{"id":1414,"date":"2015-06-05T18:59:47","date_gmt":"2015-06-05T17:59:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/eyeplug.net\/magazine\/?p=1414"},"modified":"2011-03-29T12:21:20","modified_gmt":"2011-03-29T12:21:20","slug":"parting-gifts-%e2%80%93-strychnine-dandelion-lp-in-the-red","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/parting-gifts-%e2%80%93-strychnine-dandelion-lp-in-the-red\/","title":{"rendered":"Parting Gifts \u2013 Strychnine Dandelion (LP, In The Red)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The debut album from Nashville duo Coco Hames and the prolific Greg Cartwright, augmented by friends the Ettes has its moments, but on the whole, they\u2019re too few and far between to elevate this grab bag of lyrical clich\u00e9 and session man licks above the level of banality that it occupies for the majority of its running time. Although the disc starts promisingly enough with the Flamin\u2019 Groovies flavoured \u2018Keep Walkin\u2019\u2019, the naff predictability sets in with the lo-fi beatling of \u2018Bound To Let Me Down\u2019 and sits firm through a series of tracks that variously sound a little like the kind of music that would be used to score a chase sequence on the <em>Dukes of Hazzard<\/em> (\u2018My Mind\u2019s Made up\u2019); the unaffecting-but-overwrought \u2018Strange Disposition\u2019; \u2018Shine\u2019, which is lightweight, lovelorn and lachrymose, and packed full of downhome lyrical clich\u00e9; \u2018Born To Be Blue\u2019, which occupies the same tedious territory as the Like\u2019s <em>Heartbeat <\/em>sound; and \u2018Staring\u2019, another track directed toward the ubiquitous \u2018little girl\u2019, full of mentions of \u2018broken records\u2019 \u2018broken dreams\u2019 and \u2018staring at the sun\u2019. Such hackneyed lyrics are scarcely mitigated against by a presumably pithy mention of aspertaine, and the whole thing is adorned with a horrible cheesy solo.<\/p>\n<p>More positively, \u2018Don\u2019t Stop\u2019 kicks out the jams in engaging and thermaturge style as restless layers of fuzz and wah float atop a driving rhythm, while \u2018Don\u2019t Hurt Me Now\u2019 finds the duo lurching into Revellions territory, for a spot of well aimed Farfisa-infused psychosis that hits sthe spot despite more clich\u00e9d lyrics. Although the piano driven glam ballad \u2018Sleepy City\u2019 brings to mind an Ayesha Brough b-side, the track engages momentarily before it suddenly starts fading out, apparently halfway through.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, there are plenty of lesser numbers that avoid such excision as attempts at emotive soul fail to tug on anything resembling a heartstring \u2013 \u2018My Baby Tonight\u2019 emerges as a sexless attempt at seduction that sounds as if it was produced by a group of cynical session men whose only remaining idea is nostalgia. Similarly \u2018Hanna\u2019 evokes the past so effectively that it sound a lot like something that may have been discovered on a studio floor after 45 years or so, and \u2018I Don\u2019t Wanna Be Like This\u2019 is the kind of reflective ballad where towns pull one down and everything is blue \u2013 it could have been written for Smokie.<\/p>\n<p>Oddly for a title track, \u2018Strychnine Dandelion\u2019 is by some length the worst track on the album that bears its name, being part Vic Reeves pub-style karaoke, part diabetes hazard. Strings swirl, Cartwright gurgles like Joe Cocker. The valedictory track \u2018This House Ain\u2019t A Home\u2019 gives every impression of having been selected from a box marked \u2018Obligatory Semi-Acoustic Album Closers (Various)\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The debut album from Nashville duo Coco Hames and the prolific Greg Cartwright, augmented by friends the Ettes has its moments, but on the whole, they\u2019re too few and far between to elevate this grab bag of lyrical clich\u00e9 and session man licks above the level of banality that it occupies for the majority of its running time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1417,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[106,74],"tags":[151,121,184],"series":[],"class_list":["post-1414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-picks","category-reviews","tag-dick-porter","tag-eyeplug","tag-strychnine-dandelion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1414\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1414"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=1414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}