Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea - Silver Jews Album Review

Album Review

Having cleaned up his act (you know, the usual rock’n’roll story!) David Berman finally goes for broke. After sporadic album releases and bouts of depression and substance abuse, reclusive Berman delivers the goods at long last. Lookout Mountain….doesn’t exactly have instant appeal: in the biz it’s known as a grower. This album has a charm of its own, so bare with it. Excellent Suffering Jukebox is a track I’d heard on radio, so I decided to check out their album. Berman starts with a hangdog vocal, not too dissimilar to Johnny Cash’s southern droll on a track that eventually perks up at the 2/3 mark dropping again at mid-point, then whooshing away to the close. Even more up-beat is the jolly Aloysius, Bluegrass Drummer that has some deft piano and fuzzy guitars added to the pacey soft-rocker. Opening Suffering Jukebox there’s a sombre organ, which cleverly disguises the again, upbeat, melodic and catchy ditty, featuring spangly guitar strums, with that Cash – Lou Reed lilt used to great effect. The only song to match this, further in, is the delightful country-ish jaunt of Strange Victory, Strange Defeat, the album’s most powerful track. Open Field is the jewel in the crown. It has some exquisite sweet vocal back-ups that shine through this pseudo 60s Californian-styled gem. San Francisco B.C. is neat boogie a la Lou Reed with dead-pan vocal giving yet another nod to Cash. On the penultimate Party Barge, Berman throws just about everything except the kitchen sink : horns, seagulls, dollops of clattering on this jungle boogie. He leaves us with an Eagles - like country swagger on hook-heavy and gorgeous We Could Be Looking For The Same Thing.

Having given it more that a dozen rotations, (yes it needs quite a few to do justice) I’ve concluded that this is a superb non-commercial album, worthy of four stars.

File under: To be savoured.

Elly Roberts