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Len’s
Lounge
Road Dog and More Train Songs
Northern
Aggression
Slternative country
The Jayhawks, Merle Haggard, the Eagles, the Flying
Burrito Brothers
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Sometimes I just hate how genre-predictable
certain albums are. For instance, looking at the cover
and title of Len’s Lounge’s Road Dog and
More Train Songs, there was absolutely no doubt
that what lay encoded on the circular piece of plastic
within was an album of twangy, singer/songwriter country-rock.
Any album that features a view of a highway and/or a
flat open space (this album cover happens to feature
both) will inevitably be an effort in alternative country,
replete with songs about down and out small-towners
mixed with liberal doses of pedal steel and twangy guitar.
Heck, you could just about review it without even listening
to it. But, given that these guys have been around since
1992, way before the late-90’s alt. country boom,
and feature former Afghan Whig’s bassist John Curley
on (duh) bass, it deserves better than that ... I hope.
At first glance, the big harmonized choruses and electric
slide guitar playing lend themselves to Eagles and Jayhawks
comparisons, as the roads being traversed here are quite
familiar for those who have been watching the diasporas
of the country-rock movement. At times, with the Merle
Haggard-ish delivery of lead vocalist/primary songwriter
Jeff Roberson on tracks like “Cross Dressers and
Acquaintances,” the band sounds similarly weathered
as the burnt-out country warhorses in the refurbished
Flying Burrito Brothers lineup that has been limping
through the country for the 25+ years since Gram Parsons
died. Not that it’s a bad thing to deliver songs
in a certain listless steady hand, which Len’s
Lounge has in spades, but it also means that their songwriter
and musicianship don’t quite crackle with energy,
youthfully naïve or otherwise. The first half of
the album finds them generally building songs on twangy
leads, pedal steel, fairly catchy choruses, and tales
of small town desperation. Pretty much what would be
expected.
Still, the songs aren’t totally without their
quirks. While Roberson generally delivers and writes
songs with a fairly indistinctive voice, there is something
slightly off-center with his painfully simple descriptions,
his non-rhyming verses, and his penchant for minor chord
twists. Where “This Train” sounds about as
old as their cover of Jimmie Rodger’s pre-WW2 “Waiting
for a Train,” it almost seems to be belaboring
the point to even write it. And where a cover of Guy
Clark’s “Dublin Blues” provides a moment
of songwriting contrast, the spooky pedal steel and
ominous moods evoked by the weary “Road Dog”
almost finds Robison channeling a little of Townes Van
Zandt (or Guy Clark for that matter) displacement. At
these moments, Len’s Lounge seem to be on the verge
of something vaguely interesting.
In short, I’m not sad that I spent the time to
actually listen to Road Dog and More Train Songs,
even if I could have done a fairly accurate review of
it without putting it in my CD player. Sadly, for Len’s
Lounge, these kind of alternative country albums are
rather commonplace in 2002. They possess neither the
imagination or creepiness of songwriters like Tom Waits
or Will Oldham, they’re not as tuneful as the Jayhawks
or Wilco, and they’re not as eclectically talented
as the Mavericks. They are a very decent country-rock
band that knows (and uses) all of the standard country-rock
tricks. And while it’s hard to blame them for that,
it’s not apparent who is going to get turned on
to this variation of familiar themes given the alternatives.
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