- Music
- 20 Mar 01
Joe Pernice's second solo album in under six months, Big Tobacco picks up where February's Chappaquiddick Skyline left off, supplying a sumptuous blend of languid, melodic music with dark tales of quiet despair and lonesome longing.
Joe Pernice's second solo album in under six months, Big Tobacco picks up where February's Chappaquiddick Skyline left off, supplying a sumptuous blend of languid, melodic music with dark tales of quiet despair and lonesome longing.
The pleasant Americana of the music is Pernice's stock-in-trade, a warm country sound augmented by baritone guitars, electric pianos and mandolins, but lyric-writing is still his strongest suit, with couplets of jaw-dropping cleverness and stinging poignancy in abundance.
A preoccupation with the use and abuse of medication to numb the pain is evident in many a song, i.e. 'Prince Valium', 'The Pill' and 'Hard To Take' - "Every pill went down kicking, but each one found a friend."
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While most tracks appear to take a painfully personal approach ('I Still Can't Say Her Name', 'I Break Down') some employ characters to impart the narrative, like the lost and broken example of humanity in 'Bum Leg' - "I got this scar above my eye from a dirty little shit who tried to love me underneath the bridge. I broke a bottle on his ear."
Big Tobacco's brand of satisfying sorrow may not be particularly glamorous, but it's beautiful just the same.