Nick Lowe: The Impossible Bird : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

A founding member of the legendary early '70s pub rockers Brinsley Schwarz, singer-bassist Nick Lowe later helped godfather punk by setting up the trailblazing British indie label Stiff and by producing Elvis Costello, the Damned, the Pretenders, Ian Dury and the Blockheads and a host of others.

Then, with guitarist Dave Edmunds, a fellow rock & roll true believer, and on scads of drolly titled solo albums ("Jesus of Cool," "Pinker and Prouder Than Previous," "Nick Lowe and His Cowboy Outfit"), Lowe tirelessly turned out scads and scads of perfect ramshackle pop. Part of the rootsy supergroup manque Little Village (along with John Hiatt, Ry Cooder and Jim Keltner), which fizzled after releasing one fine album in 1992, Lowe now returns on his own in excellent form.

"The Impossible Bird" has a pungent, country flavor (great covers of Buck Owens' "True Love Travels on a Gravel Road" and Ray Price's "I'll Be There"), and its sharpest cut is "The Beast in Me," the terrifying Lowe original that provides a highlight on Johnny Cash's monumental "American Recordings." Crammed with clever wordplay and novel hooks, Lowe's songs demonstrate a prodigious productivity and an emotional realism that ranges from heartbreak ("Withered on the Vine," "I Live on a Battle