Music: Dave Cloud and the Gospel of Power "Practice in the Milky Way" CD

A real problem with Dave Cloud recordings is that they always sound like Karaoke. His voice is just too bizarre/unfitting for any accompinament, however technically absorbing and/or "rockin'" the accompinament may be.

Or is it just poorly mixed? Maybe Dave has a complex where he has to hear hisself way upfront.

At any rate, this is some solid shit where Matt Bach's lead guitar and arrangements just slay trope-based/Tradition-based rock and get into real Steely Dan-territory, as far as really brainy-perfectionist composition style.

But all the "learned" instrumentation doesn't undersell the "Outsider" apeal, whether "knowing"/"unknowing". That's the weird thing about the record: these dichotomies are presented: irony/sincerity, deranged/non-deranged, but then it's mostly up to you, ya know?

They play a Sexton Ming song: "Rockin' After Midnight". It's the only cover. The originals are just as lyrically "outsidery" there's: "On your knees, in supplication," sez Mrs. Crumb in "Mrs. Crumb", the track-7 psych-out masochist-jam that serves to reinforce Cloud's preoccupation with high-literary sexual perversion.

"Before I Give You Up" is a groovy, lightly trotting Rhodes-jam. Imagine the Partridge Family let their drunken, leering uncle sit in on vocals on evening. And really this thing is all over the map style-wise
Like, the deeper into the album you get, the slightly-less freaky it gets, maybe you're just more used to the mix, or more catching the slipping referential-wave.

Solid disc of outer space-feelings from Nashville's favorite barroom conspiracy theorist. Fire Records.