I heard planet Venus described on the radio this week as "hellish" and thought how weird it was that hell, a mythical place, had a kind of literal import, and that we earthwads imposed that myth's accepted meaning on other planets. Which, of course, led to thinking about the incredible odds of you and me and that horse and that spider over there being living matter, as insanely outnumbered as we are in this mostly dead universe. Which, of course, led to holing up with a hatchet and the Joy Division box set. Which, of course, led to reading Paul Morley's liner note about "hell" coming from a "root meaning 'concealed'" and having "less to do with punishment than simple bleak survival in a vague netherworld."
Which, of course, led to thinking about the strange vagabondish career of Eric Bachmann, a onetime guitar hellion whose songs of late host speakers shocked into zombification. His new album begins with a tale of a town "where nobody works and nobody plays," from which "even the vultures have moved on." The inhabitants are waiting for a messiah, not to save them, but to put them out of their misery; it's the apocalypse as euthanasia, or euthanasia as salvation. Bachmann's been a man adrift-- and redeemed-- since he euthanized the Archers of Loaf years ago, though his reputation beats him to every town he visits, no matter what name he gives the locals. A venue printed tickets to a recent Crooked Fingers show that read, "Crooked Fingers. Featuring Eric Bachmann. Of Archers Of Loaf." (Though to be fair, the curdling title track of the Archers' farewell White Trash Heroes could easily be considered the first Crooked Fingers song.) Bachmann's also left crumbs as Barry Black, and even under his own name-- though, curiously, that release was a film score that lacked his distinctive voice.
Don't be fooled into thinking that there are Fingers the way there are Strokes; Bachmann's supporting cast is ever-changing. His third full-length, Red Devil Dawn (named after an excellent single not included here), bears closest resemblance to "the band"'s self-titled debut in that its songs comprise an "album" the way certain quilts are made of disparate cloth-scraps. Both records feature all manner of tempos, arrangements, and topics, whereas Bring on the Snakes was, in form and content, a coherent atmospheric thinkpiece that, via percussive plucking and aquatic keys, staged romantic futility on an abstract plane.
The vox on this outing sound as if they're consciously trying to avoid the words "Neil" and "Diamond," words often tossed at the mellow Hyde into which Bachmann's rambunctious Jekyll morphed. Bachmann's Carolinian twang is allowed to linger longer, and intermittently he'll growl, risking a comic-villain put-on but reminding listeners of his olden guttural inflection (seeing him pull this off live is amazing: his mouth is Nicholson's Joker, his stance Woody Guthrie, and his height Vlade Divacs).
Sonic departures include the amped (which for Crooked Fingers means "not funereal") "You Threw a Spark" and "Sweet Marie". These tracks are driven by horn parts that, rather than add Belle & Sebastian stateliness, contribute a vibe of, um... Mexican fiesta? No kidding, this pulsing Mariachi-core will tap into your Anglo-Luddite fears and have you dreaming of sombrerobots taking over the world. "Sweet Marie" even seems designed to bitchslap Jimmy Buffett-- Bachmann sings about "sniffing glue" over a total cruise-ship or resort-lounge bounce (that even cops some bits of "I Got You, Babe"). I realize that mixing dark lyrics with bright music is the Toyota Camry of songwriting, but you've got to hear Bachmann aggravate the tourists by sneering about wanting "soft abuse" and promising to set his competitor ("that pussy bastard") straight.
Also new among Bachmann's standard batch of songs in which gods and the cosmos are implicated in failing love (as if quasars were fueled by sexual frustration) are songs that display his skill as a fabulist. Aside from the town-waiting-for-a-hero song, the album features the tale of "Boy with (100) Hands" and the awesome "Bad Man Coming", about the approach of an ultimate dark figure at the end of a long line of dark figures. These grim tunes are lullabies that will induce insomnia, fairy tales in which the fairy godmothers wet themselves and faint. I predict that this soundtrack- and fantasy-happy artist will team up with Tim Burton on a claymation goth-musical any day now. (Eric Bachmann Superstar, anyone?)
Okay, so the album's not a step forward so much as a squirm in quicksand. And yes, Red Devil Dawn is somehow sparer than its predecessors and more interested in a staring contest than a high-five. Its characters are Icaruses flying just under the radar, with wings culled from the shores of a sea that burps black Styrofoam. But we need this emphysemic, exponentially aging paperboy to rattle us every morning by announcing, "The news! Is not! Good!" Bachmann has even shown a willingness to come to terms with his past: After a preview of Reservoir Songs 2 ("Long Black Veil", "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry", "[What's So Funny 'Bout] Peace Love and Understanding") at a recent show-- to which he brought no merch and a band that admitted to not knowing some of the songs-- Bachmann yielded to the brats who kept screaming for Archers, playing "Greatest of All Time" and "Harnessed in Slums", making those brats' netherworld a little less bleak. You should have seem them, all guileless, pogo-ing and clapping, still a few years from feeling the pinch of Bachmann's more mature and desolate work. Songs such as this album's "You Can Never Leave" are going to hit them like cinderblocks.
