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Rating: And, where were we? From what I remember, among live shows and various collections, to that double, "Blinking Lights And Other Revelations." Four years ago, so much water has passed under the bridges. And you had made me anxious by now, it took you seven years to compose and record that. To do this, four. And I’ll tell you more. I was worried. What would the E I would find be like, I asked myself when, some time ago, I read that you were about to return.
When this afternoon I got my hands on "Hombre Lobo," Wolf Man, the first thing that struck me was your face: hey, where have I seen you before? Those dark glasses, that beard that hasn't seen a pair of scissors (let's not even mention the razor, right) for months if not years...of course!! You dressed like that back in the "SoulJacker" era. A precursor sign? You say that for this album you were inspired by a piece from that record, "Dog Faced Boy", I remember it. You then tell me you wanted to see what that boy, that alter ego of yours, had grown into. Time has passed there too. What will have become of him? Will he have taken bad roads, the ones where every single step leads straight to a disaster? Or will he have settled down? If I have to say, E, I didn’t understand how things really went for this boy. But I have a clear impression that in music he didn't miss a beat. Take the first song, "Prizefighter", an old blues riff from Mississippi, howls from a true Lone Wolf that seem to come directly from "Souljacker" indeed. The whole record is dripping with blues, old, raw, distorted, and dirty, as it should be. Electric riffs that seem to come from the dawn of time, from Willie Dixon and Howlin' Wolf (to stay on the wolf theme, right?), and that’s why we like you, E. Then if you add, as in "Fresh Blood" and "Tremendous Dynamite", something electronic with a vaguely psychedelic flavor that we carry in our hearts from "Electroshock Blues," we love you. But in some things, you’ve changed. There’s something undeniably rock’n’roll, something that roots itself always in those mythical Sixties but that we didn’t remember in your repertoire, but that’s okay, "What’s A Fella Gotta Do" and "Beginner’s Luck" with its ska rhythm are pleasant surprises, which make you want to throw slippers around the house and join you in singing in chorus those "sha la la." In some things, you haven’t changed at all, E. Your ballads, where you float between Bob Dylan and the quieter Velvet Underground, are soft, sweet, like the pillow where we would like to sleep every night. At some points, you seem to have been heard before. But at other times, there’s something new. "That Look You Give That Guy" and "My Timing Is Off" pull out from the closet the early Byrds. And in "The Longing" even some guitar arpeggios give chills, it seems that Jeff Buckley has reincarnated in you.
It’s tough to be a boy with a dog face. Tough to live when you feel on your skin that you cannot please any girl, so much you feel the filth on you, so much you harbor Desire inside, so much you feel different and a thousand miles away from the others. Yet, this boy has grown up. He might have a dog face, but he has a heart of gold beating inside. Sooner or later, he too will find the right girl, like the one in "Ordinary Man", where you play at making your "What A Wonderful World": "Well it’s a warm day In the city of cold hearts They all just play the part Of who they are And I’m here on my own I’d rather be alone Than try to be someone I’m not
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