Beat Poetry For Survivalists

Album review

You know that friend you call when your car is making a funny noise who knows how to suss it out? Or the nice guy you know who has a van and never minds helping you move? Well, for a certain sort of musician, Peter Buck is a similar sort of friend who can be relied upon to pitch in when you want to make a record. Buck has always been an eager collaborator, and since R.E.M. folded, he's devoted more time to making music with other people -- among them Robyn Hitchcock, Alejandro Escovedo, Joseph Arthur, and numerous ad hoc groups featuring Scott McCaughey -- than he has to his solo career, which he's treated as a hobby more than a profession. Luke Haines, best known for his work with the Auteurs, Baader Meinhof, and Black Box Recorder, is the latest of Buck's pals to get an assist from him in the studio with 2020's Beat Poetry for Survivalists, with Buck co-writing the tunes with Haines, playing guitar, and co-producing the sessions. (To the surprise of few, Buck's frequent musical sidekicks Scott McCaughey and Linda Pitmon also played on the sessions, the former on bass, keys, and production, the latter on drums.) Much like Robyn Hitchcock, what Haines brings to the party is primarily his surrealist wordplay full of off-kilter wit, but his tone is much darker and more aggressive, and there's a menace to numbers like "Apocalypse Beach," "Last of the Legendary Bigfoot Hunters," and "French Man Glam Gang" that's playful and mildly unsettling at the same time. Buck's music suits Haines' lyrics and theatrical vocals very well; if you're expecting a lot of jangle, you'd be mistaken, but the melodies are strong and the arrangements ride the middle ground between the engaging and the spooky with confidence, with billows of impressionistic noise adding color to the layers of guitars and keyboards. Beat Poetry for Survivalists is much more a Luke Haines album than a Peter Buck LP, and his top billing is richly deserved. That said, this music shows that Buck is a very good friend to have in the studio; he knows how give a song the setting it needs, and this is a dark but richly entertaining delight.

© Mark Deming /TiVo