CD Reviews

Joe Henry

Blood from the Stars
(Anti-)
*8.6*

Goes well with: Tom Waits, Townes Van Zandt, Jim White

Joe Henry is an underrated badass. Flying below the radar for most of his career, Henry has churned out sophisticated, nuanced songs for more than 13 years. Known as a singer-songwriter, the description is apt, but incomplete. Over the course of 11 albums, he’s genre-hopped at will, taking genuine chances on everything from electronica and country to jazz and blues. In between albums, he’s produced records for people like Ani DiFranco, Elvis Costello and Bettye LaVette. And while the result of his own work hasn’t always been 100-percent great, the overall quality and sheer ballsiness of it serves to reconcile most of his misses.

Blood from the Stars is one of the best albums Henry’s made in years, because the alchemy is nearly perfect. All of his trademarks—well-crafted melodies, blues / folk / country guitar, masterful storytelling, witching-hour saxophone, appropriately placed samples, muted trumpet, tight production—are there, and all are doled out in just the right amount.

Henry may be too tame for the hipsters and too hip for the tame, but neither seem to be listening closely enough. Blood from the Stars showcases a consummate professional at the top of his game and can incite tears, drunkenness and sing-a-longs. What more could you ask for?

Gary Higgins

Seconds.
(Drag City)
*7.2*

Goes well with: Cat Stevens, David Crosby, Vashti Bunyan

There are two ways you can interpret Gary Higgins’ Seconds.: 1) An attempt by a grizzled old hippie to cash in on some newfound interest, and 2) The graceful and long-awaited return of a forgotten folk genius.
Truth is, it’s a little bit of both. If you’re not familiar with Higgins, he’s a folk singer who released one album in 1973, but after a marijuana-possession bust landed him in jail for two years, he seemed to drop off the face of the Earth. That album, Red Hash, was reissued in 2005 with help from Six Organs of Admittance’s Ben Chasny and was immediately followed by almost every major media outlet declaring it a buried treasure.

So after Higgins started getting all the attention he never got back in the 1970s, his interest in music was resurrected. “Well, it must be a million years / We both traveled hard / Now you drive a Mercedes Benz / And I get to light your cigar,” he begins on “Demons,” his harmonious voice hardly changed from the days of Red Hash. While Seconds. isn’t a grand return to form along the lines of Dylan’s Time Out Of Mind or Merle Haggard’s If I Could Only Fly, it shouldn’t be ignored, either. The fact that this is Higgins’ second album—and first in 36 years—only means its rustiness and flaws should be taken with a grain of salt. The nearly 13-minute “5 a.m. Trilogy” is a touching and beautiful lamentation, hinting that whatever he’s missed all these years, he’s back now and very happy to be here.

Monotonix

Where Were You When It Happened?
(Drag City)
*8.0*

Goes well with: Sabbath, Zeppelin, Stooges

To discuss Tel Aviv’s Monotonix without mentioning their live show wouldn’t just be an oversight; it would be missing the point entirely. The group’s manic performances are so crucial to their notoriety that any recordings are best absorbed as supplements—like time capsules functioning as a reminder of what it was like to witness vocalist Ami Shalev climbing the streetlight outside your favorite club, or the crazed look on his face just before the trashcan he threw into the crowd made contact with your skull. Hence the name of their first full-length, Where Were You When It Happened?—“It” being the key word here, representing whatever glorious memory fans hold close to their hearts after experiencing the Monotonix extravaganza.
But every great live band needs songs to play, and there are few that belt out basic rawk with this amount of fervor. From the emphatic “Woooo!” Shalev screams within the first seconds of “Flesh and Blood,” Monotonix proceed to reinforce the righteousness of classic rock by kicking any self-loathing tendencies to the curb. Actually, it’s hard to ignore the link with good-time ’70s boogie rockers like Grand Funk Railroad, especially considering the swinging meta-riffs of “I Can’t Take it Anymore” and “My Needs.” But it’s all done with an absence of irony—instead, this band displays a pure belief in the idea that rock ’n’ roll equals freedom. Judging by their reputation and the evidence provided here, Monotonix have the power to turn all of us into believers, too.

Monotonix play Tuesday, Sept. 15, at The Casbah.

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