The Days Of Wine And Roses (Digital Version)

Approfondimenti

When they recorded their debut album The Days of Wine and Roses, the Dream Syndicate hadn't even been a band for a year. They had spent some time in the studio less than a month after forming and had escaped with a noisy EP that documented the band's early ragged sound. Now they had a deal with a record label and a producer, Chris D., who knew his way around a mixing board and was ready to make an album that would help define an era and live on as one of the most important albums of its time. Mixing the grungy grind of Crazy Horse at their bleakest, the barely tamed energy of the Velvet Underground at their wildest, and the abrasive glare of Dylan in his prime, the band unleashed a sound that was fueled on youth, confidence, and an unquenchable desire to make the kind of record that they wanted to hear, but body else was making. Add to this heady mixture, the dual guitar acrobatics of Steve Wynn and Karl Precoda, the steady rhythm section of bassist Kendra Smith and drummer Dennis Duck that was always there with a new with the guitarists got too near to tumbling over the edge, and Wynn's sneering, snarling, and unhinged vocals were enough to vault this record into the realm of brilliance. Not a singular kind of brilliance; the band show many sides and shades as they run headlong through the songs like there was a glittering prize awaiting them at the end. Recorded mostly live and with broken headphones that forced the guitarists to guess what the other guy was doing, they make a joyous racket on "Definitely Clean," chime spookily then explode into shattered glass on "That's What She Always Says," strut and swoon drunkenly on "Until Lately," and on the title track, show off a kind of daring, untethered psychedelic jamming that would make Quicksilver Messenger Service green with envy. Toss in a cranky, overloaded pop song ("Tell Me When It's Over,") a chilling track with some wonderfully cracked guitar soloing ("Halloween,") a heartbreak ballad sung sweetly by Smith ("Too Little, Too Late") and it's perfect. No notes. Everything works like it was crafted out of trippy, malevolent stardust, from Wynn's hard-bitten lyrics to Precoda's massively sludgy guitar tone that was so gruesome it earned the nickname "the Thing," the album makes good on the broken promises of all the bands and albums that had come before and influenced them. For just a moment they tapped into the molten core of rock music and were able to concoct something that had all the danger, beauty, energy and fire that people talk about and are rarely able to come close to delivering. The Dream Syndicate were never this good again, but that's no crime because hardly anyone was ever this good, either before or after the Days of Wine and Roses.

© Tim Sendra /TiVo