My method actor.

Nilüfer Yanya - My Method Actor (2024) ***

Nominated by: Alex

Music club: MNAC

MNAC playlist addition: Faith's Late

Sometimes the picture doesn't tell the true story. The cover to this album is a case in point, or else it says really self-absorbed people can also deliver the goods (I take it that's Yanya on the cover).

I especially loved her vocals - all smokey, bluesy, dreamy. A hint of Christine McVie about them at times. That carried the album for me. I listened a few times and enjoyed listening to it each time but nothing stuck in my memory too much.

Faith's Late was an exception because it sounded more organic than the others and the drums didn't dominate. I like drummers/ drums that serve the song (Ringo and Jim Keltner spring to mind). It seemed to me that the drum patterns were the dominant feature on too many of these songs (i.e. came first in the creative process) and the rest of the song was then forced to fit the drums. I could be wrong!

I have no idea what she was singing about. The lyrics kind of washed over me in a very pleasant way but aside from the odd swear word, nothing much stood out. I think it's a case of the sound of the word, its texture, being more important than the meaning.

So, a really pleasant experience but I haven't added it to my favourites or gone looking for a physical copy.

Rock n' Roll Hurts (Being Dead)

Being Dead - Eels (2024) ***

Nominated by: Tom Jnr

Music club: MNAC

MNAC playlist addition: Blanket Of My Bone

Okay, for a while there I thought Lew meant Eels as in the band led by E who did some great early albums like Daisies of the Galaxy, but no! When I put it on, I was startled at how different they sounded. Then I figured it out. The album is called Eels by a band I'd never heard of - Being Dead, a duo/trio from Texas.

Eels are slippery, slithery, forward-looking things that inhabit rivers where I live (New Zealand). They can look menacing, but they are pretty benign. Being Dead and their album are pretty slippery/slithery as well. The 16 tracks on Eels are mostly around the minute to two-minute mark; only five are more than three minutes long. So, they slither past pretty quickly.

A good or bad thing? Well, it takes some of them a while to make much of an impression as they speed by.

I especially liked Blanket Of My Bone for the Mama & the Papa's-isms; Firefights for its propulsive-ness; Van Goes (ha ha) for its B52ishness; Nightvision/Love Machine for the Marine Girls indie-pop-isms; Gazing At Footwear (nice ambient guitar).

Only a few didn't move me (even Rock n' Roll Hurts which is silly and a bit pointless is still catchy), Those were some of the song fragments littered around the more fully formed songs. 

On balance though - a fascinating bunch of songs and deliveries. I do prefer the songs featuring male/female vocal dynamics I find, and the album held my attention if just for - what style are they going to try next? 

They run the full gamut don't they? In total it feels a bit like a sprawling double album but the length of a single, if you know what I mean.