Three from the black watch

 By Henry Lipput

Are the black watch brilliant failures?

Not as far as I’m concerned although I didn't find out about them until 2019 when they released their amazing 31 Years of Obscurity: The Best of the black watch: 1988-2019,, a career-spanning compilation that deserves your immediate attention. It contains tracks from the band’s 17 albums and many, many singles and EPs including that year’s  outstanding magic johnson album. I may have missed out on their early years but I’m a full-fledged fan now.

Founded in 1987 in California, John Andrew Fredrick, he of a voice sounding like Lou Reed fronting a goth band but with a major gift for pop, has been the only consistent member of the group and its principal songwriter. Refusing to rest on any laurels, the black watch released two albums, brilliant failures and fromthing somethat, along with the nothing that is EP in 2020. They continue to have an enviable winning streak of great guitar-based tunes with rarely a failure in sight.

brilliant failures

brilliant failures (A Turntable Friend Records) shows the range of band leader John Andrew Fredrick’s songwriting and his band’s talent for arrangements. They run the gamut on the album’s first three songs: from the finger-picking guitar sound of the opening track “Julie 2” that recalls The Beatles’ “I Will” and “Julia,” to the all-out rock and roll of “crying all the time!,’ to the jangle pop of “brilliant failures.”

“red dwarf star,” with its monster bass line, layered shoegaze guitars, and synth runs, is just about three minutes long but there’s so much going on that it demands repeat listens. The ballad-y “the personal statement” is one of the few first-person lyrics on the album, although it’s not clear if it’s about Fredrick or a combination of people and events.

“one hundred million times around the sun” might very well be Fredrick’s “Tomorrow Never Knows.” It begins with a backwards psychedelic guitar lick. there’s a spacey drone of a bridge followed by some terrific crunchy guitar work;  it's another tune begging for repeat listens.

“julie” is a pop gem and the dark, guitar-driven “technology” ends the album with a thought we might all have had a some point: “technology is leaving me behind/and that’s fine.”

fromthing somethat

Is fromthing somethat (ATOM Records) the album that puts an end to the black watch’s brilliant failures? Track after track on this, their 19th LP,  showcases a band at its peak. Most of the songs were recorded after just a few run-throughs following Fredrick bringing them in and it captures the excitement of the moment.

 

saint fair isle sweater” is a rocking, full-band blowout and a perfect opening track. “the nothing that is” a toe-tapping treat that looks at the bright side however difficult: “The gutter is a brilliant place to start/To contemplate the stars.” There are lovely female backing vocals along with some well-placed synth fills,

The jangley “green stars, clouds departing” is a song not written to reflect the last year of pandemic living but certainly fits the bill: “Why can’t I focus on one thing at a time?“ The sludgy, fuzzy “such like friendly demons” has a dreamy bridge and stand-out drumming. It’s another song that at four minutes could do with another four to continue the wig-out that ends the song.  And the instrumental “the haves & nots” is pure pop gold with chiming guitars and a fab rhythm section.

the nothing that is EP

the nothing that is EP (ATOM Records) contains the album version of the song from fromthing somethat as well as a ten-minute mix by Scott Campbell (who produced brilliant failures and also played bass and keyboards on that album). The mix has a drone-filled, 90’s house vibe and it goes without saying headphones are required (preferably the kind John Cusak wore in High Fidelity). 

 

There are also three new songs on the EP including the terrific, pop-y, pysch-guitar laden “the very thing,” a sound that fits somewhere between Rubber Soul and Revolver.

Next time: A Few of My Favorite Things: 2020 Edition

Triple Play #3 (Still More From 2020)

 By Henry Lipput

Phil Cooper

Except for drums, Phil Cooper plays nearly every instrument and writes and sings every song on  his latest album These Revelation Games (Bandcamp) making him much more than a triple threat. Cooper hails from the UK and has let it be known that he’s influenced by, among others, bands like Crowded House and Squeeze and you can hear it throughout his new album.

 And although his melodies -- and he certainly has a gift for a tune -- have echoes of the work of these groups, it’s Cooper’s vocals that really show how time spent listening to Neil Finn and Glenn Tilbrook has made him the singer he is.  For example, the upbeat, rocking “A Thousand Tiny Differences” not only sounds like a full-band classic Squeeze song like “In Quintessence” from East Side Story, Cooper’s vocal is full-on Tilbrook. “Into The Void” begins with some wonderful Beach Boys-like harmonies and would have fit nicely on later Squeeze albums like Some Fantastic Place.

“Treading Water” and “Keep Your Hands Upon The Wheel” both have a Crowded-House-Alone-Together vibe with a touch of Finn on the vocals.  On the latter song, Cooper plays a Macca-like bass riff . He’s also a mean lead guitarist and brings the crunch on “House Of Mirrors,” “Tell Me It’s All OK,” and “Changing Times.”

Tremendous

Relentless (digital release), the debut album from the Birmingham, UK, glam rock (emphasis on rock) band Tremendous, is full of three-minute exploding pop rock songs with influences that have been thrown into a giant blender.

I first heard the band (a tight-knit trio consisting of singer/guitarist/songwriter Mark Dudzinski, Ryan Jee on bass, and Dave Lee on drums) when they released their “Rock ‘n’ Roll Satellite” single back in 2019.  I imagined an alternate musical past in which Eric Carmen, having left Raspberries, moves to London and joins a glam rock band. That’s what Tremendous, in its hook-laden time machine, brings to the present 

“Rock ‘n’ Roll Satellite” is a super glam rock track (“You glitter my bones/You glamour my shoes”) and there’s even a reference to the Spiders From Mars. “Heartsinker” could have been written by Paul Westerberg for any of the first three Replacements albums and is played just as fiercely by Tremendous (another clever lyrical choice from Dudzinski:“You give love heart disease”). The ballad "Like Dreams Do" (not the Lennon-McCartney one) is a change of pace that mid-song becomes a metal guitar fest.

The Foreign Films

Another multi-instrumentalist, Bill Majoros, is the mastermind behind The Foreign Films. His latest, Ocean Moon (New Songs and Hidden Gems) (CD: Kool Kat Musik/digital: Bandcamp), is a concept album with new songs (and a couple of previously released ones) about love .             

If you were listening to AM radio in the ‘70s, you’d be lucky to hear songs as good as those on Ocean Moon with its echoes of Eric Carmen, Elton John, and other melodic heavyweights from that era.

There’s a theme running through the album with characters in the songs listening to music and the effect it has on them. One of the many highlights is the beautiful “Dream With Me Tonight.” It’s a song about summer love and the atmosphere that makes such things possible: “Sail into the setting sun/Here comes the summer night/She wants to go steady with you/And dance in the jukebox light.”

In “Katie and the Crystal Hearts” a young woman walks along the beach alone thinking of a song she’s heard: "‘I'll forever love you’ said the song on the radio.” “Down On The Boulevard (Pinball Kid)” is a memory song about being young and begins with a wonderful yearning croon from Majoros. The song also mentions a radio: “All the crazy things we did/Stevie and the Pinball Kid/Dreaming to the radio aglow in the night” and borrows the piano riff from Elton John’s cover of “Pinball Wizard.” And “Stars In Her Eyes” is a terrific lost solo Lennon track.

Next time: Three from the black watch