Adrian Crowley – The Birdwatchers – EP Review

 Review for www.nomoreworkhorse.com 

Leonard Cohen: A Reflection

Article for www.nomoreworkhorse.com

https://nomoreworkhorse.com/2016/11/12/leonard-cohen-a-reflection/

Leonard Cohen – You Want It Darker – Album Review

Review for www.nomoreworkhorse.com

https://nomoreworkhorse.com/2016/10/25/leonard-cohen-you-want-it-darker-album-review/

Most-read articles in 2014

Here are the most-read articles on Sacred Cowpats in 2014:

10. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Abattoir Blues

http://sacredcowpats.blogspot.ie/2014/03/album-review-nick-cave-and-bad-seeds.html

One half of Cave and co's 2004 set of albums, reviewed for your delectation

8. Juliana Hatfield - Only Everything

http://sacredcowpats.blogspot.ie/2014/08/album-review-juliana-hatfield-only.html

Hatfield's underrated follow-up to Become What You Are jointly with...

8. The Lemonheads - Car Button Cloth

http://sacredcowpats.blogspot.ie/2014/06/album-review-lemonheads-car-button-cloth.html

This Lemonheads album is a bit all over the shop, but when it works... (a bit like the band really)

7. Mark Eitzel - 60 Watt Silver Lining

http://sacredcowpats.blogspot.ie/2014/07/album-review-mark-eitzel-60-watt-silver.html

Eitzel does smooth, wine bar jazz.  You know it couldn't last.

6. Leonard Cohen - I'm Your Man

http://sacredcowpats.blogspot.ie/2014/07/album-review-leonard-cohen-im-your-man.html

An oldie but a goodie.  The album too.

5. Top albums of 2014

http://sacredcowpats.blogspot.ie/2014/12/top-10-albums-of-2014.html

One of the many broken-hearted lists of the year.

4. The Jesus and Mary Chain - The Power of Negative Thinking

http://sacredcowpats.blogspot.ie/2014/04/album-review-jesus-and-mary-chain-power.html

More Jesus and Mary Chain B-sides than any normal person could possibly deal with.

3. Tom Waits - Swordfishtrombones

http://sacredcowpats.blogspot.ie/2014/08/album-review-tom-waits.html

Inscrutable, uncategorisable Tom Waits

2. The Durutti Column - Short Stories For Pauline

http://sacredcowpats.blogspot.ie/2014/05/album-review-durutti-column-short.html

Exquisite guitar goodness from Vini Reilly.

1. A Winged Victory for the Sullen - Atomos VII

http://www.meg.ie/a-winged-victory-for-the-sullen-atomos-vii-ep/

Transcendent EP teaser for the full album.

Album review: Leonard Cohen | Popular Problems

Review for www.meg.ie

http://www.meg.ie/album-review-leonard-cohen-popular-problems/

Album Review: Leonard Cohen - I'm Your Man

Ok this is an interesting one.  Leonard Cohen's eighth album, released in 1988, features some of the worst late 80s synth pop production.  Yet it's one I return to over and over.  Well, six of the 8 songs anyway.  What of the other 2?  Ain't No Cure For Love is merely an easy-listening ballad introduced by a fairly cheesy saxophone.  But Jazz Police is something else.  Clattering synths duel with drum machines, supported by syrupy backing vocals to produce a song you'll only want to hear once.

Thankfully the other six tracks are the real deal.  First We Take Manhattan overcomes the production with a marvellous melody and vocal from Cohen.  The lyrics are full of longing and loss: "I don't like these drugs that keep you thin, I don't like what happened to my sister" and later "remember me I used to live for music" with a delivery that is weary and wise.  Everybody Knows has an Eastern European sounding melody and works well, while the title track staggers in on a playful lolloping beat as Cohen plays lounge lizard to perfection.

Take This Waltz is a downright pretty waltz but it's the final two tracks that see Leonard Cohen at his most wryly reflective.  I Can't Forget  overcomes an eighties Stevie Wonder beat helped by a Sneaky Peter Kleinow playing a gentle steel guitar and some great lyrics: "I stumbled out of bed, I got ready for the struggle... I said this can't be me, must be my double, and I can't forget... but I don't remember what"(!). A soothing bed of percussion and cooing backing vocals introduce Tower of Song.  This time Cohen's "friends are gone and his hair is grey" and he "aches in the places where I used to play" before he nails it by growling "I was born with the gift of a golden voice".  It's a really fine end to an album that really ushered in Act II of Leonard Cohen's career.

Album Review: Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - From Her To Eternity

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds released their first album in 1984.  It opens with a demonic version of Leonard Cohen’s Avalanche.  Cave’s vocal delivery is absolutely threatening as he growls out the lyrics: “do not dreeiiisss in those raaagggs fo me, I know you are not poor” as Mick Harvey thunders away on slamming drum fills.

The rest of the album is largely made up of demented romps like Cabin Fever and Saint Huck, featuring feral grunts, guttural yelps and yowling Stooges-style by Nick Cave, while the instruments clank and growl away in the ether.  Better is Well of Misery, a vibraphone-clad call-and-response death march, to the sound of what sounds like the lashes of a whip.  The final track, A Box For Black Paul, is a lengthy doom-laden bluesy ballad featuring almost Bowie-esque piano.  It lasts over nine and a half minutes and is a very early version of a style he would patent on later albums.

Album Review: Leonard Cohen - Death of a Ladies' Man

After four albums of sparse, bedsit folk, and a gap of three years, Leonard Cohen released Death of a Ladies' Man in 1977 to general bemusement. The album was produced by Phil Spector and it features a cast of thousands on all manner of instrumentation. Everything, it seems except Cohen's acoustic guitar-picking.

It opens with True Love Leaves No Traces, which has a bossa-nova beat and a cheesy 'Love Boat' style melody. The rest of the album follows suit, Iodine sees Cohen do battle with a brass section and a Neil Diamond-style melody. He doesn't come away unscathed. By the third track, Paper Thin Hotel, Cohen sounds as traumatised as the listeners, half-speaking, half-mumbling a hellish scenario in the vein of Lou Reed's Berlin. Strangely, it suits him well.

After this the album lurches from style to style like a drunkard in a karaoke bar. Memories covers doo-wop, I Left A Woman Waiting is strange, spoken-word Lou Reed soul, but Don't Go Home With Your Hard-On is jaunty pop which never quite made the radio playlists. Not content so far, Fingerprints is pure rodeo country. "Where are you now my fingerprints?" Sums it up in a way. The NINE MINUTE title track brings proceedings droning endlessly to a close .

It'll take a truly bizarre Leonard Cohen album to out-weird this one.

Album Review: Leonard Cohen | Old Ideas

Review for www.meg.ie http://www.meg.ie/leonard-cohen-old-ideas/

Preview: Most anticipated albums of 2012

I’m very excited about the year ahead, particularly the few weeks between late January and February which are going to make me very poor indeed. In no time at all this is bound to be wrong, but here goes:

Barry Adamson
The new year looks set to kick off with a bang with Barry Adamson’s new album, I Will Set You Free due on January 30th. The ex-Magazine and Bad Seeds bassist has previewed one track, Destination which sounds just like Berlin period Iggy Pop, and that’s good enough for me.

RM Hubbert – Thirteen Lost and Found
Due out on January 30th, RM Hubbert’s second album Thirteen Lost and Found sounds like a real Scottish collective, produced as it is by Alex Kapranos and featuring guest appearances from Aidan Moffat amongst others.

Leonard Cohen – Old Ideas
Leonard Cohen’s first album in 8 years, Old Ideas recorded last year should be worth hearing judging by the previewed Show Me The Place, Cohen’s voice has deepened to Tom Waits proportions. It’s due Jan 30th.

Mark Lanegan Band – Blues Funeral
Mark Lanegan has been a serial collaborator over the last 8 years but 6th February will see his first solo album since 2004’s Bubblegum, Blues Funeral (a satirist’s choice for a Lanegan album title), featuring contributions from regulars Josh Homme and Greg Dulli. Lead single The Gravedigger’s Song appears to be fairly standard issue Lanegan, both in sound and title, with added electronic pulsing. In related, but not strictly speaking Lanegan news Soulsavers are supposed to have a new album out next year with Dave Gahan of Depeche Mode doing vocals. This is not as big a surprise as you might think, given that Soulsavers supported Depeche Mode on their last tour.

The Twilight Sad – No One Can Ever Know
The Twilight Sad eject the baby and the bathwater for No One Can Ever Know which judging by first single Sick is a total change in sound, relying less on heavy guitars and more on programmed beats. This one is due out February 6th.

Tindersticks – The Something Rain
Tindersticks have a new album landing on February 20th, and judging by one of the tracks, the bossa-nova style Medicine, it’s well in keeping with previous material without being reheated leftovers.

Peter Broderick – http://www.itstartshear.com
After 2011’s Music for Confluence, Peter Broderick has a song-based album due on February 20th also, the bafflingly-titled http://www.itstartshear.com. Could this be the first album with a URL as a title? The link will have artwork, lyrics, credits etc for the release.

Queens of the Stone Age expect to have an album ready for release “early next year”, and Morrissey is said to have a new album ready for release once he hooks up with a record company. A song-based album from Dakota Suite, You Can Leave But You’ll Never Make It Home will hopefully emerge and Mark Eitzel has an acoustic album The Bill Is Due in the works.

The National are writing “more immediate and visceral” material according to singer Matt Berninger, Lloyd Cole is collaborating with Roedelius on an instrumental album (Plastic Wood 2?) and is also talking about another Negatives album which would be very welcome. Aidan Moffat says he has “at least two albums planned for next year”, while Portishead will be working on a new album. Pearl Jam should start work on a follow-up to Backspacer and you never know, Neil Young may finally release another instalment of his Archives series. But I'm not holding my breath.