The Big Takeover Thirteen Tales From Urban Bohemia/Tales From Slabtown Vol. 1 review
The Big Takeover #47
Thirteen Tales From Urban Bohemia
by Jack Rabid
2000

#33 in the top 40 albums of the issue

This Portland, OR four remains the interesting face of modern, blissed-out, understated-psychedelic music. Thirteen Tales is no departure from their previous excursions. 1995’s The Dandy Warhols and 1997’s Come Down, it’s just a further distillation of an emerging m.o.: long, utterly hypnotic songs built on simple riffs, vaguely lazy yet buzzing guitars, straightforward melodies, and often strong, semi-danceable beats. The lengths and uncomplicated repetitiveness of it all would be in danger of boring were it not for the built-in hooks and, most of all, the pronounced harmonies. And on the flipside, the benefit of repetition is the way it leisurely bludgeons you into your own state of bliss, like the way low-tide waves quietly punish a shore. The most you hear, the more you feel like you’re on soft drugs yourself, and you didn’t even smoke, swallow, or sniff anything.

It’s not artless or stiff, either. These folks know their classic rock reference points, and they twist and sprinkle them liberally to create their own hazy stew. One sees it most in the opening “Godless,” which shamelessly appropriates George Harrison’s steel-thick guitar and chords to “My Sweet Lord” (plus a Spanish trumpet break that ELO might try, like “Living Thing”) to good advantage. Likewise, the hottest track, “Bohemian Like You,” makes no apologies for its Rolling Stones’ archetype riff right out of “Brown Sugar,” “It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll,” and countless others (the Dandys even throw in a repeating “uhh uhh uhh” that’s a first cousin of “Sympathy For The Devil’s “wooh wooh’). Of more recent vintage, the gruff, gritty flash of “Nietzsche” could have found a home on a Spiritualized, Medicine, or Jesus & Mary Chain LP. 13 Tales is sometimes as heavy as it is trancy, and yet, what makes these folks distinct, is that they tackle slower, lurching tempos. Courtney Taylor’s cool vocals and hipster-parody lyrics often sound like they’re coming from somewhere deep in your own head, some dream-like voice that’s overtaken your R.E.M. slumber (see the lullaby-ish “Sleep”). Thus, the LP keeps coming at you like a zombie that can’t be stopped with bullets, wabbling and staggering forward relentlessly.

Disappointingly, no songs approach the incredible catchiness of Come Down’s standout “Not If You Were The Last Junkie On Earth” (or even “Boys Better” and “Every Day Should Be A Holiday”). But when the quartet finally jump-starts the tempos a tad, on “Bohemian Like You,” the gleefully thumping “Cool Scene,” and the hillbilly-tinged “Get Off,” one begins to cry “uncle” to this dense, strangely transporting LP. Make sure you play it a half-dozen times before judging it. Like any hit of whiskey or prescription drugs, it takes a while to kick in, and after that, it’s hard to “come down” from. Urban Bohemia never seemed like such a moderate hangover after a memorable binge.

(The also-recommended EP adds three more non-LP tracks of similar rank, the Velvet Underground-cool “Lance” – why wasn’t this on the LP?!?! – plus the zany Kinks-tribute song “Kinky” – an extrapolation on the “You Really Got Me”/”All Day And All The Night”/”I Need You” riff, Dandified with a striking harmony – and the slow, meditative trance-like spiritual grace of “Phone Call.” Talk about different sides!)