Alejandro Escovedo: Real Animal : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

To call Alejandro Escovedo the godfather of modern country rock would sell him short. He fronted the influential twang-rock outfits Rank and File, and True Believers, but as a solo artist, he's transcended labels, and his latest is a chrome-bright autobiographical song cycle with flashbacks that roar into the present. "We came to live inside the myth," Escovedo hollers on "Chelsea Hotel '78," a reflection on being Sid Vicious' neighbor back in the day. The track's sung-spoken verses and scuzzy surf-rock riffs reflect the Pistols and the Hold Steady's heartland-punk update.

"Sensitive Boys" and "Real as an Animal" conjure Lou Reed's "Coney Island Baby" and the Stooges, respectively, while "Hollywood Hills" and "Swallows of San Juan" are chamber-folk reveries captured in amber. David Bowie producer Tony Visconti helps give the set an ageless sheen; check out "Golden Bear," a meditation on death whose synth gildings echo Bowie's similarly themed "Ashes to Ashes." But Escovedo, who nearly died of hepatitis C in 2003, clearly believes in the life-giving powers of rock & roll, and Real Animal is one powerful sermon.