Понедельник 10 Апр 2006, 18:42

The Walkabouts - Train Leaves at Eight (2000)

Once again, The Walkabouts demonstrate their supreme good taste and supremely bad commercial sense with an almost deliberately obscure album of cover tunes. Having already tried their hands at various American songwriters' material, they turn their gaze at European songwriters. I'm certainly not qualified to detail the pedigree of each of these tunes, but it's obviously a very deverse collection, ranging from Greece, Italy, Spain and Slovenia on the "South" side, to France, Germany, and Sweden on the "North". The music stays mostly on the mellower side of Walkabouts fare, atmospheric and moody, with a variety of guests adding accordion, strings, and so on. A particular highlight is their take on Ces gens-la, which builds to quite an intense finish over Chris's low voice. And where else are you going to hear covers of Vlado Kreslin? On the same CD as Neu!! 10/15.

And I should mention that the guests include Peter Buck, Scott McCaughey, Robin Holcomb, and Steve Berlin.