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Bobby Bare Jr.- From The End Of Your Leash |
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05 August 2005 |
Bobby Bare Jr.'s Young Criminals' Starvation League From The End Of Your Leash - (Bloodshot) Rock and roll is nothing if not communal. Of course, it's meaningless if absolutely no one is listening. It's even worse when it comes on with an air of exclusiveness that prevents any sort of invitation. Rock and roll at its most powerful not only presents like-minded musicians in sync, but also encourages the listener to partake in as little a passive role as possible. So what does that mean? Rock and roll only works if we bang a tambourine along with it and sing along from our living rooms? Not necessarily (thank goodness!). We participate actively when an emotional response is evoked. When that response flies in the face of perceived preferences and any definition of personal taste, then we have a resounding success. That's what From The End Of Your Leash is. Bobby Bare Jr. and his band of collaborators play a brand of music not often heard. Sure, there's a degree of familiarity between this song and that song - but From The End Of Your Leash is a "whole" that stylistically runs a wide berth filled with responses that evoke the communal spirit I referred to earlier. Bare's songwriting style can carry the tired descriptive of "everyman", but there's a significant difference. This difference is that Bare's tales and stories are so vivid and honest that we can latch onto them and swear that we know exactly what he's talking about. Even if we're way off the mark, it matters little - the point is that we're participating. Part of Bare's approach is a refreshing, and often humorous, self-deprecating sense of humour that is coupled with themes of heartbreak and disappointment."Borrow Your Girl" is one of the more glaring examples of this, with a pedal steel helping the story along. "Let's Rock And Roll" follows the effective tradition of presenting a song about rock and roll that isn't really "rockin'", but rather a somber reflection that celebrates the music's wild abandon against a predominantly gentle folk backdrop. The only distraction is a musical interlude that has more to do with Sonic Youth than anything before returning to its pretty melody. Then there's "Your Adorable Beast", a revised "I Wanna Be Your Dog" that is far sweeter in its devotion (predictably) and features a change in direction that hands off to a latin-flavoured horn section (unpredictably). The musical twists and turns above aren't present throughout From The End Of Your Leash, though. Even though Bare draws musical support from a cast of thousands (tens, anyway) things stay relatively consistent - a wise move when you consider that Bare's vocal delivery is critical here and has limits that it has to stay within. "Valentine" finds Bare enjoying full support, again with a horn section. But the song's delivery is every bit as strong as the subtler "The Terrible Sunrise". Across all of this, it's increasingly hard to peg Bobby Bare, Jr's latest. It's sorta "country" but not really. Kinda "rock and roll", but not quite. A little like "folk", but not committed to it, really. What it is, though, is perhaps the best CD I've heard yet this year. That's good enough for me.
9.0
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