The official Tom Verlaine two new releases on Thrill Jockey thread

The samples I've heard sound very promising and Tom's also on the cover of the new Wire. Nice little mini-comeback for Mr. Verlaine in 2006.

Knowing history, if Richard Lloyd played on it, he'd have titled it Blood on the Strings.

"guitar fanatics won't find anything approaching the divine fireworks of “Little Johnny Jewel” or “Marquee Moon,” or even “Elevation”"
Anyone who doesn't figure out that there were two guitarists on those songs and expects Tom Verlaine to be firing off solos like an over-sexed Prince won't be buying this album, and I should add, shouldn't be reviewing these albums..... In any case I wasn't disappointed by the guitar, he's toying around with a lot of stuff, some sticks and some doesn't, which is probably more interesting to a guitar "fanatic" than coping a thirty year old album in a bid to impress a stylus reviewer.

"So from the hands and heart of an unknown Songs and Other Things and Around would register as disappointments or maybe showing the slightest of potential, but from someone of Verlaine's stature and access ... they're a lot worse.

Is it possible to be disappointmented by something that you know nothing about and are approaching as an unknown, how can he posit something like that? And even so these records are a lot worse because of his "stature" and "access"? They are what they are surely, stand or fall on their own merits? Also I doubt Verlaine lies around smoking opium all day and gets it into his head on a whim to release two records. I don't think he has Thrill Jockey at his beck and call, in fact I don't seem to have noticed much promotional work done for these discs at all.

Plenty of artists with real "stature" and "access" put out dud releases and don't get called on it enough, I don't think Verlaine is particularly one of them. I just can't figure this review out, never once mentions previous solo output, not once. And the fact that these albums came out in April and in late June stylus runs such inconsquential review? Boo urns to stylus reviews, won't be taking their word on albums.

Guitar fanatics can be critics too.

Is it possible to be disappointmented by something that you know nothing about and are approaching as an unknown, how can he posit something like that? And even so these records are a lot worse because of his "stature" and "access"?

For an artist of Verlaine's status to release two albums loaded with trifles is esepcially disappointing; perhaps someone unfamiliar with Verlaine may enjoy him. What's so opaque about that?

The second-worst thing is that he is wrong.

The second thing is more general. Sure he's coming to it off the back of Marquee Moon and so on but he suggests that even if you weren't aware of Television these records would be disappointing. But how can he suggest someone might be disappointed if they are incapable of having expectations?

There's no really genuine explication of the music or the artist, just a dismissal on the basis of one previous release. I genuinely think it's a poor review, whatever one might think of the records. If Verlaine hasn't developed in any interesting way at all then say that. The review gives nothing except in the second to last paragraph and even then it appears that these albums are only for initiates who aren't really capable of criticism.

The guitar on Songs & Other Things is absolutely fantastic - less pyrotechnics than the above, but hang on, weren't they 30 years ago? TV has been pretty much in this mellow mode for a quarter of a century - but forgodsake, still no-one plays like him. His clean Jazzmaster sound on The Earth Is In The Sky is unbelievable.

'erm if you're referring to 'Songs...', Ficca's not on it!