Love Songs for Patriots

by American Music Club

Overview

Reunion albums are often tricky affairs, usually based around negative circumstances (typically solo career slumps) rather than positive ones, so it's neither uncommon nor unwise for fans to approach them with a degree of caution. When American Music Club called it quits in 1995, most folks were expecting an impressive solo career from vocalist and songwriter Mark Eitzel, but while he failed to capture the brass ring of a breakthrough commercial success (no great surprise, given the downbeat tenor of his music, though Warner Bros. seemed to be hoping otherwise at first), the greatest problem that's dogged him since AMC's demise has been his difficulty in finding a consistent set of sympathetic musical collaborators. Listening to American Music Club's first album in ten years, Love Songs for Patriots, what's most immediately striking is the way the fusion of beauty and chaos generated by the musicians so ideally mirrors Eitzel's songwriting, and how keenly their contribution has been missed in his solo work. While American Music Club was often regarded as Mark Eitzel and four other guys during their initial lifetime, the jagged panoramas of Vudi's guitar and the patient but ominous report of Dan Pearson's bass and Tim Mooney's drums create such perfect settings for these songs here that you sense this was that rare reunion prompted by aesthetics above all else, and this album truly succeeds on a creative level. The absence of Bruce Kaphan's evocative pedal steel work is felt (especially the way he at once buffered and strengthened Vudi's pillars of sound), but Marc Capelle's keyboards fill their space well enough, and while Eitzel's songwriting has changed a bit since the last time American Music Club went into the studio (the dark sexuality of "Patriot's Heart" and the first-person vignette of "Myopic Books" are the clearest examples), this band still knows more of what to make of his sensuous depression than anyone else, and both songwriter and musician bring out the best in one another on this set. Love Songs for Patriots isn't an American Music Club masterpiece in the manner of Everclear or Mercury, but it's certainly a stronger and more coherent effort than the group's last set, 1994's San Francisco, and while it's too early to tell if this is a new start of a last hurrah for AMC, it at least shows that their formula still yields potent results. Here's hoping Eitzel and Vudi have more where this came from. ~ Mark Deming

Product Details

Release Date:	10/12/2004
Label:	MERGE RECORDS
UPC:	0036172955220

Tracks

1. Ladies and Gentlemen
2. Another Morning
3. Patriot's Heart
4. Love Is
5. Job to Do
6. Only Love Can Set You Free
7. Mantovani the Mind Reader
8. Home
9. Myopic Books
10. America Loves the Minstrel Show
11. The Horseshoe Wreath in Bloom
12. Song of the Rats Leaving the Sinking Ship
13. The Devil Needs You

Album Credits

Performance Credits

American Music Club   Primary Artist
Vudi   Piano,Guitar,Synthesizer,Lap Steel Guitar,Organ
Mark Eitzel   Piano,Vocals,MIDI Synthesizer,Optigan,Keyboards,Percussion
Marc Capelle   Piano,Optigan,Melodica,Mellotron,Boys Choir,Chamberlin,Clavioline,Flugelhorn,Handclapping,Organ (Hammond),Moog Synthesizer,Synthesizer Strings
Jason Borger   Piano
Tim Mooney   Drums,Timpani,Keyboards,Percussion

Technical Credits

Mark Eitzel   Editing,Digital Editing,Composer,Producer
Matt Pence   Mixing,Engineer
Marc Capelle   Orchestration,Brass Arrangement,Sample Arrangements
Tim Mooney   Engineer,Producer,Tape Echo
Glynn Durham   Engineer
J.J. Golden   Mastering