Customer Reviews

Itch

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4 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

Being a stateside fan of Mitchell's since the early Webster days, I probably have a different perspective on his body of work than Canadians fans. In Canada, much like with Genesis, Mitchell's fans seem to fall into two catagories: 1)Die hard fans from the Max Webster days 2) Newer pop fans who discovered him around the Rockland era when he had acheived a measure of top 40 success. Poor Kim never caught on in the big 50 unfortunately, so pretty much all of the American fans date back to the more experimental era of the 70's/early 80's. It was interesting for me, to say the least, to hear the previous reviewer refer to ITCH as "weird". Calling Kim Mitchell weird is like calling the Ramones "raw", you mean you never noticed this until recently? You can easily draw 3 distinct phases in Kim's career; the eccentric Webster stuff, the slightly less eccentric early 80's solo work, and the late 80's/early 90's I'm now Mark Knopfler VH1 phase. Well, in the god-awful genericness of it all, Kim's wonderfully quirky and absolutely unique brand of off-balance hard rock has been a balm to my soul and sometimes a crack in my windsheild. From the 1rst Webster LP to "Shakin" , Kim Mitchell was a one-of-a-kind. Like Monty Python, you either get it or you don't. Well, as you could probably guess, I am a much bigger fan of his more experimental material than the Rockland/Aural Fixations pandering to MOR airplay, and if you are as well, than I can promise you that ITCH is by far the freshest and most "Mitchell" Kim has been in years. This is my favorite solo album next to Akimbo, and even then, it's close. The hard rock is hard again, the "every song is mid-tempo for hopeful future use in a car commercial" format of Rockland is long gone, and the Pye is back doing what he does best. Please heed me on this one, if you are a fan of Toronto Tonto's, Go For Soda and In Context Of The Moon, then this is the closest you will get to that sound since 83'.

I love Kim Mitchell. But to me many of his albums are very spotty and unconsistent. I am not going to fall into the stereotypical review that always seems to either love or hate"pop-py" type songs, or love or hate certain time periods of an artist, or just a certain decade or the other of music period.

Come on people- get a little more sophisticated than that. There are great and horrible songs within each of these catagories for artists, and KM is no exception.

To me, 'Rockland' is not pandering. It IS inconsistent. It has five songs that I really like on the album- Rocklandwonderland, Lost Lovers Found, Tangle of Love, The Crossroads, and one of my favorites- the beautiful Expedition Sailor. No, they're not all rockers. Wouldn't it be excruciatingly boring if they were!?

The rest of the songs are basically un-listenable for me- because they seem like throw-aways with almost nothing to make them interesting.

The same dynamic is in place for 'Shakin' Like a Human Being' which has the cheesy Patio Lanterns- which I actually love, believe it or not.
But 'Itch' Just Rocks. It is the most consistent album Kim has done by far, as far as I'm concerned. The albums in between I can't even listen to. It is one of my 'go to' albums if I need to get psyched. Interspersed there are also some beautiful songs like 'U.S. of Ache' and, as the earlier reviewer mentioned, 'Cheer Us On'.
The album is recorded superbly. Great heavy-duty drums and bass that punch you, and beautiful rich heavy classic Kim guitar.

I don't know why Kim has been so inconsistent- his new album- 'Aint Life Amazing' to me is pretty horrible and not at all up to the standards of 'Itch' in any category. That's really disappointing- but I think it was probably because of the collaboration he hooked up with- interchanging files over the internet instead of doing it in person. But I know he'll be back in form again soon.