Headless Heroes
The Silence Of Love

Rarely have I come across a cover album so well-crafted, rich, and refined in its selection of tracks. They call themselves Headless Heroes, and “The Silence Of Love,” from 2008, is the result of a truly successful collaboration between musicians from various musical backgrounds.

The production is impeccable. The sound is deep, rich, varied, and moves on various levels simultaneously without ever overreaching. As I mentioned before, the choice of songs is remarkable, yet you shouldn’t imagine a heavy, long, or overly complex album. The tracks mainly lend themselves to a "light listening,” and that’s exactly how I happened to listen to them a year ago, on a breezy veranda surrounded by Mediterranean scrub on a pleasant summer evening. The freshness is the main quality of this work, and those involved have the merit of having sweetened and polished the tracks without falling into banality or plain sentimentality. Rather than making comparisons with the original versions, a mistake that happens too often, it's better to listen to the songs of “The Silence Of Love” as a whole, without prejudices, letting ourselves be carried away by its suggestions. Only then will we realize how fluid and well-assembled it is in all its parts.

But who are the Headless Heroes? The project comes to life from an idea by New York producer Eddie Bezalel together with musician and producer Hugo Nicolson, aiming to assemble a lineup of professional musicians from the Los Angeles scene, led (it should be said) by the exquisite voice of Nevada City folksinger, Alela Diane. Among the musicians, we find Josh Klinghoffer on guitars, piano, and organ, Woody Jackson, already with Friends Of Dean Martinez, handling guitars and lap steel. Also present are Joey Waronker, Leo Abrahams, Gus Seyffert, and Mike Bolder. Now, it’s clear that the number of people involved and the variety of tracks could generate a sort of dispersion that’s not advisable. Fortunately, there’s Alela Diane’s voice, the true guiding thread of the album, which, with the help of the musicians, takes us on a very pleasant sensory journey with more or less well-known songs.

The album opens with the beautiful "True Love Will Find You In The End" by that quirky genius Daniel Johnston. And that already sets the tone. Next is "Just One Time," a track by Juicy Lucy that takes a dark, dreamy, and evocative turn here. Then comes "Here Before," a track of rare beauty masterfully written and performed by Vashti Bunyan on her 2005 album "Lookaftering". Followed by "Just Like Honey," a track by Jesus And Mary Chain, and the impeccable "To You" by I Am Kloot. Then arrives "Blues Run The Game," and here we are decidedly in Alela Diane's territory as she interprets Jackson C. Frank’s most famous track with the purity and spontaneity we’ve come to know in her first two albums. With "Hey, Who Really Cares?" by Linda Perhacs, we are transported back into the dreamy and swampy psych-folk atmospheres that also characterize "Here Before." Then, we unexpectedly find ourselves amidst the extraordinary lyrics of Nick Cave with "Nobody's Baby Now." Finally, "The North Wind Blew South" and "See My Love" arrive, respectively by Philamore Lincoln and the Gentle Soul.

A wide range of genres and sounds, in short, a heavenly voice, and deliciously unusual tracks are the elements that make "The Silence Of Love" a delightful album that allows us (not a minor thing) to discover authors and tracks that we may have forgotten or never discovered until now.