Customer Reviews

Red Apple Falls

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is the first truly great Smog album. Earlier albums all have some great songs, but suffer from content and/or sound quality. The worst songs on this album are good and six of the nine are great. Just listen to track one, four, or five. I can dig beneath tepid sound quality if the music transcends it, but the improvement here is important because of the sound Bill Callahan, who IS Smog, creates. The sound is still somewhat skeletal, but these bones have more flesh on them than earlier albums. The sound has more baroque elements, with pedal steel, french horn, piano and trumpet added to the mix. The sardonic, insular nature of Callahan is still present: The morning paper is on its way/It's all bad news on every page/So roll right over/And go to sleep/The evening sun will be so sweet. But the songs have a more expansive and stately feel. Callahan himself has said, "Red Apple Falls was...dreamlike, more about consciousness and what it's like to be a sentient being." Do not assume this statement implies arty pretension, for Callahan is nothing if not honest and authentic-you can feel it in his songs. As for this album, imagine Summer Teeth with a pared down sound, recorded by people just coming out of disintegrated relationships, taking downers and in an introspective frame of mind. If you find this album too stilted, try Julius Caesar or anything that followed it. None of the others sound quite as intimate or subtle as this album. If Callahan's evolution continues as it did here, he just might wind up as this generation's Nick Drake, though hopefully without his tragic ending.

Only gave 4 stars because this album isn't for everyone, and a 5-star review makes people go out and buy stuff. In this case if a lot of people did that, they'd be disappointed and would post negative reviews here.

I gave this album to an intelligent musician with great taste, and he said he couldn't get through it because it's too slow. So again, it's not for everyone. With that said, when this album first came out in 1997/8 I turned several other people onto it and it stayed in rotation in all of our collections for months and months.

It's a minimalist album, and it does unfold at Bill's own pace. But holy schmidt, pretty much every time you listen to it layers upon layers show themselves, and you're slack-jawed. A friend listening to him stammered with respect, "You just...you just can't DO that!"

Best listened to in fall/winter. It's the musical and thematic equivalent to bare branches sillouted against a bleak sky.

And it's a dark as hell album. Lyrically sardonic, self-observing, sad, removed, mildly sadistic, more than mildly self-loathing, resigned, anguished, amused and amusing, charming, engaging, self-deprecating, astonishingly witty, narrative-driven. Musically it's haunting, hypnotic, and quite beautiful. He's brilliant.

For example, the first track, "The Morning Paper," opens for several bars with singular, repetitive, dissonant notes on an accoustic guitar, against a dull low buzzing backdrop, and then Bill's voice, sounding tentative and slightly disoriented, comes in for just a few lines...his character wakes up logily and, not finding compelling reason to fully come to consciousness, capitulates to lethargy to "roll right over/and go to sleep/the evening sun/can be so sweet."

Then--still in the space of maybe 6 lines--introduces the concept of "this thing...Red Apple Falls," seemingly an allegory for the place his emotionally damaged and damaging protagonist had been in, in a complicated relationship where he behaved very badly, and basically now has the reaction of the scorpion in the scorpion and the frog story (when asked why the scorpion has stung the frog who is giving him a ride across a river, since they'll both sink and drown -- i.e., "it's in my nature...I'm a scorpion").

But many other reactions and ripples are revealed throughout the album, its stories, anecdotes, and side trips.

Some people have commented on Bill Callahan's lack of vocal strength or something...I disagree. This is a pretty emotional album. And Bill's voice is an expressive instrument. You won't hear his voice crack or eep out uncertainly or tiredly without it tying into the album's narrative. And often he sings in the monotone of someone still in the aftershock of whatever that trip into Red Apple Falls was all about.

Last note: I like other Smog albums a lot too--but this is my hands-down favorite--and have *not* enjoyed Bill Callahan live, at all, much to my chagrin.

I cant say that this is Smog's (Bill Callahan or whatever his name is) best work because like so many, I have really only discovered Smog in the last few months. Of the 4 records Ive heard, Red Apple Falls is the best. These songs are great and what's more... they are accessable. Much of Smog's early work was a bit formless and avant-garde for my tastes, but this borders on a straight ahead pop album.
Smog's songs in general are melancholic tales of the absurd, much like those of Leonard Cohen or Tom Waits. This CD is no exception. I would say, based on what Ive heard, that this would be an excellent place to start if you are thinking about picking up some Smog.

Bill Callahan never fails to amaze me, this in my mind is the best Smog album that i've heard. A concept album of sorts that details the end of a relationship (his previous LP, The Doctor Came at Dawn seemed to deal with a relationship breaking up while this album is a reflective look back on the affair.) Reminiscent of Lou Reed's Berlin, and at times Leonard Cohen (especially on the track Blood Red Bird) Red Apple Falls gets to the heart of the pain and loss of a love affair ending, the track Red Apples in particular. Simple, sparse and delicate, Bill Callahan is arguably the best balladeer living today.

I own just about all of the official Smog releases from the gritty home tape recordings, to the newer albums that will keep some steady friends around. This is by far the best (Smog) album that I've heard. Think Leonard Cohen meets The VU w/a touch of beautiful pedal steel over the top of it all. This album really is amazing and it embraces all of the different stylings that Bill Callahan employs throughout all of his works. From violent pop songs set over a cheary beat (ala Ex Con), to the isolated and introspectiveness w/a gritty sense of humor (es Stranger). This album really hits home. The one thing that may annoy new comers to this album is the heavy handedness of all the symbolism that reoccurs throughout the album. To me it's perfect but to others it can possibley ware you down. If you get this album and are looking for more Smog to listen to then the next logical step is Knock Knock. If you own Knock Knock and want more of the same then pick this one up.

when I first listen smog in a radio station here in mexico city, I was wonder how an entire album would sound, and when I get "red apple falls" randomly I was amazed by the power of the lyrics and the sound itself, I don't now how this band is not that famous yet (and it'll never gonna be for sure, but still it's really worth listening!!!!)

Smog's Red Apple Falls is indicative of Bill Callahan's direction towards a more easy-to-swallow pill of indie folk. The songs have more form, the instruments are all pretty much conventional instruments, and Callahan's voice has adopted a rather soothing drawl. That's not to say Callahan has dumbed down his sound in any way. Instead of the lo-fi mess-terpiece of Wild Love, we have the country-tinged Red Apple Falls, a record filled with Callahan's usual tales of lost love and lost confidence. The pedal steel takes a rather prominant role on many of the album's more fleshed-out tracks such as "Inspirational," giving the album a sort-of alt-country feel reminiscent of Will Oldham's work. Sitting along with a rather uncharacteristic slice of upbeat pop ("Ex-Con") are some of Callahan's best pieces of minimalist folk. While "Red Apples" and "To Be Of Use" are carried by rather simple piano and guitar figures, they say so much with so little as the cliché goes. Thus with this record, Callahan has proven himself a master of both the full-band and the lone musician. Red Apple Falls is a great starting point for any potential Smog fan.

It's hard to say what exact genre this album fits into, because it's omnivorous in the influences and sounds it appropriates. One thing's for sure though--this record is terrific, and very moving.

If you do like Smog, or sweet, sad music... buy this. High quality music.

Believe I like this title better than their 'Supper' CD (see my review). Overall, not a bad minimalist effort. Tracks here that I found to my liking are "Morning Paper", the somewhat odd ballad "I Was A Stranger", the title cut "Red Apple Falls" and "Inspirational". Noticed about every song here had some really good well thought out lyrics. This isn't my usual taste in music - not even close.