Frank Black has entered his Royalty Phase, the part of his career where, having carried his weight as an innovator, he tours the world playing his old band's greatest hits and hangs out with fellow royalty like Steve Cropper, Spooner Oldham, P.F. Sloan, and Levon Helm. With them and other studio demi-gods, he's gone from making bar band music with the Catholics to crafting sepia-toned visions of Americana and Stax/Volt 45s.
Last year's Honeycomb established this new passage in Black's career, and it sounded tentative. On Fast Man Raider Man, Black seems more confident and brings better material to the table but the rock'n'soul approach still sometimes doesn't gel with his songs and voice-- especially when he reaches for a falsetto. Part of what keeps it from coming together is veteran Jon Tiven's production, which is flat and arid-- there's little sense of atmosphere or people playing together in a room. This is ironic: The record came together through near-spontaneous collaboration, but that communal sensibility only comes through on a handful of songs.
Black's duet with country singer Marty Brown on a cover of Ewan MacColl's "Dirty Old Town" is one of those, and here you get the feel of skilled musicians having their way with an old chestnut. The song has the natural build and dynamics of a group in its groove and it sounds like a lot of fun, which I think makes it a glimpse into what was going through Black's mind as he made this album.
Fun is fun, but it's possible to have too much of it, and the 2xCD Fast Man Raider Man certainly does. Lacking an editor, Black includes everything from several Nashville sessions and an L.A. session-- even dusting off four tracks that were (correctly) left off of Honeycomb. You can insert the near-obligatory double album critique here: If you kept the best tracks, you'd have a great single disc. Hard rocker "Elijah", Tom Waits-inspired "If Your Poison Gets You", and "The End of the Summer"-- which benefits from the actual use of reverb-- are all great, but then you also get "Raider Man", a story-song about a laid-off Polish coal miner that's clumsy and awkwardly sung.
"Dog Sleep" veers from a vague New Orleans vibe into a strange, off-kilter section that struggles to find real musicality in its rambling phrases. "Highway to Lowdown", left over from the Honeycomb sessions, just doesn't take off down the road its lyrics describe, derailing completely when Black and the lead guitar leave the rhythm section behind for a painfully stilted passage. "My Terrible Ways" is a well-intentioned post-Katrina ballad of self-redemption, but the song could have used a rewrite or three-- or perhaps just some rigorous rehearsal, as the sax solo, brushed drums, and rhythm guitar are its only parts that work well.
I hate to focus on the negative because Black seems genuinely pleased with this work. But you get the feeling that if this material had been road-tested and honed a bit it could have been stronger. That said, there is a very good album here-- you just have to work for it. If you enjoyed Honeycomb, this improves on it, but not to the point where those who didn't like that album are apt to come around to Black's latest direction.
