Masks, identity, authenticity – these issues have always absorbed Ray Davies. In the deliciously jazzy “Voodoo Walk,” insomnia and paranoia are let loose for a nocturnal prowl (shades of the Kinks' Sleepwalker album), revealing the dark side of every personality.
The restless rocker “Hymn for a New Age” searches for authentic faith – “But I believe I need something to look up to / I believe / I wanna pray but don’t know what to.”
The album closes with the tender ballad “The Real World,” a portrait of a lost soul moving from town to town to escape a banal reality. Though the character is ostensibly a woman, it could just as easily be Ray Davies, adrift in a dislocated global culture that no longer feels like home. It's a deeply affecting valedictory, a cautionary tale with no moral, ending the album on a haunting note I can't get out of my head.
Now here’s the bad news, at least for American music lovers: although Working Man’s Cafe was released last week in the U.K. and throughout Europe, Davies has yet to secure a deal with an American label. (V2 Records, which issued the CD, recently shut down its North American division.)
While a free version was included in last Sunday’s London Times — yes, this album was GIVEN AWAY FOR FREE to every Times reader in the U.K., some 1.5 million copies – we Americans can only buy it as an import. It was offered for about 48 hours on iTunes last week, and then mysteriously disappeared. What gives?
I can only conclude that Ray Davies is still his usual prickly, slippery self, playing some kind of complex game with the schizo music biz. When I think of all those unappreciated giveaway CDs landing in British rubbish bins, while American Kinks fans can’t even get their hand on a copy – well, it’s so mystifying.
But getting your hands on it will be well worth the effort, I promise. Over the 40-odd years that I’ve been listening to Ray Davies’ music, I’ve learned that his albums tend to grow on me gradually. If I like this one so much out of the gate, just think how much I’ll love it once it really plants its tendrils in me.
Article comments
1 - Lala
Great review. Spot on...I have been reading some of your other reviews too, Holly.
Really good recommendations..
Cheers,
Laurie
2 - ~rose~
GREAT review, Holly! As a fellow shaker, I appreciate your insight into the artist usually known as RAY DAVIES. WMC offers fans and misfits everywhere another opportunity to know we are not alone. On our behalf, this imaginary man has carried that chip a very long time, not as a dead weight but as a diamond in the rough. He's offering it to us once again. It is up to us what we make of it.
3 - Stanley A. Cobb
Loved your review, but did you miss "One More Time"? That's my favorite track on this truly outstanding collection of songs.
4 - Holly Hughes
Oh, man, you're right! How could I forget "One More Time"! That's one of the tracks that took me a little longer to "get" -- at first it seemed a little, I don't know, too lush and symphonic for my tastes. But then I pictured it set on a seaside cliff in Ireland, and then the lushness all made sense. It's one of those classic Ray Davies break-up songs that sounds at first like something else -- like "Days" or "Better Things," so wistful and tender that you almost overlook the fact that they're parting ways. And am I the only one who thinks this song is also reaching out to his brother Dave?
5 - Jose R.
Really nice, insightful review. I was afraid to read the review, even though I like the album; I thought someone would pan it for not being village green.
And this album is available for download in the US on emusic (.com).
6 - Bill Kopp
The album has secured an American release deal. It will be out on New West/Ammal with a street date on February 19 2008. Great review, btw.
7 - Rick
Actually, There area lot of auto plants in Cleveland.