Marley’s Ghost – Spooked

Although outwardly they’re a classic “old school” folk combo harboring four remarkable, distinctive voices and a catholic openness to material that apparently has no boundaries in time or space, Marley’s Ghost does, indeed, have something kinda scary going on. Unlike, say, the Austin Lounge Lizards (who make no bones about flaunting their collective madness), the lads of Marley’s Ghost seem determined to give the impression, amid the giddily eccentric eclecticism, that all is, uh, well in their twisted brains. With artwork by R. Crumb and production/musical input by Van Dyke Parks (now there’s a couple of Twilight Zone signposts for ya), the band’s eighth full-length in twenty years glides with deadpan sincerity through sea chanteys, perverted mountain gospel, country-rock, vintage pre-WWII pop, Jazz Age vamps, Dylan, western campfire songs, and a rib-tickling salute to ‘the French Elvis,’ Johnny Hallyday. Brilliantly sung and played, Spooked is a heady, subversive treat.