Customer Reviews

Slow Dazzle

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This is the 2nd album in the "Island trilogy", and possibly the least consistent. Cale asserts his genius all over this disc, but it's not as consistently engaging as "Helen of Troy" or "Fear." But, like all of his early to mid 70s work, he continues down his own eclectic, versatile path, alternating between weak-in-the-knees gorgeous pop, somber ballads, violent exercises in primal scream therapy, suicidal funeral dirges, and gritty rock 'n roll.

On the powerfully dramatic opener, "Mr. Wilson," Cale is in top form, generating a dark, pounding yet beautiful pop ode to the genius of Brian Wilson (a huge influence on Cale's work). What makes the song so cool is that it doesn't sound very Wilsonesque until the end with its spine-tingling coda. The verses and choruses feature tensely pounded electric piano and sharp, aggressively bowed (and scraped) strings, while the mesmerizing, soulful bridge, with its cool glockenspiel part, could've been written by Curtis Mayfield. Brilliant.

From there, the album down-shifts into the soothing melodic pop of "Taking it All Away," a pretty song with bitter lyrics, presumably about Cale's disfucntional love-life. The album slides downhill for a bit after that. You've got sleazy, cheap sounding 12-bar raunch more or less taking up the next 3 songs until Cale's gut-wrenching take on "Heartbreak Hotel." Completely unrecognizable from the original version, Cale turns it into a frightening, dark, harrowing vision with his tortured shouting and a scalding, sinister musical attack.

The rest of "Slow Dazzle" stays more or less on track, with the catchy "Ski Patrol," the bitter, violent imagery of "Guts," and the lush, orchestral, Bacharach-tinged "I'm Not the Loving Kind." "Guts" is particularly noteworthy for its subject matter: the first few lines are about Kevin Ayers, who Cale found out had slept with his wife. Cale spits his resentment through gritted teeth, barely hiding the sheer disgust he must have felt about his marriage goning sour. Few singer/songwriters make music as intensely personal as this.

Finally, "The Jeweller" closes the album as a lysergic, spoken-word piece/acid trip about a guy who loses an eye, only to wake one night finding it replaced by... well, Amazon will edit this out if I tell you the rest. It's also worth mentioning that "Slow Dazzle" has the cleanest sounding production of the 3 Island releases. The high points on this album do much to confirm Cale's role as a highly influential and seminal artist.

This is a superb record, but its of marginal value with "The Island Years", which has Cale's entire output from his time on Island and (at least as I write this) is comparably priced to this release. All three Island albums have something to offer, and there's some extra material on the set.

While "Fear" is typically considered the peak of Cale's Island output, I actually much prefer "Slow Dazzle"-- it doesn't quite have the heights of "Fear", but it doesn't have as much of the fluff that album has either.

Before going any further, let's talk about "Heartbreak Hotel"-- its certainly the most stunning and memorable moment on the album. No doubt likely to horrify any Elvis fan, this is something-- often considered the pinnacle of inspiration for the goth movement, "Heartbreak Hotel" features heavy, distorted guitars, a wailing synth line, and hissed and screamed vocals from Cale. Its really stunning on first listen, brilliant on subsequent. This alone makes the album worth having.

But that's not all the great work on the album, Cale maintains the sort of haunted mood on the record, regardless of form-- his Brian Wilson tribute ("Mr. Wilson"), a brilliant tribute soaked in early '70s Beach Boys-style rhythms and surf harmonies at the tag and with more than a couple overt Beach Boys lyrical references is brilliant with its sense of a haunted melancholy. "Taking It All Away" and "Darling I Need You", similar in feel (midtempo rock pieces) both express different takes on this sort of thing, the latter in particular is really quite brilliant. And then there's the two great rock songs, "Dirty Ass Rock 'n' Roll" and "Guts"-- both keeping up the album's attitude, both are great, great, songs, compulsive, powerful, Cale's half shouted vocal is brilliant. Ditto for "Rollaroll", although the composition is a bit weaker and it doesn't stand up well next to these two.

Cale does mix it up a bit, the pop "Ski Patrol" fails pretty bad in my book, and the bizarre spoken word piece, "The Jeweller" is beyond explanation (ten years I've been listening to this album, I still can't make up my mind about it), but the pretty ballad, "I'm Not the Loving Kind" (and still with that haunted feel), featuring a melancholy, stunningly resonant, wordless chorus vocal from Cale, is essential.

Bottom line, "Slow Dazzle" is in my assessment one of the true gems in the Cale catalog, highly recommended, but "The Island Years" is a much better value.

Slow Dazzle is truly an incredible album. It was released at the peak of Cale's career; The Island Years. Cale released three albums for Island Records. The first of these three was Fear, which rivals this album as Cale's best. This album, Slow Dazzle, was the second release on Island. The third and final was Helen of Troy, which is another great album. All three of these albums would get five stars. Slow Dazzle, however, may top them. Other than The Jeweller, this album isn't very experimental. Cale was just playing "Dirty-Ass Rock'N'Roll." This album is almost commercially acceptable. Almost. Also, besides Heartbreak Hotel, Cale doesn't snap during the middle of any of the songs. However, not being so expeimental and not going temporarilly insane during the middle of a song can be good or bad qualities. With this album, it works. Songs like Dirty-Ass Rock and Roll, Darling I Need You, and the gloomy version of Heartbreak Hotel are three of Cale's best songs. This album is essential to any fans of Cale, VU, or Reed. Buy it.

As a unit, this is Cale's best album. The sequence of Dirtyass Rock 'n Roll, Darling I Need You & Rollaroll is out of this world, a hypnotic tour de force with disturbing cinematic imagery e.g. "... Chuch of Christ Jesus Kentucky/Rattlesnakes and strychnine and prayer ..." Guts is an amazing piece of psychotic rock. Ski Patrol is a haunting ballad that reminds me of a John Berryman poem, "Song Of The Tortured Girl." Other favourites include I'm Not The loving Kind and Taking It All Away, both slow sad songs. I'm not crazy about Mr Wilson or his gut-wrenching take on Heartbreal Hotel but most of the critics and his fans are! Buy this album but also investigate the compilation "Seducing Down The Door."

Even die hard John Cale fans have to admit he's a frustrating artist who in admirably resisting pigeon holes has at times made himself decidedly difficult to warm to. On Slow Dazzle however he clearly settled on a genre he liked for a moment and absolutely nailed it. Yes, its possible to argue that by focussing his vision so tightly he deprives the 'true' fan of the eclectic weirdness that characterises so much of his work but on the other hand it does mean he delivers a superbly tight and coherent slab of dark rock and roll. And dark it truely is. Once you've heard Cale's intensly menacing version of Heartbreak Hotel its hard to ever take the original seriously again. Sometimes criticised as too commercial because of its clean and punchy production, Slow Dazzle shines with repeated listenings. The tortured love songs, the twisted narrative, the glorious pop sensability, they're all there. Not so much a slow dazzle as an immediate, enduring, and dazzling tour de force.

Throughout a career of constant experimenting and searching, only once - with the so-called "Island Trilogy" - did John Cale find a comfortable enough niche to settle down and create music that's truly and utterly timeless; on those three albums Cale practices a sleek, sarcastic and very dark blend of rock, pop and avant-garde jazz, and they're as challenging and intricate as they are tight and precise. Of the three, Slow Dazzle, the second effort, is probably the most varied and inconsistent; but it's still solid enough to be an entirely satisfying listen, and thanks to its high versatility it may be the best of the bunch; it's also the cleanest and best produced of them, and benefits from first class arrangements that incorporate brass and strings smartly and never excessively, serving as a backdrop to Cale's hard, dark bass, high distortion and electric piano.

Cale's highly intelligent sarcasm is clear from the very first track - `Mr. Wilson' - which is a brilliant, dark and gritty tribute to Brian Wilson, one of Cale's heroes and influences. It's by far not the only gem on the album; `Darling I Need You' - which is, as Cale himself put it, a song about `religious awakening in the southern part of the United States', remains one of his strongest tracks, while `I'm Not The Loving Kind' is one of his most beautiful ballads, and not without its share of sarcasm and bitterness. `Ski Patrol', `Rollaroll' and `Taking It All Away' are all vintage Cale, that could have fitted perfectly on Helen Of Troy or Fear. `Dirty Ass Rock N' Roll' is an all-out rock number with terrific lyrics and great electric piano work; maybe I'm prejudiced because this song was played (brilliantly!) as an encore when I saw Cale live in Tel Aviv earlier this year, but it's one of my own favorites.

But to me the album becomes fascinating in three tracks that are all around grittier and more disturbing. `Guts' is one of the most powerful pieces Cale had written, music, lyrics and all; the lyrics are very personal, dark and moving, and with a twisted sense of humor; and it's driven by a fast electric piano, and a powerful bass line. Then there's his interpretation of Elvis Presley's timeless `Heartbreak Hotel'. Like `Mr. Wilson', `Heartbreak Hotel' puts a dark twist on Cale's influences; but in his hands, the rockabilly classic is turned into a dark, heavy rock number, and is barely recognizable. In fact, with this new arrangement and gut-wrenching vocal performance, Cale merely brings to the surface the surprising bleakness and darkness of the song's lyrics. Finally, `The Jeweller' is a spoken-word piece, a dark poem by Cale placed against a backdrop of ambient electric piano. The piece is disturbing and troubling, and the track is one of the most haunting on the album, making it a grand finale and an uneasy one. It perfectly compliments this grand and uneasy album, one of Cale's best and an essential to any fan.

This is a brilliant album! I just can't understand why it's only available on import these days - according to this site, anyway. Highlights are Darling I Need You and I'm Not The Loving Kind. John Cale's solo work is very much underrated!

Cale's 1975 album "Slow Dazzle" more or less follows the same tracks that were laid out with his first Island album "Fear". It's a fine combination of fine pop-ballads and great rocking tunes still with touches of Cale's avantgardish approach.

The opener, "Mr Wilson", is Cale's tribute to Brian Wilson whose influence on Cale is obvious on several tracks on more of his albums.

"Dirty Ass Rock'n Roll" and "Darling I Need You" are two pianobased rockers, the first with Dylan-like vocals the other slightly Fats Domino inspired. The standout rocker, though, is the terrific "Guts" with a guitar-riff worthy of a Keith Richards at his best. The only non-Cale original is a weird version of "Hearbreak Hotel" - if you do not listen the lyrics you'll never notice it was the old Elvis song.

The melodic side of Cale is showcased with "Taking it All Away", "Im Not the Loving Kind" and "Ski Patrol", the latter the most commercial song on the album. "The Jeweller" is a story recited by Cale, not unlike "The Gift" from his Velvet Underground days.

While not quite as consistent in its songwriting as "Fear", this is easily on of Cale's best albums.

This is a brilliant album! I just can't understand why it's only available on import these days - according to this site, anyway. Highlights are Darling I Need You and I'm Not The Loving Kind. John Cale's solo work is very much underrated!