The Kinks - 'Muswell Hillbillies' (RCA Victor)

Muswell Hillbillies shouldn't work as well as it does; this is where the Davies brothers' move towards American blues and country styles becomes fully integrated into Ray's extreme Englishness; somehow the whole mess congeals, and it attains some great heights. Ray wrote all of the songs here, making this even more of a one-man vision than Village Green; this lyrical cohesiveness holds together a record which borrows musical motifs quite liberally from honky-tonk, Dixieland jazz, folk-rock and music hall traditions. Because this blog only covers my vinyl accumulation, we've skipped a run of classic albums in between Face to Face that I only have on CD, so this jump would make this almost an unrecognisable band to the unknowing. And a band it is - the bassist has changed from the classic Kinks lineup but the core quartet really grinds through these songs, augmented by a brass section on some tracks and some really heavy, swampy organ. The first side is essentially perfect, moving through a suite of exaggerated lyrical concerns, starting with '20th Century Man' and ending with 'Complicated Life'. In between we look at poverty, alcoholism and British seaside holidays through Ray's glasses (eyeglasses, but I suppose pub drinking glasses as well), which blend his usual nostalgia trip with the urban neighbourhood proclaimed by the title and cover art. There is no reason that 'Acute Schizophrenia Blues' should succeed as well as it does ; the mix of Felix Guattari and the Captain Matchbox Whoopee Band is unlike anything else I've ever heard, but it's catchy as fuck. '20th Century Man' could be a Tory fight song in its most favourable viewing, or an EDL anthem in its least, but this Marxist happens to love it. I would declare if one of my guilty pleasures, except I try not to believe in guilty pleasures; it does seem like quite a reaction to the Harold Wilson government and the plan, plan, plan mentality; technocracy was still nascent at the time this was written, and I wonder how the elderly Mr. Davies would feel about these matter. He sings a bit weird on this album, like he's letting the words escape from the side of his mouth for the most part, in that casual half-spoken style of singing that Lou Reed popularised. Yet he belts it out in a few places, namely the choruses ('ladi dah de dah dah' in 'Complicated Life' most memorably, which is actually written out in the lyric sheet); the jazzy affectations work well here as brassy complements to it. Dave Davies's guitar playing has always had a hard, blues-driven edge; 'Skin and Bone' and 'Complicated Life' take the 'King Kong' buzzsaw tone and somehow integrate it into the country-fried songs. Side two admittedly slows down a bit, but that's a good move; the songs are all still solid, and 'Have a Cuppa Tea' is so over the top with its Englishness that I get slight Ukip shivers while listening. 'Oklahoma USA' is a delicate piano ballad which is catchy to the point of infectious but also directly confronts the influence of American culture on the British. The title track closes things out by most explicitly stating this fascination, while acknowledging the essential Londonness. Simplistic in ways, but the way the music and lyrics come together into such a total package that over the years this has probably become my favourite Kinks album, though I've never given the rock opera era a chance, and I've never heard Percy.

Eat Skull - 'Wild and Inside' (Siltbreeze)

Eat Skull's second album is something I've consistently listened to since it came out almost four years ago, and it makes a lot of sense to me. This gang just pulls everything together in the right balance, making records that are strident, yet not cocky; welcoming but not obvious; quirky but not obtuse. 'Stick to the Formula' lays things out on side 1 track 1 with a knowing smirk, and listening back to back with Sick to Death, nothing has really changed, except the songwriting has leaped ahead a notch. There's perhaps a bit more of an embrace of the 80s Kiwi sound here - 'Heaven's Stranger' sounds exactly like early Clean. It's also my favourite song by Eat Skull, with it's slightly-too-many-words for the chorus line ringing out like an indefinite anthem. 'Happy Submarine' continues this feel - lay an earnest, upbeat male vocal over a reverb drenched electric guitar and minimal tambourine - it's followed by 'Talkin' Bro in the Wall Blues' which is a slow ballad, at least by Eat Skull standards, and like the first album, it ends with a more subdued, almost folky feel ('Dawn in the Face' and 'Oregon Dreaming'). The aggro side is most evident in 'Nuke Mecca' which somehow works despite it's ridiculous nature. The lyrics are there to be heard; nothing is hidden, yet it's still somewhat elusive. One wonders if Eat Skull could express some true pain, or show any sign of a struggle, but this is the bedroom psychedelia movement in a nutshell - good times on a pinpoint aesthetic. It's a very short trip, too. I remember that a good friend of mine did not match my enthusiasm for Eat Skull, citing this band as one of the reasons he felt alienated from contemporary underground rock; he saw this as vapid, cheap and empty music that played it safe and just followed a cookiecutter pattern. Maybe he's right, because I feel his alienation with much of the current wave, so i think I've just made an exception for Eat Skull because they push exactly the right buttons for me. This isn't meant as a criticism - their output since this has definitely tried to open some doors, and I'm glad to hear it.

Destroyer - 'This Night' (Scratch)

Once again, a great Destroyer album has somewhat forgettable artwork, and lists the track titles right on the front cover. But this is a step forward for sure - a leap to a major indie label (and his home ever since, on Merge, though this LP is actually on Canadian label Scratch) and a leap towards larger production and more expansive songwriting. At two LPs, This Night is just a slight bit too long, but contains some of Dan Bejar's most magnificent performances. One way to read This Night is that Bejar feared this would be his only chance so he tried to make a statement - a great, sprawling double-LP masterpiece-of-intention. Right from the beginning we can hear it - the long, spacious title track seems to pull back the neurotic intensity heard on the last few records in favour of just letting it breathe, man. The production has tons of echo, reverb around his voice, and the dry, scratchy tinniness is nowhere to be found. The electric guitars rage, the keyboards are more atmospheric than lead-based, and Bejar sounds confident throughout. I believe 'Crystal Country' is made great by it's sinewy guitar licks, taking it in a surprising Crazy Horse direction while still giving space to his familiar cadences. 'The Chosen Few' is a frantic, Spanish-influenced acoustic number that's in my Destroyer top 5 -- in fact, I remember when I got my current speakers, I guess 10 years ago, this was on the turntable and 'The Chosen Few' was the first track I listened to through them.  The lyric associations are less rooted in indie culture as on Streethawk, though 'Trembling Peacock' is as autobiographical as we'll ever get from Bejar (more-so than 'Self Portrait with Thing'), and it's touching (and with the same dramatic rushes found on Thief). Everything feels much more sketch-like than we've heard before; the songs have a lazy swing sometimes, and the lyrics feel almost improvised. 'Hey, Snow White' is barely a song compared to the precision shown before, and I find that to be the best and worst thing about This Night. It's great that this record stands out against his others, and I've always liked to view albums as total concepts, moods to stand alone. I don't find myself pulling it out very often, but then again, it's a somewhat demanding listen; the songs are all long and seem to never quite know when to finish. The biggest exception is the closing cut, 'The Night Moves', which feels like a holdover from the Streethawk era with it's direct 4/4 rhythm and wordless chorus, a throwback to the 'You've got the spirit' code of 'The Bad Arts'. Elsewhere, there's goodness everywhere. 'Here Comes the Night' feels written to be a hit, and it's catchy, though never one of the great Destroyer songs for me. Despite the dark artwork and nocturnal lyrics throughout (three songs with 'night' in the title, versis one with 'white' and one with 'light'), I associate this album more with warm summer days, maybe due to the tube-based warmth of the production. After this, Bejar starts to really experiment - Your Blues and Kaputt are total departures, and Trouble in Dreams and overly wordy mess; only Rubies from the later record has the same magic as this one, a 'return to form' for sure, though that's not to say I don't love parts of all of 'em.