It was definitely during the swelling multi-part gospel vocal breakdown toward the finish of “Building A Road” that I made the decision to review this disc\u2026 and definitely not during the reeling, off-kilter horn break to be found mid-song on the opening “Drunk.”<\/p>\n
Yes, it must be said: Spottiswoode is demented. His Enemies, too. But in a good way.<\/p>\n
Try to imagine combining the quirky genius of a Frank Zappa, the edgy artsiness of a David Bowie, the in-your-face theatrics of a Freddie Mercury and the bracing late-night-at-the-bar honesty of Ian Hunter — whoops, don’t forget the gospel choir! — and you might at least have a clue what this album sounds like. But you’d need a lot more to get any closer, because it sounds very little like anything this reviewer has heard before\u2026 and therein lies its charm.<\/p>\n
First things first. Half-Brit, half-American, full-time showman Jonathan Spottiswoode’s “Enemies” comprise a fairly unique lineup — a not-exactly-standard guitar-guitar-bass-drums-trumpet-sax — and are supplemented by a three-woman chorus of background singers who are perfectly capable of veering from bawdy nightclub vamps to a soaring church choir in a split second.<\/p>\n
Thus you get mini-epics like “I’m Back Up” — which sounds roughly like Van Morrison in the middle of a major bender, dark desperation transforming itself to deliriously urgent white soul uplift — rubbing shoulders with tight, tasty confections like the proto-Ray Charles nightclub sass of “I’m In Love With An Angry Girl.”<\/p>\n
As boozily messy as “Drunk” is, Spottiswoode is equally as capable of issuing a calm, precise, sweetly melodic number like “One Way Street,” with its whispery clarinet weaving in and out, above and below the trumpet. Or a gospel-tinged blues thumper like the title track. Or a silvery seduction piece like “Play Me In Your Bedroom.” Or a self-pity wallow masquerading as an atmospheric mid-tempo rock number, as in “Lazarus.”<\/p>\n
You get the picture — careening, unpredictable, potentially spectacular, definitely versatile, never boring.<\/p>\n
My Internet colleague Missy Heckscher (DigitalCity.com) said it as well as I possibly could already: “There is a fine line between eccentricity and madness, a point where artistry becomes lunacy. Spottiswoode and His Enemies are at that point. Surely, they’re on the edge of something — whether that’s impending stardom or prescription drugs has yet to be determined.”<\/p>\n
It could go either way, folks. But it will definitely be interesting to watch\u2026!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":27129,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[7190],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-38468","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-spottiswoode-and-his-enemies","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38468","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\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38468"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38468\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=38468"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=38468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}