Chris J Norwood - I Am Not Cool - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Courtroom Wedding, the feral new album by singer-songwriter-punk rock legend Chris D.'s new unit Poison Fang Society, succeeds In the Red Records ' of two expansive albums by the bandleader's Divine Horsemen, Hot Rise of an Ice Cream Phoenix (2021) and Bitter End to a Sweet Night (2022).The taut, economical eight-song set grew out of several songs penned in the immediate wake of the COVID pandemic lockdown and originally envisioned as material for a third Divine Horsemen record. But logistical problems involving the band's co-lead singer Julie Christensen's ability to record in Los Angeles led to the formulation of a new solo configuration rooted in the past.Poison Fang Society guitarist Larry Schemel, most recently of Death Valley Girls, and Tucson-bred drummer Johnny Ray are both veterans of the eight-piece lineup heard on the Flesh Eaters' 1999 album Ashes of Time. They are joined by bassist-keyboardist-guitarist Sharif Dumani, who also engineered the collection and co-produced with Chris D.The songs Chris brought to the studio reflect a shift in style InchI was really trying to write some more traditional kinds of songs, but not make them sound really anonymous. On the last couple of albums, the Divine Horsemen albums, there was a lot more cut-up stuff. I still did some cut-up in the lyrics with this record, but not as much. The lyrics to 'Cellars to Weep' were very influenced by songs like Bob Dylan's 'Subterranean Homesick Blues' or 'Highway 61 Revisited,' even though song doesn't sound like that. I wanted to keep that kind of surrealist humor that Bob Dylan has - those nonsense phrases that add meaning when they're all put together.InchWith tracks inspired by subjects as diverse at the gun-toting MAGA couple who pointed their weapons at Black Lives Matter protesters (InchGoddamn Thieving ShameInch) to the sleazy come-on cover lines of '50s pulp paperbacks (In

Album Tracks 1. Raven 2. Out the Door 3. Home 4. Edge of Life 5. Down Up 6. Theme and Variation 7. Wrecking Ball

Chris Cohen's songs initially sound easy. They're each tiny jewels that unfurl at a leisurely pace, but dig a little deeper and you'll reach a melancholy core. His previous two albums - 2012's Overgrown Path, and 2016's As If Apart - were built from rich, blurry tracks that embedded themselves in your subconscious, like they'd always been there. Chris Cohen, his third solo album, is a thoughtful, accomplished meditation on life and family, backed by dusky instrumentation influenced by the late evening beauty of Pat Metheny's Falcon and the Snowman soundtrack, and Thomas Dolby's Golden Age of Wireless. It's beautiful, but it's also unflinching in it's depiction of emotional turmoil. Mastered by Bernie Grundman and written and recorded in his Lincoln Heights studio and at Tropico Beauties in Glendale, California over the course of the last two years with the help of Katy Davidson (Dear Nora), Luke Csehak (Happy Jawbone Family Band), Zach Phillips, and saxophonist Kasey Knudsen, it is his most straightforward album yet, but it is also the conclusion of an unofficial cycle that began with Overgrown Path. Album Tracks 1. Song They Play 2. Edit Out 3. Green Eyes 4. Sweet William 5. House Carpenter 6. Twice in a Lifetime 7. What Can I Do 8. The Link 9. Heavy Weather Sailing 10. No Time to Say Goodbye