Mrs. Remould wrote:I tried with Helen of Troy and Slow Dazzle and thought they were distinctly underwhelming. You haven't got the sweet melodies of Paris 1919, and on the other hand his band isn't taut and spunky enough to do anything gutsy enough to engage. His voice changed quite a lot - and then back again, I think.
While I'd never place them on the same level as
Paris 1919 or
Fear, I'm surprised that you don't like these better.
Slow Dazzle, especially, has a lot of atmosphere and some topnotch songs. But its charms are more modest and subtle than those two earlier ones, so it takes a bit of effort to get to the core. I find it a rather perplexing disc, but that's undoubtedly part of why I like it. Some of the album, like "Ski Patrol", is head-scratchingly perverse and fascinating (what possessed Cale to write a paean to paramedics on skis?). I always considered the album to be underrated, but standing in the shadow of
Fear, as it does, probably does
Slow Dazzle no favors.
Guy E wrote:The RightGraduate Profile wrote:I think what makes Paris 1919 such a strange record is the people behind it though, it seems scarcely believable that the backing band for such a beautifully melodic, at times baroque, record would feature members of Little Feat.
It’s not so unbelievable if you’ve ever heard the first Little Feat album.
Later Little Feat albums might lead you to think that it’s unbelievable.
...or the pre-Little Feat stuff like The Factory: real good, off-kilter 60s psychedelic folkrock.