*** Peter MulveyRAPTURE
(Eastern Front)
You could easily mistake the
martial percussion and wailing guitar of the first few bars of "Rapture,''
which kicks off this album, for
Peter Gabriel's "Games Without Frontiers.'' To
paraphrase Ani DiFranco,
in whose approximate orbit you might place
Mulvey (as
another ferocious acoustic-guitar monster), this ain't no namby-pamby folk
album. I even had to back off the bass control for fear of damaging my
infrastructure. It is folk, however, in that this self-produced effort was
arranged to keep you coming back to the lyrics. Mulvey is nothing if not a
self-conscious poet; there are even a few spoken-word tracks on this disc.
Still, "Question Mark'' packs a
Crazy Horse crunch.
"If Love Is Not Enough''
finds common ground between bluegrass and funk. And the
Waterboys' "The Whole
of the Moon'' is given two treatments -- one boasting the full gallop of a
Joshua Tree-era
U2
anthem, the other, recorded in the subway, featuring
the industrial squeals of the T.
This former busker who won Boston's Acoustic Underground competition in 1994
comes at you from so many directions it's dazzling -- but at times also
dizzying. Rapture might have benefitted from some editing, perhaps a
stronghanded yet sympathetic producer to provide greater musical and conceptual
focus. Since it already leans so far in his direction,
Daniel Lanois would be
the obvious choice. I can't imagine any greater praise for an indie-label debut
than that.
-- Seth Rogovoy
(Peter Mulvey performs at
Johnny D's
in Somerville Tuesday, February 27.)
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