Alabama 3, ‘The Sopranos’ theme boys, near-ace again

Another week of crappuccino releases, with Shania Twain (gimme a break!), Kylie Minogue (alas the passed hits), Sum 41 (sub-standard corpo-punk), LL Cool J (Ladies loathe…) and Rob… (don’t wanna even key his name). Gems are out there, such as an intriguing album, ‘Power In The Blood’ that appears to have missed to capture your attention from being busy with purchasing one of the year-end’s flood of compilations.

Alabama 3’s third outing is like being a juvenile let loose in a sweet-cum-toy shop. There is a whole world of brave, varied, individualistic, and poignant songs that sail against the flotilla of mainstream predictability. And its themes, reference points and delivery are on different planets in the super-grassed universe.

Track 3, ‘Reachin’’, mentions Jackson Pollack and you can’t but wonder how many painters can a ‘Pop Idol’ name? (None-to-zero, probably.) Rimbaud makes a cameo appearance in ‘Let The Caged Bird Sing’… This is a spit in the face of global imagination’s death and it is greed that’s created it with one guilty party being – the entertainment industry. The willing participants are moulded by the govt via a society amputated of education that makes it easy for machination of any and all kinds. Y’know, deep down, there is no difference between principles on which communist and ‘democratic’ political systems are run: both are based and exploit – ignorance. Don’t trust anyone, including your self.

In ‘Woody Guthrie’ (foremost of legendary folk/protest singers) Larry Love addresses American gun-culture and apologists who claim Marilyn Manson is the ‘devil’ inspiring violence among teenagers, while KKK is “Cooking up a doze of race hatred”; you might nod your head but what about BNP, Coldplay (responsible for a spat of suicides?), hypocrites in Downing Street that toddler-like clutch to the US war-mongering coattails and smilingly join in creating political (isn’t Afghanistan actually occupied, as most of the Balkan peninsula?), social and economic hardships among the parts of the world? It concerns itself with new refugees being created daily and the illegal immigrants issue.

Why is Prez ‘G-Dub’ lying about Iraq war? They haven’t stopped bombing the country in over a decade and what is ‘no-fly zone’ but a state of war? All US moves are motivated by neo-colonialism. ‘Year Zero’ deals with urban living and loneliness of seven million who all dream, scheme and try to become somebody before a younger one gets in. ‘The Moon Has Lost The Sun’ features Hubert Selby Jr, the famous writer of ‘Last Exit To Brooklyn’… This A3 takes you places via roads bypassed these days due to the speed-ramps landfilled with industrial rubbish.

Musically, it is an electrodisco-Krautrockism-country-funk-Americana-rock-ambient-blues fusion for which idiosyncratic has been coined. But, this time – for the difference from ‘Exile On Coldharbour Lane’ and ‘La Peste’ – blues element is shorter in supply, regrettably. This Alabama 3 have eight members all imaginatively alt-named with bassist taking the trophy for Frank Zappatista!

Somewhere else on the site you’ll find an article begrudging the passing of – eccentrics. Well, Alabama 3 preserve the right to be themselves: enjoyable, provocative, entertaining, renegading, divergent. Thanx Warhol for this bloody dope that, a little short on potential of the previous discs, still is a stratosphere above the chart-dookie!

7.6/10

Tour dates (remaining):

27 November – Liquid Rooms, Edinburgh
28 November – QMU, Glasgow
29 November – Lemon Tree, Aberdeen
01 December – Astoria, London