Warren Zevon - Envoy
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Free Music Notes for Envoy
Free Music Review: Classic album sounds quite good with some cool bonus tracks!
Hit: 4 Stars
Although there are a couple of weak tracks, "The Envoy" features Warren Zevon in classic form. Referred to as "Excitable Boy" grows up when it was first released, "The Envoy" sounds quite good in the latest edition from Rhino. A pity that this wasn't released while Warren was alive. This album was available previously as an expensive import and key tracks were on Warren's two CD retrospective on Rhino but this is the first time (to my knowledge) that the whole album has appeared on CD. This captures Mr. Bad Example in very fine form indeed.
"Jesus Mentioned" played on acoustic guitar is very spare sounding thoughtful song about Elvis Presley and, of course, has plenty of Warren's humor in it. The title track is a killer rocker. "Looking for the Next Best Thing" is one of Warren's great ballads. "Let Nothing Come Beween You" is probably the sweetest song Warren ever wrote. "Not That Pretty at All" isn't my least favorite tune but the sythesizer seems a little overbearing on this track. Overall this album provides a perfect transition to Warren's brilliant "Sentimental Hygene". After this album Warren who had a drinking problem and cleaned up his life briefly fell back into the spiral of addiction before pulling himself out of it five years later.
We get the original album plus a number of great extra tracks here including "The Risk", "Word of Mouth" an alternate version of "Let Nothing Come Between You" and "Wild Thing". The former has all the hallmarks of New Wave at the time with its boxy sounding drums and sythesizer. "Word of Mouth" opens with a mix of sythesizer, piano and guitar and doesn't sound finished as there's no vocal track recorded for it. The arrangement could have been fleshed out a bit more but it's a nice track. Some of the bonus tracks are better than others but don't diminish the original album. "Let Nothing Come Between You" is an alternate take that provides pleasant listening although I prefer the released version. "Wild Thing" is an off-the-cuff performance of the classic Chip Taylor song that sounds like it was recorded during the rehearsal sessions. It's a loose performance that probably wasn't ever intended for release. It sounds like the band was just having fun.
We get extensive sleeve notes as well giving us a bit of background on the recording of the album written by Rolling Stone writer David Wild. We also get photos, original lyrics and credits for the album.
Free Music Review: for a few good songs I still play it
Hit: 4 Stars
It is taking me years to learn to play "Charlie's Medicine." Mainly I am glad that plowing into old age like a rocker is giving me the time to appreciate some of the things I liked between the time I was 12 and 62 more than I had a chance to the first time around. A pattern of notes that repeats while the verses are sung has so many things to get together at the same that my practicing has to be repeated until it is impossible to do any one tricky thing wrong while I am doing something else. I am not quick enough to do the notes on a guitar, but using two hands on the same octave of a piano I did it often enough in the four weeks that I was with my mother that she told me the notes were going through her head when she went to sleep when she finally thought it was time for me to go home. I got out of Wichita, Kansas, before the church shooting started, but retirement allows me to appreciate Warren Zevon more than I ever liked going to church every week or work every day. Warren Zevon was the most exciting person I knew who was my age. He was born two months before I was in 1947. Then Emmylou Harris was born within two weeks after me. When I listen to people who had such great talent, it makes me proud to think: this is us.Free Music Review: Well, three and a half stars actually...
Hit: 3 Stars
Along with the wonderful, now-available live set "Stand in the Fire", we now have the two missing Asylum Zevon albums. While "Envoy" is marred by a few weak tracks, the strong ones more than make up for them.
This, Zevon's final release for Asylum records scores with the title track, still ringing as true today as back in 1982, the chilling "Charlie's Medicine" and the biting "Hula-Hula Boys", and the album's original closer "Never Too Late For Love".
The bonus tracks are a bit disappointing, "Word of mouth", while moody, features a badly dated-sounding keyboard (DX7?) which ruins it for me. An alt version of "Let Nothing..." which was never a stong track for me, is pleasant. "The Risk" shows promise but needs work and the "Wild Thing" jam is fun but hardly essential.
Like the reviewer below stated, this in no way detracts from the original release. Well worth you time and money.