Smog - Dongs of Sevotion
(Drag City)
I happened upon Smog's Red Apple Falls at a listening station at my local record store a number of years ago while trying to kill time waiting for my friend to finish looking through all the music bins. Years before, I heard a Smog song that had left a particularly bad taste in my mouth (though I can't recall what it was or where I heard it now), so besides wasting a few minutes, I wasn't expecting much out of my listening experience.
To my complete surprise, not only did it keep me busy while my friend browsed, but it inspired me to rush back into the checkout line. Listening to it made me, and still makes me, feel as if I have somehow gotten a hold of Bill Callahan's most personal and precious secrets and thoughts.
Dongs of Sevotion continues to trod along the same path established on previous albums including Red Apple Falls and last years hauntingly beautiful Knock Knock. Every time I listen to it, I feel as if he is baring his soul directly to me; as if he is hoping that, through this, he will somehow purge his demons and cleanse his spirit.
Bill sets the tone of the album in the first track, "Justice Aversion." The song (as with most Smog songs) starts out very dark and musically downbeat, while Bill sings "It happens on a side street maybe, it happens on a main street maybe, lion bites the zebra neck, zebra stomps the lion head," and follows by explaining "We could stay up all night talking about my animal nature and the universe's hesitance to grant us grace. It's just this justice aversion."
The only real low point of the album in my opinion is the 6th track "Bloodflow," where he replaces the idea of a children's choir (which I felt worked wonderfully on Knock Knock), with, as my friend put it, "sexy Ally McBeal-style backup singers." But, even if "Bloodflow" doesn't appeal to me, "Strayed," "Permanent Smile," and "Cold Discovery" make up for it 100 fold.
With Matt Lux, John McEntire, Jeff Parker, and Rich Schuler on board for this album, you might expect Dongs of Sevotion to sound more like Tortoise than Smog, but Bill manages to keep it from straying much from his previous efforts, and succeeds in recording some of the most beautifully stark, personal, and thought provoking music of his career.
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