\u201cI used to worry about my baby
Now my baby\u2019s gone
I used to have a lot of problems
Now I\u2019ve got only one\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014\u201cJunkie Hands\u201d by Miles Zuniga<\/i><\/p>\n
Of all the possible conclusions one might draw from Fastball guitarist\/vocalist Miles Zuniga\u2019s lone solo album to date, this one seems the safest: the former Mr. and Mrs. Zuniga are unlikely to get back together in this lifetime. In a production that Zuniga bills right up front as \u201ca record\/therapy session,\u201d he delivers not one but 11 tunes\u2019 worth of emotional catharsis in the wake of what sounds like an epically bitter divorce. (When the kindest commentary you can manage in 34 minutes of music is \u201clove\u2019s a mystery,\u201d you know it got rough.)<\/p>\n
It\u2019s easy to appreciate why these songs ended up on a solo album rather than a Fastball release; they\u2019re just too relentlessly personal and autobiographical for the band context. That said, These Ghosts Have Bones<\/i> also features a lot of familiar Zuniga\/Fastball characteristics, e.g. superbly crafted, moody power-pop tunes with elements frequently drawn from his favorite toolbox of late-\u201960s Beatles and Dylan records.<\/p>\n
Opener \u201cMarfa Moonlight\u201d offers perhaps the lightest touch here, a rather sing-songy piano-based tune whose lyric is more atmospheric than specific, a gentle interrogation led by the refrain \u201cOh \/ What about us? \/ What about you? \/ What am I supposed to do?\u201d \u201cRock Paper Scissors\u201d veers closer to typical Fastball fare musically, a punchy riff-rocker with an acid lyric about drinking away a heartache that\u2019s been compounded by all-too-glib friends: \u201cEverybody says it\u2019s a new day, son \/ Trading in your wife for a new one.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFeel It In Your Kiss\u201d is a deliciously sad Motown-flavored confection that flashes back to the moment Zuniga realized the marriage was in trouble. \u201cOnce we were together \/ Once we couldn\u2019t miss \/ Now everything is different \/ I feel it in your kiss\u201d he sings in a lilting falsetto over soul-funk guitar, adding that \u201cYou should leave me if you want to be free \/ But baby please don\u2019t tell lies to me.\u201d Ouch.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Weathermen\u201d sketches the paranoia and second-guessing that goes with doubting the central relationship of your life, with a woozy, playfully melancholy barroom blues arrangement that wouldn\u2019t be out of place on Abbey Road<\/i>. The hammer comes down hard with \u201cWicked\u201d as Zuniga puts his finger in the wound and lets his pain run loose, doing his best to scare off the next guy: \u201cI know you\u2019re dazzled by her big green eyes \/ I know you think she could not hurt a fly \/ You\u2019re just not thinking clearly now \/ She\u2019s wicked, wicked and cruel \/ Oh, she\u2019ll make a fool of you.\u201d (As for the arrangement, it\u2019s pure White Album<\/i>, right down to the stabbing \u201cAh-ah-ah-ah\u201d background vocals.)<\/p>\n
\u201cRight now I don\u2019t care to ever see your face again\u2026 The dream that we shared, it belongs to yesterday\u201d Zuniga sings on the gently propulsive \u201cElizabeth\u201d before distancing himself even further from his past on the similarly melancholy \u201cNow She\u2019s Just A Shadow,\u201d finally concluding that \u201cIt\u2019s time to move on \/ \u2019Cause now she\u2019s just a shadow.\u201d <\/p>\n
The last four tracks find Zuniga hop-scotching through time revisiting individual moments in the marriage. \u201cOne Day To Closer To You\u201d is a rather British Invasion-flavored road song about being apart and worrying about what that\u2019s doing to the relationship (\u201cWhen I get home will we still fit?\u201d), segueing nicely into \u201cWorking On A Love Song,\u201d an MC Escher sketch of a tune about working on a love song for his wife while on the road\u2014the very same song that he\u2019s singing. It\u2019s a clever, slightly twangy acoustic-and-mandolin confection right up to the punchline, which I won\u2019t spoil for you, but suffice it to say things don\u2019t end well for our narrator.<\/p>\n
\u201cJunkie Hands\u201d (see quote above) recasts love as addiction inside an arrangement that\u2019s pure late Beatles, psychedelic flourishes punctuated by a bridge\/solo of arcing, weepy licks right out of the Harrison playbook. Closer \u201cYou Can\u2019t Break My Heart\u201d is the quietest and bitterest number of all, an acoustic lament in which Zuniga declares that \u201cYou can tear my world apart \/ But you can\u2019t break my heart\u201d in a voice that\u2019s nothing if not heartbroken.<\/p>\n
These Ghosts Have Bones<\/i> isn\u2019t exactly an uplifting listen, but through all its downbeat moments, what shines through is the remarkable craftsmanship Zuniga brings to the messy work of exorcising his pain through song. Every one of these tunes is thoughtfully assembled and cleverly arranged, rich with riffs and lines and little flourishes that remind you that, whatever his mood might have been in the moment, you\u2019re in the hands of a consummate songwriter, arranger and performer. Downer or no, this one is well worth checking out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":33216,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[10031],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-45025","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-miles-zuniga","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45025","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=45025"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45025\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45025"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=45025"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=45025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}