Grammy-nominated at five (for 1973's "Daddy What If" duèt with famous country dad Bobby Bare), Junior took the Nashville blood and jacked it up with a punk speedball and heaps of seedy Memphis Soul. His second YCSL release is a dark narcotic delight, the beat-up voice straddling the grainbelt between Jeff Tweedy and Ryan Adams, and flipping the bird with all the wry sarcasm of Red Star Belgrade's Bill Curry. And the back-up's top drawer—Will Oldham, plus Lambchoppers Paul Burch, Paul Niehaus and producer Mark Nevers.
LA's 35-year-old singer/songwriter nearly jacked in the solo stuff last year, so Return In Kind, though a covers record, is something of a reaffirmation. Where Casal has sometimes been victim of a too-perfect voice, here (as in recent work with side project Hazy Malaze) he adds grit to the mix.
When her daughter's kidnapped by murderous types in this odd, grisly gothic western, frontierswoman Cate Blanchett saddles up and gives chase, accompanied by estranged father Tommy Lee Jones. A tiresomely grim offering from Ron Howard, whose fussy, pointlessly tricksy direction is a consistently irritating distraction. Very poor.
Magnus is a collaboration between Tom Barman of superior Belgian noirists dEUS and heavyweight techno DJ/producer CJ Bolland. The dance/rock hybrid is usually an ugly beast, but The Body... represents a meeting of minds rather than a dilution of disparate talents. Live drums augment programmed beats throughout, while sax, Wurlitzer and sampled film dialogue are added to the mix and members of Belgian bands Evil Superstars and Millionaire guest.
In Arthur Penn's 1958 film The Left-Handed Gun, Billy The Kid (Paul Newman) was portrayed as a neurotic, self-destructive teen rebel who behaved like James Dean with a six-gun. Penn threw in the framing device of having a journalist follow Billy through his career of crime. Little Big Man (1970) also features a journalist looking to embroider the facts, but this time the writer meets his match in the shape of the wizened, 121-year-old Jack Crabb (Dustin Hoffman hidden behind several layers of make-up).
While many of St Etienne's 'concepts' have left me cold, this one resonates, perhaps because I've just read the enchanting coffee-table tome Classic Cafes by Adrian Maddox and Phil Nicholls. Bob Stanley's sleevenotes similarly eulogise the faded majesty and allure of "caffs"—"'It's for lorry drivers,' said my mum." As these temples to a bygone age disappear, they exude the melancholy of half-recalled Donovan songs. In homage to these hallowed halls of grease are kitsch gems from The Kinks, Chairmen Of The Board, The Moments and The Sapphires.
