Skip to main content

No. 8 - Jessica Lea Mayfield - Sorry is Gone (ATO) - The SPEW countdown continues for the best of 2017.

Here we are, at No. 8. I first fell for this album on a drive home from Topeka on Stull road on a rather crisp, but sunny and lovely Saturday afternoon. I don't hate Topeka. Not at all. I don't live there either. They do have a Barnes & Noble, where you can buy magazines no longer available in dear old Lawrence.

But enough about that. Here's the review I wrote shortly after that invigorating drive. Sorry is Gone wore well as the year wore on. And I stand by my comments from this October review.

Enjoy! 



https://spewrocks.blogspot.com/2017/10/jessica-lea-mayfields-unapologetic.html


Comments

The people have spoken.

Jessica Lea Mayfield's unapologetic "Sorry is Gone"

Jessica Lea Mayfield, of Kent, Ohio, released her first album With Blasphemy so Heartfelt ( produced by Dan Auerbach, fellow Ohioan) at the tender age of nineteen. I missed it. I probably shouldn’t have.   Her second Auerbach (Black Keys) produced record Tell Me arrived in 2011 when she was 22, 23 maybe. I listened to it. I heard talent. But somehow the combination of songs, performance and production didn’t really hook me.   Never bothered with her alleged grunge-rock record, the two previous had been loosely in the roots-rock/Americana idiom, called Make My Head Sing . No Dan Auerbach. I don’t know who produced it, but Mayfield described it loosely as dedicated to one of her favorite artists, Dave Grohl. Not being a huge fan of the Zelig of contemporary rock, that dedication probably soured me on the project. Sorry. For me and Jessica it was a matter of timing. The time is now. And the record is Sorry is Gone. Which is pretty great.   Mayfield and pr...

SPEW crowns the 41st - 50th best Albums of 2017. Wowzers!

Here it is, ladies and gents and humans of all genders and description! Your BEST ALBUMS OF 2017. * Okay, not really. It's 41-50. Hey, pretty damn good records. It's a competitive world.  41.   Chain and the Gang – The Best of Crime Rock (In the Red) 42.   Protomartyr – Relatives in Descent (Domino) 43.   Vivienne – STUD  (Objects Ltd.) 44.   Flamin’ Groovies – F antastic Plastic (Severn) 45.   Kyle Craft – Girl Crazy (Sub Pop) 46.   Bully - Losing    (Sub Pop) 47.   Idles – Brutalism (Balley) 48.   Lee Ranaldo – ElectricTrim  (Mute) 49.   James Elkington – Wintres Woma ( Paradise of Bachelors) 50.   Filthy Friends – Invitation (Kill Rock Stars) Let's have a look: Ian Svenious has been a savvy mainstay of Ameri-indie in the post-hardcore era (you know, like, the last thirty years), with groups like Nation of Ulysses, Make-Up (the ...

The death and future of punk, pt. 37, THE IDLES

The Idles are from Bristol. The one in England, not Connecticut. They’ve been plunkin’ about since 2012, but their first album was released this year. It’s called Brutalism.   The cover features a photo of singer Joe Talbot’s mother, whom Talbot cared for in the last years of a long illness, mounted above a stark shrine constructed by Talbot and his father. These are placed in the corner of a bare room with brick floors and white painted brick and stone walls. It has the barren, but emotionally loaded austerity of Joseph Beuys work. It’s an eerily   perfect image for an album entitled and themed around the notion of brutalism.   Ever seen this movie called My Architect? It’s about the architect Louis Kahn, revealed through the eyes of his sometimes estranged son, Nathaniel Kahn. It’s heartrending, as a dad and lad tale, in its austere, sadly masculine way. The younger Kahn, as a budding filmmaker, with a heavy, still hurting heart find the beauty in his father...