Banjo, fiddle, accordion, guitar. You guessed it, you’re listening to the new release from ex-Grant-Lee Buffalo frontman, Grant-Lee Phillips, the follow-up to 2001’s equally ratable solo album, ‘Mobilize’.
A bit of a slow-burner, but I bet that if you decided to put this on your stereo in place of your standard issue for a-quiet-night in Norah Jones LP, you certainly wouldn’t be retching with the same slippery ease by the end of the evening. If it was a film, this would Kevin Spacey’s ‘Shipping News’ as opposed to your typical ‘X-Men II’. If it was a beverage, it would be single measure of a 25 year old single-malt. In a nutshell, it’s something to mull over and savour. It’s not high impact, it’s not immediate but as you sink back into your armchair with the sound down on your Sky channel, you’ll be overcome with a smooth and mellow calm.
Gravelly-voiced sepia standouts on the album include the mildly shivering ‘Mona Lisa’, the frisky, svelte and joyful, ‘Lily-A-Passion’ (replete with clanking Elvis Costello pianos), the gentle and consoling, ‘Always Friends’, the bluesy storyville narratives of the Tom Waits weighted ‘Susanna Little’, and the rasping blue collar hoedown that is ‘Calamity Jane’.
With contributions from the ever-eccentric writer, producer and multi-instrumentalist, Jon Brion, it’s an album that’s not short of ideas and devilish sweet trickery. And with stories and characters as skilfully defined here, you’re likely to be trading in your Sky TV for a Grant-Lee back-catalogue within no time at all.
Pure class. And as my dad would say, they can all play their instruments too.