Life'll Kill Ya

"I CAN saw a woman in two/but you won't want to look in the box when I'm through" ('For My Next Trick I'll Need A Volunteer')

Well, yes, and here we go again: the hairy-handed gent is back, once more howling 'round your kitchen door, just like one of his celebrated werewolves. If Warren Zevon don't kill ya, life certainly will, so you may as well open the door and let him in.

If the preceding paragraph makes perfect sense then you are clearly on familiar terms with Mr Zevon's biggest hit and still one of his best-loved songs, 'Werewolves Of London'. If not, you may know him from the company he keeps, Zevon being the kind of seriously credible talent who can call upon songwriting collaborators ranging from Bruce Springsteen to the novelist Carl Hiassen, backing musicians as diverse as the Eagles and REM, and a stellar fan club that includes such heavies as Bob Dylan, Hunter S. Thompson, David Letterman and Jackson Browne. All this and Something Happens briefly moonlighted as his backing band too. Just how hip can one man be?

It was the aforementioned Browne who once dubbed Zevon "America's foremost composer of song noir", which is still about the closest anyone has come to a definitive thumbnail description of one of rock's most mercurial songwriters and performers.

From a title-track that's simultaneously mordant and morbid, to the images of medieval plague which adorn the sleeve, Life'll Kill Ya finds Zevon going mano a mano with The Man With No Tan. Considering that there are those who reckon this recovered alcoholic should have croaked it decades ago, it is paradoxically cheering to think that Zevon has actually gotten to the stage where he can now, at some leisure and with much gallows humour, contemplate his own mortality. And of course, being the prototype tough nut with the soft centre, when Zevon isn't cackling in the face of death he's as likely as not bordering on a good cry.

Either way, he's not about to go gently into that good night. For how many other ostensibly mainstream middle-aged songwriters would warrant a "Parental Guidance" sticker on the front cover of their cd and, presumably at the behest of the record company, the removal from the back cover of any trace whatsoever of track nine, which on further investigation turns out to be a splendidly glum little toon, called 'My Shit's Fucked Up'.

But, of course, the word 'ostensibly' is the key. On the surface, Zevon can throw all manner of radio-friendly musical shapes - gorgeous melodies, winning hooks, swooning middle-eights and tough, rockin' riffs - but look a little closer and there's invariably some bad craziness going on. Here, for example, the intimate, unplugged 'Hostage-O' sounds positively seductive; that is until Warren opens his mouth to croon his words of tainted love: "I can see me bound and gagged/Dragged behind the clownmobile/You can treat me like a dog/If you make me feel what others feel." Hmm, can't see Michael Bolton covering this one in a hurry.

Life'll Kill Ya is full of such rare treats, from the opening 'I Knew The Bride . . . ' soundalike, 'I Was In The House When The House Burned Down', through the indecently jaunty lover's lament, 'For My Next Trick I'll Need A Volunteer', and a heartbreaking take on Steve Winwood's redemption song 'Back In The High Life Again', to 'Porcelain Monkey', a little masterpiece of a track that sees Zevon reactivate his enduring fascination with Elvis Presley's fall from grace.

Showcasing his own multi-instrumental talents, a voice that ranges from deep growl to aching falsetto, and a tight little band of comrades and accomplished players, Life'll Kill Ya finds our hero in astonishingly rude health.

The doctor is in and he'll see you now . . .