Smog - River Ain't Too Much to Love
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CD Details
Artist: SmogEdition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 2005-05-31
Music Label: Drag City
Soundtracks:
- Palimpsest
- Say Valley Maker
- The Well
- Rock Bottom Riser
- I Feel Like the Mother of the World
- In the Pines
- Drinking at the Dam
- Running the Loping
- I'm New Here
- Let Me See the Colts
Music reviews of River Ain't Too Much to Love
Music Review: there is no love where there is no bramble
Rating: 5 Stars
i've been in and out of love with smog for years now. now 'A River Ain't Too Much To Love' has me convinced that this man is our generation's dylan, our cash, and our audrey hepburn. listen here, this man commands me to step into his world like the rosasharons outside my bedroom window command the honey bees to their nectar; the supply of sweet sweet honey is eternal. "with the grace of a corpse and a riptide i let go and i slide slide slide down river". if smog is already your cup of tea then you've no choice but to hang on for the ride but there's a dude on here who knock's on bill's vocals. that dude had cowpiss filling his eardrums when he threw the needle on. calahan's voice has never been more refined, more effortlessly palpable than on any other album. his words are crisp and sharp and wrapped in a bandage of unrelentless love. that dude said the first track 'Palimpset' instantly rubbed him the wrong way. that dude aparently has no soul. 'Palimpset' is bill gracefully crashing through the barrier of apathy all of you sour-nosed indie rockers and lo-fi mourners live behind. he grabs your smooth skinned hand and dips it in the mud he just waded through to get here and says listen up, i've been fumbling around love all these years and i've finally got it by the nose. i've finally got it. i saw smog play four years ago and their performance was disappointing. i saw smog play four nights ago and my girl had to prop my bottom lip up with a stick. if you are fortunate enough to find yourself before this band on stage imagine the energy on this album magnified tenfold. don't forget about jim white, dirty three drummer and smog pillar. this guy cuts the skins with such grace and subtle complexity; white is the mortar in the sound that makes up the four walls in a home you won't ever want (have) to leave. thanks, smog.
Description of River Ain't Too Much to Love
Smog's Bill Callahan goes back to the root on A River Ain't Too Much to Love, his first full-length offering in two years. While it's true that his name is nearly synonymous with lo-fi, in recent years Callahan has experimented with different -- albeit simple -- production techniques such as on Dongs of Sevotion and Rain on Lens. Supper, issued in 2003, was more direct, both sonically and personally, and that tack is followed here, though the framework is even sparser. On this, his 12th album, Callahan journeyed south from Chicago to Willie Nelson's Pedernales recording studio in Spicewood, TX. Accompanied by the Dirty Three's Jim White once more holding down the drum chair, and Connie Lovatt on bass and backing vocals, Callahan evokes the ethos and poetry of spooky American folk and country music without ever actually playing them in his own tomes, using mainly waltzes to frame them. Americana this ain't. Callahan has the ability to write first-person narrative songs that cannily juxtapose an evocative physcal landscape that metaphorically refernces deep emotional states; he uses it to great effect here. The skeletal "Say Valley Maker" equates the loss of and longing for love with a river's ability to both fertilize and strip bare the floor of a valley. Callahan's acoustic guitar plays a pair of repetitive figures, graced by an unidentified shimmering sound just above the threshold of silence, graced by White's restrained, rudimentary beat. "Rock Bottom Riser" is a song of resurrection, and again, it's a waltz. In the first verse, a nylon-stringed guitar hypnotically plays the changes in plectrum style, as White uses brushes to shift time while underscoring it, making the tune seem to float. The singer speaks with gratitude to the memory of an absent lover. As Joanna Newsom's piano underscores and fills the melody, Callahan's character finds a transformed sense of self in rising from his loss. It's slippery, lilting pace and restrained vocal create a tension that frames the tune's poignancy. The true nod to roots tradition here is also the album's centerpiece. His version of "In the Pines" is reverent without feeling staid, hampered by its place in history. A delicate, reedy, meandering tempo adorned in a simple guitar line and drums unpacks the melody, and Callahan's delivery is the seed of memory as it comes up from the ether, urging the singer to tell the whole story while keeping his composure. Travis Weller's edgy fiddle exposes the crack in the tale, however, and the grain of Callahan's voice walks the line between reverie and regret. A River Ain't Too Much to Love is a subdued, plaintive collection of songs that accompany silence; they encourage reflection without guile and unveil themselves without a hint of studied artifice. ~ Thom Jurek, RoviBill Callahan is one of a number of performers who present their work under the banner of a band name. It's generally just him, other times with various cohorts along. This set is given added punch and sparkle by the quietly incessant rhythms of drummer Jim White (his rolling foundation for "The Well" sounds like a cowboy gallop across the prairie). Also, it's great to hear acoustic guitars being utilized for music not tied to just folk traditions. Callahan's songs are slices of Americana at its finest--from the Yankee transcendentalism of New England forefathers to the sweep of westward expansion and the chokehold of loss and longing. The first song's opening words are "winter weather" and the closing number's final phrase is "thinking of the future." In between lies just about anything you need. --David Greenberger
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