If any band was rescued from obscurity by chance, it was the
\nBoDeans. With the selection of their song “Closer To Free” to be
\nthe theme to Fox’s
\nParty Of Five<\/i>, Kurt Neumann and Sam Llanas leapt from being
\nthe darlings of alternative radio to actual recognition by
\nmainstream radio. They may not have had superstar status, but it
\nwas a start.<\/p>\n
The album that spawned “Closer To Free,”
\nGo Slow Down<\/i>, features some of this band’s finest moments —
\nas well as some of their weakest.<\/p>\n
To describe the BoDeans sound is a lot like trying to tell a
\nsmall child why the sky is blue. The best answer I can come up with
\nis they’re a mixture of rock and country, with just a hint of
\nTex-Mex thrown in for flavor. They defy true categorization,
\nbecause they do have a sound which is unique — and this may be why
\nmainstream radio was afraid to touch their music for so long.<\/p>\n
“Closer To Free” is a great song, but it is hardly the best
\nmaterial on the album. In fact, the whole first side of the album
\ncontains some of their strongest songwriting. “Save A Little” is a
\nrolling mixture of wah-wah and skiffle which makes you want to get
\nup and dance a bit. When the liner notes to “In Trow” claim that
\nthis song may be the best thing they’ve ever recorded, they’re not
\nkidding. It reminds me a lot of Fleetwood Mac’s “Never Going Back
\nAgain,” and I wish this one was longer than the 54 seconds that it
\nis. Even the shuffle of the title track, which is slower than I
\nwould have liked it to be, is infectiously wonderful. Neumann and
\nLlanas seem like they can do no wrong.<\/p>\n
The second side weakens quite a bit. Sure, “Cold Winter’s Day”
\nis a haunting track which seems to be based on a true story. But
\nothers get a little preachy. “The Other Side,” a song about
\nsuicide, fails to take off – and it does seem to be pro-suicide, a
\nsubject which I am a little touchy about. The themes of the other
\nsongs — one’s sex drive (“Feed The Fire”), loneliness
\n(“Something’s Telling Me”) and the music business (“Stay On”) all
\njust don’t have the creative spark that made the first half of
\nGo Slow Down<\/i> such a wonderful album.<\/p>\n
The only other thing that may distract listeners of the album is
\nthe fact that the BoDeans are an acquired taste. Having been a
\nlistener since their 1989 album
\nHome<\/i>, I am quite used to the quirkiness of the band. (I
\nwould disagree with CDNow, who claim the Beat Farmers — who were a
\nmixture of rock and comedy – are a similar artist in style.) Albums
\nlike
\nGo Slow Down<\/i> are not easily digested in one listen — it
\ntakes a couple spins in the tape deck before the strengths and
\nweaknesses can be clearly heard.<\/p>\n
Producer T-Bone Burnett, who did such a great job on Counting
\nCrows’ debut, does seem like he’s captured the essence of Neumann
\nand Llanas quite well, and shows how talented a producer he is.<\/p>\n
\nGo Slow Down<\/i> is a solid half-album, with some songs that
\nprove that this band deserves wider airplay than they have gotten
\nover the years. The other cuts are to be approached at your own
\nrisk.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24463,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5778],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-35667","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-bodeans","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/35667","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35667"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/35667\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35667"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=35667"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=35667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}