Acid Tongue - Jenny Lewis

...down to Dixie and dropped acid on my tongue."_
~ Acid Tongue.

Jenny Lewis' second solo album sees her pick up the rope left her by 2006's "Rabbit Fur Coat". On that album, the Las Vegas-born former child actress tried her hand at recording a classic-sounding album which took influences from American soul music and country styling, in the process redefining herself as a major influence for modern American music. ...
...ballads are frustratingly disappointing on Acid Tongue, whereas before they used to be one of her major strengths.


_"You go west for the black setting sun._
_You go south to the white spirit world._
_You go east for those real green eyes._
_You go north, walk the good red road."_
~ Pretty Bird.

The arrangement is the major trouble for the album. There is no chance for a momentum ... more

"I've been down to Dixie and dropped acid on my tongue."
~ Acid Tongue.

Jenny Lewis' second solo album sees her pick up the rope left her by 2006's "Rabbit Fur Coat". On that album, the Las Vegas-born former child actress tried her hand at recording a classic-sounding album which took influences from American soul music and country styling, in the process redefining herself as a major influence for modern American music. As a side-project, she gathered together many of her musician friends such as Benjamin Gibbard of Death Cab For Cutie and Conor Oberst of Bright Eyes to help her with the recording of the album, and ended up making a record which critics argued was finer than any of the three albums she'd formerly made with her band Rilo Kiley. Building on the success of Rabbit Fur Coat, Lewis returned to the band and produced with them the shiny, sleek pop record 'Under The Blacklight', an album which jettisoned the band's former slipshod musical direction in favour of simpler pop songs. The tracks had a lighter, lyrically slighter style, and the focus turned to Lewis' Americana vocals, which channelled all of Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt through Stevie Nicks in order to show her off as a future star. Whilst the band have so far failed to achieve the popularity that their major musical influencers, Fleetwood Mac, reached, they build up a whole new set of fans, and more people heard of Lewis for the first time.

Whilst recording Under The Blacklight, she wrote the semi-autobiographical song 'Acid Tongue', a set of lyrics which pretend to analyse, but never quite reveal the details of, Lewis' life growing up. Although unable to find a way to fit the song onto Under The Blacklight, Lewis decided that she liked the song enough to record an album around it. Whilst touring with her bandmates, she started writing a series of songs which were to form the foundation of what would be her second album. With the tour over, Lewis headed to the studio to record and arrange the songs into a record, in the process inviting along guest performers including M Ward and actress-turned-singer Zooey Deschanel, Chris Robinson of The Black Crowes, and long-time fan Elvis Costello, who himself had recently invited Lewis to record backing vocals for his album 'Momofuku'. Eventually, eleven songs were culled from these sessions and laid out into order. The album, named 'Acid Tongue' for the song that inspired it, was ready.

"It's time for you to get up and out of his house."
~ Godspeed.

The song which inspired this album, "Acid Tongue", is rooted as the centrepiece of the recording. A long, languorous piece performed by a sole acoustic guitar, the song foregoes a full-sounding musical production so that the strongly confessional lyrics are at the forefront. Without percussion or backing music, Lewis is able to still create a misty atmosphere around the recording, with the feel very much that of an 'as-live' performance. With that, there is a sense of intimacy as she sings candidly about her past - although, it should be noted that she may well by creating a fake story about herself, as she did in the past with the similarly sparse title track on her previous solo release - and specifically, her use of drugs. Her voice steadily rises as the track goes on, with a bittersweet tone. As her voice chronicles her life to this point, she is joined by a backup chorus including her boyfriend Johnathan Rice (himself a performer) and Chris Robinson. Their combined vocals add a certain power to the uncanny sweetness that Lewis has in her voice, and makes the song into a powerful lament.

The honeyed vocals of Lewis have often been used in the past to mask painful songs, and this is certainly the case for "Godspeed". Although the song is ostensibly seen as a sweet, subtle ballad due to a musical arrangement which features a row of strings swinging their notes slowly in encouragement, the lyrics reveal a different nature. The refrain "godspeed to you - keep the lighthouse in sight," which at first seems to be a reassurance, reveals itself to be a worn-out call from Lewis to a friend who refuses to save herself from a broken relationship. The soft percussion and fragile piano chords which characterise the song add a sense of lost to proceedings, which helps the song from falling into becoming a twee cliché of itself, and strengthens what is essentially a soft power-ballad of sorts.

It is the care taken to production which allows this, and the steady "Pretty Bird" to catch the attention instead of slipping into the sort of easy-listening music which characterises the output of fellow contemporary country/blues singers like Norah Jones or the most recent music by Jeff Tweedy. Taking blues guitar and laying it over a simple folksong has been done before, but that doesn't detract from the simple hook of this song. While the guitar snipes in from time to time, Lewis sings loosely. On the album as a whole, Lewis tends to seem most concentrating when singing slight, repetitive lyrics, whilst the tracks which feature her better lyrical content almost seem throwaway in nature. Pretty Bird offers nothing that hasn't been seen before - it manages to bizarrely mirror the best song from KT Tunstall's Drastic Fantastic album, 'White Bird', in terms of sound and ambition - but is a charming addition to the album nevertheless.

"I'm a carpetbagger, baby."
~ Carpetbaggers.

The song which will attract most attention to the album is the Elvis Costello duet 'Carpetbaggers'. He takes the second verse of an uptempo stomper of a track, which boasts the catchiest chorus of the album. Oddly enough, the song is about a very obscure (at least for Britain) historical event; when the South and North parts of America split apart after their civil war, the Northerners who moved to the South were known as 'Carpetbaggers'. Lewis doesn't think too kindly of these people, singing in the purposely ramshackle chorus "I'm going to treat you kind/I'm going to rob you blind/I'll smile all the time". The first half of the song is wildly enjoyable, and then when Costello pipes up for his section things quickly become terrible. Costello doesn't sound a thing like he used to, and instead comes off sounding like a bad Elvis Costello impersonator. He coughs and hacks and mumbles haphazardly instead of singing the written lyrics, and in doing so drags the song into the mud. By the point Lewis returns and tries to bring back a semblance of reality to proceedings, the momentum is lost. Chalk it up as a nice gesture from Costello to try and boost the audience for Jenny Lewis' music gone wrong. Despite all this, the song definitely offers something distinctive, and is a strong example of the kind of sawed-off blues that Lewis' backing group do so well throughout the album.

"If you're high strung or stressed out,
Down in the dumps, been turned out,
Stabilized, motorized, insecure or fableized,
Curious or furious, picked apart like Prometheus,
Legalized, penalized… simplify… dry out your eyes."
~ See Fernando.

Creedance Clearwater Revival appear to have been a big influence on Lewis, if the full-on stomp of 'Jack Killed Mom' is anything to be reckoned with. Despite the harrowing title, the song pleasingly reveals itself as another in a long series of made-up stories Lewis has written about her absentee mother, instead of a ballad. Lewis clearly has a little more fun with her songwriting than she used to, with lines here that infer a number of unpleasant things happening - first 'jack' falls in love with his mother, then sleeps with his teacher because she reminds him of his mother, and then kills his mother - without blinking an eye. A neat piece of lighthearted piano sets up the piece, which is accompanied throughout by a guitar riff cut so abrupt that it sounds like percussion. There's an unmistakable similarity to The White Stripes present in both Lewis' knowing, smirking vocals and the smashing drums and guitars, and this thunders the song along with a power that is unstoppable.

When you combine that song with tracks like 'See Fernando' (a song which Lewis has been holding onto for years now, without ever putting it to record), it becomes clear how much Lewis is enjoying her new role as a country and blues singer. She's not taking it too seriously, but instead puts a skittery stamp all over the music. A song which takes the dark side of California and revels in the debauchery is playing to Lewis' strengths as a writer/performer, and she takes the chance to create an instantly catchy, dark song which would still appeal to kids. Guitars jig up and down on a scratchy bass and percussive drums as Lewis allows herself to get caught up in the tune. This is the kind of music that, like The Rolling Stones, appeals firstly because of the music and secondly because of the broader meaning and depth present in the lyrics. Just like 'Brown Sugar' is certainly not the kind of song that anyone would want to explain to their children, 'See Fernando' is a song that is so itchingly catchy that nobody should be able to resist it.

Nothing can compare to one of the obvious highlights of the album, however, which shows itself early in the form of 'The Next Messiah', an eight-minute monster of a buzzing country-rock song. Setting itself up with a growl, the song comes as a surprise due to how early on in the album it's been placed, but the guitar-work is brooding stuff. Rilo Kiley's drummer Jason Boesel appears to provide a smashing, pulsating beat for the song to meld electric guitars into, but the core of the song is Lewis. Surprisingly for such a heavy song, there are a lot of moments with just Lewis and the drums, and her snarling delivery suggests that she may have been listening to Janis Joplin while she wrote the track. There are shades of the late rocker all over this song, which Lewis bafflingly claims is a tribute to Barbara Streisand. Split into three parts, the first sets up the second effortlessly, although the link from part two to three is less easy. However, the music feels natural for the song, and the tone is never too dark or too light, as the drums bounce and the guitars play clever, intricate parts and smashing chords as the song demands of them. Part three also sees vocals from Johnathan Rice, who has a deep, husky voice and manages to complement Lewis' style as they go back and forth. Most unpredictably, part three manages to be the most involving and enjoyable section of the song, which is quite an achievement for a song of this length. It provides for an unexpected, but fantastically entertaining, kick at the start of the record.

"I've got diamonds in my eyes for you."
~ Trying My Best To Love You

There are misfires on the record, most notably whenever Lewis attempts to pay homage to the American girl groups of musical history past. 'Bad Man's World', which follows Next Messiah, is without any doubt the weakest song on the album, taking cues from acts like The Shangri-Las to produce a song that not only fits uneasily into the songs around it, but also revels in repetition and dull musical arrangement. With Lewis' voice thrown into the immediate spotlight, she opts for a shrill, chirpy performance that is immediately annoying from the first second of the song, where her voice breaks for the first of many times. Violins jar against a sickly-sweet church organ and sprightly brush drums, but the whole composition smacks of filler and is without a doubt the most ill-conceived track on the record.

'Trying My Best To Love You' hangs on a similar thread, but manages to escape most of the mistakes of 'Bad Man's World' through the assortment of backing vocalists that gather together to bolster what is in essence a wafer-thin piece of music. Lewis is joined by Zooey Deschanel, an actress who is currently half of the band "She & Him" with M Ward, Vanesa Corbala, and her own sister Leslie in singing the song, which comes as a relief because the first minute-and-a-half of the song is lackadaisical and feels weak. Lewis sings at the piano but the piece she plays offers no support to her vocals, and thus sends out a discord which thoroughly unsettles the music. Another problem is that her lyrics are syrupy at best, disjointed metaphors that go nowhere and show no sign of the sharp lyrical voice which Lewis showed on her previous work. There is no grit or edge to the song, and certainly no sign of the dark material which she fascinatingly wrote about on previous albums. Instead we have a limp love song which Lewis has to struggle to keep going, and she barely succeeds in doing so. As a whole, her ballads are frustratingly disappointing on Acid Tongue, whereas before they used to be one of her major strengths.

"You go west for the black setting sun.
You go south to the white spirit world.
You go east for those real green eyes.
You go north, walk the good red road."
~ Pretty Bird.

The arrangement is the major trouble for the album. There is no chance for a momentum to grow due to the positioning of the songs. For every rollicking country song here, there is a ballad following immediately afterwards to cut out the energy and thrust. The first and last songs are both examples of this, two songs which are pitched in the mid-range and would have been far better off being switched around. The opening 'Black Sand' is a pretty and kooky introduction to the album, but would be far better suited as a quaint, sweet closer. Lewis sings into an old-style microphone that distorts her voice slightly, giving the song an antiquated edge that works in its favour. A simple piano and drum combination give her an adequate accompaniment, but this is again a song where the attention is all on Lewis herself. She sparkles in the role of a fallen diva, and here her strong, faltering voice is perfectly suited to the style of song, which plays out almost like something Kate Bush would record. Her vocals, at the very least, owe a serious debt.

'Sing A Song For Them' is the last song, and works well in the role it's been given. It would have made for an unorthodox but intriguing opening introduction to the world of Jenny Lewis, but the reasoning for putting it at the end is obvious. Many albums have been made where the music progressively gets darker and darker before the final song provides a glimpse of illumination and hope - Pink Floyd (Dark Side Of The Moon) and Gorillaz (Demon Days) are two such bands that have done this in the past. Lewis switches this round, and finishes with a hopeful, uplifting song which slowly gets tainted by a chorus of gloomy, rumbling guitars which roll and crash out like waves as the song reaches a peak. The lyrics "if you sing a song, sing a song for them" takes on a different outlook when combined with this music, taking the optimism out of proceedings and instead filling it with gloom and dread. It makes for the deepest, most enjoyable song on the album, but needs several listens before it truly begins to stand out from the rest.

Acid Tongue is an album of good songs, which are poorly linked together and offer more on the surface than is really there. There are a succession of songs which feel rushed, and if she had taken more time with recording than there could've been a much stronger collection of music on show. However, the album is a pleasant, rewarding listen, and Lewis proves more than ever how much of a potential talent she is. Hopefully this album will gain her some of the attention she's very much deserved for years now. 

...less