By Tom Reardon, July 2019 Issue.
Sebadoh – Act Surprised
Several months ago, Sebadoh’s Lou Barlow played a living room show here in Phoenix at a cozy little house near 7th Avenue and Osborn. It was a beautiful night full of great songs and Barlow’s soft-spoken, somewhat shy, and mischievous sense of humor. After his set, Barlow casually mentioned there would be a new Sebadoh album out in May and the small, but devoted, crowd let out a collective gleeful gasp at that prospect.
Fast
forward a few months and Act Surprised is here and gosh darn it, at first listen,
it’s great. Then, you listen again, and you think, “Well, this is certainly
good, but where have I heard this before?” One of the most charming things
about Sebadoh’s early work was the low-fi element to their recordings that made
you feel as if you were listening to the band play live in your living room.
With Act Surprised, the production is top notch, but it was
recorded by Justin Pizzoferrato, who has helmed several Dinosaur Jr. albums and
to be honest, Act Surprised sounds a little too like a Dinosaur Jr.
record. There is still the great interplay between Barlow’s sweet songs that
are often yearning for acceptance and bandmate Jason Loewenstein’s heavier and
darker songs, for sure, but I kind of miss the old days when the Massachusetts
boys would record on a four track in their garage. Essential listening, though,
for Sebadoh fans.
Bad Religion – Age of Unreason
Kind of like the Ramones, Bad
Religion is great at continually recreating the same song, over and over. I
know what you’re thinking, “Blasphemy, Mr. Reardon!” and you’re probably right,
at least when it comes to the Ramones. What do I know? Well, I know that I
don’t like this new Bad Religion album at all. It sounds tired and very much
like the last 10 Bad Religion records that I promptly listened to and forgot
about immediately. Not since 1988’s Suffer have I enjoyed a Bad Religion
record and I really like 1982’s How Could Hell Be Any Worse, but I feel
like the big ol’ balls on that first full-length that the band swung to and fro
with punk rock abandon have continued to shrivel to the point where an album
like Age of Unreason can come out 37 years later and there aren’t any swimmers left
in there able to impregnate a fleeting thought in a youthful mind ready to
explode. You’re way better off spending time with a band like The Coathangers
or Plague Vendor than listening to this drivel.
Morrissey – California Son
It’s one thing when Weezer
does a covers record, but Morrissey? I had to hear this. “Morning Starship,” on
Morrissey’s California Son reminds me a bit of Ted Cassidy’s iconic
Lurch character from The Addams Family sitting down at the harpsichord
to play a song for Morticia and Gomez to dance to rather than the original
version by Jobriath, which sounds very dated these days. If you’re into
Morrissey, nothing on California Son will surprise you as he goes
through this record featuring some of his favorite songs from the ‘60s and
‘70s. All the requisite preaching, maudlin and wistful pleading, and
mellifluous yearning for a better world are here, present, and accounted for as
he churns through twelve tracks here turning other people’s words into his own
pulpit.
One thing that is apparent on California Son is
that like a fine wine, Morrissey is apparently mellowing with age and many of
these songs will swirl around your brain like a nice cabernet dancing with your
tongue as you enjoy its velvety loveliness. “It’s Over,” for example, is a
perfect example of this quality of smooth Morrissey shifting nicely into the
Roy Orbison penned break up song. It
sounds great and like a warm blanket, you can cuddle up with it and bask in its
misery before it transitions to the almost farcical version of Laura Nyro’s “Wedding
Bell Blues” that features some catty backing vocals by Green Day’s Billie Joe
Armstrong. This is a fun record, for the most part, and should be taken as
such. Your
mom might even like it.
