Album review: Alejandro Escovedo, 'Street Songs of Love'
3 stars (out of 4)
Talk about late bloomers. Alejendro Escovedo is a much-admired Texas-based rocker who has been around since the late ‘70s. But only in the last two years has he seen a significant uptick in his mainstream recognition, thanks to a number of high-profile endorsements, most notably the embrace of Bruce Springsteen and his management team.
The marketing buzz has been accompanied by two of the most straight-forward and instantly accessible albums of Escovedo’s long career, “Real Animal” in 2008 and, on Tuesday, “Street Songs of Love” (Concord Music).
Escovedo started out in the ‘70s as a would-be filmmaker who found himself in one of America’s first punk bands, the San Francisco-based Nuns, opening act for the Sex Pistols’ final concert. From there he went on to cofound two great but ill-fated ‘80s bands, Rank and File and the True Believers, then settled into the Austin, Texas, singer-songwriter scene, where he’s been a fixture for the last two decades.
Along the way he’s accumulated numerous high-profile fans – John Cale, Ian Hunter, Springsteen -- fond of the way he blends his literate, lacerating lyrics into a stew of garage rock, folk, glam, punk and even avant-classical (Escovedo’s had a few excellent string sections in his past). Then came “Real Animal,” the feistiest rock album of his solo career, produced by Tony Visconti, who has worked with David Bowie and T Rex.
If “Real Animal” put Escovedo back in close touch with his hardest-edged ‘70s influences (Iggy Pop, Johnny Thunders, Lou Reed), “Street Songs of Love” is even more stripped down and hard-hitting. Recorded with Escovedo’s four-piece road band, the album is heavy on big guitars and big choruses. His lyrics strive for grand, universal statements about the most universal, if also most elusive, emotion. They teeter between flashes of the poetic and the generic, sometimes within the same song. These songs don’t call for insight, they demand boldness.
What makes it work is the sheer exuberance of the performances, the roar coming from the speakers. This is an album about the heart, but it hits below the belt – it wants to make you move. Escovedo and the band throw themselves into the melodies, and Visconti nails the details: the hand-claps in “This Bed is Getting Crowded,” the visceral impact of the booming back beats and subterranean bass on “Tender Heart,” the way Escovedo shouts, “C’mon, fool me!” before the guitar solo in “Silver Cloud.”
After all the bravado, the instrumental “Fort Worth Blue” brings it all home with a lovely, melancholy shimmer. Coming after understated cameos by Springsteen and Hunter, “Fort Worth Blue” puts the focus back where it should be: on a road-tested band that kicks out the jams and then closes down the bar.
greg@gregkot.com
Sponsored Link: Amazon's Alejandro Escovedo Store
Talk about late bloomers. Alejendro Escovedo is a much-admired Texas-based rocker who has been around since the late ‘70s. But only in the last two years has he seen a significant uptick in his mainstream recognition, thanks to a number of high-profile endorsements, most notably the embrace of Bruce Springsteen and his management team.
The marketing buzz has been accompanied by two of the most straight-forward and instantly accessible albums of Escovedo’s long career, “Real Animal” in 2008 and, on Tuesday, “Street Songs of Love” (Concord Music).
Escovedo started out in the ‘70s as a would-be filmmaker who found himself in one of America’s first punk bands, the San Francisco-based Nuns, opening act for the Sex Pistols’ final concert. From there he went on to cofound two great but ill-fated ‘80s bands, Rank and File and the True Believers, then settled into the Austin, Texas, singer-songwriter scene, where he’s been a fixture for the last two decades.
Along the way he’s accumulated numerous high-profile fans – John Cale, Ian Hunter, Springsteen -- fond of the way he blends his literate, lacerating lyrics into a stew of garage rock, folk, glam, punk and even avant-classical (Escovedo’s had a few excellent string sections in his past). Then came “Real Animal,” the feistiest rock album of his solo career, produced by Tony Visconti, who has worked with David Bowie and T Rex.
If “Real Animal” put Escovedo back in close touch with his hardest-edged ‘70s influences (Iggy Pop, Johnny Thunders, Lou Reed), “Street Songs of Love” is even more stripped down and hard-hitting. Recorded with Escovedo’s four-piece road band, the album is heavy on big guitars and big choruses. His lyrics strive for grand, universal statements about the most universal, if also most elusive, emotion. They teeter between flashes of the poetic and the generic, sometimes within the same song. These songs don’t call for insight, they demand boldness.
What makes it work is the sheer exuberance of the performances, the roar coming from the speakers. This is an album about the heart, but it hits below the belt – it wants to make you move. Escovedo and the band throw themselves into the melodies, and Visconti nails the details: the hand-claps in “This Bed is Getting Crowded,” the visceral impact of the booming back beats and subterranean bass on “Tender Heart,” the way Escovedo shouts, “C’mon, fool me!” before the guitar solo in “Silver Cloud.”
After all the bravado, the instrumental “Fort Worth Blue” brings it all home with a lovely, melancholy shimmer. Coming after understated cameos by Springsteen and Hunter, “Fort Worth Blue” puts the focus back where it should be: on a road-tested band that kicks out the jams and then closes down the bar.
greg@gregkot.com
Sponsored Link: Amazon's Alejandro Escovedo Store