I always liked The Walkabouts for their own songs, and listening to their albums of covers didn't change my feelings. I feel satisfied with the way they treated all these songs. I hope you'll like them too.
Satisfied Mind [1993]
“Satisfied
Mind is a definitive artistic statement masquerading as a loose-knit collection
of acoustic covers. Sometimes a group's selection of cover material, combined
with their ability to make the songs their own, winds up revealing as much
about their craft as their original music, and such is the case here; mining
the work of diverse artists like the Carter Family, Gene Clark, Mary Margaret
O'Hara, John Cale, and Nick Cave, Satisfied Mind represents the purest
evocation to date of the Walkabouts' aesthetic and its standing at the
crossroads of country, rock, folk, and punk. By casting well-known songs in an
entirely new light -- Patti Smith's "Free Money" becomes an ominous
waltz, while Charlie Rich's "Feel Like Going Home" is renewed as an
epic dirge -- the album makes explicit all of the implicit connections in the
Walkabouts' work. By extension, it underlines the connections binding the
spectrum of roots music as well; Satisfied Mind doesn't simply suggest that
diverse sounds can coexist together -- it proves that they always have”. [Satisfied
Mind Review by Jason Ankeny /
allmusic.com]
The Train Leaves at Eight [2000]
The
Walkabouts' second collection of covers comes with a quite definite theme, a
musical tour of Europe, ranging from Greece in the South all the way up to
Norway. And it's most definitely a journey, one which suits the darker, more
introspective, and very literate nature of this Seattle band. But the ground
covered is more than geographic; not many bands could move from Greek icon
Mikis Theodorakis to Krautrockers Neu! on the same record. But the Walkabouts,
whose career has largely happened in Europe, handle it with aplomb, throwing up
plenty of changes in arrangements and working hard to penetrate to the core of
a song, even the enigmatic "Solex in a Slipshod Style," on the face
of it an odd choice, coming from Dutch sampling queen Solex. A few of the
writers might be familiar to Americans, like Jacques Brel and Scott Walker, but
the majority of the names will be unknown -- a good thing, since the music can
be judged on the interpretation, not the original version. A few famous
friends, like R.E.M.'s Peter Buck and Los Lobos sax man Steve Berlin add
contributions, but it's the band who make it special, with Carla Torgerson's
velvety voice caressing the lyrics while Chris Eckman worries his way into
others. It might not be the most relaxing journey on offer, but it's one of the
most rewarding, a night train across a Europe, not only through the countries, but
also the hearts, minds, and souls.
[Train Leaves at Eight Review by Chris Nickson / allmusic.com]