Customer Reviews

Silver Lake

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I imagine this is the Vic Chesnutt studio album everyone's been waiting for. There are a witches brew of instruments stirred up here, from nylon string guitar and piano to harpsichord, omnichord, mandolin, chamberlin, and the indispensable "goat nails" or rat shells - but mixed and basted with the finesse of Glinda (the Good Witch from the North). Click your heels, but Kansas won't save ya. Still, the songs don't resonate as much as they do on Chesnutt's masterpiece, "The Salesman and Bernadette", a seamless blend of oblique folk and soul with partners-in-crime Lambchop from a few years back. Nor do they have the freewheeling, eccentric charm of his collection of 4-track recordings, "Left to His Own Devices." But if you've never heard a Vic Chesnutt album before, this is a solid introduction.

The wit and literate lyrics that transform the Chesnutt dilettante into the rabid fan are intact in gems like "Band Camp" and "Zippy Morocco". There are a couple of gorgeous ballads on display: "Styrofoam" and album closer, "In My Way, Yes". This reviewer's personal fave and the centerpiece of the album, the 8+ minute "Sultan, So Mighty", is lilted in an upper register appropriately befitting the eunuch narrating the song (his advice is solicited, his hot towels in demand). The one dud is "Wren's Nest", which wants to be a straight-ahead rocker but derails early on - it sounds anomalous considering the subtle, more thoughtful arrangements of the songs bracketing it.

As is always the case, the main reason to recommend a Vic Chesnutt album is the attention to intelligent songwriting. If B. Dylan, J. Mitchell, L. Cohen & N. Young were the poets for an earlier generation (and still resonate strongly), then Chesnutt with each new release, has been quietly augmenting his own Norton Anthology for the past decade. It's time everyone owned a copy.

After hearing the first track, I knew this was the Vic Chesnutt album I'd been waiting for. SILVER LAKE is his most melodic, ambitious & best produced record to date. Not only that, he seems to have found his George Martin in producer Mark Howard. If SALESMAN & BERNADETTE, ABOUT TO CHOKE & WEST OF ROME rank as his best, SILVER LAKE outshines them all.

"I'm Through", "Stay Inside" & "Styrofoam" are just what the doctor ordered. Each one casually stumbling upon the profound. If he played them live, I can see the lighters raised in supplication. They stand right up there with past gems like, "Myrtle" & Florida".

It would take a hard heart not to find "Band Camp" touching & "Girls Say" hits the funny bone bittersweetly. Chesnutt's bona fide brand of eccentricity keeps "Zippy Morocco" from seeming too epic, while "Sultan So Mighty" has to be the most ambitious track on the record. Clocking in at over 8 minutes, it still manages to haunt & confound. It could be about God, it could be about Satan but you'll never catch him dropping names. In any case, it's set in some kind of metaphorical bordello. "Fa-La-La" may be a twisted little ditty about the subtle joys of hospitalization, but it's capped off by a perfect closer called, "In My Way, Yes". If your friendly with ABOUT TO CHOKE's "See You Around" , this tune surpasses the sentiment.

As for the remaing 2 songs ( "2nd Floor & "Wren's Nest"), well...They may be a bit introspective but Mark Howard's deft production salvages them from toe gazing oblivion. In short, this is the best record of Chesnutt's 13 year career. Start here & work your way back.

I'll start by admitting that I am extremely partial to this guy, and I consider most of his work, over the years, singular, innovative because it never stops exploring, and captivating. More so than most people doing folk, alt rock or country, or Americana. "Silver Lake" is probably one of my favorite Chesnutts of all time. The melodies and their arrangements are beautifully crafted and performed, his lyric range and imagery closer to poets than songwriters, and his singing courageously vulnerable and heart-strong. Sit down and listen to Sultan, The Mighty, and be converted.

I am grossly underqualified to write a 'review' of a Vic Chesnutt CD. All I can do is compare it to some of his other releases. (I've not listened to anything that came before Is The Actor Happy, or the Widespread Panic collaborations).

Zippy Morocco; In My Way, Yes; 2nd Floor; Sultan, So Mighty; and Styrofoam are as good as anything I've heard by Vic. The lyrics throughout are great, as to be expected.

I deduct one star because the transitions into the harder rocking passages on 2nd Floor, Band Camp and Wrens Nest aren't nearly as comfortable sounding as the seamless transitions that appear on 'Actor' (Free of Hope, Strange Language) or About To Choke (Degenerate, Giant Sands).

Any new album from Vic Chesnutt is cause for celebration, and I'm really happy to see a label support one the greatest songwriters alive.

However, there's something about Vic performing with polished session musicians that just sort of misses with me (with Brute being the prime example). When there's nothing off-kilter with the music, it begins to feel too safe. "Left to His Own Devices" had me pining for his next studio album, thinking that high production values would deliver something similar to "About to Choke". "Silver Lake" just seems oddly clean and predictable. His words are still classic Vic, I just wish I felt like he was in the room with me.

I don't really know how to review a Vic Chesnutt album except by quoting the songs themselves, because, however exquisite the music often is, and on Silver Lake it is exquisite, the words are what carry the albums, and that never leave you.

From "I'm Through":

and i struggle with these etiquettes
like you wouldn't believe
I'm puzzled by the policies
'cause after everything else you draw out of me
you still expect cute curtsies

From "Sultan So Mighty":

I'm here because i'm a eunuch
I am no threat
I'm here to watch the ladies
and to fan away their sweat

and the sultan, so mighty
comes crawling to me
when he has a little problem
with the ladies

Chesnutt has gained the confidence to let his songs strecth, and this leads to a mood of languor with suits the material perfectly. "I'm Though" runs almost 7 minutes, and "Sultan, So Mighty" over 8. Chesnutt has pretty much evolved away from the "country-rock" label, and there isn't really any way to pigeon hole this kind of music; it's mostly mellow, electric, but quietly so, and the instruments seem to be swooning along in exactly the same cadences as Chesnutt's unhurried and somehow dramatic vocal delivery. Silver Lake has a handful of songs that are as good or better than anything the man has done, and the whole album is engaging, but I'm less enamored with a few of these, like the playful but minor "Girl's Say." As a whole, both Salesman, and Is the Actor Happy? are better records, but if I had to choose only one Vic record for a desert island, Silver Lake would be in the running.

Out of all of Vic's recent releases, Silver Lake is the most like Little (Vic's first disc). Simple & beautiful. One man singing his heart out. The whole disc is full of simple guitar accompanied slices of Vic's life. Lyrics as always are smart and catchy. Like most of his work, Silver Lake sounds like you're peeking into a jam session of of of the best singer/song writers alive today. Stay Inside has a great choir backup. Band Camp makes me smile every time I hear it. Vic Chesnutt fills his music with an equal mixture of goofy, humor, anger, and sadness. Personally this is music at it's highest.

The CD is clean and recorded well. Some of it is intentionally crackly, kind of a home 4-track feel to it. For Chesnutt's work, it's perfect.

I can't recommend Vic enough. Also check out LITTLE and LEFT TO HIS OWN DEVICES...and then all the rest of his CDs.

You can take or leave Chesnutt --in that sense, he's no different from any of the major singer-songwriter talents of the last, oh, thirty-five years; he's idiosycratic to a fault, and his voice you'll find either beguiling and addictive or limited and grating. (Personally, I think he's a genius.) But Phil D, I'm guessing there's a lot in life you don't get. Take it out on your loved ones, as I'm sure you do. But a friendly word of advice --you'll want to keep your status as a sub-literate and a philistine as private as possible.

I'll just simply say, another awesome piece of music from the worlds greatest singer,songwriter! Every track on this cd is a standout.Vic can do no wrong.100% ear candy. JUST BUY IT!

It is pointless to review and rate great artists.
Once YOU understand this.Follow them , go on their jouney
but do not judge them .Vic is a king.