Review: Alejandro Escovedo – Real Animal

Full Disclosure: I have been evangelizing about Alejandro Escovedo since my brief stint in Austin, TX in 1990. I could write thousands of words chronicling Alejandro’s storied career, but you can find all that on his site or Wikipedia. I’ll just say that Alejandro has been an important, though little-known force in the underground music since the early 70’s. Along the way he has written some of the most compelling music to come out of America in last 30 years. In my opinion he is the most underrated singer/songwriter working today.

Now that we have that out of the way, on to Real Animal which was released on June 24th. Alejandro has always mined his personal life for songwriting material. Real Animal takes his narrative prowess to new level, laying out the blueprint of a life driven by music. And like the best songs often do, these paint such vivid pictures that the album plays like a movie in your head. A movie with the best soundtrack you’ve ever heard.

In Chelsea Hotel 78, a young punker stands on the sidewalk watching his friend Sid be carried off in cuffs for murder, while crunching guitars fight with swirling strings beneath. The “five feet four, trailer park kid” who stars in Real as Animal (a tribute to Alejandro’s beloved Iggy Pop) kicks “like a mule, twist like a tree” to a pummeling four-on-the-floor garage band beat. While the old man in the closer Slow Down takes his lover on a tour of his childhood home to the sweet strains of slide guitar and plucked cello. He tries to show her the beauty he once found there, to show her why he loved this place so much. But in the end all he really has is this sage advice “Slow down, slow down/Yeah, it’s too fast/To love in this moment/Got to let go of the past.”

Throughout this album, from the raucous recitations of youthful hubris in searing tunes like Chip N’ Tony and Nuns Song to the still serenades of an old man remembering his childhood in Swallows of San Juan and Hollywood Hills, Escovedo is exploring his musical legacy as well as his personal one. He manages to touch every genre he has ever dallied in, often combining two or three in a single song. If this album had come out during his near-fatal bout with Hepatitis a few years ago, it might be taken as a swan song. A final exclamation point to brilliant career, not unlike Warren Zevon’s amazing album, The Wind. But with Alejandro now disease free, I think we call look at this as a man assessing how he got to this point in his life, and where he is going next. I don’t know where that may be, but I have a feeling he’ll have some amazing stories to tell when he gets there.

What next?
Listen to some samples on his site

Buy the CD on Amazon

Download it on iTunes and get two bonus tracks plus a digital book with extensive liner notes.

Watch the “making of” video in my previous post.