Customer Reviews

Viva Last Blues

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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).

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.

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.

I'm not very good at reviewing music, but this album is remarkable. The album's production is unintrusive, so the listener feels as if the music is playing in the next room. I've heard people call Palace country, and bluegrass, and folk and several other genres, but it doesn't matter which one you subscribe to, this album will become a favorite. The music seems familiar, the songs are at the tip of your tongue. Whether you have heard Palace before, or the name is unfamiliar, once you've heard "Viva Last Blues", it will be part of your music collection forever.

This is presumably not only the best Palace album, but also one of the best albums of the nineties. Produced by Steve Albini, Viva Last Blues offers you everything you always wanted. Mountain, New Partner, Brute Choir...brilliant songs with funny as well as personal-emotional lyrics! Check this out.

Will Oldham can be a hard man to track down. But for anyone that has been hooked along the way by any one of his incarnations -- Palace, Palace Brothers, Palace Music, or Bonnie Billy Prince -- this album is the essential. It is not as rigidly theme driven as Mountain or Arise Therefore, so for those that have been slow to own the whole collection, this album best displays the band's musical and decibal range. It blends both the signature hard-luck lullabies with some of the best get off your rocking chair, hell yeah I'll have another, boy I miss Drivin n Cryin, rock and roll songs this author has ever heard. Oldham's unique voice, often sounding like its echoing from a coal mine in his homestate Kentucky, will encourage you to pitch and roll along with him on tunes like "Work Hard, Play Hard" and "New Partner," but the harmonies with his brother Ned Oldham will remind you why this family act has been crowned king of that group of discerning listeners and distinguished drinkers which lauds and laments with the likes of Uncle Tupelo, Vic Chestnutt, Lucinda Williams, Nick Drake, Billy Bragg, Willie Nelson, Jack Logan, and, if they behave, Son Volt and Wilco.

This may be one of the finest albums I've ever heard. This album must be listened to several times, to really appreciate the depth and breadth of Oldham's genius.

It hardly gets better.

OK, now, you must remember that Neil Young is Canadian to accept the claim made in my review title. But if you ever wondered what Exile on Main Street would've sounded like if the Rolling Stones were from Kentucky, and made almost no money, then this may be the album. It has more truly moving songs than VU/Nico w/o the filler. If this album doesn't make you think that to care is to be human, then you're probably already dead.

IT'S LIKE BEING INSIDE SOMEONE'S HEAD-THE MELODIES AND CADENCE OF THE WORDS SEEM TO SUBMERGE YOU INTO WILL OLDHAM'S HEAD AND CARRY YOU ALONG THE CURRENTS OF HIS THOUGHTS. I HAVE RARELY FOUND THIS DONE IN A WAY THAT IS ABSOLUTELY UNPRETENTIOUS AND UNSELFCONSIOUS. HIS MUSIC IS ABSOLUTELY ABSORBING AND MESMERIZING.

out to prove that mr. oldham can rock out with the best of 'em...work hard/play hard...cats blues...townes van zandt zonked on keith richards and joe strummer