Reviews you can use: Bye Bye Blackbirds, The Loud Family & Anton Barbeau, Hoodoo Gurus

In 2020, I admitted my naivety when I momentarily mistook The Bye Bye Blackbirds then most recent album, Boxer at Rest for their debut, when in actuality it had been preceded by three full lengths.  Chalk that up to Boxer being my first exposure to the band, as well as prime-mover Bradley Skaught, who seemingly wound up on everyone's radar overnight. Most notably, Skaught's plaintive songwriting chops belie an almost startling adeptness for arranging and honing songs, with equal measures of grit and polish, topped off with gallons of class, sans the sass. Rounded out to a six-piece for August Lightning Complex, the Blackbirds aren't ones for extremes. You won't find any full fledged "bangers" or even ballads amidst August's ten songs, nor are they wont to reign this affair in at a static or even keel. However, there are a few things here that pounce out at me like a savage, ravenous lion, namely "Mechanics," and "Favorite Stars," both par excellence, richly crafted bullseyes, situated in the vicinity of power pop, but not necessarily rooted there.  Also consider the more subdued "Something From the Old World" and the harmony-laced "We Got Lost" affording the band more flexibility. My only objection on August, is the meandering "Marching," which winds on for nine-plus minutes, and would be equally effective if edited to half that length.  

I'm tempted to say that Skaught and Co. are prodigiously enlightened...but who might those prodigies be?  It's immensely hard to quantify these things, but here goes. Tom Petty?  In all probability. Wilco?  Likely a coincidence.  Sloan?  Well, just refer to the aforementioned. "Mechanics," and "Favorite Stars." And much like Sloan, this combo play the 'meticulous' card to a fault without conveying themselves as the least bit forced. Not an easy task to pull off, yet it's wholly evident the Blackbirds are masters of this very tact. August... is one of those records where simplicity merges with sincerity, and begets a wellspring of rewards in the process. Grab a strike of the Lightning at Bandcamp or Amazon. 

If you were more or a casual Loud Family fan (admittedly like yours truly) this next one may have slipped past your radar. The Loud Family of course was the long running band fronted by the late Scott Miller, formally of seminal pop auteurs Game Theory, who I may have brought up once or twice on these pages. 2006 saw the release of What if It Works?, a collaboration between Miller and  singer/songwriter Anton Barbeau, which is being reissued by Omnivore next week with practically an album's worth of supplemental tracks. While the album itself was a one-off effort, the duo's association with each other dates back to a couple decades prior when Anton was introduced to Scott at a latter-era Game Theory gig in 1988. In the ensuing years the two hung out and performed at coffee house gigs around UC Davis and Sacramento, and eventually, the then-budding Anton presented a tape of songs to Scott he had been working on. Over the next fifteen years both Scott and Anton pursued their respective meal-tickets, the former with the Loud Family and Anton as a solo act, not to mention the proprietorship of his own label, Idiot Records. Nonetheless, Scott was tuned into what his soon-to-be partner was doing, and by the early '90s they dabbled in producing songs together, but the two weren't officially a "band," per se.

Scott had disbanded the Loud Family around 2000 and had largely walked away from pursuing music. At some point in the '00s, Scott's wife Kristine remarked about how well he and Anton sounded together, and that largely sparked the idea to make a record. Towing along former Loud Family alum Kenny Kessel and Jozef Becker, the combo went about recording What if it Works?  What was initially slated to be an EP snowballed into a full length, and not merely a footnote either. Scott is the slightly dominant songwriter here with both trading off on vocals. While the Loud Family dealt in elaborate and challenging arrangements, the Miller/Anton collaboration boasted a looser and more casual bent. In fact, What If's opening salvo is their interpretation of the Stones "Rocks Off," and a raging one at that.  It's immediately followed up by "Song About "Rocks Off," which ironically isn't as much of a response to the tune in question as it's title suggests. It's a great song in it's own right, and is one of the most effective things Miller penned since his tenure in Game Theory.  Following this is Anton's own excellent "Pop Song 99" which bears the unmistakable gait and tincture of early Game Theory, circa Blaze of Glory.  Scott's trademark lyrical charms and melodic agility on "Total Mass Destruction" and "Mavis of Maybelline Towers," are compelling as ever. Hard to believe he was semi-retired from music at the time! Anton's "Flow Thee Water" and the album's uptempo title track are equally satisfying and showcase his ongoing progression as a slightly off-center pop scribe, akin to Scott Miller himself.  Along the way they also indulge in a cover of Cat Steven's "I Think I See the Light."

As mentioned before, there's a huge clutch of bonus swag on this reissue, including a couple of fine Anton-penned outtakes, "Third Eye" and "Little Daisy," along with early prototypes of roughly half of the record. And don't get me started on Anton's gritty, Stooges-esque "I Wanna Make You Come Just By Looking at Your Eye."  What if It Works? will be available March 25 direct from Omnivore, Amazon, and hopefully your local music vendors.

What can I say?  With a tenure of over forty years, The Hoodoo Gurus simply will not die. Granted, they've been together intermittently of late, with their last album Purity of Essence having dropped in 2010, but not only are they still in existence, they've retained 75% percent of their original 1981 lineup (Dave Faulkner: vox/guitars, Brad Shepherd: guitars, Richard Grossman: bass)!  Purloining elements of garage rock and punk, with neither of those genres ever quite dominating, these Aussie vets are virulent rockers to the core who've never lost their ethos or sardonic bite. Their latest, Chariot of the Gods, their tenth studio effort overall, is for better or worse not a return to their nascent sonic forte, the kind that engendered global fandom with records like Stoneage Romeos, Mars Needs Guitars, etc... Heck, at times Chariot barely resembles 1991's Kinky.  That said they're back with 13 or 16 fresh songs (quantity dependent on your format of choice) and if your an established customer it's time to break out your Mastercard.

There are some honest to goodness corkers here - "World of Pain," "Hang With the Girls," and "Don't Try to Save My Soul," all of which are plenty taut and potent, still bearing much of their eminently powerful sound of yore without resorting to a outright throwback. Conversely there's a slew of linear, yet relatively uncharacteristic numbers hitching a ride on this Chariot. "Get Out of Dodge" "Settle Down" and "Carry On" skew close to power pop, but the comparatively tranquil "Was I Supposed to Care" and the Lou Reed-indebted "Got to Get You Out of My Life," suggest what a Dave Faulkner solo record might culminate in. Chariot of the Gods is one of the most varied albums in the Guru's voluminous canon, and while not necessarily representative of past triumphs, it's a testament to their sheer longevity not to mention capabilities. If you're brand new to these guys, a good jumping off point might be a best-of collection, or better yet, Blow Your Cool or Mars Needs Guitars, before sinking your teeth full bore into Chariot. The vinyl variant of the album features three bonus tunes, and is available from their website. Finally, the band is touring Australia in early April, and are playing two shows in the States later in the month in Nashville and Philadelphia!

 Watch this space for additional record critiques to come this weekend.