There’s an internally obvious algorithm to fairytales which antagonist and protagonist alike just get - an equation writ in blood, roses, incestuous fathers. It is solved, eventually, by sword point or puzzle-piece! But so inscrutably. You read it and follow the plot, but there’s no obvious causal necessity to the items in question, no neat ( Read more... )

Like a fish-hook, the frontwoman gives us melodic barbs: little vocal turnabouts above an organ-tremor. It feels like acoustic twilight, but the kind that wraps around disaster - before or after, it’s uncertain, but that twist-and-trill sounds persistently tragic, like a borrowed honkey-trick without that Patsy Cline exaggeration, smoother, softer ( Read more... )

Pennsylvania is poor in everything but classic rock radio, and even so, I thought Steely Dan was gloss, pop-greased and forgettable amid all the good stuff. Compare it to the frictional riffs of, say, Led Zeppellin, and I’d say no contest, point to my watering eyes as evidence for Steely Dan doldrums. On a whim, I bought Can’t Buy a Thrill, because ( Read more... )