Motorbike
(Wool Recordings/Ungawa)
Rating: 2.4 of 5
Singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Luther Russell has been running it up the flagpole for over a decade; coughing up convincing renditions of funk-rock, Americana, and acoustic folk-blues on an array of sporadic releases. You may have heard him shifting between the vocal stylings of Elvis Costello on last year’s single “Good Music” and Chris Bell, at times, heard on 2007’s Repair. Russell’s genre-twitching woolgathering continues on this precursor to the forthcoming LP, released by Wool Recordings.
You can’t help but notice the overwhelming kinship in sound to Either/Or-era Elliott Smith on the title track, “Motorbike”. Owing thanks to the wonderful quality of analog tape, it is from the hook-laden affect of this opener that the record is layed out.
The collage continues to unfold with an endearing ode to John Fahey (even in name) on the excerpt, “Dead Sun Blues”. “Et Al”, the other ditty here, is a tad more intriguing. It starts off with a haunting piano line, but then strums sweetly with some added on-melody murmuring.
The secondmost-realized composition on Motorbike is the poppy “Tomorrow’s Papers” with its chiming Teenage Fanclub drive. The shakedown blues of “A World Unknown” features a simple marriage of drums and slide guitar. While it is a fun little get-up, the song slouches and drags in its continuance. Actually, many of the tracks here reach a plateau in design. Album closer “Somehow or Another”, for example, has Russell exercising a completely different vocalization. His ruminations, however, pan out annoyingly—suffering from the usual lack of anything going on, lyrically.
In short, Russell could have done more to fortify the eponymic first selection on this EP. He has surely hoisted another colorful banner, but the salutes may not come his way.
Motorbike - Luther Russell
The review posted on ZapTown
ZapTown home page
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment