Little Honey
LUCINDA WILLIAMS
(Lost Highway)
Alt-country queen Lucinda Williams lost her way for a while there. More specifically, she misplaced her mojo, her sass, her joy. After climaxing with her1998 commercial breakthrough, Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, Williams detoured down a path of sorrow until dead-ending into the rote despair of last year's West. The Louisiana-native finds her feisty muse on the satisfying libido-at-large Little Honey, its very title a wonderfully base reference to man sugar.
The album, though, is by no means a honky-tonk take on the tacky Madonna game of menopause horniness — Williams is too damn wise for that high-risk routine. The record is as much about finding a good-time guy, and true love, whatever that is, as it is about being left in the dust by another modern-day drifter.
For too many albums, the singer/songwriter groaned and warbled about being alone over melting steel guitars rather than plugging in and rocking a barn-burning kiss-off like "Changed the Locks," from her highly underrated self-titled 1988 album. On Little Honey, Williams strikes the fierce balance that made that disc, 1992's Sweet Old World and 1998's Car Wheels a holy trinity of alt-country releases.
Little Honey opens with the fast-lane valentine "Real Love" and closes with a splendidly roadhouse cover of the AC/DC boogie blast "It's a Long Way to the Top." In between, Williams offers a song that Amy Winehouse needs to hear — post-haste. Titled "Little Rock Star," it's a chills-inducing cautionary tale sung by a woman who can relate to those with immense talent, an appetite for escapism and maybe even a death wish. "Whatever it takes to get them to listen," Williams intones. "Piss on your designer boots and designer jeans." In the chorus, the veteran admits: "This is not all it's cracked up to be/ And I can't say I blame you/ For throwing the towel in or buying more fame."
Sad stuff. But for every song that makes you wanna cry into your whiskey, there's a sweet ("Tears of Joy") or fun ("Jailhouse Tears") number. The latter, a duet with Elvis Costello, is a white-trash-couple send-up that finds Williams reprimanding her man for being "a three-time loser" and "all fucked up."
Finally, there's the quasi-title track "Honey Bee," a grungy stomp in which Williams hollers like a woman who has her man right where she wants him. "Now I got your honey," Williams yelps over revved up guitars, "all over my tummy." 4.5 stars —Wade Tatangelo
Black Ice
AC/DC
(Columbia)
AC/DC, at its best, makes you feel like championing fun: be it via booze, blow, high-speed driving or three-way fucking. On Black Ice, the Aussie outfit reclaims its status as king of good times. The band is back swinging — heavy and hard — in a way that percolates the pelvic region and vaporizes inhibitions. The disc erupts on the opening track with the refreshingly ferocious "Rock N' Roll Train," which — with its killer Angus Young guitar riff, assured Brian Johnson-doing-Bon-Scott-shriek and sing-along chorus — would sit well next to the best of Highway to Hell or Back in Black. More for the better than the worse, AC/DC follows much the same time-honored, thoroughly predictable formula for the rest of the record. They figured out what moves people have and stuck with it. 4 stars —WT
Gift of Screws
LINDSEY BUCKINGHAM
(Reprise)
I can't say I expected this. Fleetwood Mac stalwart Lindsey Buckingham, age 59, has unleashed a solo album that exquisitely blends his instinct for pop songcraft and his long-time penchant for experimentalism. Much of the latter is due to the imaginative ways in which he employs guitar textures, building actual arrangements rather than chord sequences decorated by solos. For instance, "Time Precious Time" floats along over fleet-fingered, cascading arpeggios on acoustic guitar. Tapping his more conventional side, Buckingham plays solos — hitting lots of high, sweet notes — that provide stirring codas to several songs. And the songs are good — some of them, rousing uptempo numbers like "Love Runs Deeper," "Right Place to Fade" and "Wait For You" (with its spunky shuffle beat), standing up to Rumours-era Mac. Buckingham's lead vocals are largely nondescript — he's never been much of a singer — but he exhibits the good production sense to layer them into lush sonic washes. If you'd begun to lose faith that any of the old hands could deliver a fresh, vibrant helping of hooky pop-rock, Gift of Screws is just the tonic. 4 stars —Eric Snider
This article appears in Oct 29 – Nov 4, 2008.