Tuesday, December 28, 2021

Tuesday's For Covers #09a : The Walkabouts ... cover statements!!

 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]
 
 
 

 

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