{"id":20071,"date":"2020-12-26T05:30:56","date_gmt":"2020-12-26T10:30:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=20071"},"modified":"2022-08-18T11:52:23","modified_gmt":"2022-08-18T15:52:23","slug":"album-and-ep-review-nick-lowe-and-los-straitjackets-lay-it-on-me-and-walkabout","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2020\/12\/26\/album-and-ep-review-nick-lowe-and-los-straitjackets-lay-it-on-me-and-walkabout\/","title":{"rendered":"Album (and EP) Review: Nick Lowe and Los Straitjackets — ‘Lay it on Me’ and ‘Walkabout’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Sometimes, when two great musical forces meet, the results can be disastrous, or at least unimpressive. I don\u2019t count myself as a fan of the ill-advised Lou Reed and Metallica pairing, 2011\u2019s Lulu<\/i>. And when the sometimes warring factions of Yes got back together for Union<\/i>, the resulting album was a forgettable, bloated, too-many-cooks affair.<\/p>\n

But some collaborations work. When Elvis Costello and Paul McCartney teamed up, the results \u2013 heard on Flowers in the Dirt<\/i> and Spike<\/i> \u2013 ranked among both artists\u2019 best work. Similarly, the musical summit of Nick Lowe and Los Straitjackets is an easygoing affair that plays to the strengths of all involved.<\/p>\n

Lowe has performed with the masked marvels of music backing him for awhile now \u2013 I\u2019ve seen them twice \u2013 and the show never fails to impress. So a recorded collaboration makes good sense. In fact they\u2019ve given us two.<\/p>\n

Walkabout<\/i> is an album-proper, a dozen songs, all but one written by Lowe. He\u2019s backed on six studio numbers by the band (Eddie Angel, Pete Curry, Greg Townson and Chris Sprague), playing in a countrified style that has come to represent the \u201cNick Lowe sound\u201d for many years now. Lowe has always had great bands \u2013 from Rockpile to present day \u2013 and Los Straitjackets play with the perfect balance of energy and taste. His uncluttered songs feature subtle backing by Los Straitjackets, and the feeling is one of timeless, rootsy rock\u2019n\u2019roll. \u201cLove Starvation\u201d features the tastiest guitar work.<\/p>\n

\"\"The album\u2019s second half features instrumental versions of four of Lowe\u2019s best-loved tunes, and as on the first half, Los Straitjackets lean into subtlety. These aren\u2019t fiery readings of \u201cRollers Show\u201d and so forth; they\u2019re gently catchy covers. \u201cAll Men Are Liars\u201d sounds like lightweight Merseybeat pop of the just-pre-Beatles era. The album\u2019s sole non-Lowe composition, The Easybeats\u2019 \u201cFriday on My Mind\u201d introduces some freewheeling energy to the proceedings. The set wraps up with a live track, a cover of Lowe\u2019s classic \u201cHeart of the City.\u201d The country-rock arrangement sounds more like Brinsley Schwarz (or late-period Lowe), and it proves once again the adage that a good song is a good song, no matter what its creator does with it.<\/p>\n

Simultaneously released, Lay it on Me<\/i> is a four-song EP. Recorded at a session wholly separate from the ones that yielded Walkabout<\/em>, Lay it on Me<\/em> nonetheless feels of a piece with the album. More of the jangling Mersey sound here adds a lovely character to solid Lowe originals (the title track and the retro stylings of \u201cDon\u2019t Be Nice to Me\u201d). And a reading of Dorsey Burnette\u2019s \u201cHere Comes That Feeling\u201d would fit nicely on most any of Lowe\u2019s albums. Los Straitjackets end the brief set with a delightful instrumental cover of the Shocking Blue\u2019s chestnut, \u201cVenus.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sometimes, when two great musical forces meet, the results can be disastrous, or at least unimpressive. I don\u2019t count myself as a fan of the ill-advised Lou Reed and Metallica […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20073,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,62,65],"tags":[1346,1586],"class_list":["post-20071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-new-release","category-rawk","category-review","tag-los-straitjackets","tag-nick-lowe","cat-49-id","cat-62-id","cat-65-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20071"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20071\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23552,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20071\/revisions\/23552"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}