Jackson Browne
The knock against Jackson Browne's 1970s work was has always been that he's too sensitive-"Here Come Those Tears," indeed. Tonio K. even took him to task in his great 1978 breakup song "H-A-T-R-E-D": "I wish I was as mellow/ As, for instance, Jackson Browne/ But ‘Fountain of Sorrow,' my ass, motherfucker/ I hope you end up in the ground." By the late 1980s, his focus was as much political as it was personal, and the rap became that he was too didactic, with lyrical nuance suffering at the expense of agitprop. It's no surprise that, since the 1990s, he's pretty much faded from view, his politics too far left for the mainstream and the mantle of introspection taken up by younger singer-songwriters.
Time the Conqueror, Browne's first album of new material after a couple acoustic live sets, likely won't change anybody's mind about him. More's the pity, because it's his strongest set of songs since 1986's Lives in the Balance, and even if "The Drums of War" is every bit as explicit in its politics as its title implies, the album as a whole is anything but simplistic in its analysis of matters of the heart or of the soul. In fact, there's not a traditional love song in the bunch; Browne's themes here are (as they've always been, really) far deeper, as he tries to assess the place 1960s ideals might still have in the 2000s. Not empty hippie slogans of peace and love, mind you, but harder questions about how we live our lives in a world that's more money-driven than ever. While the nearly ten-minute-long "Where Were You" starts out as an indictment of the government's lack of response to Hurricane Katrina, it turns into a challenge to go beyond either pointing fingers or giving $50 to the Red Cross: "If property is valued more than lives/ How strong can we really be?/ How long do we imagine we'll be free?" Even a visit to a strip club in "Live Nude Cabaret" turns into a moment of existential examination of both self and society, while "Going Down to Cuba" takes the opposite tack, playfully reducing the trade embargo to the nonsense that it is ("It put a smile on my face/ To see a Chevrolet with a Soviet transmission").
It's also the most musically diverse collection Browne has put out in 20 years. "Drums of War" rocks like "Doctor My Eyes," "Where Were You" rides a swampy Tony Joe White-style groove, and the lilting guitar line of the title cut heads off ponderousness at the pass. On almost every song, Browne engages in call-and-response with keyboardist/singer Jeff Young and backup singers Chavonne Morries and Alethea Mills, their voices not just echoing and embellishing but becoming an essential part of the mix, adding depth and tension throughout.
Standout Tracks: "Time the Conqueror," "Where Were You" ERIC SCHUMACHER-RASMUSSEN
