COMO “not that I have subsequently remained much dignity” when a disc opens with this verse, and in addition, entitled Broken Records, ie “broken record”, the premises seem to be anything but encouraging, especially if verse in question is the opening line of a song which in turn is called Like A Broken Record, “Like a broken record.” But the conditions have not always followed a Broken Record is in fact the title of the new disk with which the 49 year old Cole Lloyd returned to the scene after four years since the last studio work and exactly a quarter of a century after the publication of Rattlesnakes, disc debut in 1984 granted him an international reputation that Cole has managed all things wisely, even when the musical fashions and tastes of the general public have begun to turn their backs turned it into what is commonly defined a niche artist. Published by German Tapete Records Hamburg, Broken Records is a record in many ways surprising and unexpected, because it marks the return to all suggestions and sounds that had made the fortune of twenty Cole in the eighties. But now the approach is different: the almost fifty Cole writes and says with the right distance, and especially with the detachment that only maturity can give, without crossing the dangerous line of shadow that has transformed many of his peers in the stunt himself themselves. That’s because the disc title and the verse that opens the first track must be read ironically as “broken record” is merely the metaphor of a love story that is stuck with the two protagonists who continue to say same words in an iteration that makes no sense now. The second track, Writers Retreat, a typical up-tempo chosen as an individual, is a reinterpretation of the artist maudit ironic that vampireggia the lives of others in an attempt to build its own writing and music, but eventually succumbs to his selfishness and finds himself alone and abandoned by all.
Irony and detachment also allow you to make some courageous choices: in The Flipside, and Why In The World, for example, Cole tells the end of a love as a metaphor using the lines of a hand and side B of an old vinyl; in Westchester County Jail venturing into unexplored territory for him absolutely of bluegrass and roots music, while the beautiful If I Were A Song imagine even be a song that everyone can play at will, depending on the situations and states of ‘ mind. Then there is also irony That’s Alright, with a nice variations on the hackneyed theme of escape from the city, and nell’originalissima Oh Genevieve, which recovers the rhythms and sounds of French folk music and is resolved in the pure non-sense words combined only for reasons of assonance. Man Overboard incorporates the theme of comparing him to finish a ship crashes into the rocks, Rhinestones is a delightful interlude with a traditional country instrumentation, and Double Happiness is another uptempo ironic that once again the “double happiness” of a love affair. It all ends with Inverse Midas Touch, which tells in key country-rock life observed by those who, unlike King Midas, everything he touches turns into the exact opposite of gold. Broken Record: The disc is broken but it works fine. It is not a paradox, but simply a logical consequence.
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Publication: La Provincia di Sondrio
Publication date: 20/09/10