Beau Jennings and the Tigers - Heavy Light

Today on What's on Bottle's Porch Today? It's this awesome album cover. I'm excited.


Interesting question, do i know Beau Jennings? We have 4 mutual friends, we both left Oklahoma in 2005 (me to Denton, he to Brooklyn), he moved back to Oklahoma in 2012 while i moved to Iowa. I feel like we crossed paths before all that, but i really don't know. Regardless, Steven Stark reminded me that Beau Jennings and the Tigers have a new album out, so i bought it. It's called Heavy Light. Let's check it out.

The very first thing you'll notice are the Tom Petty goes Indie Rock vibes of the lead-off track, Sunflower. The Comeback gives us a tinge of Springsteen meets the Cars in a track 2 upper for a welcome change. I love that, in case you didn't know, track 2 downers always feel totally wrong.

I'm already hooked, and now there are Killers and Gaslight Anthem flavors. This is seriously good, catchy, ooh a real Bass-riff intro for I'm Reaching, Lord. Yeah, it has a real Mellencamp feel, but my palette isn't quite sensitive enough to tell you with or without the Cougar. I know These Guys, they're like the best parts of Nick Cave meets Bob Dylan. And an actual proper last-track cool-down before the vinyl death zone.

You know who knows how to make a record? Beau Jennings, that's who. Dude, this is one of the most phenomenal Side As i've heard in quite a while, let alone the title track to look forward to open Side B. No momentum left unturned, it wants to be listened to (if you'll forgive my personifying the album itself).

[Flip]

Oh yeah, double guitar solo in parallel 3rds and a cliff hanger before the fade in to Juniper, which i think is done with pedal steel? Those little background jingles and jangles and choir oohs, Juniper might be my favorite track, but the whole album is absolute Indie(tompetty)Rock fire. 

I've never been nostalgic for wanting to go back to Oklahoma, but the things my long ago friends are doing these days are amazing, even if i'm not entirely sure i've actually met them. To be fair, i've met a lot of people, but that's a total cop out. Go check out Heavy Light by Beau Jennings and the Tigers, it's truly fantastic.

Whether we've actually met or not, Beau, just know that this is my 873rd album review and you're the official winner of the Bottle of Beef Best Album I've Heard Since Black Pumas award. There's no prize money, but that was way back on Jan. 25th 2021, and i've listened to at least 200 Top-10 records since then, so it's supposed to be a compliment.

As for the rest of you, you're awesome too. But seriously, go listen to Heavy Light, it's incredible.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Welcome to my blog, and my record collection.

This is a blog about my love of listening to albums. It started off as a nightly perusal of my dad's record collection (which sadly became mine) on my personal facebook page. Over the last two months it has become quite an enjoyable process of simply ranting about what i think is a real art form, the album. It needs a more permanent home. Some of my reviews are positive, some negative. They might not be what you expect from album reviews, but i hope you at least find them entertaining. For the most part i do very little research, and they tend to be train of thought reactions rather than calculated essays. If nothing else, know that i'm really listening to them and whether they are amazing or abysmal i want you to go listen to them too.  I'll start migrating the 60+ i've written so far over here in the next few days, and hopefully get to the point where i just start writing them here. I'd probably even take suggestions if you're just dying to know my tho
Read more

My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult - Hit & Run Holiday

Image
I noticed today that the strange part of the world who actually knows about My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult has finally accepted that they are in fact "industrial disco." The history of Wax Trax and Chicago industrial music is a subject worthy of an entire library, but MLWTTK is my favorite band to emerge from those humble record store beginnings. They are an unpredictable band for sure, and i definitely don't like all of their albums, but Hit & Run Holiday is an album i think every human being on the planet should hear at least once. This album is simply impossible to describe, because it doesn't actually belong to a musical genre as we understand them. It's actually a movie. I know that sounds weird, but the band is actually a movie. My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult was the name of the movie they were trying to make, but composing the soundtrack led them so far afield that they just shrugged and kept going as a band instead. All of their albums come f
Read more

Live - Secret Samadhi

Image
Speaking of smorgasbords and ladies' bathrooms, here's Live's Secret Samadhi. The title at least implies that the album is a meditation on reality, but it's Ed Kowalczyk so i have to keep a dictionary close because i don't have a clue who/what he's referring to half the time. Sure i know that Lakini is the goddess of the Manipura (solar plexus/navel) Chakra, but what does washing her feet with water from the women's bathroom toilet actually mean? Jesco White is a mildly famous folk dancer/entertainer, but he's not dead so how could you lay flowers at his grave? "The followers of Aldous are spinning with their mescaline," Aldous Huxley obviously, but what does that have to do with the secondary thematic concept of intellectual propery? I can't even begin to dissect the convoluted metaphors of Ghost, and we're not even halfway through the album. That's why nobody has anything to say about this album, nobody actually knows what the hel
Read more