Brant Bjork - Local Angel

Tue 19th Oct, 2004 in Music Reviews

At least when you say Brant Bjork’s name there’s none of this fannying about with pronunciations. When he says Bjork its B-York, not like the other famous Björk, the elfin Icelandic pop sing who pronounces her name B-Yerk.

Brant has quite a pedigree beginning his career with legendary stoner rockers Kyuss as their drummer, he then hit the skins for Fu Manchu, another band to rise from the ashes of Kyuss.
It is unfortunate that Bjork’s fourth solo album, Local Angel does not live up to the pedigree of some of his previous collaborations. In many ways it is a lazy album which ranges from stock-standard ordinary to boring.

The first three, no make that four, tracks on the album are all slow paced, and barely raise the pulse. On The Feelin’ the first ninety seconds consist of Bjork and his guitar, if it wasn’t so highly polished you’d swear any street corner busker could do just as well. After that time the bass and drums kick in, yet all they provide is additional light and shade.

The biggest problem with this album is that its monotone. Bjork’s vocals sit in the one low drawl on every song. As has been my criticism of a great deal of the CDs I’ve panned, Bjork just doesn’t change the pace enough. This album has a similar pace to a fat man walking, quite slow with a lolloping gate. You keep expecting these slow starts to kick into a great rock song, but they don’t. It’s SO frustrating!

Flying to Haiti is a great example of this. It starts off slowly, but that’s no surprise, but after the intro, I just want it to accelerate and soar, much like when you’re about to take off on a plane. You taxi around the runways waiting to take off, watching the gorgeous Virgin flioght crew doing their thing, line up at the end of the runway, and there everyone knows what’s going to happen. Not with this, instead of picking up speed and taking off, this album just continues along the runway at taxi pace.

You’re Alright picks up the pace a bit, but by this time it’s over half way through the album, and we’ve barely hit 35 km/h. Next up after You’re Alright is Spanish Tiles which meld into each other without picking the pace up at all. Arghhhh… Please, please Brant, just rock out for me once.

And right when you think he’s going to give you what you so desperately need on She’s Only Tryin’ he doesn’t give it to you. Dammit, just give me a fucking rock song, please. Brant make the guitars wail, please, please, I’m begging you, please.

Any artist that touches the work of Jimi Hendrix is treading on dangerous ground as far as I’m concerned. That includes Bob Dylan, with his spurious covers of Hendrix classics. Pfft… he wrote it first, Jimi made it great. Brant Bjork covers my favourite Hendrix classic, Hey Joe, and makes a fucking mess of it by slowing it down. It’s already a slow and brooding classic, but slowing it down again, with Bjork’s drawl over the top of it almost makes me want to top myself.

Overall, Local Angel ranges from slow and boring to painful. If you want an album that you can put on in the background whilst you’re reading or doing the ironing, then it may well be your thing. It doesn’t really differentiate itself, so if you do sit down with it for a good listen you may well find yourself asleep. And I just can’t forgive the awful Hendrix cover.