Viva Last Blues

Will Oldham | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (November 15, 1995)
• Original Release Date: November 15, 1995
• Label: Drag City
• ASIN: B0000019RK
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Vinyl
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #209,365 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. More Brother Rides

2. Viva Ultra

3. The Brute Choir

4. The Mountain Low

5. Tonight's Decision (And Hereafter)

6. Work Hard/Play Hard

7. New Partner

8. Cat's Blues

9. We All, Us Three, Will Ride

10. Old Jerusalem

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

After the dead-Okie solo ballads of the previous full length release, Will Oldham (Mr. Palace himself) got an under-rehearsed band together and set them loose in the studio. Steve Albini's bare bones production is in plain view as drums scrape into the guitars with all the finesse of a basement tape. "More Brother Rides, " "Viva Ultra," "The Brute Choir," and "Work Hard/Play Hard" are the most rhythmic tracks Oldham's ever attempted and the improvisatory nature of the songs allow for some unexpected surprises (Liam Hayes' piano is a loose canon likely to veer off into another song while Bryan Rich's lead work is curiously incompetent at best). --Rob O'Connor

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Remarkable, most accessible and maybe the best., May 4, 2000

By 

Eric Antonow (Palo Alto, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Viva Last Blues (Audio CD)

Legions of core listeners will hold me in contempt but I think this is Oldham/Palace at his best. I know there is a certain pathetic part of all of us that prefers the early hickster, sister-lovin, in-the-dark, in-a-cabin, in-the-rain-and-very,very lonely songs, but this album has both genius and focus and therefore more beauty. There are melodies and lines that are so perfectly interwoven that thinking about them makes me so desperately wanting to hear it, that I might just leave work early -- 'there's a skirt in the bedroom that's pleasantly low.' Think of the first time you heard 'Walk on the Wild Side' or a few early velvet underground tunes. Lyrical and powerful and ready to take over.

I'd suggest this for anyone who hasn't heard Oldham or Palace before over the other albums. It it is to your liking -- especially the less-big-guitar songs -- the others will not disappoint).

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars we all, us listeners, will ride, November 6, 2002

By 

Mitchell Moop (Penna, United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Viva Last Blues (Audio CD)

i'm a relative newcomer to Will Oldham. i was blown away by Johnny Cash's cover of 'I See A Darkness', and had to hear the original.

well, here i am now, just having picked up my sixth oldham album; and let me say, Viva Last Blues is rocking my world. compared to every other oldham album i've heard, this one really rocks. its as strange and disturbing as the rest, but the quality and intensity of the music sets it apart. i would highly recommend this, along with I See A Darkness, as excellent introductory albums to the music of Will Oldham.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Receipe for a masterpiece, October 3, 2000

By 

Rob Damm - See all my reviews

This review is from: Viva Last Blues (Audio CD)

Take a songwriter who is totally unique, as far removed from the mainstream as possible. Add a band that sounds, at best, unrehearsed, at worst, oddly inept. Fix them up with a producer who see his role as more of an engineer. Turn them loose... oh, and that voice! A strangled, cracked, weary and wavering mountain tenor full of high-lonesome beauty and.... voila! Instant masterpiece. Compared to "there is no-one..." this sounds isntantly different sheerly because it doesn't sound like it was recorded on a boombox with the guys playing in another room. But, none of the roughness is really gone. It still sounds shambolic and intimate. The weird, twisted songs that emerge sound unplanned, almost organic. There is magic here, magic that a million major label dollars could never buy. Magic that the limo-riding, so-called "major artists" could never dream of capturing. we wittness, here, inspriration in its gnarled and purest form.