Holy cow, finally! The long-revered leader of Wussy and one of my favorite bands, Ass Ponys, has finally released his first solo record. Taking on a heavier tone than the previous Wussy records, Cleaver returns to his fuzzed-out rock roots. The quickness of \u201cTerrible Friend\u201d reminds me of some of Ass Ponys\u2019 darker material. \u201cDevil May Care\u201d is a great little jam and a way to showcase Cleaver\u2019s ability to craft some strange and sometimes eerie poppy rock tunes.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Weekend That It Happened\u201d showcases a different approach to Cleaver\u2019s music. Sounding like a Beck jam circa 1999 with a drum machine and down-to-earth lyrics, the song works really well and stands out from the other material for all the right reasons. \u201cBed\u201d is another great song; even with drum machines, Cleaver\u2019s undeniable pop sensibility cannot be denied. What we have here is just a great rock singer\/songwriter without all the pizzazz of having eighteen songwriters and ten producers helping you out.<\/p>\n
\u201cFlowers & The Devil\u201d sounds like a great Wussy track \u2013 but of course it does, one can almost instantly tell one of Cleaver\u2019s songs from his various bands because of his distinct characteristics that are sprinkled over every melody. Cleaver is just a great unheralded singer\/songwriter\/guitarist, and it\u2019s about time he gets some recognition for the musical gifts he\u2019s given us.<\/p>\n
The album closes with a cheerful little ditty called \u201cFolk Night at Fucky\u2019s,\u201d which is evident towards Cleaver\u2019s offbeat sense of humor. The track is a toss off, but it helps to make this record whole, and even with a short running time of 29 minutes, it still feels complete. The only \u2013 literally only \u2013 complaint is that there could have been a few more tracks to make this disc even better. But at the same time, this is one of the best singer\/songwriter discs of the year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":91,"featured_media":33919,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[10440],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-45746","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-chuck-cleaver","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45746","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\/91"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45746"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45746\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33919"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45746"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=45746"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=45746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}