(10.03.05) This, the 42nd Jandek album, features all the trademarks that Jandek fans have come to expect. Moaning, tortured, howling vocals, atonal guitar (in this case, bass guitar), and some of the most honest and personal lyrics ever written.
In a way, reviewing a Jandek record really is like dancing about architecture. It’s Jandek. There never was an artist where the aesthetic of his career is more interesting or pleasurable than listening to his music. If you’re a fan, you’ll probably pick it up, puzzle over it for a while, and then file it next to the other 41 albums and wait for number 43. If you’re not a fan, you’ll probably put it on, give it 30 seconds a track, and then vow never to listen to it again. There truly has never been an artist that can polarize a crowd like Jandek.
“Take My Will,” the standout track, has Jandek aimlessly strumming a bass, and howling for Jesus to “take my will and make it yours.” He sounds desperately drunk. The kind of drunk where it’s 4 in the morning, you’re past the “I love everyone” phase and you’re at home and it’s dark and you want to go to sleep but you need to talk to your ex from 1996 and then you just give up and cry yourself to sleep. Like there’s sadness in the soul that no person’s love will ever salve. The entire record speaks from this mental space of exhausted sadness.
Wire readers will claim this is innovative outsider music from a non-musician, but to these ears, Jandek just sounds tired. The move to a bass guitar for instrumentation is welcome, but his voice never changes from its tortured wailing, the bass tone is the same for the whole record, and in the end, it becomes more of an endurance test, a challenge to out-hip all of your friends by claiming to like only the most atonal music possible. And that’s ok, because this is the perfect album to blast at a red light in your car, with your windows down, as you look at the person next to you and scream, “I’m into this!”
Raining Down Diamonds is out now on Corwood Industries.
