release date: 1990
format: vinyl (ROSE 220 CD) / cd
[album rate: 4 / 5] [3,86]
producer: Jeffrey Lee Pierce
label: New Rose Records - nationality: USA
Track highlights: 1. "Humanesque" - 2. "The Straights of Love and Hate" - 3. "Emily's Changed" - 4. "I Hear Your Heart Singing" (4,5 / 5) - 5. "St. John's Divine" - 7. "Another Country's Young" - 8. "Flowing"
[ full album ]
5th studio album by The Gun Club follows three years after Mother Juno and it was originally released on Fire Records. The album is the second in the new formation of the band after Jeffrey Lee Pierce had put an end to the band and initiated a solo career. As usual Pierce is sole composer of the majority of the tracks, and this time he has put himself in the producer seat as well. The sound may not be impressive but the style is almost certified The Gun Club - a style connected so much to Jeffrey Lee Pierce, his poignant singing voice, his characteristic guitar-sound that no matter who he invites to play with him, the sound is crystallised The Gun Club, and that is more than just fine. I've have always linked The Gun Club with the music of Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds, but always found The Gun Club to be more interesting - or: containing greater potential. In a contemporary perspective I didn't put this band among my absolute favourites - I liked it, though, but may have neglected its qualities because of the lo-fi production. I think I might have put he band alongside artists like Adrian Borland, Bob Mould, R.E.M. etc [without comparison!] had I acknowledged it as much as I do now. Fact is, I just listened to much else back then, and The Gun Club was somewhere below: interesting and fine, but not really "it". Today, I find that Jeffrey Lee Pierce definitely had "it", and he proved it over and over again. I understand why he became a favourite of other artists and a music critics' icon. This album doesn't contain fillers, and in my mind in a close race with The Las Vegas Story (1984), this is the band's best.
[ allmusic.com 4 / 5 stars ]
[ collectors' item ]
