Jethro Tull once declared themselves \u201ctoo old to rock and roll; too young to die.\u201d\u00a0 You can rest certain Ian Hunter would never say any such thing.<\/p>\n
That much seems safe to say after a listen or twelve to the latest from this now-70-year-old veteran of the rock and roll wars \u2013 his third consecutive album of material that\u2019s not just \u201cpretty good for his age,\u201d but damned impressive for any performer of any age.\u00a0 First there was the fiery renaissance that was Rant <\/i>(2001); then came its smashing successor Shrunken Heads<\/i> (2007); and now the third in this tremendous trilogy, 2009\u2019s Man Overboard<\/i>.
<\/p>\n
The first five tracks here are as strong an opening run as any Hunter has ever delivered.\u00a0 Opener \u201cThe Great Escape\u201d rides in with a witty look back at a decades-past encounter with \u201cthe best left hook in the business,\u201d and the wisdom the brawling young Hunter gained that night.\u00a0 Hunter\u2019s gloriously rough-edged voice gets a workout on the following \u201cArms And Legs,\u201d a heartfelt, warmly upbeat and perfectly executed love song. <\/p>\n
\u201cUp And Running\u201d and \u201cBabylon Blues\u201d are the two true rockers here, typically defiant anthems full of piss, vinegar, brio and everything else you\u2019d hope to hear from an ex-hooligan like Hunter.\u00a0 Between the two comes the title track, a soaring, openly Dylanesque ballad about the disorientation of modern life for anyone out of sync with it, whether by choice or by fate.\u00a0 It\u2019s a brilliant lament full of lines like \u201cReality this, reality that \/ I been there once and I ain\u2019t going back \/ They squeezed me \u2018til I came apart at the seams \/ Now I\u2019d rather dream drunk and disorderly dreams.\u201d\u00a0 The strings that come in on the final coda courtesy of producer\/guitarist\/musical director Andy York are the perfect finishing touch. <\/p>\n
The second half is solid, if not as persistently superb.\u00a0 \u201cThe Girl From The Office\u201d is the one track that feels like a misstep here, a rather sing-songy and predictable fable about male braggadocio.\u00a0 \u201cFlowers\u201d is a nice bit, a thinking-man\u2019s protest song, and \u201cThese Feelings\u201d is a stock Hunter ballad, which is to say it hangs together well even if it never really ignites.\u00a0 \u201cWin It All\u201d is the quietest moment, a \u201ccheer you up\u201d tune for a friend laid low, and \u201cWay With Words\u201d is the setup for the finale, a mostly acoustic number whose sleepy tempo supports a well-crafted paean to a lover both patient and wise.<\/p>\n
Closer \u201cThe River Of Tears\u201d is one of those tunes where Hunter periodically dares his audience to follow him someplace unexpected.\u00a0 No, he\u2019s not too cool to take a stab at retelling a familiar Native American legend, thank you very much, and he\u2019s going to deliver it with genuine commitment from the opening lines, in which he spots a plaque next to a hotel elevator, which he proceeds to turn into a five-minute steady-building story-song.\u00a0 The expatriate-Brit songwriter as tribal-elder storyteller?\u00a0 Well, yes, actually, in hands as wise and wizened as Hunter\u2019s, the otherwise awkward role-playing might just work.<\/p>\n
On Man Overboard<\/i> Hunter\u2019s lyrics are as full as ever of self-mocking intelligence, but there\u2019s a tad less bite to them this time around and a bit more of a wistful tone.\u00a0 That said, someone who\u2019s lived through as many misadventures as Hunter has more than earned the right to wax nostalgic a bit, and nobody does it better or more entertainingly. \u00a0While his peers creak into retirement or make idiots of themselves playing at the young bucks they once were, Hunter accepts all that life has flung at him with wry equanimity and keeps right on doing what he\u2019s always done best \u2013 making memorable music that\u2019s rich with the insight of a life thoroughly lived.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":30182,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5920],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-41827","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-ian-hunter","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41827","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=41827"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41827\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=41827"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=41827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}