You could probably not hope for a collection of more epically cliched tracks than the twelve tunes that pitch up on Mark Bodino's "No Roads To Juneau". For the most part weepy ballads, interspersed with soft-rock crooners, Bodino appears to have set out to create the most leadenly bland album known to man. Veering not too wildly between the sad-sack obsessive, still trying to come to terms with the latest girl who's left him, and the sad sack obsessive still trying to come to terms with where his life's gone, it's pretty monotone in terms of lyrical content too. Monotone is perhaps a little generous. Laughably awful is probably more appropriate, particularly on such gems as "Won't See Me Cry", "To Make You Cry" and "Too Late For You".
Unfortunately, the album rather shoots itself in the foot before the CD has even left the blister-wrapping. Or rather, the press release performs what can only be described as a summary execution, as waffle bordering on titanic proportions spills forth. Announcing grandly that "the best description of his overall sound may be a melding of the past - David Gilmore, Neil Young, Chris Isaak and Bob Dylan", the writers presumably feel that if they shout loud enough, people will write the review without listening to the music. Because, as soon as the CD has hit the player, the shit (metaphorically) hits the fan. David Gilmore, Neil Young, Chris Isaak and Bob Dylan are a dangerous foursome to cite at the best of times, but even more so when the album displays neither the guitar creativity of the first, the emotion of the second, the energy of the third nor the intensity of the fourth. Indeed, had I been handed the bumpf writing duties, I would have been tempted to plump instead for Neil Diamond during his wilderness years, married with the very worst of 80s hair rock (so successfully mined by Jon Bon and his friends) but without the bombast or excitement, and the song-writing of a poor Meatloaf impersonator.
The title-track, "No Roads To Juneau" opens with soft-rock stylings, perfect for a long drive through the desert when there really is nothing else on the radio. "Won't See Me Crying" sees Bodino announce that it's ballad time. Country-lite strummings and coo-ing harmonies abound; times are hard for the tough man, but you won't see him crying, although you'll certainly hear it, summed up rather tritely with "Time moves slow/when you're feeling low". Quite so. Unfortunately, the lyrical banalities don't stop there: "To Make You Cry" pulls out the profoundly stirring "Trace back the past with a warning/We'll know when it shines and when it's storming", which is somehow topped (bottomed?) with Justina's frighteningly ill-judged "rap" contribution in the same song. Presumably hoping to offer the opposite side to Bodino's spiteful whinging, Justina merely succeeds in demonstrating that no matter how distasteful mainstream rap can be (and it can be pretty awful at times), there's always something worse out there: "It happens time and time/Again to you I find/You make up to break up/And then your girl leaves you behind/I guess it must be you/cuz baby it's not me". It really is written "cuz" in the album booklet. Proof, if it were ever needed, that a soft-rock/soft-rap cross-over should be the last thing on any record labels' minds. The music itself has honky tonk piano and a drive-time dynamic, but fails to ever give any indication of destination. This is just as much a problem as the awful song texts, as originality takes a back seat to mundane musical ploddings, with the occasional overwrought saxophone solo (step forward "Caught Up"), "latin percussion" ("Stoplights") and dull organ ("Too Late For You") struggling vainly to offer a sense of variety. "Let In The Light" (complete with emotive choral refrain) only seems to have been included so that the press release is not rendered completely superfluous in its reference to the folk genre.
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This review would not feel complete, however, without revisiting the topic of shit lyrics one final time. "Too Late For You", a change of tack as Bodino puts on his self-affirming hat and tells his ex that he doesn't need her any more, once again plunders the my first book of rhymes. Spectacularly awful, and presumably pulled straight from the poetry cast-offs once belonging to a pre-schooler, it's hard to imagine Bodino keeping a straight face as he utters the immortal lines "It's eerie and it's scary/and there's reason to be wary". Like a cross between the British "stranger-danger" child-safety campaign of the 1990s and ghost stories for four-year-olds, it really has to be heard to be believed.
Whilst the production values are as gleaming and smooth as the pristinely ironed faux-cowboy shirt that Bodino may or may not wear live, the album demonstrates not one spark of energy, excitement or originality. And for that, it deserves recognition. Although perhaps infamy is more appropriate.
www.bodino.com/
www.myspace.com/markbodino
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