Album Review: Smog – Knock Knock

Bill Callahan again worked with Jim O’Rourke on this 1999 album. It’s more expansive and diverse than previous album Red Apple Falls, indeed almost poppy, though it features a downright odd picture of a cat on the front!

The album opens with a sparse simple track, Let’s Move To The Country, consisting of Bill Callahan singing over a cello and a barely strummed guitar, but he follows this up with guitar anthem Held, which contains a great riff and beat. River Guard is a somewhat lengthy track, starting with the merest of guitar strums, before a wonderful piano part enters the mix. It’s a beautiful melody which builds up with percussion and more piano, before a great electric guitar before the end and gripping images in the lyrics (“stand there on a cliff with gooseflesh”).

He completely changes the mood with the first of his experiments featuring a children’s choir, the throwaway No Dancing, to which he sees fit to add heavy guitar and horns. He called this his album for teenagers, though I can’t imagine this being a teen anthem, however singalong it is! Teenage Spaceship is another brooding track with more gorgeous piano, while Cold Blooded Old Times is another uptempo, poppy tune featuring “the type of memories that turn your bones to glass” over strummed guitar.

After the moody Sweet Treat, Hit The Ground Running is another track featuring the children’s choir over a Velvet Underground-ish groove while Bill Callahan drawls agreeably through the song. The final 2 tracks return to the default Smog setting of sparseness. The album is a bit all over the place so it’s not a good one in terms of setting a mood, but it is probably his most trademark album in terms of the ‘Smog sound’.

Album Review: Bill Callahan – Rough Travel for a Rare Thing

This is Bill Callahan’s first live album, and is released on vinyl or download only. So no CD. I’m not convinced of the merits of live albums, or downloads for that matter. However it’s a testament to my contrary nature that I purchased this download.

The music contained within is very strong for the most part, Callahan and his band play a tight set, with selections from the last Smog album – A River Ain’t Too Much To Love, and others reaching back as far as Wild Love. The concert took place before Callahan’s last album so nothing from that slab of genius in this set.

Our Anniversary opens the set, which is a strong song based on a repeating guitar pattern. The pace picks up with the toe-tapping Diamond Dancer, which takes a simple refrain and an acoustic guitar and combines them to great effect. Bowery is slower, building up gradually. Bill sounds in great voice here, and there’s something in the melody (and maybe in the lyrical content) that reminds me of Tom Waits.

There is a prominent fiddle right throughout this album which is something of an acquired taste, and it’s never more prominent than on Held. For anyone used to the original Smog version on Knock Knock this will take some getting used to as the electric guitar riff is replaced by the aforementioned droning fiddle.

More successful are some of the later tracks, like In The Pines (which sounds fuller than the original version), Cold-Blooded Old Times (with a touch of Gomez in the guitar riff!) and Rock Bottom Riser. The album finishes up with Bathysphere, which also works well in this context.
All in all it’s a nice-sounding album but inessential in my opinion.