Customer Reviews

Rain on Lens

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Bill 'Smog' Callahan's 4-tracking days are far behind, and only for the better, it seems. Each album since 1995's Wild Love has offered significant improvement (or at least new wrinkles) on Callahan's dry, stark, and occasionally morbid observational songwriting techniques. The big variation on this album, which perhaps explains the slightly altered billing (as "(smog)"), is that Callahan employs a full band on every song, or more precisely, one band, rather than a rotating crew, as on past albums. This includes Eleventh Dream Day's Rick Rizzo on guitar, US Maple's Pat Samson on drums, and avant-garde oboeist Kyle Bruckmann. The result is perhaps the tightest, most cohesive album Callahan has ever delivered. As always, the outward prickliness of his music only serves to set those frequent moments of instrumental beauty and lyrical clarity ("God does not answer / This type of prayer") in sharper contrast. Another American classic, from a true national treasure.

bill callahan aka smog once again out did himself. i think rain on lens is amazing; it is stronger lyrically and musically than dongs of sevotion which was no slouch by any means. rain on lens is much smoother, i immediately got into it. the only drawback is that it is too short. give it a try and listen, i promise you will not be disappointed.

Rain On Lens is one of the most straightforward record Mr Callahan has recorded. He sets up stall by leading us into a film where there's "rain on lens, boom in frame, all is ruin"
then 'Song' gives you a flavour of whats to come on the first half of the album. It seems to operate in a similar universe to Quickspace, with dark driven krautrock, shifting form in small nuances and offering a twisted philosphy that Smog fans have come to love. It might just be me but it has a very European feel to this record. Perhaps it's all the black & white cover Art and the dense and dark metaphors that are littered across this album.

The second half is quite beautiful and quite upbeat in places.
'Live as if...' is reminiscent of Rem, My Bloody Valentine and various other abstract pieces of Alternative music (and at one scary point I was reminded of the Crash Test Dummies, though it might be safer to say the red house painters.)

It feels like a short album, a inbetweener that stands in a field of its own to previous releases, but like most Smog songs it's difficult to put you finger on what makes you feel this way, but it matters little as it's a nice dark place to be.

Smog, like much good music, is a bit of an acquired taste. Bill Callahan's music might prove a little difficult to some because of the impenetrability of its bleakness and despair: the sparest of guitar chords are scratched over minimal ornamentation, and Callhan does a kind of speak-sing comparable to Leonard Cohen, Lou Reed and David Berman (imagine the latter on lithium, narrating about failed relationships and death. If this is your cup of tea, this is the album for you. But if you're one of those who wish Callhan would break from his usual routine (as he has demonstrated capable of doing with a few stellar cuts off Songs and Devotion and Knock Knock), then you might be disappointed. There are a few tracks that step forward to distinguish themselves from the gloom and doom, however; Live Your Life Like...is a beautifully written and captivating song. Song, Revanchism and Short Drive also have a little hop in their step, more of what Callahan needs.