Dallas band Old 97s is back with Graveyard Whistling (ATO Records), the followup to 2014's Most Messed Up, which rocked like crazy. Overall, Graveyard Whistling is focused and less self-consciously crazed. More song oriented, in other words, with a surplus of well-crafted material, from "Turns Out I'm Trouble" to "Jesus Loves You." Another impressive outing from Rhett Miller and band, who have been together for X amount of years without personnel changes. Keeping those egos in check, baby!
Canadian group the Sadies got me through some low moments in 2010 when I lost my job (as well as my mother) and their new Northern Passages (Yep Roc) finds them in first rate form, as dynamic as ever. They move from ethereal to explosive in just a breath, especially in "Questions I've Never Asked." "It's Easy (Like Walking)" features alt-psych guest Kurt Vile, but they really don't need him. There's something about the Sadies' hard rock meets jangly guitars (say, early Blue Oyster Cult meets the Byrds) that defies descriptive language, yet I find it most moving, as the best performances here are incandescent.
2016--Short Version
Anyway, two faves from 2016 (more to come):
Alejandro Escovedo--Burn Something Beautiful (Fantasy): My favorite album of last year, as it neatly combined that characteristic Escovedo type of aching with drama and pure joy, sometimes in the same song. In "Farewell to the Good Times," Escovedo provides a striking contrast between the soaring chord changes and sadness so many of us feel in this backward era, while "Redemption Blues" is loaded with edginess perfectly brought out by producers Scott McCaughey (Young Fresh Fellows, R.E.M.) and the latter band's Peter Buck.
Suzanne Vega--Lover, Beloved: Songs from an Evening with Carson McCullers (Amanuensis Productions): Vega's been doing these songs onstage for quite a few years and finally recorded them. They echo the troubled life of author McCullers (1917-1967), whose photo reminds me of a family member, staring at me while I'm working at the library. McCullers wrote about misfits and outsiders; she found a colleague in Tennessee Williams, and a doubter in Flannery O'Connor, who said of the writer's Clock Without Hands, "I believe this is the worst book I've ever read." Vega's subdued, steely approach to tracks like "New York Is My Destination" and "Instant of the Hour After" provide an appropriate distance from what could have been a project that assumed too much about its subject. I was rather neutral about Lover, Beloved the first time through but it didn't take long to spin it again--and again.