John Cale
Fear

THE REVIEW

Three or four ballads that lay you down, a couple of fake silly moments, some well-executed jokes. Plus a bunch of little things that you just can't quite define.

After all, we're talking about John Cale, master of eccentric pop and all sorts of other things, eccentric as well.

The pieces are nine, almost ten and track by track I just don't feel like it, even though I should. Because here, in a moment, you go from north to south and it takes even less for the gentleman's gaze to turn into the criminal's.

In short, finding the thread is tough. So let's just give up looking for it and venture as it comes.

For example, you could cross two phrases like "sleeping in the noonday sun" (from "Buffalo ballet") and "we picked up Dracula in Memphis." (from "Ship of fools"). They suggest, better than any critical rumination, the dreamy melancholy and vaguely sinister texture of Mr. Cale’s ballads.

If we then add another little phrase like "fear is man's best friend," well, there you have it. No, just kidding... yes, yes, I'm kidding...

Because the game is not done at all.

It’s just that here we are in a territory where I'd like to tell you a million things, only the tongue trips over itself. So, always drawing randomly, better to move on and get to the "well-executed jokes" section.

Here, then, are jumping madness for toy instruments and droning viola or the most perfect "gentleman style" marred by silly choruses and psychotic shouts.

Then there would also be seven or eight minutes of convoluted music (and crazy and monotonous and grated), imagine, say, a "Sister Ray" that ended up, who knows how, in Brian Eno’s blender.

Then for the "fake silly things" section, I point out a mishmash half Beach Boys and half God knows what.

In short, quite a mess...

Flaws? Sometimes, perhaps, you can hear the mind too much, the design of the genius.

Never in the ballads though, those gush like spring water filtered by unparalleled sophistication. Stuff that your personal spleen is first cradled and then lifted to the sky.

The leaden and sickly sky of the darkest Velvet pages.

And anyway, ours was really a genius, but fortunately, he was also quite crazy.