Smog - Knock Knock
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Music CD Cover
Artist: SmogEdition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 1999-01-12
Music Label: Drag City
Soundtracks:
- Let's Move to the Country
- Held
- River Guard
- No Dancing
- Teenage Spaceship
- Cold Blooded Old Times
- Sweet Treat
- Hit the Ground Running
- I Could Drive Forever
- Left Only With Love
Free Music Notes for Knock Knock
Free Music Review: Callahan as Kafka...
Hit: 5 Stars
I'm referring to the beautiful third track, River Guard. In it, he makes every sparse poetic line jump out in importance. He begins by "taking the prisoners swimming," which immediately puts him in the role of providing comfort to all of us having been found 'guilty.' That is the condition as K., Camus and countless other writers have suggested. We're born, hence we're condemned. Callahan's guard later sits "in the tall grass" and looks "the other way." He shows a wonderful simplicity here and is conscious of being in an embarrassing situation, not wanting to be constantly watched. It's a song of reprieve. But it's not all about the lyrics. The melody, texture, attitude and overall recording is beautiful. With the philosophy, it's aproaching a contemporary masterpiece. The chorus seems to ask the question, would we even know the definition of freedom if we weren't born into this very difficult existential situation? Like those writers before him, he suggests that without the suffering, freedom would have no meaning. He continues the theme within the guitar crunchiness of No Dancing: "there's always some bird dog snufflin'... always some turtle snappin'." Later in the album he sings, "I don't know where I'm going/All I know is I'll hit the ground runnin'." It's the secularist singer/songwriter at his very best. Listen to this album along with his other moments of brilliance found on the albums Rain on Lens, Dongs..., Supper, The Doctor..., A River..., and Red Apple... Not only does he continue these same themes, he does it in a very catchy, musical, emotional and often rocking way.
Knock Knock Poster
Japanese Version Featuring Bonus Tracks.One of the more hauntingly visionary indie-rock artists, Bill Callahan, a.k.a. Smog, writes sparse, poignant songs that shimmer with solipsistic grandeur. His sixth full-length disc, Knock Knock, shivers with restlessness, recounting forlorn tales of imprisoned convicts ("River Guard"), disenfranchised country boys ("Hit the Ground Running"), and unrequited love ("Left Only with Love"). Smog is too well-produced to qualify as lo-fi anymore, but the rich strings, chiming piano, and baleful strums of Knock Knock never detract from the workingman's loneliness of the disc. Like Neil Young's Tonight's the Night, only without the nasal vocals, the album is serene and sedate but nonetheless unsettling, as if the collective scene Callahan creates is merely the calm before the storm. Fortunately, when the melodies seem to drift too close to comatose, the shuffling beat and drifting feedback of "Held," the distorted chug of "No Dancing," and the jangly strum of "Cold Blooded Old Times" keep the needle from flatlining. --Jon Wiederhorn
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