Historical
My fondness for NRBQ is based entirely on their 1969 debut and eponymous album which I bought at the time and considered as a favourite ever since: my review of this can be read here. For some reason, I never really followed them closely since, though I have listened to many albums over the years and enjoyed what I heard. As a fundamentally eclectic band - through all the incarnations - and with a penchant for comic turns, there is plenty of hit-and-miss because they couldn't care less about 'popular' music so have adhered to an identity that has made them a critical choice if not a widely well-known band. This latest follows that adherence: there are pop songs, country songs and jazzy songs. The upbeat, pop-focused, and brightly-lit is encapsulated in a number like Miss Goody Two Shoes; the more refined pop sensibility is represented in lovely songs like You Can't Change People and The Moon and Other Things. None are demanding and all three are easy-listening. On their 1969 album, the version of Sun Ra's Rocket Number 9 is superb and sets a standard I'd always look for, which is quite unreasonable, but there is a punchy and percussive scat-like track on this album that does reflect this wonderful corner of the eclectisim: Five More Miles; this is followed by a similarly eccentric offering L-O-N-E Lone-Ly that marks highly on the score-card for me, reminding of a Tom Waits poetic monologue and also the band Brad. Brisk closer Sunflower is a lovely unpolished ballad - these last three songs able to become classics in the band's lengthy lineage.
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