Artist.......: Boris & Salt Licks
Album........: Cactusman versus the Blue Demon
Label........: Frogville
Genre........: Folk
Catnr........: FVR-0038
source.......: CDDA
rip.date.....: Sep-21-2006
str.date.....: 000-00-0000
quality......: VBR/44,1Hz/Joint-Stereo
Url..........: http://www.borismccutcheon.com/
track title time
01. Volcanic wind 04:42
02. Gloriously tangled 04:35
03. Green wish 04:37
04. Chicken man 06:39
05. Deathgrip 04:44
06. Seeds & candy 03:50
07. Pilgrim 04:15
08. Branded 05:07
09. Torn faith 05:07
10. Don't get wierd 03:14
11. Caves of Burgundy 05:15
12. Hold that thought 04:27
13. Charles Mingus bird 04:05
Runtime 60:37 min
Size 74,7 MB
Release Notes:
Those folk at Frogville must be pretty hot on the
quality control, I haven't heard a bad record from
them yet. You can file Boris and his mates under
"unclassifiable". In a Wilco-like manner they seem
to want to have a go at most genres - for the fun
of it, or because each song demands a different
setting, or just to show they can. Whatever the
reason , the results are pretty impressive.The
opening track, "Volcanic Wind", could have been
lifted from John Hiatt's songbook, "Chicken Man" is
an extended piece of swamp-funk, "Branded" is a
near- instrumental not far removed from Calexico's
desert music... and so on. On first listen, the
stand out track is "Caves of Burgundy", a modern
take on an old folk tale and the only song not
written by Boris McCutcheon himself. Cheekily
opening with a little Dave Rawlings imitation, it
soon settles into a cheery groove, offsetting the
story of tragic death in a bleakly humorous manner.
Repeated listening however soon brings out the
subtler charms of the other twelve tracks, and
though for me not everything quite comes off, the
best songs have a magical musicality that the
listener can happily revel in, and hear new details
each time round. Very varied on instrumentation,
one of the standouts for me is "Charles Mingus
Bird", a slightly jazzy boogie with strummed
acoustic guitar, piano and stand-up bass. As for
the lyrics, well generally they're elliptical
enough that you can take what you want from them:
hymns to mother nature, a sad lament for the car
that can be no longer held together with duct tape
(complete with duct tape sound effect), and stories
that might come from life or they might come from
desert dreaming. Generally though I think you can
say that Boris is amused, and we can all be glad
that Frogville have brought us another great band.