Alejandro Escovedo – Gravity / Thirteen Years

The “Thirteen Years Theme” — rendered four times over the course of the album — serves as a prelude, performed on harp by Levin’s daughter Megan. “Ballad Of The Sun And The Moon” then spills out like a river of light around a tale of life during wartime. Yet the main melody is joyous and voluptuous, holding out, at least, the ideal of beauty in a dark hour.

Escovedo earns that unifying theme — finding hope in days even the saints have abandoned — through a ruthless questioning of himself, an unblinking admission of personal responsibility, and a recognition of forces that, in the end, lay beyond understanding. “Her mistake was his mistake/That’s just where it stands,” he sings on “Baby’s Got New Plans”; “Everything that comes of it/Lingers on their hands.” On “Helpless”, he confesses, “I’m helpless, I’m hopeless”; paradoxically, it’s that admission that lets in some light.

The title track examines a life of constant distance from those who mean the most; he sees his tragic choice, but also recognizes the flawed and limited human vision behind it. “A thousand promises fall on me,” he sings with something far beyond aching in his voice. “You know the end of it I can’t see.” But still the questions persist: “Thirteen years/Was it a waste of time?” The exquisite melody played on the strings repeats and refutes any despairing answer.

As is the fashion, both reissues include bonus tracks, though only one bona fide outtake from the sessions. “Tired Skin”, recorded for Gravity but not included on the original release, is a fully realized ballad featuring piano, cello and acoustic guitar; the performance is gorgeous, and the lyrics — “Read another story from this weathered book/Weave a happy ending from your hair” — provide a new, somehow fitting, coda to the reissued album.

A second disc includes songs from a February 3, 1993, performance at McCabe’s Guitar Shop (Escovedo’s first appearance at the famed Santa Monica, California, venue). Backed by Voelz (violin), Kammerdiener (cello), Bruton (guitar and mandolin), and Mickey Raphael (harmonica), Escovedo delivers seven songs from Gravity, as well as Ian Hunter’s “I Wish I Was Your Mother”; he also segues from “Bury Me” (a dark, mysterious experiment from Gravity) into “Hard Road”, a True Believers tune.

The bonus disc for Thirteen Years begins with four “instrumental mixes” from the sessions, originally intended as lip-sync tracks for European television. While there’s little wrong with hearing a few tracks sans vocals, there’s little revelatory about it either, especially in contrast with the exceptional versions of Peter Case’s “Two Angels”, Hunter’s “I Wish I Was Your Mother”, and Lou Reed’s “Pale Blue Eyes”, which come from another 1993 acoustic outing, this time in Michigan. Those three performances, as well as the Buick MacKane take on “Gravity”, will be familiar to those who picked up the limited edition EP The End/Losing Your Touch back in 1994.

In the end, the only reason for anyone to seek out these two reissues lies in their original musical design, which, thankfully, remastering serves quite well. Tones and textures are clarified, warmed, and brightened. The sound has a thrust and finer dynamic range, which is precisely what good mastering ought to bring forth. Gravity and Thirteen Years are not only two of the strongest rock albums of the ’90s, they are artistic achievements, as rare as they were unexpected.