Customer Reviews

Springtime Can Kill You (Dig)

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

 

 

You know you are in for some blues when you see an album titled "Springtime Can Kill You." But what kind of blues are we getting? Not the broken-hearted, misfortune blues,
Instead we get what I would call the Dysthymic Blues. Jolie sings, with Klonopin flavored slurring phrases, the blues of brooding, help-rejecting gloom. Blues that are more than situational. Rather a sense of cheerlessness that are wrapped up in character, blues that can't be easily cured because her self-pity is too important to her, too protective. Rather than being replaced, her sadness, if taken away, would leave her with a gaping void that could only be filled with uncontrolled anger and anxiety. These songs give us a sullen blues fueled by an anger at the world that is observant and accurate, but no less self-defeating for it.

I'm not knocking her. I'm just expressing the vibe I get from listening to this album. None of this matters, she's not my sister, not my friend, what matters is if you like the music.

And I do. Musically, I like her. She's a good musician, and her songs are creative. This isn't music I could listen to all the time, but it's music I can enjoy when I'm in a certain heavy-lidded, tranquilly-low frame of mind that can resonate with her attitude.

Jolie Holland's first album, "Catalpa", sounded almost like a Library of Congress recording from the 1930s, of some porch singer in the bayou. Her second album (first "real" album), "Escondida", didn't sound primitive anymore, but was definitely tentative about all this newfangled band stuff. But with her third album, she's moved out of that bayou for good. She no longer sounds barefoot... instead, perhaps some well-worn used pumps from a thrift shop, opium in a tentament apartment rather than moonshine on the back porch.

It's easy to say she's on her way to becoming a female Tom Waits, but that's perhaps too easy. Certainly, the similarities are there - the murky sound, the exaggerated voice, lyrics drawn from the deepest wells of weird Americana, blues that sound more like some uptown cousin of Son House than a white adopted grandchild of Muddy Waters. And maybe more similar, you'll either love her or hate her. But if you're even looking here, you'll likely love her. And maybe, if you're especially lucky or unlucky, she'll love you back.

Only one song, the title track, really stood out for me on the first few listens of this album, but oh what a song! It makes the purchase price well worth it. "Springtime Can Kill You" comes from some place distant yet right under your nose. The way the tempo and base line swell from drowsy to quick to drowsy, coupled with Jolie's meandering voice and the profound lyrics, all combine to create one of the most hypnotic and fascinating musical settings I've ever heard. The pollen is so thick in this song it almost makes me sneeze.

The first time I listened to this I wasn't sure what to make of it, but the more I listen the more I like it. I really liked Escondida, this album is a little different, on a lot of songs her voice sounds like an instrument. Sometimes she's all over the place and some of the songs get a little tiresome. But what a voice it is, the songs are beautiful and interesting, overall a pleasure to listen to. Ms. Holland's music evokes many styles and era's, but I think she's more and more sounding like herself.

Cat Power and Neko Case didn't do it for me this year, but this album by Jolie Holland is solid. It's by far, the best thing Jolie Holland has done. Unlike her previous albums, the musicianship is tight and free of excess. Holland has gotten more sophisticated and adventurous both lyrically and melodically and it suits her.

The album has a very dreamy, hallucinatory quality. It's like taking The Little Willies album - an album this year that's pretty boring - and adding opium. And that's a good thing.

I don't do drugs anymore, but I can remember that music like this was - like Billie Holiday or Dan Hicks albums - the perfect drug companion. And maybe that's why I like this album so much. It makes me a bit nostalgic.

The more I think about it, the more this sounds like a young, fresh female Dan Hicks. Except Ms. Holland is a little easier on the ears and her lyrics are less straightforward. Recommended for fans of Tom Waits, Joe Henry, Bjork and Andrew Bird.

I loved Escondida and Catalpa, and I couldn't wait for Springtime Can Kill You. It arrived in my CD player a week ago and hasn't left. This music is now in my bloodstream; it's food for the ears. Crush in the Ghetto, Springtime Can Kill You, and Stubborn Beast are instantly addictive.

I picked this up shortly after it came out and was initially so unhappy with it I decided to wait, avoid it for a while and then come back to it. It turns out that was the way to go for me because this did indeed grow on me, though it will never cozy up to Catalpa or Escondida.

There are 2 things that initially (and still do, to some extent) turned me off about this album. The main thing is that for some of this, she seems to have decided to go with the more affected vocal style she used on Escondida's Goodbye California, which is the only song from either of her first 2 albums that I despise... that I despise because of that vocal affectation. I don't know why she's chosen to do it, but on Goodbye California, and slipping in and out of it at various times on Springtime Can Kill You, it's as if she decided to sing in characature of herself. She sometimes uses this overtly mush-mouthed style that sounds more like someone who doesn't like Jolie might sing were they mocking her in an SNL skit. It's not usually as bad here as it is on Goodbye CA, but there are definitely moments here.

The 2nd thing that I think brings this one in below Catalpa and Escondida is that it doesn't really have the mysterious, magical, otherwordly rural quality of those 2 great albums. Don't get me wrong, there are some really good songs here... Crush, Mehitabel, Moonshiner, etc... but they're more just like really nice songs. Whereas the first 2 albums have the sort of mystical quality that might make one think Skip James had been reincarnated as a young 21st Century white woman who sings the sort of hair-raising country music that scares Toby Keith fans and CMT executives, this album is more just like a collection of some nice songs, a couple great songs, and a couple real ho-hummers.

Still, I can't totally be down on it. Along with the several favorites I mentioned above, I have to make special mention of Stubborn Beast which I completely love. That is some serious musical beauty right there.

While often good, sometimes great, and sometimes blah, overall this is a nice little album in which previous fans of Jolie will find things to like and/or love. If you've never bought/heard one of her albums though, this should not be your first. In fact, of her 3 albums thus far, this should be the 3rd one you consider. It'd be a darned shame if someone bought this and thought "Eh... I don't really dig her", and then never picked up Catalpa or Escondida, both of which are on a whole 'nother plane of existence.

This is Jolie Holland's 3rd full-length album to be released on Anti Records, and it's a bit like riding the rails...melodic and jazzy in a rambling, dreamlike way...great on the porch with a big glass of wine or whatever gets ya high.

her voice is like a hubcap falling off and rolling --
going 10 miles an hour down a dirt road 70 years ago
in some west texas bohemian samll-town backwoods ghetto --
beautiful and mesmerizing.

I love Jolie Holland. But on this album (like on Catalpa) the sound quality and pitch are uneven. It sounds like recordings from various performances, rather than a studio recording. That could be good, if done well ... The songs are too much the same, and many are too much like the Escondida & Catalpa songs. I think she can do much better than this.