Rating:
Genre:
Rock
Release Date: 06/24/2008
It may be simplistic to describe
Alejandro Escovedo's 2006 album
The Boxing Mirror as a record inspired by the artist's brush with death, but given the record's back story -- it was recorded as
Escovedo was recovering from a near-fatal bout with Hepatitis C -- it's hard not to imagine its brave and often dazzling creative ambition was fueled by
Escovedo's knowledge that these could be his last words as a musician. Two years later, a healthier and stronger
Escovedo returned to the studio to record his ninth studio album,
Real Animal, and by comparison this is a leaner, more tightly focused session; in fact, this is the strongest
rock album
Escovedo has made since his 1997 album with
Buick MacKane,
The Pawn Shop Years. It's easy to tag
Real Animal as a less ambitious and artful collection than
The Boxing Mirror, but viewed on its own merits this ranks with the best and most powerful music of
Escovedo's career. Like
The Boxing Mirror, which was produced by
John Cale,
Real Animal was recorded with a producer who worked with some of
Escovedo's primal influences,
Tony Visconti, and his recordings with
David Bowie and
T. Rex doubtless helped him connect with
Escovedo the smart but swaggering rocker in a way
Cale did not; this set of songs is every bit as intelligent and emotionally resonant as
Escovedo's best work, but it moves with a taut energy and insistent force that informs even the quieter, acoustic oriented numbers, such as the bluesy
"People (We're Only Gonna Live So Long)," and the plaintive
"Hollywood Hills." While
Escovedo wrote the tunes on
Real Animal with
Chuck Prophet, the songs bear his stylistic hallmarks and melodic sensibilities throughout, and these stories are dotted with places and events from
Escovedo's past -- discovering music as a kid (
"Golden Bear"), his days as a San Francisco punk rocker (
"Nun's Song"), flirting with the New York bohemian scene (
"Chelsea Hotel '78"), and barnstorming with a
rock & roll band (
"Chip 'N' Tony"). Even when the cues to
Escovedo's past aren't obvious, there's too much heart, soul, and blood in this music to not to have come directly from his heart, and he's seemingly incapable of singing from any other place, giving this music an emotional power that reaches down to the soul. If
The Boxing Mirror was a work influenced by the shadow of mortality,
Real Animal is an album about life -- both as survival and as the faces and moments that fill our days on this Earth. How many artists could make two masterpieces in a row that are so different? And how much do you want to bet that
Escovedo still has one or two more records this good in him?
~Mark Deming, All Music Guide
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