The Album Review Club - Week #141 - (page 1860) - JPEG Raw - Gary Clark Jr.

Mancitydoogle said:
SPIRIT TRAIL



excellent choice Rob, it’s so long since I’ve listened to any of his work, I’d almost forgotten what a great talent Bruce Hornsby is.
I’ve really enjoyed listening to this album whilst driving and at my desk, it’s been played far more than the requisite three times and more than when I first bought it,my only bug bear is that it’s too long and I think there’s a fair number of filler tracks particularly on side 2.

Having said that some of his best work appears on this album, I love ‘King of the Hill’RestingPlace’’Fortunate Son’ ‘Sneaking Up On Boo Radley’ and ‘The Great Divide’
I don’t get the Sting comparisons thankfully but on I’m getting Pete Townsends ‘Let my love open the Door’ on ‘Shadow Hand’.

Side one 9
Side two 6

But I’ll notch it up to 8/10 as it made me listen to a few of his other albums that I’ve not heard in years.
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That’s good - some commitment to play more than 3 times given the length of the album. I agree that it’s too long - whilst there’s some reasonable stuff on disk 2, it would have felt like a much tighter experience if it was just disk 1.

He’s long been one of my favourite artists, but I don’t play his music nearly enough. In the weeks leading up to this nomination, I’ve played loads of his albums and really enjoyed the experience.

My main reason for picking this is because his music is totally different to everything else in my collection, and 90% of what we all nominate on here is guitar-based.
 
RobMCFC said:
That’s good - some commitment to play more than 3 times given the length of the album. I agree that it’s too long - whilst there’s some reasonable stuff on disk 2, it would have felt like a much tighter experience if it was just disk 1.

He’s long been one of my favourite artists, but I don’t play his music nearly enough. In the weeks leading up to this nomination, I’ve played loads of his albums and really enjoyed the experience.

My main reason for picking this is because his music is totally different to everything else in my collection, and 90% of what we all nominate on here is guitar-based.
Click to expand...

I did not want it to be taken the wrong way, or sound patronising or flippant, but I was actually going to say in my review that I found it a bit of a surprise given some of your stronger and recognisable convictions. So you noting it is different from a lot of your collection makes sense.
 
Coatigan said:
I did not want it to be taken the wrong way, or sound patronising or flippant, but I was actually going to say in my review that I found it a bit of a surprise given some of your stronger and recognisable convictions. So you noting it is different from a lot of your collection makes sense.
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It’s different because it’s piano-led with lots of jazz influences.

But on the other hand it’s the same because it’s rooted in folk, blues and rock n’ roll, and features a guy singing about life, religion, people, places.
 
So I did give this the required 3 listens although I must admit to going all in on the first time through, until I got up to "Shadow Hand" and then realised how long I had to go. At that point I realised that I had enjoyed it in parts but that it did appear to start to become a marathon. The simple fact that I started to wonder when it would end made me realise I should focus on "disc 1" otherwise I would start to mark it down for its length.

As many have said, its a finely produced album and one that you can pick out little bits that appeal to varied sensibilities, whether that be the bass or the piano, the odd bit of fiddle or hammond organ. All put together and played excellently. A man clearly with alot jazz influences but with the piano throughout I did start comparing him a little to Billy Joel. However, I do think that even with the piano being to the fore with them both, I did think that BJ can be more varied and show more "grit"...

King Of The Hill, Preacher 1, Speaking Up For Boo Radley were the best I thought...and Line In The Dust from my first listen. Mostly liking the more up tempo tracks. I thought the Great Divide OK, but then was abit thrown by my hearing almost a "diddly dee" element to it, thinking , he had gone all Irish.

An interesting listen but I did think it started to become background music to me and was indeed struck by @Coatigan's comment about it being "Mostly Unoffensive".

Enjoyable, clearly a quality artist who knows what he is doing, but I did think it lacked some ooomph....and theres me the fucker that put up the Aphex Twin!

...and then of course there is the "looking for squirrels"...

And because it didnt grab me its a 6 from the Derry jury
 
Bruce Hornsby - Spirit Trail

First off, for full disclosure, I've not heard this album before despite being familiar with Bruce's first two albums as noted when I correctly guessed this week's selection. It was a great initial write-up by @RobMCFC, and probably better than the album itself for overall storytelling, which is indeed a big compliment.

After listening to both discs more than 4 times now, there are 3 things that stood out to me on this selection.

1. the lyrics - yes, probably the strong point of the album enjoyment for me was this aspect. The album deals with some heavy themes, including bigotry, religion, spirituality, and interesting characters that are morally conflicted in some way or another. However despite these heavy themes, the album is pretty upbeat and joyful (which is mostly due to the second positive listed below). The tracks I mostly enjoyed the lyrics to included "King of the Hill" (big boss man), "Preacher, Pts. 1&2" (the snake), "Sad Moon" (naked back), "Fortunate Son" (poor son of a gun), "Sneaking Up on.." (Boo), "Great Divide" (not just a 1998 theme), "Line In the Dust" (or maybe it was me?), "Sunlight Moon" (little ones can't hide their sorrow), "Listen To the Silence" (quiet time), and "Swan Song" (miss the times).

2. the piano (Disc 1) and synths (Disc 2) - without question Bruce's biggest draw is his abilities on the piano, and he shows this to great degree, especially on Song C and D, which were both favorites of mine. I did enjoy the change of pace with more of a synth influence in Disc 2, which I think was a welcome break to some of the songs on Disc 1 that I felt overstayed their duration with what appeared to me to be additional piano noodling, just for the sake of. I'm not complaining at all for listening to Disc 2, because I'm not sure I would have enjoyed it as much without the synth songs adding to the mostly piano-centric on the first.

3. the production - yes, as many have mentioned, this was a crisp, clear, and well heard and produced jazzy and R&B hard to pin down album

The Big Winner - to borrow a concept from our playlist thread, this had to be "Resting Place". The lyrics were fine enough here, but it was really the music that made this one shine. Being honest with myself, this would be the one song I'd like come back to repeatedly and an enjoyable listen from start to finish. The piano solo fills in well for the lack of where a guitar solo might go. No complaints here.

Other songs I enjoyed the most musically were "Preacher Pt. 2", "Songs C" and "D", "Line In The Dust", and "Swan Song". Bruce's vocals seemed like night (Pt. 1) and day (Pt. 2) on those two tracks. Maybe the slow tempo songs suit him better? (an honest question)

And for my next segment...
Mancitydoogle said:
I’m getting Pete Townsends ‘Let my love open the Door’ on ‘Shadow Hand’.
Click to expand...
Ok, I'm glad that wasn't just me hearing that hit me over the head on the beginning of that track. ;-)

"Song D"'s opening reminded me a bit of Vince Guaraldi from A Charlie Brown Christmas. "Sunlight Moon", and even "Swan Song" started off with which appeared to be more than similar nods to "The Way It Is". "Sneaking Up on Boo Radley" reminded me of a few tracks from the Firm Soundtrack, arranged and played by Dave Grusin. All piano virtuosos, along with Bruce.

This artist and album are unique, I will agree there. I think the biggest challenge to me was getting past the overly piano dominated music and some of the vocals, which were fine, but in most cases didn't move me like on his first 2 albums. I checked out the lyrics in depth in reviewing this, both knowing Bruce's reputation as a songwriter and as part of this. I'm not sure I'd be doing that based on the music alone on the majority of tracks where I'm complimenting the lyrics above in point 1. While I found the music fine, it mostly didn't move me save for the tracks I listed above. I was delving into the lyrics, but not because I loved the music.

For me, this overall is a 6.5/10 and after going back and listening to The Way It Is and Scenes From the Southside this week, I think his vocals just sounded better overall there. Even though his band "The Range" has that 80's dated sound, I felt the added instruments gave those albums a bit more variety than I was hearing (and admittedly missing) here. After hearing "Every Little Kiss" and "Mandolin Rain", I remembered why those and others originally stuck with me back then.

I can certainly understand why he's still a fan favorite and still making music to this day. I will see if I can catch him live should he be touring in the future. It's been a while there for me since Burruss Auditorium.
 
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Black&White&BlueMoon Town said:
Bruce Hornsby - Spirit Trail

First off, for full disclosure, I've not heard this album before despite being familiar with Bruce's first two albums as noted when I correctly guessed this week's selection. It was a great initial write-up by @RobMCFC, and probably better than the album itself for overall storytelling, which is indeed a big compliment.

After listening to both discs more than 4 times now, there are 3 things that stood out to me on this selection.

1. the lyrics - yes, probably the strong point of the album enjoyment for me was this aspect. The album deals with some heavy themes, including bigotry, religion, spirituality, and interesting characters that are morally conflicted in some way or another. However despite these heavy themes, the album is pretty upbeat and joyful (which is mostly due to the second positive listed below). The tracks I mostly enjoyed the lyrics to included "King of the Hill" (big boss man), "Preacher, Pts. 1&2" (the snake), "Sad Moon" (naked back), "Fortunate Son" (poor son of a gun), "Sneaking Up on.." (Boo), "Great Divide" (not just a 1998 theme), "Line In the Dust" (or maybe it was me?), "Sunlight Moon" (little ones can't hide their sorrow), "Listen To the Silence" (quiet time), and "Swan Song" (miss the times).

2. the piano (Disc 1) and synths (Disc 2) - without question Bruce's biggest draw is his abilities on the piano, and he shows this to great degree, especially on Song C and D, which were both favorites of mine. I did enjoy the change of pace with more of a synth influence in Disc 2, which I think was a welcome break to some of the songs on Disc 1 that I felt overstayed their duration with what appeared to me to be additional piano noodling, just for the sake of. I'm not complaining at all for listening to Disc 2, because I'm not sure I would have enjoyed it as much without the synth songs adding to the mostly piano-centric on the first.

3. the production - yes, as many have mentioned, this was a crisp, clear, and well heard and produced jazzy and R&B hard to pin down album

The Big Winner - to borrow a concept from our playlist thread, this had to be "Resting Place". The lyrics were fine enough here, but it was really the music that made this one shine. Being honest with myself, this would be the one song I'd like come back to repeatedly and an enjoyable listen from start to finish. The piano solo fills in well for the lack of where a guitar solo might go. No complaints here.

Other songs I enjoyed the most musically were "Preacher Pt. 2", "Songs C" and "D", "Line In The Dust", and "Swan Song". Bruce's vocals seemed like night (Pt. 1) and day (Pt. 2) on those two tracks. Maybe the slow tempo songs suit him better? (an honest question)

And for my next segment...

Ok, I'm glad that wasn't just me hearing that hit me over the head on the beginning of that track. ;-)

"Song D"'s opening reminded me a bit of Vince Guaraldi from A Charlie Brown Christmas. "Sunlight Moon", and even "Swan Song" started off with which appeared to be more than similar nods to "The Way It Is". "Sneaking Up on Boo Radley" reminded me of a few tracks from the Firm Soundtrack, arranged and played by Dave Grusin. All piano virtuosos, along with Bruce.

This artist and album are unique, I will agree there. I think the biggest challenge to me was getting past the overly piano dominated music and some of the vocals, which were fine, but in most cases didn't move me like on his first 2 albums. I checked out the lyrics in depth in reviewing this, both knowing Bruce's reputation as a songwriter and as part of this. I'm not sure I'd be doing that based on the music alone on the majority of tracks where I'm complimenting the lyrics above in point 1. While I found the music fine, it mostly didn't move me save for the tracks I listed above. I was delving into the lyrics, but not because I loved the music.

For me, this overall is a 6.5/10 and after going back and listening to The Way It Is and Scenes From the Southside this week, I think his vocals just sounded better overall there. Even though his band "The Range" has that 80's dated sound, I felt the added instruments gave those albums a bit more variety than I was hearing (and admittedly missing) here. After hearing "Every Little Kiss" and "Mandolin Rain", I remembered why those and others originally stuck with me back then.

I can certainly understand why he's still a fan favorite and still making music to this day. I will see if I can catch him live should he be touring in the future. It's been a while there for me since Burruss Auditorium.
Click to expand...
That's an excellent and well thought out review that I think hits the nail on the head on multiple points.

Despite owning the album for a quarter of a century, it was only when doing the background research for this week that I found out that this is in fact two albums in one: the first piano-centric, much of it recorded in New Orleans, and the second heavy on the synth, as you've pointed out.

The reason why this might not have been obvious to me was as mentioned in my initial review, the UK release was a single disk with the track order jumbled up, so it opened with "Line in the Dust" - I remember thinking that this sounds a little different for Bruce. (But if you are intrigued enough, not as different as the Big Swing face album, where he goes all hip-hop).

I also agree with what you say about his first two albums - I even made the same point in my write-up: these are my two favourite albums by him - great pop songs but with (a) a sprinkling of interesting stringed instruments (b) just a few songs where he puts in a lengthy piano solos. However, I specifically picked Spirit Trail because I think the production is better and I like the depth of sound that it provides.

I like extended instrumental pieces in music and miss them when they are not there - think "Comfortably Numb", which interestingly Bruce does a live version of mixed up with "Fortunate Son". It's just that in Bruces' case, the extended "guitar" solos are actually played on the piano - again as you pointed out in your review.
 
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