CD Spins: Gaelic Storm, Los Lobos, John Mellencamp

Gaelic Storm
Cabbage
Los Again Records
While Gaelic Storm is rooted in traditional Irish and other Celtic music, the Nashville -based group looks to American folk as well and even bits of bright pop. The band's latest release Cabbage, is surely one of the most delightful albums of the year in any genre. The lively opener, "Raised On Black and Tans," is an anthem, while "Green Eyes Red Hair" is all a flutter and a cover of Simon and Garfunkel's "Cecilia" putting a Celtic spin on the hand-clap, stuttered rhythm makes it iresistable all over again.  There are a trio of sea chanties - “Jimmy’s Bucket," “Turn This Ship Around," “Rum Runners” - fit for any pub on the docks and the instrumentals include the breezy "Cyclone McClusky," some polyrhythmic shifts in "The Buzzards of Bourbon Street" and an Irish hoedown for "Crazy Eyes McGillicuddy." 

Los Lobos
Tin Can Trust
Shout! Factory
In their first studio set of original material in four years and debut on Shout! Factory, Los Lobos deliver an ever-fresh mixed band ranging from blues and rock to country, Mexican and Cuban styles. Things kick off with the searing "Burn it Down," guest blueswoman Susan Tedeschi on back-up vocals, followed ground in groove of bluesy and atmospheric on "On Main Street." David Hidalgo's tenor is an ever-supple wonder and his guitar interplay with guitarist-singer Cesar Rosas is about conjuring special magic, not showy dazzle.  The title song is another blues-drenched probe for the midnight hour, the band raves it up for an instrumental, "Do the Murray" and covers the Grateful Dead's "West L.A. Fadeaway"  while legendary Dead lyricist Robert Hunter co-wrote "All My Bridges Burning" with  Rosas, who wails well for the cumbia bump of "Yo Canto." The Tex-Mex polka of "Mujer Ingrata" harkens back to the mix of joy and sorrow found in the band's '80s albums and "Jupiter and the Moon" is one of those Lobos jams that never strays far from the groove. Decades on, Lobos Lobos are still one of our most consistent, versatile and creative American bands. 


John Mellencamp
No Better Than This
Rounder
John Mellencamp follows up his opus retrospective from earlier this year, On The Rural Route 760  with a distinctive debut on Rounder Records, No Better Than This. At a time when some recordings are excessively produced down the syllable with Pro Tools, Auto-Tune tricks and such, he's made an album in the style of more than a half-century ago and in mono, not stereo. In fact it was the first mono album to debut in the Billboard Top Ten since James Brown's Pure Dynamite! Live At The Royal reached #10 in April 1964 (Thank you, Paul Grein of Yahoo! Music). Producer T-Bone Burnett recorded  Mellencamp and his band live, all together, on a 55 year-old Ampex tape recorder and a vintage microphone at three historic locales: Sun Studio in Memphis where Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins and so many others recorded; the First African Baptist Church in Savannah, GA, which was a haven for runaway slaves during the civil war and considered America's first black church; and Room 414 of the Gunter Hotel in San Antonio, where legendary bluesman Robert Johnson recorded. Surely, they soaked up the lingering sounds and ghosts, too, no doubt. The set ranges from blues and folk to gospel, country and even some rockabilly. Mellencamp's been dour overall in recent years compared to his hit making career of the '80s and early '90s.  Though there are some powerful, and yes, often bleak songs here musing on economic crush and mortality, including "The West End" and "A Graceful Fall." But they're contrasted by hope found in songs such as the title track, the simple truths of "Save Some Time to Dream," the homespun "Thinking About You" and "Clumsy Ol' World," Mellencamp showing his sense of irony about life's jokes still thrives on. Read a longer version of this review at Buzzine.com.