Austin Sound

Few artists are as iconic to Austin’s music scene as Alejandro Escovedo. His bands Rank and File and True Believers scored the transition from local punk to roots rock and the New Sincerity movement, and as a solo artist, he stands as one of Austin’s finest songwriters. The struggles that have scarred Escovedo’s life over the past decade, especially his fight with and victory over hepatitis C, are well chronicled, most notably in his own songs. Yet whereas 2006’s The Boxing Mirror was a darkly reflective meditation on his life and illness, Real Animal surges with a power and poignancy of simply being alive. The songwriter’s exceptional ninth studio album is a celebration and culmination of past, present and future, looking back to look forward and steeped in the recognized wonder of the moment.

Cowritten with Chuck Prophet and produced by acclaimed Bowie and T-Rex wizard Tony Visconti, Real Animal is both visceral and contemplative. The sound, like its subject matter, dauntingly sweeps across Escovedo’s career. The raw punk excavation of “Nun’s Song” and “Chelsea Hotel ‘78” mine Escovedo’s past, the former spitting “We don’t want your approval, it’s 1978, We know we’re not in tune, We know we’ll never be great,” while the latter capture’s the legendary New York scene in energy and ambivalence: “It makes no sense, It makes perfect sense,” echoes the chorus. Visconti’s string arrangements burn equally brutal and subtly tender as needed. The cello on “Nun’s Song” is immaculately placed, drawing low and primal before Escovedo howls “We’ve got so much to live for, it’s not too late.” The driving drums of “Chip N’ Tony” pay tribute to Rank and File, while “Real as an Animal” unloads riffs like there’s nothing left to lose.

The rocking anthems may burst with Escovedo’s rediscovered lust for life, but it’s the ballads that truly revel in his resurrection. “Sensitive Boys” sways soft behind Escovedo’s stretching croon, beautifully rich, and “Swallows of San Juan” is ripe with longing and hope. “Golden Bear” traces the veins of Escovedo’s disease, the haunting reverbed Casio notes dripping like the tainted blood rebelling against his body as he moans “Oh, why me.” The album’s poignant core rests on “Sister Lost Soul,” however: “Sister lost soul, brother lost soul, I need you” calls the chorus. It’s this reaching out, the realization of life discovered in others, that gives Real Animal it’s truly joyful tone, set by the opening appeal of “Always a Friend” and climaxed with the bluesy “People (We’re Only Give So Long).”

Closing with the aptly titled “Slow Down” is the cumulative testament to the whole album, and indeed, all that Escovedo has survived and what he’s taken away from it. “Slow down, slow down, It’s moving much too fast,” the song waltzes. “I can’t live in this moment, When I’m tangled in the past.” Real Animal is that release, a reckoning to let go and be able to imagine the future by accepting and finally settling the past.

Mp3 from Real Animal:
Always a Friend

Websites:
www.alejandroescovedo.com
Myspace