One of Memphis' most popular local celebrities during the 1960s was television personality Watson Davis, who donned death-pallor make-up, exaggerated fangs, and a dapper Dracula tux to become Sivad. He cracked corny jokes and introduced cornier monster movies on WHBQ-TV's "Fantastic Features" and even recorded a few novelty hits, including the stiffly swinging "Sivad Buries Rock and Roll". Just a few years later, however, Davis was off television and mostly forgotten, working as a mechanic in rural Arkansas. Yet Sivad remains a pop-cultural touchstone for Mid-Southerners of a certain age, including Greg Cartwright of the Oblivians and Reigning Sound, who chose Sivad's motto as the title as the Sound's long-awaited fourth studio album, Love and Curses.
That reference works as a grim reminder of the status of so many of Cartwright's influences, who prospered decades ago but are less than footnotes today, inspiring crate-digging musicians but rarely reaching the large audiences they once commanded. If Sivad buried rock'n'roll, Cartwright digs it up under torchlight in the dead of a moonless night, unearthing outer-boroughs girl-group sounds, deep-South R&B rhythms, and universal garage-rock skuzz. It's no coincidence that the only cover on Love and Curses is an obscure single called "Stick Up for Me" by the Glass Sun. Does anyone remember them? Reigning Sound do, and the song's organ-drenched boogie momentum and shouted call-and-response are simultaneously nostalgic and immediate.
Coming across as the period's most diligent archivists, Reigning Sound have over the past few years backed former Shangri-La Mary Weiss in the studio and on tour and worked with Muscle Shoals legends Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham, and Cartwright was briefly a member of Michigan garage rock lifers the Detroit Cobras. Love and Curses sounds as much a product of the present as of the past, and the new songs attack with goblin force but vampire sophistication, thanks to another new line-up. The rhythm section of drummer Lance Wille and bass player David Wayne Gay (formerly of Freakwater) add muscle and agility to the stomping "If I Can't Come Back" and "Dangerous Game", while Dave Amels lays down sweeping organ riffs on "Something to Hold Onto" and "Broken Things".
The album never quite sounds as life-or-death urgent as 2004's Too Much Guitar, but that album lived up to its name by burying Cartwright alive. Love and Curses brings his vocals back to the forefront, although he still sings like he's being chased by some unknown specter. In addition to his open-wound rasp-- few singers today can convey grievous pain so easily-- he also has an eye for the cruelties and ironies of romance, which slice through every track. On the stand-out "Debris", he sings about a lover's heart turning to stone and his own turning to rubble, straining his voice like he has to cover his eyes but can't look away. Love can be horrifying, hilarious, gory, and deeply disturbing, so why not have a horror host like Sivad presiding over the chills, creeps, and scares?
