Jeffrey Dean Foster’s The Arrow? Bullseye!
NO DEPRESSION
Posted On November 28, 2014
Jeffrey Dean Foster’s The Arrow (Angel Skull Records) sounds “like a random spin of an FM radio dial from a certain time in the past in the way it embraces a lot of styles without being too disparate or mixed up”. I’d like to take credit for that masterful description but I can’t. Thank you Jeffrey! The artwork recreates a well worn album jacket in an evocative nod to the golden age of FM, college-rock and vinyl LPs. I heard the opening track “Life Is Sweet” on Rick Cornell’s Dirty Laundry and couldn’t put my finger on what I was hearing. It sounded new, yet familiar and I knew I needed to track down a copy. NC legends The Woods (the track is dedicated to the late David Enloe)? The Faces? “Life is sweet but it doesn’t last” may be a sobering opening sentiment but it is delivered with a infectious hook, a dose of dirty guitar swagger and some honkin’ sax and trumpet courtesy of the Uptown Horns. Produced, recorded and mixed by jangle-pop indie-rock guru Mitch Easter (with help from a handful of others including Don Dixon) Foster’s tenor almost shapeshifts from song to song and recalls, but never apes, Ian McLagan, Tommy Keene, Steve Forbert and Big Star era Alex Chilton.
Two-thirds of Tres Chicas (Tonya Lamm and Lynn Blakey) add beautiful harmony on a handful of tracks and Easter and Dixon add guitar and bass to the core band of Brian Landrum and John Pfiffner. “Young Tigers Disappear” might be the best anti-war song since Phil Och’s “I Ain’t Marching Anymore” but this isn’t folk music friends, it is in your face pissed off rock and roll (that could have been dedicated to Donald Rumsfled among others): “Old lions lie, young tigers have no fear. Old lions walk away, young tigers disappear”. “The Sun Will Shine Again” promises “The sun will shine again on your dark days” so maybe the real message is more optimistic than the opening track “Life Is Sweet” suggests and that neither the pleasure nor the pain will last.
A casual listen to “Morningside” and you might overlook the dark tale of murder and planned revenge percolating beneath this sweet lap-steel enhanced melody. The achingly beautiful final and title track “The Arrow” features Ecki Heins on violin as Foster expands upon the sentiment of the opening track. But here Foster sings “Life is sweet but it don’t last, When you catch a wave, ride it before it’s passed”. Maybe the glass is both half empty and half full and as Warren Zevon advised us we should all remember to “Enjoy every sandwich”.
