, and I admire and enjoy that about his films. But when it comes to his music, there's just not enough vision to justify the indulgence 2.5/5
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment