Widespread Panic
Bombs & Butterflies

Bombs and Butterflies: who knows the origin of such a title. Anyway, this fifth album from the Georgian Athenians, released in 1997, starts off well with the rock of “Radio Child,” solid yet streaked with funk thanks to the clavinet work of the keyboardist and the agile and pulsating bass lines. In successful contrast follows the reflective and not too incisive “Aunt Avis.” Incisive, however, is the partially honky tonk piano that introduces and then brilliantly supports “Tall Boy,” to our delight.

But here we are: the drift towards the heavy rigidities (so to speak) of the previous work “Ain’t Life Grand” is followed here by a partial restoration towards more agile rhythms, without the need for banal boisterous power chords, and greater variety.

An example of this is the spacious “Gradle,” American to the core; piano this time elegant and more rarefied, an inviting Hammond, guitars for once make background; or almost because Michael Houser's drifting little solo always pops up in the middle: a true southern ballad, distinguishable from those of Tom Petty only by the very different (and better) voice. “Glory” alternates passages in 4/4 with others in 3/4, in the peculiar style of this group fully recovered after recent diversions; in less than four minutes the rhythm changes a dozen times between three or four different solutions, and in short, you certainly don't get bored: among the best.

The well-mannered bass of the plump Dave Schools opens the interminable “Rebirtha,” which goes well beyond seven minutes; it approaches like a bouncy funk rock reminiscent of Little Feat, but everything changes during the guitar solo, under which the rhythm instruments play with fullness and emptiness and many changes of key, continuously inspiring the lead guitar that certainly does not hold back. “You Got Yours,” which follows, is more anonymous, first because it's interpreted by the sleepy voice of the keyboardist John Hermann, then because it maintains the coordinates of a hard rock, although made dynamic by its rarefying in the verses and resurfacing in the choruses. Extreme Gilmourian tremolos and Wrightian mystic organs à la Meddle or Ummagumma make it vaguely Pink Floydian at certain points.

“Hope in a Hopeless World” is not memorable at all, the sixties-style Animals organ solo and the guitar solo don't help, barely salvaged by the tapping of Domingo Ortiz on the timbales, concluding the instrumental interlude; a filler in any case. “Happy,” an instrumental that benefits from Michael Houser's characteristic way of arpeggiating the guitar, comes to the rescue. But the worthy conclusion of the work comes with “Greta,” yet another funky rock led by the clavinet, with a choral blues singing, all as often happens subjected to estrangement by the psychedelic guitar solo, quick however to return to the initial balance when the singers manage to regain the microphone (not easy, with Houser).

Once again there is something ghostly at the end of the album, this time not a track after a few seconds of silence but a long buzz like cicadas bouncing left and right, front and back of the stereo image, extending “Greta” beyond its six minutes and bringing it to eleven.

Of the first five albums by Widespread Panic, the best still seems to me to be the second self-titled one, but there's nothing to discard in their discography, and very little among the tracks if taken individually: a band of remarkable average quality, a hidden gem here in Italy, a privilege to know them in depth.