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Adam GreenGemstones Rough Trade/Shock Look, this album is just freakin' great. If you loved 'Friends Of Mine', the Australian debut for the former Moldy Peach, you're going to be even more enamoured of 'Gemstones', and if you've never heard him before, this is the place to start. Every one of these fifteen tracks is a winner - and when was the last time you could say that of an album? The thing about Adam Green that you should probably be aware of before you put it on during a family dinner - and this both elevates and limits him - is that he's got a bit of a potty mouth. However, it's when he merrily chirps lyrics like "Carolina, she's from Texas/ Red bricks drop from her vagina," with a perky sing-along melody that you realise that the man is a bona-fide genius. His voice is up-front and bold in the mix, proud and tuneful throughout. Sometimes he's stringing non-sequiturs like a folk-crooning Beck, then he drops a sweet couplet like "She's a show-off/ Xanax, Zoloft" in the title track, then he's articulating the torchy Before My Bedtime like it's a show tune standard. That said, the weakest song here is also the most in-your-face comedic: the strident polka of Choke On A Cock is just a little too deliberately wa-hey ("I would dance on NBC and say George Bush shook hands with me/ And then I'll go and choke on a cock"). Mind you, it's still as catchy as hell: in fact, my only real criticism is that the album stops rather than ends with the upbeat Teddy Boys, but then again it's all the more incentive to just start again. And there's not a chorus here that won't stick in your head - although you might want to catch yourself before you start singing out loud in a lift. I've read a pile of reviews for this album and it seems to have divided people: either they love it or they hate it. Those reviewers who hate it are mad: 'Gemstones' is as beautiful and valuable as its title suggests.  |
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