This is Caleb’s fourth album now and he’s just getting better and better, shedding the dense, chameleon-like concepts of “Mother Stone” and the freaked out psyche of “Gadzooks”, and adding a kind of Syd Barrett does Nirvana. Don’t get me wrong he’s still very strange, and is all the better for it. Take “Too Sharp to be My Carrot”, which half way through shifts a woozy gear and approximates the restless discordant shapes of The Kinks‘ “Lazy Old Sun” before chugging into Grandaddy territory, declaiming ‘what’s next is and what’s next is and was’.
“The Moonkey Light” , all one minute of it, comes across like a tin can buzzing version of Mr. Bungle, whereas “Spot A Fly” borrows the heavy strings of early ELO, laying on more heaviness with the repeated phrase of ‘to die alone with you, lightening this heady mixture with tinkling piano’s and jaunty riffs. “Your Favourite Song” (and it quite possibly will be) is full of head nodding grooves, caressed by big brass stabs and strings curling to the sky, all describing a world where ‘your eyes sing’. With this album Caleb has concentrated on songs that can more easily be played live, as he gears up for possible future shows, having already played SXSW earlier in the year, and one can sense this in the arrangements, which have been made slightly less dense and uncomplicated. “Masandoia” for example, with its beautiful string arrangements and rolling drum fills is perfect for one of those thrilling live moments, especially as he ends by singing the line ‘everything first must be heard for it to manifest’. “He Sued His Wife”, despite the tongue clearly being in his cheek, strays a little too far into yee-ha country for my liking, although I can appreciate the humour of lines like ‘she had the duck bill replaced last Jan’ while telling the story of a man who sued his wife for giving birth to pigs and frogs. The start of “Pageant Thieves” bears a strong resemblance to Lou Reed doing his best Bob Dylan, with the “Waiting For The Man” piano strides, but then turns into…what the hell does it turn into? sort of maybe Mott The Hoople at a shindig quoting Bowie‘s “Queen Bitch”.
I feel I’ve given myself an impossible task attempting to describe this beautiful mess. I imagine Caleb himself has a hard time with that question too. As he says himself ‘it’s not for me to say what it is/I’m only here to give it up’. Even though this is possibly his most accessible album so far (whatever that means) it’s still impossible to explain its dark yet dazzlingly strange brilliance. In many respects it’s like trying to describe a band like Cardiacs, who were often so dense with overlapping influences and ideas that it becomes a thing in and of itself. Caleb has created a world that he allows you to visit from time to time, and it is a world that will never fail to amaze, like the original Charlie & the Chocolate Factory film, or The Wizard of Oz, filled with wonder and absurdity, happiness and fear.
In reading the press blurb for this album one word rings out and that is kaleidoscopic. If they ever do a best of compilation it’ll be titled The Kaleidoscopic World of Caleb Landry Jones
| Caleb Landry Jones |
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