album review, Sting: If on a winter's night...
So Mr. Sumner has been on the wrong side of my loyalty given his last few albums, but I figure it was worth a buck or two to see what he'd done most recently. I didn't think it would be just another Christmas album from a washed-up celebrity artist, but I worried it would be more of what I have come to expect, especially with the pretentious Calvino reference (unmistakable) in the title. But I'm happy to report that it isn't actually that bad.
To some extent I think Sting is trying to return to his roots (again), or at least return to some modus operandi with more artistic integrity than the way he's been doing things lately. The songs are not, in general, over-produced on this album; the arrangements are spare, and the instrumentation hearkens back to The Soul Cages (hammer dulcimer, uillean pipes, accordion). This gives the album much-needed focus. It's once again about Sting the musician, rather than Sting the celebrity who surrounds himself with musicians. (I remember fdmts once describing some of the French rap moments on past albums as "a note passed to Madonna like in the fifth grade".) While he has accompaniment, the spare arrangements leave him exposed and vulnerable, and I think he acquits himself admirably. Moreover, the songs appearing here are generally not about holiday cheer, presents, etc., but take a more mystical bent, about suffering, sin, mercy and redemption. It helps that most of these songs are traditional, i.e., Sting didn't actually write the lyrics. (His lyrics definitely suffered from Mercury Falling onwards. I'm still sore about how the Hounds of Winter "got [him] in their sights", which seems more like stretching for a rhyme than adding to whatever story he might be telling.)
Probably the biggest change is in Sumner's voice. Age has roughened it, and the man who once wailed away into the stratosphere on "Roxanne" is now staying well in his bottom register -- in singing anywhere in a tenor range he sounds like he has a cold, and the most character is now brought out solidly in the bass-baritone range where he can make the gravelly sound work for him, as with a salty old dog smoking his pipe by the fire telling tales to his grandchildren. And he goes with it. Also, in some of the traditional carols, he seems to take the approach of a classical singer with respect to his vowels and enunciation, which also takes some adjustment as a listener.
The best tracks I heard were "Soul Cake" and "Christmas At Sea". The former has a driving energy which I haven't typically heard in this song before, and the addition of "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" as a counter-melody on brass -- along with the fiddle -- works despite the fact that it's not the first thing I'd have thought of. This song also showcases some of the playing around with different accents which also mark this album; there's more than a touch of Cockney in Sting's rough voice as he sings this beggar's song ("if ya haven't got a ha'penny, well, God bless you"). The second sounds like a cut left over from The Soul Cages spiced up with the musical-theater touch of Ten Summoner's Tales, and the bodhran and refrain in Irish aren't quite too much. The specific stylistic (bell ringing recalls "Island of Souls") and lyrical ("hauling frozen ropes" -- for all your days remaining?) quotes from The Soul Cages felt a bit like pandering, but I'll take it.
Also nice are "Gabriel's Message" and "There Is No Rose Of Such Virtue" which have an uncharacteristically medieval sound to them. I thought "Lo, How A Rose E'er Blooming" might be similar from the start, and it's very nice except that the second verse starts with a spoken-word narration from the Shatner school of over-drama ("ISAIAH... t'was foretold it... this Rose I have in mind"). "Hounds of Winter" is, interestingly, much improved from the Mercury Falling version, giving up the relentless driving rock guitar in favor of jazz guitar, fiddles and bongo doing a mellow rumba, with pipes and flutes coming in to give an offbeat Latino Celt Sound System kind of feel. The percussion makes the track, and I could play this at a late-night blues house party with no remorse.
There are some low points also -- "The Hurdy-Gurdy Man" is almost pathetic in its vodka-swilling self-pity, with guitar and accordion the only accompaniment. The lyrics tell of a starving street musician who, so the song hints, will be eaten by wild dogs by morning, and closes with "watching you... I see myself in you; one day I will play the hurdy-gurdy too"... hmmm. Wonder where that came from. There's a place for meditation on mortality, but I think it could be done with more dignity from the artist as well as the object. (Later: turns out this is an adaptation of Schubert's "Der Leiermann", so Sting doesn't necessarily deserve all my scorn here.)
So... a mixed bag, but I'm cheered by it. I don't think I've set an impossibly high bar here... I know what this guy's capable of accomplishing and I'm not letting him off the hook easy. But in any case I'm pleased by the direction this album takes. Curious where he'll go next.
To some extent I think Sting is trying to return to his roots (again), or at least return to some modus operandi with more artistic integrity than the way he's been doing things lately. The songs are not, in general, over-produced on this album; the arrangements are spare, and the instrumentation hearkens back to The Soul Cages (hammer dulcimer, uillean pipes, accordion). This gives the album much-needed focus. It's once again about Sting the musician, rather than Sting the celebrity who surrounds himself with musicians. (I remember fdmts once describing some of the French rap moments on past albums as "a note passed to Madonna like in the fifth grade".) While he has accompaniment, the spare arrangements leave him exposed and vulnerable, and I think he acquits himself admirably. Moreover, the songs appearing here are generally not about holiday cheer, presents, etc., but take a more mystical bent, about suffering, sin, mercy and redemption. It helps that most of these songs are traditional, i.e., Sting didn't actually write the lyrics. (His lyrics definitely suffered from Mercury Falling onwards. I'm still sore about how the Hounds of Winter "got [him] in their sights", which seems more like stretching for a rhyme than adding to whatever story he might be telling.)
Probably the biggest change is in Sumner's voice. Age has roughened it, and the man who once wailed away into the stratosphere on "Roxanne" is now staying well in his bottom register -- in singing anywhere in a tenor range he sounds like he has a cold, and the most character is now brought out solidly in the bass-baritone range where he can make the gravelly sound work for him, as with a salty old dog smoking his pipe by the fire telling tales to his grandchildren. And he goes with it. Also, in some of the traditional carols, he seems to take the approach of a classical singer with respect to his vowels and enunciation, which also takes some adjustment as a listener.
The best tracks I heard were "Soul Cake" and "Christmas At Sea". The former has a driving energy which I haven't typically heard in this song before, and the addition of "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" as a counter-melody on brass -- along with the fiddle -- works despite the fact that it's not the first thing I'd have thought of. This song also showcases some of the playing around with different accents which also mark this album; there's more than a touch of Cockney in Sting's rough voice as he sings this beggar's song ("if ya haven't got a ha'penny, well, God bless you"). The second sounds like a cut left over from The Soul Cages spiced up with the musical-theater touch of Ten Summoner's Tales, and the bodhran and refrain in Irish aren't quite too much. The specific stylistic (bell ringing recalls "Island of Souls") and lyrical ("hauling frozen ropes" -- for all your days remaining?) quotes from The Soul Cages felt a bit like pandering, but I'll take it.
Also nice are "Gabriel's Message" and "There Is No Rose Of Such Virtue" which have an uncharacteristically medieval sound to them. I thought "Lo, How A Rose E'er Blooming" might be similar from the start, and it's very nice except that the second verse starts with a spoken-word narration from the Shatner school of over-drama ("ISAIAH... t'was foretold it... this Rose I have in mind"). "Hounds of Winter" is, interestingly, much improved from the Mercury Falling version, giving up the relentless driving rock guitar in favor of jazz guitar, fiddles and bongo doing a mellow rumba, with pipes and flutes coming in to give an offbeat Latino Celt Sound System kind of feel. The percussion makes the track, and I could play this at a late-night blues house party with no remorse.
There are some low points also -- "The Hurdy-Gurdy Man" is almost pathetic in its vodka-swilling self-pity, with guitar and accordion the only accompaniment. The lyrics tell of a starving street musician who, so the song hints, will be eaten by wild dogs by morning, and closes with "watching you... I see myself in you; one day I will play the hurdy-gurdy too"... hmmm. Wonder where that came from. There's a place for meditation on mortality, but I think it could be done with more dignity from the artist as well as the object. (Later: turns out this is an adaptation of Schubert's "Der Leiermann", so Sting doesn't necessarily deserve all my scorn here.)
So... a mixed bag, but I'm cheered by it. I don't think I've set an impossibly high bar here... I know what this guy's capable of accomplishing and I'm not letting him off the hook easy. But in any case I'm pleased by the direction this album takes. Curious where he'll go next.