This is the latest album by Graham Parker, his second for the New York-based indie label, Razor & Tie. Parker is backed on the album by former Rumour bass player Andrew Bodnar, former Blondie keyboard player Jimmy Destri and drummer Gary Burke, who has played with Joe Jackson.
After the acoustic, folkbased sound of Parker's last studio album, 12 Haunted Episodes, this album finds Parker returning to the rock format. It also finds Parker at his most biting and sarcastic.
The first two tracks, "Turn It into Hate" and "Sharpening Axes" serve as statements of Parker's intent. On "Turn It into Hate," Parker rails against the state of the world and tells listeners "You're just dreamin' anyway/ if you don't get irate." On "Sharpening Axes" he delivers the classic Parker line "I don't appeal to the masses/ and they don't appeal to me" and then declares "I can't suffer anymore fools/I'm gonna keep on sharpening axes/Till I've got the sharpest tools." Elsewhere on the album, "Beancounter" attacks corporate culture, while "Obsessed With Aretha" is an hilarious slander of Aretha Franklin.
My two favorite tracks on the album are "Impenetrable" and "Character Assassination." "Impenetrable" has an insinuating dance groove, a menacing atmosphere and enigmatic lyrics laced with dark, sinister imagery. "Character Assassination" has a slower groove with similar atmosphere and lyrical imagery.
Parker does show a more tender side on a couple of tracks. "She Never Let Me Down" is a beautiful, soulful ballad reminiscent of the earlier Parker song "Wake Up (Next to You)." "Girl at the End of the Pier" is a sad, gorgeous ballad - during the wordless refrain, when Parker goes up into a falsetto, it sounds almost like the Beach Boys!
This is an excellent album, one of Parker's best post-Rumour albums.
Reproduced with kind permission from Geoff Cabin.
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