Customer Reviews

Twang Bar King

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While I preferred Lone Rhino overall, this is a solid record. The guitar playing is of course ultra-flashy for those who like that kind of thing. Coming at the time from a new wave angle (i knew him from his work with the Talking Heads), this was somewhat surprising and even not politically acceptable music to like back then when it originally came out. Of course it turns out he would record with King Crimson, another guilty favourite. It is very fun music.

I have to wonder if the title is a pun on the role Belew saw himself in as part of King Crimson. Belew's second album lacks some of the snap and sizzle of his debut but is, for the most part, a very good follow up. The highlight is undisputedly his frantic reworking of The Beatles' I'm Down. He Belewizes it. There's a number of originals that are as good as his first album but following so closely on the heels of Discipline, Beat and Lone Rhino may have diminished its impact.

I Wonder meanders a bit but has a worthwile lyric and bouncy melody. THe real highlights (besides I'm Down)is She is not Dead and Life Without a Cage. The former song is an odd, mournful tune with a Middle Eastern flavor. The latter song opens with a series of oddly phased piano chords before parading into a strident rocker. It's one of Belew's best songs on the album with its odd time signature changes. Belew grafts three distinct different melodies. It creates the effect of an musical roller coaster and there's more than one or two tips of the hat to The Beatles (particularly songs like We Can Work It Out and A Day in the Life). The phased effect on the tune recalls without imitating Revolver's She Said and Tomorrow Never Knows. A sudden shift of gears is represented by two contrasting pieces. Sexy Rhino is little more than a fragment. The Blast of Twang Bar King kicks the album back into high gear and helps close out what used to be the first side of the LP/cassette with the one-two punch of Another Time and the affecting The Rail Song.

The odd instrumental Paint The Road paves the way for the stunning She Is Not Dead. The album's quality dips with the twin tracks Fish Head and The Ideal Woman. Fish Head is the most disappointing of the original songs. It's imitative without the spark of originality one has come to associate with Belew. The album closes with the stunning and mournful Ballet for a Blue Whale. It's an instrumental using the many guitar effects Belew had at his disposal at the time.

Although not quite as surprising as his debut Twang Bar King is actually a better, braver and more consistent record. It proved that the highlights of both Lone Rhino and the King Crimson album Discipline were no accident. Belew had arrived as both musician and artist.

Este es el segundo disco de Adrian Belew tras su, bastante mejor, debut en "Lone Rhino". En este caso muestra su vertiente más rokera, empezando por una potente versión del I'm Down de los Beatles. Sin embargo, cuando Belew tiene a endurezer su música en exceso, pierde buena parte de sus signos de identidad. El disco no está mal pero podría haber sido firmado por cualquiera. Es uno de los menos personales de este estupendo cantante y guitarrista.

So,
This is as good (in my opinion) as the Lone Rhino CD...I originally purchased this album for the cover tune I'm down, but came to love every track.

A must have

Adrian Belew's debut album felt like a Talking Heads sideman stepping away from the band. "Twang Bar King", its followup, finds Belew beginning to find his own identity. Embracing the Beatles influence and finding an esoteric mood, the album is a bit too inconsistent to be a completely satisfying listen, but it holds much better than its predecessor.

The Beatles influence comes through to great effect on a number of pieces, from opener "I'm Down" (clearly) to early-Beatles-meets-punk-meets-crazy-guitar "Twang Bar King" to the somewhat more subtlely Lennonesque "Another Time".

Admittedly, its got its share of failures, "Sexy Rhino" is a total disaster of an experiment (electronic voices never worked for me) that is mercifully brief and the second side falls apart ("She Is Not Dead", "Fish Head"). But somewhere in the midst of this, like the title track on the previous record, Belew finds his own identify in "The Rail Song" and the quirky "The Ideal Woman". Sometimes execution isn't as good as it would be in the future, but it's getting there.

An improvement to be certain, but still not as good as it should be. The twofer reissue of this and "The Lone Rhino" is well worth the investment, but for those new to Belew, I'd start with "Young Lions".