Knock Knock

Smog

Product Details

• Audio CD (January 12, 1999)
• Original Release Date: January 12, 1999
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Drag City
• ASIN: B00000G1IU
• In-Print Editions: Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #16,259 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

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  #31 in	Music > Indie Music > Alternative Rock > Indie & Lo Fi
  #57 in	Music > Alternative Rock > Indie & Lo-Fi > Lo-Fi

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
One of the more hauntingly visionary indie-rock artists, Bill Callahan, a.k.a. Smog, writes sparse, poignant songs that shimmer with solipsistic grandeur. His sixth full-length disc, Knock Knock, shivers with restlessness, recounting forlorn tales of imprisoned convicts ("River Guard"), disenfranchised country boys ("Hit the Ground Running"), and unrequited love ("Left Only with Love"). Smog is too well-produced to qualify as lo-fi anymore, but the rich strings, chiming piano, and baleful strums of Knock Knock never detract from the workingman's loneliness of the disc. Like Neil Young's Tonight's the Night, only without the nasal vocals, the album is serene and sedate but nonetheless unsettling, as if the collective scene Callahan creates is merely the calm before the storm. Fortunately, when the melodies seem to drift too close to comatose, the shuffling beat and drifting feedback of "Held," the distorted chug of "No Dancing," and the jangly strum of "Cold Blooded Old Times" keep the needle from flatlining. --Jon Wiederhorn

Entertainment Weekly
On his seventh release, [Bill Callahan] turns extrovert, rocking out with a band, a string section, and even a children's choir.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best Record Of The Decade, April 18, 2003

By	L. Seifer (Brooklyn, NY United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Picking my favorite Smog album is much like asking someone to select their favorite child. For more than a decade, Bill Callahan has put out some of the most compelling (and often under-appreciated) music, period. Knock Knock takes everything great about his past output and melds it seemlessly into easily my favorite record of the nineties: A sly sense of humor; experimentation that doesn't come off as needlessly self-indulgent; beautiful, haunting melodies and a sense of space between the words and notes that is just as important as the music itself. Callahan's lyric's are full of poetically clever, but very, very real analogies and specific life-altering moments from his character's (his?) past that can make even the most jaded listener re-think a universal subject such as love or childhood memories. The song, "Let's Move To The Country," is a classic album opener, setting a hopeful tone you just know will gradually be marred by life's dissappointing reality by album's end (This is also my 2-year old niece's favorite song, with its childlike innocence: "A goat and a monkey, a mule and a flea"). All along though, Mr. Callahan tells it with a knowing wit, driving spikes into our hearts with personal details in his narrative and subtley-unique touches in the music rarely found in popular music. For my money, there is no more perfect record.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lo-Fi Album-writing Master, April 10, 2000

By	Father Harry (Somerville, MA) - See all my reviews

Some people write good books, others write good songs. Billy Callahan (a.k.a. Smog) writes good _albums_. More so than almost any other album I own, Smog's works are best digested whole, in one continuous sitting. While individual songs stand out on their own (most notably "Cold Blooded Old Times", which made it into the "High Fidelity" Soundtrack, and "Hit the ground running"), Smog has (once again) written the album as a masterpiece of lyric narrative detailing (as usual) the agonies of modern love.

Don't be quick to dismiss this Album as indie-pop depressing melancholy pap, however -- Callahan, in his growing maturity as a songwriter, is learning to articulate a somber complexity.

Turn down the lights, grab your bottle of bourbon, sit back and enjoy.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Happy go lucky Bill, November 25, 2000

By	Daniel Edwards (Canberra, Australia) - See all my reviews

The most cheerful release yet by the usually mordant Bill Callahan, 'Knock Knock' is a revelation both for newcomers and for the fans. Far better than the patchy 'Dongs of Sevotion', 'Knock Knock' seems to have managed the trick of being professionally produce and yet, at the same time, prepared with the classically 'Smog' laissez faire attitude to musical technique and technology. Almost any other indy artist today would have choked on their own musical conscience at the notion of childrens' choirs, but Bill couldn't seem to care less, and the album would be far poorer without the extra character they provide (especially on the wonderful 'Hit the Ground Running'). 'Cold Blooded Old Times', the stand-out track, sums up the album's mood nicely: the lyrics brood over lost love, violence and innocence, but Bill's voice is nostalgic, hopeful that better is to come. And, hopefully, he's right, because this is a gem.