W&H were suitably blown away by ROCKY VOTOLATO when the Texan-born, Seattle-based singer/ songwriter supported Clayhill on tour around the UK recently. His acoustic confessionals were clearly a cut above and suggested his album "Suicide Medicine" would be a notable release.
And so it proves. With producer Chris Walla mixing Votolato's voice well upfront and leaving every shred of emotion raw and bleeding, "Suicide Medicine" is a dark, lacerating and utterly compelling listen and suggests Rocky is at very least worthy of mention in such august company as Jeff Klein, Matthew Ryan and Chris Mills.
Split roughly between full-band tunes and Rocky shivering and boiling his way through predominantly acoustic vignettes, "Suicide Medicine" pulls absolutely no punches whatsoever. Although opener "The Light & The Sound" revels in a low-watt rock urgency, Votolato's voice is cracked and shrieking within a minute as he reaches the line "if I have to crack open your skull with my fist" and by the time it dies away, you're shaken and not a little stunned.
A further clutch of tunes work well in tandem with the band. "Every Red Cent" takes it at a fair clip and is infectious in its' urgency, but it fails to mask a desperate throw of the emotional dice with Rocky confessing: "I've got hate running through my veins and my blood runs like the venom of a posionous snake." Elsewhere, "I'll Catch You" is initially dreamy and wasted, but it mutates into a chorus that's truly sad and elegant and even the superficially pretty "The Rain Will Come" is ultimately a rather sombre full stop to employ.
It's when Rocky's either left to his own devices or purely sparsely accompanied that his muse really hits home, however. The title track is equal parts desperate Mark Eitzel and amphetamine Elvis Costello and literally goes off in your face as Rocky seethes through the chorus "Is is the red wire, or the blue wire? Just pick one out, it doesn't matter anymore." If anything, though, it's usurped by the intense and fatalistic "Automatic Rifle" and the scuffed, and experience-scarred road song of "Montana", which again recalls early Chris Mills.
|
The musical rays of light grow fainter as the album progresses. "The Secrets Of A Salesman" ups the tempo, but barely conceals a lyric referring to a fatally dysfunctional family and a suicidal conclusion. This is sobering enough, but still barely prepares you for the part-sung, part-ranted comment on the rotting core of the modern-day American dream that is "Prison Is Private Property" and the starker than stark "Death-Right", which recalls Phil Ochs' "Rehearsals For Retirement" in its' abject sadness. Brilliantly, though, while Rocky never shies away from his demons ("I want you to hear me screaming/ I want you to notice what goes on") he refuses to succumb to the darkness entirely and finishes the song on a hopeful note ("There are places where the magic can breathe/ I want to breathe it in, I want to lay down and never leave") that only serves to increase its' power.
With his focussed, but wordy lyrical invective and ever-present intensity, Rocky Votolato's world may be too harrowing for mass consumption and "Suicide Medicine" is an elixir with a bitter aftertaste that the faint-hearted may wish to shy away from. But it's brave, 100% real and also quite possibly one of the year's very best albums to boot.
|
