Adam Green - Minor Love

Oh, Adam Green...I saw him for the first time in the Durch die Nacht documentary with Carl Barat, not having been familiar with his previous band with Kimya Dawson, The Moldy Peaches (now famous for "Anyone Else But You" being included in Juno). I dove right into and became enamored with his solo material after hearing "Her Father and Her", and count the occasionally-maligned Jacket Full of Danger as one of my top 100 albums of all-time. My previous description of Adam Green's work elsewhere as "Calvin Johnson-meets-Jim Morrison-esque vocals, crude and witty lyrics and lo-fi techniques" still holds for this man, though it has run through a different filter on each album. His first self-titled release (2002) was a slight transistion from the Moldy Peaches, Friends of Mine (2003) is where he truly found his own style, Gemstones (2005) is perhaps his technically best work yet and transitions smoothly from one oddball conceptual piece to another, Jacket Full of Danger (2006) worked brilliantly as a full album and contains some of his most memorable songs ("Nat King Cole"!), and in Sixes & Sevens (2008) he went right on back to making a mixed-bag album, adding gospel flourishes and genre-bouncing. I saw him in San Francisco during his Sixes & Sevens tour, which was amazing; he is a truly cool guy with brilliant stage presence (and the Libertines cover thrown into the set was a delight)!

I was skeptical about his forthcoming album because I'd seen pictures of Green with his hair cut unbelievably short for the first time in ages, seen through his bizarro blog The Lake Room. Yeah, you heard me - if you've been following AFIN long enough, you know that while I'm as unbiased as I can be, I'm also a terribly shallow fangirl! But hey, in all seriousness, a change in appearance often denotes a change in musical style. The suspense...!

News of Minor Love, to be released January 11th, coming out struck me by complete surprise - I found out just recently via Tumblr, despite the fact that "What Makes Him Act So Bad" from the album has been available for free since October of last year.

In typical Adam Green fashion, all of the tracks are incredibly short (nothing over 3:00), quirky, and catchy...what's new? Well, in short, nothing's new, but it's Adam Green, so that's not necessarily a bad thing! He's got this endearing quality despite, or perhaps because of, his frequently uncouth subject matter, and while Minor Love is no huge change (the haircut was a red herring after all!), it is still fun and enjoyable as a bona fide Adam Green work. There is the plodding acousti-western elements ("Breaking Locks", "Give Them a Token"), the tracks that are more fully worked-out and thus stand out ("Buddy Bradley", "Stadium Soul", "You Blacken My Stay"), a drop of Leonard Cohen-esque soulful poetry here and there ("Boss Inside"), and festive lo-fi experimentation ("Oh Shucks", "Lockout").

While Minor Love is a pleasant listen, there are no particular surprises and it takes a few listens to properly sink in and to sift out memorable tracks - on the other hand, when I first heard Jacket Full of Danger, I quickly knew I'd regard it as a classic favorite. It's a mellower Adam, sounding comfortable with his own work and perhaps this will be the first of his releases that even naysayers can't call 'pretentious' - it's quite evident that he enjoys making music and is having fun here and as a result it is inevitable to join along in the fun even if it's not mind-blowing this time around.

Adam Green: Official Site | MySpace Music | The Lake Room (Blog)