(Click picture for complete series album listing, and sample tracks)
I wasn't looking forward to writing about this particular record. It's mainly because I flat out hated one of the tracks, and I didn't want to turn this site into an overly-negative one. It's a very slippery slope from a flat-out negative review to one of those sites that just picks on everything bad, depending on bad humor (saying "fucking" every other word seems to be the flavor of the month for negative reviewers these days) to entertain. But, I promised to do the series, and I'll try to keep this as classy as is possible.
That said, I completely pretty much hate Andrew Jackson Jihad's cover of "Two-Headed Boy" by Neutral Milk Hotel (the original is definitely a solid runner for mypersonal favorite song of all time). The first few seconds are promising, with the acoustic guitar player changing the indie-folk sound of the original into an up-beat Spanish folk style. It eventually culminates into a very pretty bowed-bass/finger-strummed acoustic piece at the end that sounds quite good. The instrumentals though, are the only real compliment I can pay to the cover.
The song goes completely downhill once the vocals start in, and the annoyance is almost immediate. Sean Bonnette immediately makes me grind my teeth with his goofy-sounding vocals. It seems more like he's mocking the song than paying tribute to it, turning what was once a beautiful, somber folk ballad into something resembling one of Weird Al's famous "polkazations" of famous songs. It's gotten to the point where the second Bonnette first wails out "I am listening to hear where you are," I shut the sung off, just to get away from the grating vocal tracks and regular heavy breaths between notes. What makes it even worse is Bonnette's insistence on using that obnoxious technique to hide bad singing by throwing a tremolo on nearly every held note, to keep from having to hold an off-key/off-pitch note for very long. Jeff Mangum never used this technique, and even he had a terrible time keeping pitch on some notes in the original recording, but the mistake was slight and endearing enough to actually make the song have a very pretty sound. What's even worse is that they decided that one bad vocal track wasn't enough, so they tossed another vocal track in the background, this time instead of being a goofy, off-key wail-fest, it's a mumbling off-key snoozer. So now we have two tracks by the same singer that are so off the intended notes that they sound awful together. What a mess.
I'm not sure if Andrew Jackson Jihad's song lowered my expectations, or it stole any real bile reserved for the whole record completely for itself, because I really like Cobra Skulls' cover of Bob Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues", another personal favorite tune of mine. I was apprehensive going in, I'll admit. How many Bob Dylan covers have been recorded versus how many of them that have actually been of good quality? Usually with Dylan covers, people feel it necessary to croon out the song to make up for Bob's lack of vocal prowess on the original recording, coming off as sort of an insult to try to out-sing the man by so much. Cobra Skulls actually did the complete opposite, opting for a sped-up rockabilly dance version of the classic. It holds up surprisingly well, sounding like they're channeling Bob Dylan vis a vis Mojo Nixon. There's no flair or extra tracks, or anything that makes the song feel like anything but a bunch of kids laying tribute to the man. It's high-energy, fun, and well-played by the vocals and instruments. The only heavy criticism I could find for it is that it could have benefited from a slight tempo decrease. Some of the vocals and instrumentals sound a little rushed and a few extra seconds could have cut out a few gasps for air from the vocalist, and allowed the guitar to hold out a few more of the cool-sounding fills and solos.
Even with The Cobra Skulls nearly redeeming Andrew Jackson Jihad's sloppy track, it's hard to recommend this record. Even though the Skulls pulled out a good show, it's far from a moving tribute, or a great companion to the original "Homesick." AJJ fans might find a listen, but Neutral Milk Hotel fans would probably be offended by the messy cover, while Dylan and Cobra fans might find some slight entertainment. Mitch Clem/Amanda fans have probably already ordered the track, as the cover art for the Skulls is pretty awesome (Again making up for Jihad's pretty dumb-looking cover art). If I could really pull out a solid musical recommendation out of this mess, it would be to give The Cobra Skulls' original work a good listen. They have some great original music to their name, and are a good fit for rockabilly fans looking for some fun.
No comments:
Post a Comment