Music Review - Steve Taylor - Wow to the Deadness

Steve Taylor is ON FIRE!
Steve Taylor & The Perfect Foils Goliath is the best album I’ve heard in the last eighteen-odd months. It rocks hard, in a rootsy way, but with enough wit, creativity and soul that I’ve yet to grow tired of it. The album was crowd-funded and fans waited patiently for over a year after the funding goal was obliterated. On top of this it took twenty years for Steve to get around to making this album so I wasn’t expecting anything new this decade. Always expect the unexpected. Apparently Steve and his Foil met with the legendary Steve Albini to lay down six new songs. And to up the “unexpected” ante they added a new member, the bewildering Daniel Smith, a.k.a. Danielson, a.k.a. the guy who discovered Sufjan Stevens.

If you’ve ever heard the plucky music of Danielson then imagine that with an inventive “always in the pocket” hard rock band instead of his usual approximately-played quasi-acoustic backing. This holds true for half the songs. “Wait Up Downstep” starts with a quirky Danielson-rhythm played on acoustic guitar before power chords occasionally punctuate the bridge with Taylor singing. The low key “Nonchalant” seethes with rumbling distorted guitars and Taylor handling lead vocals with Mr. Smith throwing in a squeaky “HEY!” at the most perfect of times before John Mark Painter adds even more grit compliments of a baritone saxophone. “Drats” begins with Danielson singing in his trademark muppet-like voice (seriously, it’s like if Beaker could sing, but in a good way) against acoustic guitar before the band once again hijacks the song with a surging wave of thundering guitars and pounding drums. More bari sax is found on the title track, which is more of a traditional rock song, although one with hand claps and some un-tuned glockenspiel thing that magically fits perfectly in the mix. “Dust Patrol” is pure punk energy and features some of the most ragged and ratty guitars put to analog tape, at least until the bridge when everyone has a seat while Danielson is accompanied by Mexican horns and possibly a mandolin. “A Muse” quietly opens with the lyrics “I wasn’t out late / I barely had anything / Why do you act like you even care?” before lashing out into a soulful, powerful and angry chorus, backing down in the next verse with “That came out harsher / Than when I rehearsed it.” Blistering.

Wow To The Deadness completely blew away my expectations, which wasn’t difficult because I wasn’t expecting anything. However it is a worthy successor to Goliath with its peculiar, punchy melodic rock that leaves a pleasant yet puzzled smile on your face.

Music Review - Steve Taylor & The Perfect Foil - Goliath

It's almost a year since I wrote this review and I'm still jamming to this one. This is one amazing album. At first blush it seems like simple heavy roots rock but there's so much beneath the surface. Which is to say that it's simple enough for the average radio listener and complex enough for the die-hard headphone-wearing audiophile. A pefect ten... maybe an 11.

Way back in 1987 Steve Taylor wrote and directed a video for nearly every song on his I Predict 1990 album. It was obvious that filmmaking was in his blood so it was no surprise in 1993 when he announced that he would no longer be making albums but would instead focus on videos for other bands and making a feature film. That film ended up being Blue Like Jazz and it came out in 2012. That’s a big project. So what to do after completing a massive long-term goal? Why not grab some music veteran pals and make an album? And why not tap into your enthusiastic fan base via Kickstarter and exceed your goal three times over? But first you have to stop by the DMV (Department of Music Veterans) and renew your license to rock (search “Steve Taylor DMV” on YouTube for one of the most clever and humorous videos I’ve seen in a long time.)

Could any album be worth a wait of over two decades? Probably not. Chinese Democracy certainly wasn’t. Fortunately I am relieved and pleased to announce that this new album, Goliath, is crazy good from start to finish, easily one of the best I’ve heard this year. The first few listens, though, left me lukewarm. The songs seemed overly simple and none of Taylor’s usually satirical lyrics caught my ear. But then it happened. The song was “Moonshot”, which starts airy and modest, just vocals and clean guitar, when all of a sudden a big furry bass dive bombs in and turns the entire song into a funky retro swagger (think Spoon). It was then that I started to realize how incredibly well recorded everything was, albeit somewhat dry which only lends to its aggressiveness, and I started to hear all kinds of nuances supporting but never distracting from what I first thought were simple songs. For instance, the guitar which opens “In Layers” is sublimely ratty with the (likely vintage, not modeled) amplifier on the verge of falling apart. This killer song sports its own heavy, dirty groove, helped along by judicious use of horns, redefining the term “blistering.” I was firmly in the grip of the Tom Petty-esque “Double Negative” when I realized who I was dealing with. Guitarist Jimmy Abegg has “played the big rooms” since before I learned how to type and drummer Peter Furler is known in some circles as “OHMYGOSH-ITSPETERFURLER!”, drummer, lead singer, songwriter and founder of Christian music’s Newsboys. And then there’s John Mark Painter. Don’t be fooled because this man is “just” playing the bass. This is the guy behind the orchestrations of early Ben Folds Five albums. Oh yeah, he’s also a multi-instrumentalist (those horns don’t play themselves), composer and studio guru, to name just a few of his accomplishments. How can an album sound simultaneously trashy and crystal clear? Only Mr. Painter knows…

Aside from the three mentioned above, it’s difficult to pick out favorites on this album. The album rips to life with “Only A Ride”, each song hitting hard in their self-described “rock, but in an indie-alternative kind of way”, slipping in shards of humor and often marinating in a funky groove reminiscent of 70s-era Rolling Stones, not letting up until track ten, the contemplative “A Life Preserved”. But look at me, prattling on and on about the music and leaving the crafty lyrics in the cold. Well how about “The saints came marching in this morning / And they marched right out the door / Wholly offended / No pun intended.” This is from “Comedian”, a song which hipsters might say has much in common with The National but to me it sounds like a perfect Steve Taylor closing song, opening quietly with piano, a touch of cello and timpani, and blazing to life halfway through with a wall of distorted guitars and hissing cymbals.

It’s a shame that Goliath came out in November because it’s raucous, raw songs are perfect for blasting from a car with the windows rolled down. Fortunately it’s good enough that I’m certain this high-energy album will still be on my MP3 player in spring.

Classic Album Review - Steve Taylor - I Predict 1990

I Predict 1990 was one of the first Christian albums I owned, definitely one of the first ten. God’s hand was most certainly a part of this. The music was quirky, intelligent, varied, humorous and just plain good. This album soaked into my thirsty brain, probably causing irreparable damage and if that Steve Taylor had any money I’d sue the pants off him. But instead I’ll give it another listen. Or watch. The album came with a video album with a video for almost every song. He ran out of money before he ran out of songs. I should dig out that VHS tape and … wait… it’s probably all on YouTube!

Anyway, the album starts with “I Blew up the Clinic Real Good”, a saxophone-packed rocker about an ice cream truck driver that blows up abortion clinics so that we won’t run out of “youngsters” so he won’t be out of a job. During the late 80s there were some big fights about abortion in evangelical Christianity and this song hit hard. Now the sub-culture has, for the most part, come to terms with this atrocity, this plank-eye unfortunately included. “What Is The Measure of Your Success?” is another hard hitter, a kind of whispy rocker with an amazing bass line and 80s synth tones. Speaking of synthesizers, while present on the album this is definitely a guitar rock album with touches of keyboards, unlike Taylor’s earlier albums which were much more synth-heavy. “Since I Gave Up Hope I Feel A Lot Better” was one of my favorites. It’s got a great bass line, a kind of frantic, tumbling feel, steel drums (probably fake) and a crazy fiddle going completely insane. The lyrics hit home because I was just heading off into the belly of the beast: a secular university. The video was of Taylor walking around with multiple cameras on sticks strapped to himself so that he was captured by a dozen angles. These were all smashed together somehow. See for yourself! Okay, so maybe there were only four cameras but in the late 80s it seemed like a dozen.

After three scorchers they show things down with “Babylon.” This one was never a favorite but it’s got plenty of 80s atmosphere and some gosh darned good lyrics. “Jim Morrison’s Grave” is another killer track, taking a critical view of our hero worship with lyrics of “I get weary, Lord I don't understand / How a seed get strangled in the heart of a man / While the music covers like an evening mist / Like a watch still ticking on a dead man's wrist / Tick away.” “Svengali” features another nervous rhythm, saxophones, and quite a bit of that late 80s vibe. Don’t get me wrong, it still sounds good, though. “Jung and the Restless” was just okay with a funny spoken word bit in the middle and subdued electric guitars elsewhere. “Innocence Lost” had more sax (oh yeah… the era!) and a spacious, slightly creepy while “A Principled Man” merges in Celtic influences, urging, challenging and encouraging the listener to stand up for your beliefs. The final track, “Harder To Believe Than Not To,” is one of the best. Opening with operatic vocals singing a line by Rachmaninoff (who the liner notes credit to something like “I’d dead so I can sue you”, even though by the time his widow would probably have had recourse) this fragile song of shimmering strings and flutes is completely unlike anything else on the album. It’s pretty much unlike any other song I’ve heard, chamber music of a sort, I suppose. This song was a great encouragement to my early years, warning against those who “tossed away the cloak that [they] should have mended.” I Predict 1990 is an album that is greater than the sum of its parts, arriving in my life with exactly what I needed at exactly the right time. Thanks, Steve!