(TV) reviews

["Glenn Cooper" <glenncooper@austarnet.com.au>]

 http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/entertainment/music/14652891.htm
Tom Verlaine
Songs and Other Things and Around
Whether it was through the exemplary post-punk band Television or the less
definable instrumental outlines of his solo albums, Tom Verlaine has long
been a guitarist of almost limitless ingenuity.
Of late, though, Television has been turned on for infrequent overseas
reunions, and Verlaine's solo career seemingly evaporated. There was an
initial reawakening last year when he teamed with Patti Smith for a concert
re-creation of her seminal Horses album (subsequently released as a bonus
disc with the re-issued edition of the recording). Now Verlaine returns in
full with a delightfully schizophrenic view of his still keen musical
profile. In other words, his first album of new material in 14 years is, in
fact, two albums.
Songs and Other Things is full of fine, drizzly pop with vocals that recall
the hushed hostility of such contemporaries as Lloyd Cole. But the guitar
work is far more devilish. On Documentary, Verlaine enhances a Squeeze-style
pop melody with guitar accents that pop up like cloudbursts to rain on the
otherwise sunny soundscape. But on All Weirded Out, Verlaine summons a
looser, rootsier grind that lands the song somewhere between vintage Chuck
Prophet and present-day Ryan Adams.
Alone is the finer entry. An instrumental sampler, it delves into slow
moving trio settings inhabited by more subtle guitar hooks. They either
bounce about in spacious (and spacey) environments (as in the atmospheric
Shadow Walks Away) or adhere to light, propulsive and tastefully fractured
grooves (Balcony).
Though stylistic opponents, both albums speak with a rock voice that has been
tempered only slightly by the years. But such reserve can be deceptive. After
all, we're talking about a guitar sound still expansive enough to require two
albums to show it off properly.
--------------
To post: Mail tv@obbard.com
To unsubscribe: Mail majordomo@obbard.com with message "unsubscribe tv"