I’ve been listening to the ten songs on REAL since June of 2015 when I had the amazing opportunity to film Lydia and her band of musical geniuses for my documentary Who Is Lydia Loveless? To say I’ve heard these songs incessantly over the past 14 months, especially during the six month editing process, is an understatement. So, when the film was done, once the accompanying music videos finished, one would expect me to never want to hear this record again. I mean, there are very few albums in existence that could bear that sort of repeated listens. And yet, now that the editing is complete, what album have I been reaching for over and over again? REAL, from Lydia Loveless.
Few things are timeless, fewer albums certainly. But every once in a while, a collection comes along that touches you in ways you can’t quite comprehend. That brings emotions to the surface that you felt were long ago repressed. That makes you remember love, heartache, lust, longing. What it’s like to cry into your beer for the one who got away. What it’s like to question your own sanity when they’re lying in bed beside you. Mistakes of the heart, we’ve all been there. Those are the songs of REAL.
“If self-control is what you want, I’ll have to break all of my fingers off,” she sings in MORE THAN EVER, a song which finds a mistress pounding harder on the door. “Well you don’t have to tell me everything I want to hear/It only makes it harder for me everytime my dear/To say bye,” she sings in the stark and heartbreaking CLUMPS. “You take a walk/I’d rather be lonely than ashamed,” from the decidedly dark BILBAO where a chorus of “marry me” turns into “bury me.” Or “I don’t know what the truth is but you give me every reason to fall out of every lasting arms” in OUT ON LOVE, arguable the most breath-taking song on the album. Lyrically, there’s not a better songwriter on the planet today. The emotions aren’t bubblegum nonsense, you can pick the scabs off the still-healing wounds of a heart stabbed too many times.
But what might be most amazing about REAL is the sonic variety given the tracks. Props to producer Joe Viers and the band. There are no two songs that sound alike. This is not your average pop record where you think you keep hearing the same slow and fast songs over and over again. Put HEAVEN side-by-side with BILBAO, or put that side-by-side with SAME TO YOU. You’ll know it’s the same heart stopping voice, but think the songs are from different era, different decades. Most musicians today are afraid to offer variety. But Lydia once again proves she’s afraid of nothing, at least not in the studio. She takes risks, and they all soar.
Lydia Loveless, Todd May, Ben Lamb, Jay Gasper, and George Hondroulis are the rarest of beasts, a rock band true to the core. One without compromise. I love this band. And I love this record.
Guy With Typewriter 