Well, for the first time in 4 years, Al and Paul have a new release on the same day. Of course this time they’re different albums. Plenty of things have been said about The Last Sucker, so I thought I’d throw out a review on Paul’s new release.
I’m not sure how readily available this album is, but I snatched mine up at Grimey’s, a cool local record store (remember those) here in town. They had about 10 copies in a fairly prominent place on their “new release” wall. Not sure if that’s because they’re somewhat of a local band, but nice to see nonetheless.
The cd itself comes in a digipack with a big fold-out poster inside. Credits are pretty much what I expected but with the addition of “programming” under Gary Call and Paul Barker. Big, close-up pictures of the band too.
None of the songs were totally new to me, as I’d seen them live a couple times already. About half of them were up on their myspace and fuzz.com pages as well. Even so, I really enjoy the polished versions on the album much better. The proper versions seem to have a lot more depth to them than the compressed, online ones. The ones I’d only heard live are worlds better. For those who saw the circulating live bootleg, try the album. The live versions were nice, but were pretty rough in comparison to he final product (it was their first show ever, after all…). The tracklist turned out to be 11 songs (only 10 of which were played at the first show).
- Dead Voices
- Autumn Flowers
- Blue Light
- Cruel Beauty
- Middletown
- Summer Endless Summer
- Forget Yourself
- Cab Ride
- Peculiar Thing
- Sugarwater
- Wasteland
Overall, they’ve got the same vibe as they did live. They really do remind me of some of the old Nashville bands from way back when (I got a bit of a Spider Virus feel from Forget Yourself. A couple parts remided me a bit of Floor.) Several of the tracks (Blue Light, Peculiar Thing) have really sweet keyboard bits that make them. Think some of the material on Dessau’s self-titled album from his sessions with Paul. Nothing special, just really well-placed accents that make things interesting. There’s a lot of Tomahawk in there too, but that’s because 1/3 of Tomahawk is in the band. For those who compared Gary to Mike Patton, I really don’t get that from the record at all. I think most of those comments came from the Duane/Patton connection and Gary’s animated stage performance. The voclas are much different. I’ve always found Patton’s stuff a bit ecclectic for my tastes. It all seems a bit too disjointed for me to really get into. Gary, on the other hand, seems to flow with well with the music. Some parts take some getting used to (like I wish he’d just belt out Sugarwater instead of starting with a low voice. I know they were going for a build up, but I think that one needed some more power behind the vocals). Others are simply great (Peculiar Thing does a wonderful build-up and has become one of my favorites).
For those who doubted Paul’s influence, he’s listed as producer, obviously did a bit of the programming and I’d swear he at least cowrote some of the lyrics. Sugarwater in particular seems right up his alley (The tale is slowly growing/Waive my hand and sprinkle fairy dust/Click my boot three times before going/These facts are tokens not to trust). Seems quite Barker-ish to me. (Not that the rest isn’t good as well. Blue Light and Peculiar Thing stand out as other favorites of mine.
