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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Bruce's finest hour,
By A Customer
This review is from: Humans (Audio CD)
This was BC's "Late for the Sky," his "Shoot the Lights Out," the passionate chronicle of a dissolving marriage. There is not a wasted word or note on the album: The songs, at times angry, at times sad, are suffused with astonishingly lyrical images--this is the music of transcendence. "Rumours of Glory" encapsulates the ironic tension between the mundane and the eternal; "More/Not More" seeks to stave off, for one more evening, the loneliness of a broken relationship; "Fascist Architecture" reveals the kind of bitter triumph that can only be won through humility. One of the most literate albums of all time--Bruce has never since scaled such heights.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Faith, Poetry, Dark Skies,
By
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Humans (Dlx) (Audio CD)
Just revisited the vinyl last night. Needed to hear the context of this couplet: "You get bigger as you go...bales of memory like boats in tow." For, of all things, a sermon I'm giving. It was good to revisit this early-middle album of his. I saw him around this time at the Paradise in Boston. The late Hugh Marsh, in a canadian military jumpsuit, wailing away at an electric violin. He did "The Strong One" in total darkness at first. Very stark chorded melodies. His skills as a wordsmith would overwhelm a lesser guitarist and he would be called a rock poet, a Canadian Leonard Cohen. If he weren't such a good writer he'd be lumped with guitar virtuousos like Al Dimeola, fellow Berkeley School of Music student.
But here, in Humans, you have the insufficient hope of reconcilliation in marriage "Gonna tell my old lady gonna tell my little girl there isn't anything in the world that can lock up my love again." It fell apart anyway, even though it was "sealed in the presence of the father". Here he has to take his estrangement along with his faith and struggle, much as Amy Grant, another Christian songwriter did later in Behind the Eyes. There are the great challenges to faith expressed in Festival of Friends earlier confronting murder, suicide, the guerillas, pulling cars out of rivers, despair..."at at certain point, you can only die." If art is born of agony, here it is. A quarter century later, I can still count on one hand the songwriters who have risen to his equal in moral vision, in insight and in skill. "I wonder if I'll end up like Bernie in his dream A displaced person in some foreign border town Waiting for a train part hope part myth While the station changes hands Or just sitting at home growing tenser with the times Or like that guy in "The Seventh Seal" Watching the newly dead dance across the hills Or wearing this leather jacket shivering with a friend While the eye of God blazes at us like the sun Musically, he's growing with an ensemble here, further experimentations with Reggae, "something shining like gold, but better." The music is ecelectic, world music before there was a name for it. There's intensity even in the ballads, or should they be called slow laments. I could go on, but you can't learn more about this CD without listening.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
An Added Presence From the Remaster,
By
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Humans (Dlx) (Audio CD)
Still in a period of transition, Cockburn's music and lyrics were moving from the contemplative to an engaged Christianity. "How I Spent My Fall Vacation" foretells the observational analyses of US politics that would reach an extraordinarily angered pitch with STEALING FIRE. Here, though, Cockburn is just beginning to assess the political fallout from the overeaching by developed nations upon the world's poor. Musically, Bruce continues on the trajectory of incorporating more world influences beyond European, Celtic, that was certainly present on DANCING. While this is not quite as strong as DANCING, it is nonetheless full of terrific songs: the aforementioned "How...", "Tokyo", "Fascist Architecture." Bruce had also by this time assembled a crack band: Hugh Marsh on violin, Dennis Pendrith on bass, Bob Di Salle (who, with Pendrith, came from Murray McLaughlin's remarkable Golden Tractors band)on drums, Kathryn Moses on vocals and reeds, Jon Goldsmith on keyboards. Live, they were formidable! They gave Bruce that push to examine new textures and to take more chances with his own guitarcraft. There is a lot of greta and subtle displays on this disc. The bonus track is a great out-take from the trio tour with Ferguson Jemeson Marsh on Chapman Stick, and Michael Sloski from the Ontario Place concert that was the source material for his live CD of 1989. Perhaps, Rounder will convince True North, Bernie Finkelstein and Cockburn to release a DVD of that show. It was incredible - perhaps the best show I've ever seen in Toronto. In any case, another triumph for the remastering team!
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