Album Review

It’s been a good month for fans of atmospheric desert rock. Calexico released a new collection of Tex-Mex border music and now, Howe Gelb, the godfather of the fertile experimental Americana scene in Tucson, Arizona, has resurfaced with proVISIONS, his first Giant Sand record in four years. Essentially a one-man band backed by an ever-changing group of musical compadres (including for many years Joey Burns and John Convertino from Calexico), Giant Sand has released 14 albums of quirky, yet often profound, country-tinged rock music. As with most of his output, proVISIONS is very much informed by its surroundings. Gelb’s deadpan delivery and clever turns of phrase are supported by dusty arrangements featuring piano, tremolo drenched guitar, shuffling drums, and vocal collaborations with Neko Case and Isobel Campbell.

On the album’s opener, “Stranded Pearl,” chords from a lonesome electric guitar echo behind Gelb’s weary spoken word monologue, “There’s a power in that division / in that hour of revision / You revisit the dank and the dour / when the taste of love is all but gone…sour.” The song then kicks into a sauntering boy/girl duet much in the vein of classic mid-1960s Lee Hazlewood and Nancy Sinatra.

Gelb has explained that “Giant Sand is a mood,” but proVISIONS is more than mere mood music. Backed by an all-Danish band consisting of Thoger T. Lund (bass), Peter Dombernowsky (drums) and Anders Pedersen (slide guitar), the music possesses a fresh quality that at times sounds improvised. This is especially true on the instrumental “World’s End State Park,” where the band kicks up dust with a feedback soaked climax.

Given how accomplished Gelb is as a songwriter, it’s somewhat ironic that one of the best tracks on proVISIONS is actually a cover of PJ Harvey’s “The Desperate Kingdom of Love,” from Uh Huh Her. A slow burning dirge, infused with an overt gospel quality by Gelb, the song is a twisted and harrowing devotional with the narrator promising his love, “At the end of this burning world / You’ll stand proud, face upheld / And I’ll follow you, into Heaven or Hell / And I’ll become, as a boy / In the desperate kingdom of love.”

proVISIONS also finds Gelb turning his eye outward as he ruminates on the socio-political climate of the modern world, and judging from the gloomy, “Spiral,” he doesn’t like what he sees. But rather than deliver his views with the outrage of a protest singer, he couches his disgust in a resignation of somebody who’s just plain tired of all the shit going down: war (“A lot of crippled hearts out there / Some will never mend / We’re losing our patience / And losing too many good men.” ); global warming (“It sure is getting hotter / And the water’s been on the rise / Don’t want to live forever / But another generation, it would be nice.”); religious paranoia (“Some say it’s the end times / Some say it’s all just begun / Some are are hiding in the churches / Some are hiding in the gun.”).

proVISIONS is not completely glum. “Muck Machine” finds Giant Sand in the mold of latter day Tom Waits with angular guitars, distorted vocals, and a groovin’ bass line, while “Can Do” is a galloping countrified romp a la Johnny Cash, albeit with lyrics and a delivery that’s pure Gelb.

All in all, proVISIONS doesn’t break any stylistic ground, fitting squarely in the mold of past Gelb releases both with Giant Sand and as a “solo” artist. But that said, it does rank as one of his stronger efforts of the past 10 years or so. And that’s saying a lot considering the consistency and originality of this lo-fi desert prophet.

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