Chore of Enchantment

I enjoyed this. Maybe that’s not a surprise since I’ve previously rated Neil Young, Cowboy Junkies, and Eels favorably. It’s certainly not an album for everyone, but it works for me.

“Overture” was not a very promising start, but things got easier once they dialed back the synth strings.
"(Well)Dusted", "X-Tra Wide", and "Shiver" were my standouts

Ein atmosphärisches Album, das mit ungewöhnlichen Klangelementen und nachdenklicher Stimmung punktet – doch nicht jeder Song entfaltet seine Wirkung. Insgesamt interessant, aber nicht durchgängig überzeugend.

That makes two albums in a row that mention thin Leonard Cohen. A couple of the guys from this band are in Calexico and that’s neat. I liked this one, but can get why many wouldn’t. It’s noisy and dissonant at times. Favorites were Dusted, Temptation Of Egg, Shiver, and Satellite.

Not bad per se, just really fucking dull...

Was it a "chore" to listen to this "entertainment"? Yes, definitely. Was I entertained? Not really.
Quite annoying.

Reminded me of Sparklehorse a little bit, but I'm not sure if I like this kind of lo-fi melancholic music overall, apart from Grandaddy, who managed to at least make it feel like it wasn't made by someone about to have their life-support machine turned off.

I’m at a 2.5 that I’ll bump down to a 2, though I wouldn’t blame a single person if they gave it a 1.

It’s got concepts of an album, that’s for sure. Honestly, I find myself just sort of flatly unimpressed, but unbothered all the same. That’s 58 minutes of… something. It’s music, don’t get me wrong, but it’s just indescribably bland. Lots of yapping, lots of flowery language that even I can barely translate into an intended meaning, and lots of circling the wheels on each track. Eventually, it gets to the point where it no longer feels like a cohesive album & instead, a set of Soundcloud EPs on shuffle with a vague soundscape & theme connecting them all together.

Genuinely, I don’t have the words to even insult it, because I just don’t understand the album. I don’t get how it possibly made the list, and I can barely hear an appeal that only lingers because each track is at least instrumentally competent in a way that’s not as bland as the album experience itself is. When this album SOUNDS good, it’s nice enough to not feel deathly bored, and it does at least consistently sound good, entirely from an instrumental standpoint. Vocally, though? It just never once feels believable. Going from a guy like John Prine where you can hear the emotions coming out of his voice, mirroring the passion that he put into his songwriting, to whatever the hell this is, genuinely shows the importance of a good vocal performance in crafting & recording an album.

I had to check for myself what the book says about this, and I’ll simply copy & paste it wholesale, because I think it may be the most bold-faced attempt at gaslighting that I’ve seen in the book so far.

“After a decade in Tucson, Howe Gelb emerged with the most successful incarnation of Giant Sand: a trio with drummer John Convertino and Joey Burns on bass. The band were a musical project as unpredictable as its central figure—a singer/songwriter forever changing his route, following the freedom lessons of Bob Dylan and Neil Young and emulating the idiosyncratic weirdness of his jazz idol Thelonious Monk.

Like a faulty radio transmission, mixing country sentiment with volcanic electricity, earthiness with weirdness, Giant Sand made some of the best records of the American underground in the 1980s (The Love Songs, 1988) and '90s (Center Of The Universe, 1992), but none worked like Chore Of Enchantment. Recorded in Tucson, Memphis, and New York with a variety of producers, the album has a cohesive feel, the musicians losing themselves but always finding their way back.

Slide-guitar instrumental "Shrine" is played by Rainer Ptacek, who died of cancer before the album's release, and a melancholy, elegiac atmosphere permeates the record, complemented by haunting Mellotron® and organ. Lyrics are both enigmatic and colloquial; arrangements move from ethereal to punkish distortion, from silence to exuberance, with the singer always distant, whispering in your ear.

Astonishing from beginning to end, full of strange songs about women (the voluptuous "Temptation Of Egg"), midlife experiences ("Shiver,"an underground hit of sorts), and the downright cryptic (the arousing guitars that fuel "Satellite"), Chore Of Enchantment lodges in the mind and refuses to leave.”

First of all, RIP to Rainer Ptacek, because that does give “Shrine” a bit more gravitas than just some plain guitar to end the album, but… “enigmatic & colloquial”? Did we listen to the same fucking album here? I’ll say this: Chore of Enchantment did not lodge in my mind, and it will likely leave very easily. It’s not SO awful as to give it a 1, given that I genuinely liked “Punishing Sun”, “Astonished (In Memphis)”, & “No Reply”. There’s also a handful of tracks that sounded good, but never really combined with the lyrics & vocals to make it a complete package, consistently falling short in a frustrating way. There is SOMETHING here, and with a lot of extra polish and a lot more traditional structure/production, I think there’s at least a chance to get to a wholly middling 3 that at least has a couple more solid tracks. As it stands, to my ears, it’s a 2.5 that I’ll bump down to a 2. I almost have the frame of mind to give it a 1, just because it’s not deserving to be on the list & that review in the book reads like propaganda, but I’m not that cruel. Someone else can be that cruel though, and I would not blame them one fucking bit.

I really enjoyed the last few songs, but it dragged getting there. Some good songs and happy to have tried this album. :)

There was nothing enchanting about this

The chore was to try and stay awake during this album

2 ⭐️

A couple of the songs were bit of a chore, but overall it was fine. I could see listening to this again at the right time, but not anytime soon.

goomy

2.53

Howe Gelb's voice is too glib and casual for this to be an impactful record, and the lyrics are never not pretentious, tho they don't always approach the following prattle: 'It's w/ great human OP8 for a headachy nation.' It's too bad, since a track like 'Temptation of Egg' has authentic groove, and 'Shiver' sustains a driving energy, but I can't deal w/ a title like that, and the latter harbors this drivel: 'The deliver of shiver.' More empty poetry: 'And I would ponder this disease like a peeling onion skin striptease.' Above all, the blues and country should never be whispered. Seeing that Gelb is only intent on whispering, it all collapses into something fiercely boring and has few saving graces. No 'furtiva lagrima' for me - just prominent irritation.

I usually feel great after listening to the album of the day. Not today

Chore of Enchantment is just okay. I do kinda like the idea the band seems to be going for, using some Leonard Cohen style vocals and putting them in an alt-rock album is certainly an idea for an album i would enjoy. The problem is though, the album just never does anything with a lot of the ideas it has and it makes a lot of the songs just feel pretty boring and safe. There were a couple of stand out tracks in this album but nothing i would feel like i would go out of my way to listen to again. This album is not a bad album, it just isn't really all that special and there is just far better stuff out there.
Best Song: Wolfy
Worst Song: Shrine

There might be a worthwhile album hidden in there somewhere, but my lord would you have to do a lot of digging to find it.

Some of the concepts, and even some of the melodies are actually great, but the lead singer is just so devoid of skill and charm that everything stops when he starts singing. Some tracks seem to be aiming for a Lou Reed feel and are almost passable, but some appear to aiming for a weak, weak, impersonation of the later version of Cohen. The lyrics absolutely do not carry the delivery though.

Also the Spotify version I listened to was 2 hours long, but that appears to padded with remixes and bonus tracks, so I guess I can't blame them for that directly.

Meh, not terrible but often felt like it was being weird for the sake of weird.

More like Chore of an Album. Yawn.

too many soft edges. there's a song at the end that wakes up a bit, but otherwise . . meh

Great indy in the same vein as the Flaming Lips.