Send "Giant Sand " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Popmatters |
 t’s hard to believe that 25 years have passed since the release of Valley of Rain, the first Giant Sand album. And it’s nearly as long since the late ‘80s follow-ups (Ballad of a Thin Line Man, Storm, and The Love Songs) that helped to form a template for what the alt. country scene of the ‘90s and ‘00s could be. Much as Howe Gelb has been keen to unburden himself of any such “godfather” role, there is no denying that the cross-pollination of country styles with punk, psychedelic rock, jazz, sunbaked acid blues, and more that “defined” alt. country could be traced back in one form or another to Gelb’s work with Giant Sand and, before that, Giant Sandworms.One of the problems with such a burden is that it can work to deny individual vision or can suggest that an artist’s best work is over. It might be better to think of Giant Sand as an institution more akin to The Fall, a band who it has never been terribly easy to imitate. Though slightly shorter lived than Mark E. Smith’s project, Gelb’s work has a similar bewilderingly prolific output and has continued to plow its furrow despite difficulties, label changes, shifting trends, or any of the obstacles that might otherwise befall a commercially unstable venture such as Giant Sand. Like one of his main influences, Neil Young (also routinely named as a godfather of alt. country), Gelb has shown fidelity to his vision and has been repaid with a decent measure of fidelity from his fans, who have followed him from project to project, label to label, obscure gig to major gig to obscure gig. In a year that has seen renewed acclaim for Young’s new work, it seems fitting that we should get a fresh Giant Sand release from a label (UK-based Fire Records) that is keen not only to support Gelb’s new work, but also to dedicate itself to a reissue program of those early, classic Giant Sand albums. Blurry Blue Mountain, like many of Gelb’s solo and band recordings, presents newly written material alongside reinventions of work from his back catalog. The emphasis is on revisiting and renewing rather than retreading, and old songs like “Thin Line Man” and “Lucky Star Love” (previously known as “Loving Cup” and “Blanket of Stars”) get new costumes to try on. Like his beloved jazzmen (he’s particularly fond of Thelonius Monk), Gelb knows that radical reinvention of supposedly familiar can be, when the stars are aligned and the musicians in the zone, as thrillingly new as anything. Unlike Dylan, who restricts his costume changes to live performance, Gelb prolifically releases his endless reworkings as recordings....full text |
| Dustedmagazine |
| It bears notice that no one in the current version of Giant Sand grew up with desert grit between their toes. Bandleader Howe Gelb is originally from Pennsylvania and the rest of his combo comes from Denmark, which is as much his home as Tucson nowadays. And while the Sand sound has never been fixed, the current version feels less like a breeze blowing through the Saguaro than a sort of all-purpose Americana. Not that that’s necessarily a bad thing; the humid “Brand New Swamp Thing” sounds both Memphian and droll, and its stuttering guitar and surreal takes on desire and domesticity are pretty fun. Gelb may aim for statements about love and death and friendship and staying the course when you feel like packing it in, and sometimes he nails it. “Fields Of Green” mixes wincing acknowledgement of the ceaseless parade of loss that is longevity’s inevitable reward with pinches of survivor’s wisdom for whatever young ‘uns happen to have gathered round the old man’s mike stand; from its tightly coiled guitar fills to its muttered vocal, “Better Man Than Me” is simply terrific. But there are too many moments on Blurry Blue Mountain where Gelb’s insights, while inarguable, are rather obvious — if a beautiful woman loves you, you should appreciate it — and his delivery of them a bit tired. Which they were — he confessed in a press release that Blurry Blue Mountain’s recording sessions took place with everyone involved on the verge of sleep. That might explain the record’s somewhat uneven quality, but maybe not; Gelb admitted to me in an interview 20 years ago that he once drove a producer to distraction because he just couldn’t play a part the same way twice, no matter how hard he tried....full text |
| Bbc |
| It would appear that the imminent reissue of Giant Sand’s vast and influential canon, by way of commemorating the 25th anniversary of the Arizona band’s foundation, has prompted a degree of existential contemplation in mainman Howe Gelb. Blurry Blue Mountain opens with an explicit examination of Gelb’s position called Fields of Green. "Now I’m over 50," he mourns over a gentle acoustic shuffle, "the longest hours move so swiftly… such young fresh folk look to me as pathfinder." This assertion, delivered in Gelb’s wry, wracked drawl, is redeemed short of outrageous hubris by virtue of being no less than the truth. Giant Sand have always exerted an influence out of all proportion to their relatively modest commercial success – traces of Giant Sand’s gruff, baleful take on modern Americana are discernible all points R.E.M. to Nirvana, and Gelb is well settled into a role as a sort of avuncular sage. It suits him. Blurry Blue Mountain is a warm, unassuming album, the kind of record made by someone long past trying to impress anybody – which, as is the perverse way of these things, makes it all the more impressive. Gelb’s songs are, as ever, adroitly trimmed to the limitations of his voice, whether the Tom Waits-ish lament Chunk of Coal, the hungover duet with Lonna Kelley on Lucky Star Love, or the half-spoken Ride the Rail, a romp through the legend of the Molly Maguires, which recalls the modern historical narratives of Corb Lund and Patterson Hood. Blurry Blue Mountain is not uniformly reflective balladeering, however: old-school rock’n’roll credentials are convincingly brandished on Thin Line Man and Brand New Swamp Thing. The latter in particular sounds exactly like you’d think it would, ie a bit like a resurrected Creedence Clearwater Revival. If Giant Sand had released fewer great albums, Blurry Blue Mountain would sound something close to miraculous. As it is, it’s a worthy addition to a catalogue which was already embarrassed with riches....full text |
Giant Sand lyrics
|
| |||||||
