Smog - Rain on Lens
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CD Details
Artist: SmogEdition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 2001-09-18
Music Label: Drag City
Soundtracks:
- Rain On The Lens 1
- Song
- Natural Decline
- Keep Some Steady Friends Around
- Dirty Pants
- Lazy Rain
- Short Drive
- Live As If Someone Is Always Watching You
- Rain On Lens 2
- Revanchism
Music reviews of Rain on Lens
Music Review: Pretty much more of the same, less of the different...
Rating: 3 Stars
Smog, like much good music, is a bit of an acquired taste. Bill Callahan's music might prove a little difficult to some because of the impenetrability of its bleakness and despair: the sparest of guitar chords are scratched over minimal ornamentation, and Callhan does a kind of speak-sing comparable to Leonard Cohen, Lou Reed and David Berman (imagine the latter on lithium, narrating about failed relationships and death. If this is your cup of tea, this is the album for you. But if you're one of those who wish Callhan would break from his usual routine (as he has demonstrated capable of doing with a few stellar cuts off Songs and Devotion and Knock Knock), then you might be disappointed. There are a few tracks that step forward to distinguish themselves from the gloom and doom, however; Live Your Life Like...is a beautifully written and captivating song. Song, Revanchism and Short Drive also have a little hop in their step, more of what Callahan needs.
Description of Rain on Lens
It might not be as bare or as fraught as Smog's earlier works, but from mordant tone alone, Rain on Lens is Bill Callahan's darkest release since 1996's The Doctor Came at Dawn. While it would be disingenuous to claim that Smog's Bill Callahan is a man of ever-changing moods--he has, over the last 10 years, been responsible for some of the most consistently morose works this side of a suicide note--some of his recent records, especially 1999's glorious Knock Knock, have been invested with a certain hearty warmth. Rain on Lens, however, is not one of those records. Reclaiming his seat in the rocking chair, as weak sunlight filters through musty net curtains, Callahan muses, in his deep baritone over the darkest tales. "Song" is a morbid death march in which Callahan drawls, "I'm a bit like the gravedigger / Who wields no shovel / And digs no hole / But leaves the body to stand," while "Natural Decline" finds his Chicago-based backing band sparking up into a kind of deathly motorik rhythm, accompanied by skeletal handclaps and piercing violin sweeps. The Smog aficionados among us will love it, but for a hapless newcomer eager to dip a toe into these murky waters, there are more forgiving starting points. --Louis PattisonGeneral CDs
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