Hiss Golden Messenger – Terms of Surrender
Merge Records – Out Now
For me, it happens once in a blue moon, that I’m completely hooked on an album within a few bars of its opening track. Seriously, it JUST HAPPENED! In this past few months of being horrified daily by current affairs, I’ve been like a rabbit caught in the headlights, unable to look away or turn over the talk stations. I need a Teacher, the opener from Hiss Golden Messenger has just blown through me, transforming me from a gutter-ball to a potential ten pin striker. How? Well, its a combination of so many things, the backbeat, the rhythm guitars, the hooks, but most of all the infectious and laid back tone and phrasing of lead man, M.C. Taylor. Things slow down slightly for Bright Direction (You’re a Dark Star Now) but it still grooves. There’s a musical charisma, essential in getting away with doing so little, but doing it so well. It’s what made many of us on this side of the Atlantic fall in love with Tom Petty, Phosphorescent, The Westies and so many more American bands.
My Wing has the band punching at their ideal weight. The tempo is solid and I get the feeling they could play this all day, holding their audience captive the whole time. In fact, the wonderfully lazy two-minute outro in Old Enough to Wonder Why (East Side – West Side) kind of backs me up on that point.
Cat’s Eye Blue strikes a different note. My ears are drawn to lyrics pronounced with a little more clarity…
This wicked word
Too bad to be spoken
You let the heart attack in
One taste and it’s all good
Then the little birds sing
But the word couldn’t bear it
And the song that it sang
Made me so aware
We lost something big
So only come if you want
Make me work for it, baby
Not getting any younger
As with all of the songs so far, the lyrics obviously mean something to M.C. Taylor, the bandleader and songwriter of Hiss Golden Messenger. But he paints his pictures in such a way, its like a listeners Rorschach test. I think we will all hear different things, depending on what we need to get out of the song. Now, I can’t speak for the next man, but I’m loving what I’m getting out of it!
Happy Birthday, Baby is just made for FM. For three minutes and forty-five seconds, the cold, drizzly, Irish October day is in the rearview mirror as I drive down the West Coast with the top down. But then, there’s more to America than the West Coast, and Hiss Golden Messenger allow us that gentle reminder in Down at the Uptown…
It was a real live world, and I wanna live in it
I got up and sung in overrun places like this
Christmas lights, but nobody gave a shit, I guess
Was a real live world, and I wanna live in it
So if I’m a stranger now
And runnin’ on my own time
It’s ’cause I made a vow
Down at the Uptown
Even the slide guitar cries in this one. Gorgeous.
There’s a lovely change of mood in Whip. The groove darkens with a bit more saturation, the harmonica has a lovely distorted tone.
I saw that spirit on the water
and I rolled with it
We’re all rolling with it here! And as it is the responsibility the title track of the album to close it, Terms of Surrender is a little hope from the writer, that things will get better. Although I’m tempted to wonder then, what exact hardship is hidden within these words that would make a man sing…
I’m gonna take it
On the chin and save it
It’s one thing to bend it, my love
But another to break it
But I’m going to save this question for another day, as I have yet to work through what I’m relating to myself within this work.
One thing for sure though, this copy is heading to the car, and staying at the top of the pile for a very long time. I’m heading straight to their mailing list to make sure I don’t miss it when these guys come to town. I could say that Terms of Surrender is infectious, intelligent and bewitching, but more than that, its just SO SO GOOD!!
Tour Dates
09-Dec: The Haunt – Brighton, UK
10-Dec: Village Underground – London, UK
11-Dec: Hare & Hounds – Birmingham, UK
12-Dec: Brundell Social Club – Leeds, UK
13-Dec: CCA – Glasgow, UK
14-Dec: Thekla – Bristol, UK
Photo Credit: Graham Tolbert