Loose Fur “Born Again in the USA” Drag City
Records
The title of an album can say a lot about its contents.
Pavement’s “Slanted & Enchanted” is just that
““ a blend of skewed pop instrumentation and off-beat vocal
delivery so unlikely it never fails to captivate. And The White
Stripes’ bare-bones sophomore album was appropriately named
“De Stijl” after the German minimalist art
movement.
So when Jeff Tweedy and Glenn Kotche of Wilco got together again
with renaissance man Jim O’Rourke to make another Loose Fur
album, the fact that they took a page from Bruce Springsteen and
titled it “Born Again in the USA” cannot be
overlooked.
Loose Fur’s first album made it clear that the trio is
more concerned with writing great songs than being inventive, and
their latest effort makes their priorities perfectly clear. Gone is
Tweedy’s love of artistic feedback and O’Rourke’s
affection for electronica. What we have instead is a relatively
short album (only 38 minutes) peppered with catchy guitar hooks,
infectious vocal melodies and classic rock tendencies more
characteristic of, say, Springsteen than Wilco.
The album opens with the jarring guitar riff of “Hey
Chicken,” a decent song in itself, but one that better serves
as notice to start listening to what the rest of the album has to
offer. As to be expected, Tweedy bears the brunt of the vocals,
singing on six tracks, and offers an impressive performance; his
reputable voice has never sounded quite so smooth as it does on
“The Ruling Class.” His trademark lovesick croon is
given the spotlight on the closing track, singing “she does
whatever she wants, and I swear she wanted me” with the
perfect combination of helplessness and frailty.
O’Rourke’s three tracks aren’t quite so
strong. “Answers To Your Questions” is boring, and
“Thou Shalt Wilt” feels like a bad show tune. He only
succeeds on “Stupid As The Sun”, his voice rumbling
comfortably over the tight chord progression.
The only break from the clean-cut nods to classic rock is found
on “Wreckroom,” a track that, three minutes through,
suddenly becomes a long-lost Wilco B-side and, as all good Wilco
tracks do, fades into a four-minute mist of random noise. What we
have when that mist subsides, however, is some good, old-fashioned
rock and roll.
The album’s title is pretty spot-on. Though Tweedy and
O’Rourke may be the ones behind the mic, you can rest assured
that Springsteen is somewhere in the background, dancing in his
American-flag bandana.
“”mdash; Dominick Duhamel