Not long ago, a musician told me it took him a while to warm up to the recordings he makes. After all he goes through in the studio with them, he is tired of them and needs a break – perhaps – before he can appreciate them again. Not to say that what I do here is on the same level as what they do in the studio, but I get it.
To be brutally honest, most records that come through my mail box and into these pages — while good — don’t often make it into my regular, weekly play list. Sure, I will give it a listen every couple months or so, but by the time the record is reviewed, it has been listened to, dissected, analyzed, compared and contrasted, rough drafted, refined, edited and reedited by me. In other words, I need a break. But, every now and then a record/band/song comes along that enters my permanent rotation that I go to when I have a free moment to leisurely listen to music, despite being put through this wringer of a process. The Lost Bayou Ramblers, Chris Stafford’s “Parlez Nous a Boire,” theTransmission, The Object at the End of History, to name a few, are on this list. Julian Primeaux just added This Guilded, Swaying Heart to the heavy rotation.
From start to finish, this is a great album that somehow pulls from multiple influences yet remains unique. Primeaux is influenced by T. Rex and it shows throughout in a grand scale rock format that is raw, crunchy, catchy and retro all at once. The opener, “Like Lightning” is a shot across the bow, a distorted guitar-driven cut defined by gusty bravado. Primeaux conjures up something along the lines of a far less crazy Captain Beefheart covering a song similar to Jimi Hendrix’s “Voodoo Chile.” With a classic rough guitar crunch and a bongo beat, Primeaux boasts “I could be your jagged edge, if you know what I mean” and compares himself to various forces of nature. Hearing it for the fist time is akin to a close lightning strike.
From there, Primeaux switches into and sticks with an alt. rock vibe that is a bit like a danceable indie pop version of the Replacements fused with early alt. rock guitar rhythms and aesthetics. The intro and recurring lick of “Bangs & Winter Boots” is a bit of the Pixies having a go at a Cure riff. A hip-shaking rocker, it will never see the light of modern rock radio. And that is both a good and a terrible thing.
“These Hallowed Eyes” is a number to run away from anything and everything. School’s out and it isn’t even summer as Primeaux belts out how hard he has had it (“When this whole world shoves me once again,” “This loneliness will stick with me to the bitter end”). Yet, both his guitar and voice are unstoppable.
“Fading Star” is a catchy and fun sing-along, employing a classic rock feel. Every rock album needs a rock ballad and “Mansion In My Heart” does it, with a weird (and perhaps unintentional or completely intentional) nod to “Mansion in the Sky” from the former alt./retro country band member. A thumper, “Sell Me the Resurrection“ has an underlying rockabilly rhythm but takes off with a 1980s pop-rock-covering-classic-rockabilly feel. “And The Fall” and “Christmas Lights in June” explore moody rock and feature great classic rock solo work. “To Move In The Night” is a rocker with old school flair. Here, Primeaux says he’s not what he used to be, but he is still tearing it here.
A veteran of the Lafayette music scene and something of a journeyman who has spent time in bands as far flung as Lil’ Nathan & The Zydeco Big Timers, The Howdies and Sanity’s Mask, Primeaux has spent a lot of time in the background of the stage and on the smaller typeface on gig posters. If there is anything right about rock these days, that changes dramatically with This Guilded, Swaying Heart, hands down one of the best albums to come through my review process in a long time.