Stones, schmones.<\/p>\n
Everybody likes to hold the Rolling Stones up as some sort of amazing fountain of youth.\u00a0 \u201cMan, they\u2019re in their sixties and they\u2019re still huge!\u201d\u00a0 More accurate would be to say that they\u2019re in their sixties and still milking the media machine like the pros they\u2019ve become.\u00a0 The Stones have been more about marketing than music for over half their career now.<\/p>\n
Ian Hunter, by contrast, is of similar vintage to the Stones but just keeps getting better musically.\u00a0 Well into his sixties he is in fact making some of the best music of his long and storied career.<\/p>\n
Hunter\u2019s early splash as frontman for legendary glam-rockers Mott The Hoople has been well-documented elsewhere.\u00a0 What has been less-chronicled is his exemplary solo career, starting with 1975\u2019s self-titled disc<\/a>, through his 1979 commercial high-water mark You\u2019re Never Alone With A Schizophrenic<\/i> (remember \u201cCleveland Rocks\u201d?) and all the way up through 2001\u2019s stirring, sharp-as-ever Rant<\/a><\/i>.<\/p>\n If there\u2019s a secret to Hunter\u2019s gift it\u2019s in the mixture of raw honesty and cheeky British charm he brings to his incisive songs.\u00a0 Opener \u201cWords (Big Mouth)\u201d is a strong example of both, a self-deprecating confession that\u2019s both witty (\u201cWords\u2026 nasty little lizards\u2026 grammatical bacteria\u2026 Yakety-yakety-yakety-yakety\u201d) and tinged with a wistful self-knowledge.\u00a0 The music here, as throughout this disc, is smartly-arranged roadhouse blues-rock, acoustic rhythm guitar embellished with punchy electric leads, organ, piano, and on \u201cWords,\u201d Springsteen sidewoman Soozie Tyrell on violin.<\/p>\n In this typically rich and intelligent outing, Hunter skewers both designer materialism (\u201cBrainwashed\u201d) and his own aging perspective on the world (\u201cI Am What I Hated When I Was Young\u201d), while also ripping out a hard-rocking yet nuanced ode to a troubled friend (\u201cStretch\u201d).\u00a0 On Shrunken Heads<\/i>, though, he saves his most potent verbal broadsides for the Bush Administration, lashing out with numbers like the rollicking \u201cFuss About Nothin\u2019,\u201d the surprisingly poignant title track, and the thundering Hurricane Katrina response indictment \u201cHow\u2019s Your House?\u201d\u00a0 Expatriate Englishman Hunter isn\u2019t about to concede his affection for his adopted homeland to anyone, though.\u00a0 On \u201cSoul Of America\u201d he pounds out an anthemic love letter to the Another of Hunter\u2019s underappreciated talents is pacing and sequencing.\u00a0 Yes, there are several angry, politically inclined songs on this disc, but they are interspersed with (and leavened by) a trio of Hunter\u2019s trademark heartfelt ballads, including the soaring, magnificent \u201cWhen The World Was Round\u201d and the stunning closer \u201cRead \u2018Em And Weep,\u201d which deserves a place among the finest tunes he\u2019s ever written.\u00a0 <\/p>\n