One Foot In The Grave

About

Beck Hansen released three albums in 1994. Though <i>Mellow Gold</i> was the major-label hit, the cozy outliers <i>Stereopathic Soulmanure</i> and <i>One Foot in the Grave</i> flanked his commercial breakthrough. Like its companion, <i>One Foot in the Grave</i> favors rickety folk blues over genre-crossed extroversion. Produced by Beat Happening’s Calvin Johnson, this record features a cross-section of Pacific Northwest indie player, including members of Lync, Built to Spill, and The Presidents of the United States of America. But because it’s so bare-bones and lo-fi by design, it’s really Beck that shines here. He’s happy to show off some of his less likely influences too: opener “He’s a Mighty Good Leader” reworks Skip James’ “Jesus is a Mighty Good Leader,” and “Fourteen Rivers Fourteen Floods” echoes the Black spiritual “You Gotta Move,” which The Rolling Stones also recorded. Yet Beck still works in plenty of his signature absurdity: although “Girl Dreams” is based loosely on The Carter Family song “Lover’s Lane,” his added lyrics make it more darkly comic. Likewise, “Cyanide Breath Mint” sneaks the faux revelation “I got a funny feeling/They got plastic in the afterlife” into an album ostensibly mulling over the specter of death. Johnson sings in tandem with Beck on “I Get Lonesome,” adding a gravelly extra shade to that loose and twanging dirge. “I’ve Seen the Land Beyond” plays like a traditional doom-and-gloom number, but it’s actually an original. .

via Apple Music

The Clerk says

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