Acid Tongue
Product Details | Similar Products | Customer Reviews | Artist: Jenny Lewis List Price: £13.99 Our Price: £9.98 You Save: £4.01 (29%) Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours  |
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 | Product Details: Release Date: 22 September 2008 Record Label: Rough Trade Rating:   Sales Rank: 1916 | | Look for similar items by category:
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| | Customer Reviews: Definite grower (28 October 2008)After being thoroughly disappointed with Rilo Kiley's last album I approached this with some trepidation. Thankfully this turned out to be a good listen - not immediate but a definite 'grower' after a few plays. Songs such as 'Pretty Bird' and 'Godspeed' are gorgeous, for example. I've even grown to quite like Elvis Costello's contribution to 'Carpetbaggers' which at first struck me as rough and too raw. Now I think I think it fits the song. All in all, worth a listen. Jenny Lewis is a talented writer and singer - one wonders why she needs Rilo any more as this is far superior. I do agree with the reviewer about the cover - it is shockingly bad considering the quality of the contents. No stars for that! Not as good as the last (23 October 2008)"Not what the last album was" I've waited a while to review this album, in the hope that it would be a real grower. It's alright, in fact it's got a couple of great songs on it, not least Jack Killed Mom which is a classic. But it's not anywhere the classic album that the last one was. I couldn't get enough of the first album, it was in my cd player for about a year. This has been in my cd player simply because it was Jenny Lewis. Sadly the song Acid Tongue sounds like a rehash of Born Secular, which was a great song. The entire album sorely lacks the magic of the Watson Twins backing vocals. The instrumental work doesn't seem as inspired or as well arranged as the last album either. As for Carpetbaggers, a great song ruined by Elvis Costello. It's felt like a long wait for the new Jenny Lewis album, but I can't help feeling that Jenny didn't wait long enough and rushed this. "That difficult second album" syndrome strikes (23 October 2008)Jenny Lewis deserves credit for trying to not just replicate "Rabbit Fur Coat" and as other reviewers have noted this is rockier in its overall outlook. And her voice is still excellent. Sadly however, the songs just aren't as good and the album is lacking something overall. The best songs come in a row in the middle: See Fernando, Godspeed and Carpetbaggers,her duet with Elvis Costello. Elsewhere however there are just fairly average efforts, with a couple of songs sounding like they are attempts to cash in on the Isobel Campbell/Mark Lanegan market. The title track sounds like a poor rewrite of Born Secular from "Rabbit Fur Coat" and Badman's World is just tedious. All the way through the album one thing seemed to be missing, and after a couple of plays I realised - it's the Watson Twins' harmonies. That, plus the general songwriting quality, is what makes it a vastly inferior album to its predecessor Great music, but the packaging - really!! (01 October 2008)Jenny Lewis' follow up to the fabulous Rabbit Fur Coat. On first listen, it doesn't live up to its predecessor, nor Lewis' 4 albums with Rilo Kiley. However, repeated listens uncover a diverse selection of songs, with several guest vocalists, most prominently one with Elvis Costello appearing on one of the stand out songs, Carpetbaggers. Attention must be drawn however to the packaging - it really is dire with the sleeve being exactly what you would expect from a DVD or CD giveaway with a newspaper. I've nothing against cardboard covers per se - REM's Accelerate being an example of it done well but this is well below that standard. Call me shallow, but if I'm buying a CD, I'd like something more substantial than the sleeve provided with this album. This Time It's Personal (4.5 Stars) (01 October 2008)Jenny Lewis the front woman of the amazing Rilo Kiley now and then ventures off out on her own and crafts beautiful projects like her solo debut "Rabbit Fur Coat" which she,along with the equally alluring Watson Twins tantalised us her honest lyrics and beautiful voice making you fall blissfully in love with her. "Acid Tongue" is her second effort as a solo artist which pretty much picks up where her last record left us and quenches your Jenny Lewis thirst almost without even trying. 1.Black Sand - I felt was the only song that really falls totally short, and for her I found this was pretty weak lyrically, vocally she sounds great singing in a higher pitch than usual, It's good but I just feel theres too much repetition, not to say thats a bad thing because with some songs it can work, with this one sadly it doesn't the strings are a nice touch towards the end with a gradual build up that trails off into the next song and on with the rest of the album. 7/10 2.Pretty Bird - A great song I think this is definitely one of my favourite tracks having putting the album on my iPod and listening to it pretty much non-stop since I bought it. There are times where she really seems to sound like Feist and in all honesty it does sound like an Feist song, and Jenny being a fan of hers she probably draws influence from this.I felt this song is a symbol for freedom, emancipating yourself from a difficult situation and eventually finding comfort in past experience. 10/10 3.The Next Messiah - I see this song clocks a hard, almost demanding 8 minutes (almost 9) but it really doesn't feel like that and it the song itself is divided up, cleverly into 3 movements, you can hear the definite switch i mood and instrumentation but Jenny herself said that they're three songs about the same thing, her dad. It's sort of autobiographical while Jenny really rocks out on this one we find out her father is a cancer survivor and talks about how her parents met, the divorce and so on, all with beautiful almost perfect instrumentation with a sexy,dirty edge. I love this song, I'd even go as far as to say this is one of my favourite songs of this year so far. 10/10 4.Bad Man's World - I enjoy this song! it's sleepy, sorrowful track with a haunting hook and again has a nice string arrangement It's not my favourite on Acid Tongue, but It's a nice midway track It's actually pretty sad actually her voice adds a lot of atmosphere to it especially her croaky "Yeah,Yeah,Yeah part, nice track 8/10 5.Acid Tongue - I read somewhere that Jenny felt this was the song where she pretty much bared all, that struck me quite hard. It's so intimate. I feel like Jenny is holding nothing back and I love that about this track, although not conventionally a catchy song, the backing vocals give it a nice southern, almost gospel touch to it, a beautiful song 10/10 6.See Fernando - I have seen Rilo Kiley and Jenny on her own a bunch of times now, and during the Rabbit Fur Coat tour she used to play this song I'm glad she decided to release a studio version because this is an amazing song. I felt this song is about being over exposed, and learning to let it go, in different ways.The beat is amazingly catchy,foot stomping and hand-clappingly good! 10/10 7.Godspeed - This song is about Jenny telling her friend she wants the best for her, while her friend is in an abusive relationship. Again, it's personal, it's heartbreaking and I suppose alot of people could really relate to this, it's one of those things where you,as a friend can only do so much until they find the courage and strength to leave, again beautifully written. 10/10 8.Carpetbaggers - Great song it is a duet with Elvis Costello, an artist I'm not exactly really familiar with this is most country this album actually gets, but would of been quite out of place on her previous effort. It's a song about an exploiter who does not remain in one place and just causes emotional destruction wherever they go, It's a really funky song it makes you want to clap with the song,considering the lyrical content it does make you want to dance. 9/10 9.Trying My Best To Love You - For me I think Jenny sounds beautiful on this, I've always thought she was never an artist to be as straight forward as she is in this song, it's a beautiful ballad to her lover (I think it's Jonathan Rice).Again she does sing alot higher which at first seems like shes out of tune but she isn't and just sounds amazing giving it a really soulful vibe. You go Jenny you do those soul runs! 10/10 10.Jack Killed Mom - Again another Rabbit Fur Coat era song played alot live,Definitely Oedipal -- Oedipus is directly referenced in the line about the king who went blind from his mother's love. There's also an interesting reference to Sisyphus (men push rocks up stony mountains), though I'm not sure how an impossible task fits into the narrative of the song -- maybe it's a comment on how hard it is to be good in the world? After all, Mom even ends up "kissing on the Golden Rule" -- sullies something that's supposed to be one of the definitive pillars of a righteous life.Love the song, I remember loving it when I see her live another favourite probably because i'm more familiar with it. 10/10 11.Sing A Song For Them - It's a nice closer not really that into it, could of been left off and Pelican Bay (B-side)could of been the last track, The album leaves on a low for but its a great album.7/10 Top 5 1.The Next Messiah 2.Pretty Bird 3.Trying My Best To Love You 4.See Fernando 5.Acid Tongue/Jack Killed Mom Fan of Jenny? Just Buy It. |
