The Captain & the Kid
ELTON JOHN
Interscope
It's significant that Elton John and his lyricist, Bernie Taupin, chose as their inspiration for this new album the 1975 LP Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy. That album represents the last estimable effort that the prolific singer-songwriter unleashed on the public. Later that year came Rock of the Westies, which began Elton's irrevocable downhill tumble.
What we have with The Captain & the Kid is two old hands gamely trying to recapture past glories — and failing, although rather nobly. The 10-song set finds the duo swimming around in nostalgia, ruminating on fame, lost innocence, lost friends, lost time. The disc also serves as an extended love letter to their sometimes stormy relationship (now apparently hunky dory), via Taupin's finely honed words that on several songs celebrate their partnership and, via Elton's music, a stately set of tunes that does its best to rise to the level of their heyday in the first half of the '70s — but never comes close.
The result comes off rather like show music, especially the opening "Postcards from Richard Nixon," a song that hints at saying something meaningful but ends up being little more than a paean to their early days making it in the biz. For all the lyrics' craft — impeccable rhymes, deft wordplay — they are rarely more than superficial.
One of the main reasons the songs come wrapped in a Broadway patina is Elton's voice. At 59, he brays more than sings, his lunges for high notes sounding brassy and strident. Even when he dials it down, his phrasing is all but bereft of nuance.
If you've somehow continued to follow Elton John lo these many years, by all means procure a copy of The Captain & the Kid — it should give you the warm-and-fuzzies. If not, use this review as a reason to dust off that copy of Captain Fantastic. Better yet, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. 2 stars —Eric Snider
Olé! Tarantula
ROBYN HITCHCOCK & THE VENUS 3
Yep Roc
The umpteenth album released by England's Hitchcock since the demise of his late-'70s/early-'80s band The Soft Boys, Olé! Tarantula serves up a steady diet of sober indie folk-rock. Hitchcock is joined on the release by R.E.M.'s Peter Buck and Bill Rieflin, and Scott McCaughey of The Minus 5, a trio here dubbed the Venus 3. The sound is tidy and confident, never out of control, and it's Hitchcock's singing that puts the record ahead of the pack. The man has a beautiful, scratchy voice, with strains of John Lennon in there somewhere.3.5 stars—Cooper Levey-Baker
Get Yr Blood Sucked Out
VIVA VOCE
Barsuk
Long-running husband-and-wife duo Viva Voce continues to refine its alternately faux-folky and psychedelic indie-pop. Get Yr Blood Sucked Out, the band's fourth full-length, is as meandering and pleasantly surprising as fans should expect, yet inches closer to a "Viva Voce sound" that updates the too-cool-for-school detachment of the likes of Jesus & Mary Chain with new takes on post-Shins classic-pop experimentation and a Cracker-esque lackadaisical sense of fun. Whether stomping ("Believer"), dreamily lazy ("Drown Them Out") or steeped in fuzz ("So Many Miles"), this disc ties the disparate characteristic threads of Viva Voce's eccentric yet catchy tendencies together in new and consistently satisfying ways. 3.5 stars —Scott Harrell
Peanut Butter Wolf Presents: Chrome Children
VARIOUS ARTISTS
Adult Swim/Stones Throw
In no way on the level of hip-hop label Stones Throw's prior collaboration with the world of Adult Swim — that would be Danger Doom's classic The Mouse and the Mask — this compilation nevertheless feels worthy. I really don't see where the Adult Swim angle comes in; the whole thing sounds just like 19 tracks of Stones Throw's thoroughbred stable let loose. This means hot shit from Madlib and the deceased J Dilla, and the first Madvillain track since 2004's Madvillainy. MF Doom's narcotic flow on that one song is enough to sucker you in. "Doom all capitals, no trick spelling/ Got what it take to get it through your thick melon." He's right. 3.5 stars —CLB
120 Days
120 DAYS
VICE/Smalltown Supersound
The dance music this Norwegian four-piece crafts is not distant from Primal Scream's techno tracks, and the lead singer's voice even channels Bobby Gillespie frighteningly well. I get lost a bit in the thumping grooves and bleeping electronics, but 120 Days makes sure to not just pound away for hours on end like so many trance artists. The disc needs a little anger and heart, but it's a fair start. 2.5 stars —CLB
This article appears in Oct 25-31, 2006.