Joan Of Arc Life Like (Polyvinyl)
4/5
By: Stephen Maughan
There’s an argument that Tim Kinsella is responsible for some of the greatest records of the past twenty years, be they with early 90’s cult emo band Cap'n'jazz, the incredible Owls album of 2001 or his Joan Of Arc records, of which Life Like is the 15th. In fact, a minority of us would vote Joan Of Arc as the best rock band in the world today – even if lyrically they’re borderline incomprehensible at times, and guessing what direction Kinsella is about to drag them in next is an exercise in futility.
Indeed, for many the trouble with Joan Of Arc is that Kinsella has just such a pesky experimental side to nigh on everything he does. Sometimes it works, nowhere more magnificently than JOA's masterpiece Live in Chicago, 1999, and sometimes it doesn't, as in the awful 2003 effot In Rape Fantasy and Terror Sex We Trust. And then a lot of times their work is just average, with moments of greatness in between over long musical or lyrical experiments.
Still, there was every reason to suppose Life Like would be a return to greatness. Buoyed up by a successful Cap'n'jazz reunion tour, Kinsella headed back into the studio and welcomed the healthy return of American underground guitar legend Victor Villarreal from years of drug exile. Villarreal remains a blistering guitar player, and his skills are put to use on Life Like in a way that that transforms it from being a fairly good album to something truly great.
Yet still, it takes a while for us to get to that greatness. The 10 minute opener ‘I Saw The Messed Binds of My Generation’ is a snooze-fest excuse for the kind of tuneless and directionless playing that have led to many bad reviews for Joan Of Arc. Not even Victor Villarreal can save it. Thankfully, it's the only throw-away track on the alum, and by the time its follow up ‘Love Life’ kicks in, full of melody, passion and intriguing lyrics about “a robot's supersition”, we’ve got a tune that, whilst it might not make a Top Of The Pops Christmas special, harks wonderfully back to the glory days of Cap'n'jazz and Owls.
It's always fun to dive into Kinsella lyrics on anything he does, and this record is no different. Take a listen to 'Howdy Pardoner' and you are confronted with tales like “He dreams of the same carnival trash through which I sneak off for a stroll. There's some connection between mass species extinction and common production values of ass”. What? Answers on a postcard, please...
If the lyrics are a bit heavy-handed, the music remains tight, crisp with a healthy dash of eccentricity. Yet Life Like works best when the poetic lyrics and music come together in harmony – closer 'After Life' ends things with style. Starting with Theo Katsaounis' hypnotic drumming, it gorgeously blends in to Kinsella humming “Good morning, I am ready, alert and open” and concludes with Villarreal's dramatic guitar solo to end things on a high note, showcasing Joan at their best.
Life Like succeeds because it is a Joan Of Arc album, not a Kinsella side project, or a Kinsella album about breaking up with his wife (a topic he actually dealt with awfully well on Boo Human). It’s a fearless, great experimental record that works because of the skill and wide eyed nature of its players. To my mind, it’s all as much down to the ever reliable Bobby Burg on bass, Katsaiunis on drums, and Villarreal on guitar. Kinsella is an often brilliant writer, and many of his lyrics should be studied by students at universities across the land. Yet not this time - Life Like feels lyrically not quite up to scratch, but it’s been more than saved by the work of the brilliant musicians, including Kinsella himself, who have turned it into one of the freshest and exciting Joan of Arc albums of recent years.
Love Life by Polyvinyl Records
Artists in this article: Joan of Arc
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