TRAiPSiNG THRU the AiSLES: add these to your basket
September 9, 2024
Scott Foley, purveyor of dust
Death walks the grooves of The Universal Fire, Jeffrey Foucault's first LP in six years. Specifically, the death of friend and drummer Billy Conway, who also served with Morphine, and toured alongside the Massachusetts contemporary folk artist for a decade. Fire processes Foucault's thoughts and emotions partially through a lens of a 2008 Universal Studios fire that destroyed a startling amount of archival recordings. The songwriter calls it a meditation on the nature of beauty, artifact, and loss. The sessions were largely set to tape live, featuring a backing band of John Convertino, Eric Heywood, Erik Koskinen, co-producer Mike Lewis and others. Drummer Convertino is especially valuable here, in paying tribute to Conway's own trademark spare and expressive style. Foucault's new songs play like a dialogue with his longtime friend, perhaps during a long night drive between small town venues. On "Monterey Rain": You said it's all a movie / When you're in a strange town / In a hotel room with a bible / And a phone book / The good news and the bad luck ... Arrangements draw from folk and blues, resonating with the grit and growl of early rock on songs like "Nightshift" and "Crushed Ice and Gasoline": Used to be the FM dial / Never made you feel / Like you were the only / Lost or lonely one / But part of something real. Both immediately intimate and expansive, the sessions are rich with Jeffrey Foucault's very personal reflections, reaching from the passenger seat into the wide open universe with questions of meaning, all set to a warm and welcoming groove. Guitars are unexpectedly gutty and resonant here, larger than one might expect from such an insular setting. Foucault closes with an artist's abiding doubt, and maybe something all of us consider at some point: What's going to stick around / Is anybody listening / To what you're laying down? Foucault's Universal Fire stands alongside 2006's Ghost Repeater and 2015's Salt As Wolves in the writer's eloquent catalog, and memorializes his companion movingly.
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Guitarist and vocalist Chris Tapp and drummer Brian Mullins made it just fine through five records of heavy blues-inflected rock before bringing bassist Bryce Klueh onboard for last year's Voices. Since their 2014 debut, the Indiana duo had staked their reputation on a thick, blue collar grind, earning a die hard audience with a loud and riff-driven stage show. While Tapp and Mullins (and most fans) considered the Cold Stares a heavy rock act, there were times when the duo's Kentucky roots would become more evident. For The Southern, Tapp gave full rein to those influences, never straying from their rock identity. Fans of Steel Woods and Rival Sons will recognize the results. But where those bands incorporate rock into their roots, Cold Stares blend a bit of Southern sound into their rock. Tapp leans into a Phil Lynott growl for "Seven Ways To Sundown", while "Looking For a Fight" leads listeners from a hell-bent gallop through a sludgy break, then back on the horse: Hey Mr Banker, would you give me a loan / They want to come and take away my home ... Cause these politicians don't know what it's like / To live a normal working man's life. The trio's working-class sentiments lend themselves well to the album's swampier cuts, with "Confession" and "Giving It Up" boasting Steve Ray Vaughan-esque blues-rock riffing. On "No Love In the City Anymore", Tapp calls passive bystanders to action: Our brothers and sisters are sleeping outdoors / There's no love in the city anymore. The Southern is at its best when it applies its natural swagger to midtempo tracks like "Mortality Blues", where the singer speaks to his own battle with cancer: I can't see how some folks set their mind on dying / When I'm doing my best just to stay alive. Tapp, Mullins and Klueh are proven practitioners of the indelible rock riff, and many of the numbers on The Southern deliver the kind of guitar soloing that simply isn't heard on most roots records. The appeal of Cold Stares is primal.
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