Langford adrift in America
R. Hutchinson | a world ruled by fossil fuels and fossil minds | 04/23/2006
(3 out of 5 stars)
"This isn't a bad album, but I have high expectations for Jon Langford, and GOLD BRICK verges on mediocre, it's certainly not in the same ballpark with his best work. The best things about it are the cover art and the cover of the Procol Harem song "A Salty Dog." I hadn't heard it in years, and I don't know whether I ever realized that the lyric is about a crew of sailors that burn their ship to escape a crazed, tyrannical captain when they land on a paradisical island. A great metaphor -- who might Langford have in mind as the crazed captain? And where's our island? The cover leads you to think it might be full of biting politics -- the pyramid from the dollar bill with a gold brick on top (ie, America worships the almighty dollar), and a caption that reads "Lies of the Great Explorers, or Columbus at Guantanamo Bay." But the politics turn out to be subtle and subdued, along with the middle-of-the-road music, featuring piano. To me, the best songs (after "Salty Dog") are "Dreams of Leaving," which has a reggae beat, "Invisible Man," which is wistful, and "Tall Ships," a poignant lament.
The logical comparison for this album seems to be Langford's last solo record with a rock band, SKULL ORCHARD (see my review), which was my choice for the best album of 1998. SKULL ORCHARD had several absolutely great songs (Penny Arcades, Trapdoor, I Am the Law, I'm Stopping This Train), and overall had quite a kick to it, with a theme of the decline of the working class, the Welsh working class in particular, and along with it the dream of socialism. GOLD BRICK has a theme too, summarized by the last song "Lost In America," and it could be seen as a continuation on a new continent. But 8 years later, it doesn't measure up to SKULL ORCHARD by any means. Fortunately, the last two Mekons albums, JOURNEY TO THE END OF THE NIGHT (2000) and OUT OF OUR HEADS (2002) were fantastic (see my reviews), so we know Langford's creativity is not spent.
Here are some samples of GOLD BRICK's lyrics: "Little Bit of Help" includes the lines "In every treaty that is signed the seeds are sown for slaughter," "someone drains the marshes," and "a chalky line through sand and water," all of which gives the vague impression of Iraq, but it's hard to be sure. "All Roads Lead Back to Me" might be about corporate criminals -- "I hope this don't ruin your last day of trading," "you be my scapegoat, you be my cellmate." But who is it that "all roads lead back to," that says "you're going to have to talk to me to get out of here"? Again, it's left up to a leftist's imagination. Capital? The very gold brick, that disembodied ghost? "Gold Brick" is relatively transparent, a jab at American consumerism, a "boring and phony" landscape, an "electric wasteland." "Gorilla & the Maiden" is a song about Chicago, Langford's adopted hometown, with references to Sun Ra on State Street, Nazis marching, and investors as gorillas. "Dreams of Leaving" mentions "mega-slums in mega-cities," but I don't know what to make of the chorus, "dreams of leaving are no more," when I think of the huge migrations of immigrant workers sloshing around the globe, gradually creating the international working class that was only a dim possibility in Marx's day.
My sense is that Langford is indeed "Lost in America," adrift in the belly of the beast and in need of fresh inspiration. Time for a new Mekons album! Here's to you, Jon, something better is coming around the corner..."
Track Listings (12) - Disc #1