Mighty Joe Moon

Grant Lee Buffalo: “Mighty Joe Moon” (Slash/London)

On Fuzzy Mr Grant Lee Philips showed himself to have an ear for heart-breaking melodies and an eye for the kind of image that has a resonance which haunts the spirit long after it has registered on your musical sensibility. Mighty Joe Moon builds on that staggering first record’s achievement and then takes those heartland themes of dislocation and reconstruction and seems to personalise them more.

The sleeve, tells us a lot about what’s going on here. Its references are many and varied but with images of humans wearing animals heads and a broken-down sitting room full of obscure musical instruments, some of the more obvious watering holes of inspiration are The Band and Captain Beefheart. Furthermore, on the front sleeve, the striking image of the inner workings of what looks like an archaic amplifier, an old-fashioned reel to reel amid a conglobation of numerous other anachronistic electrical gadgets, behind which lurks the painted name of Grant Lee Buffalo, acts as a metaphor for the kind of archaeological excavations of America’s troubled psyche – which let’s face it is everybody else’s troubled conscience too! – and modernism’s pale faith in reason which Grant Lee Buffalo have decided to explore.

With thirteen songs clocking in at a grand total of just under fifty minutes, the impression might be one of a paring down of instrumentation but although the sound is never cluttered and grandiose there has been a kaleidoscopic expansion of orchestration with banjos, dobros, mandolins, tabuks, tablas, maracas, marimbas, cellos, and even acquired hunks of metal added to the conventional rock structure of guitar, bass and drums. At all times, though, each instrument is utilised with the finest economy, sometimes making the briefest of appearances in a seemingly haphazard way. On other occasions, as the banjo on ‘The Last Days Of Tecumseh’, one instrument leads the line in an understated and low-key manner.

It’s nigh impossible to single out individual tracks but perhaps one of the more immediately outstanding tunes is ‘Mockingbirds’, about devastatingly-difficult-to- shake-off crises of self-confidence. ‘Demon Called Deception’ describes the personification and distanciation of inane conceit, while ‘Lone Star Song’ is a crucifying fable of all things white religious and fanatical down in Texas.

One of the things that singles out Grant Lee Buffalo from the pack is their ability to whisper and sing quietly when sledgehammer noise might be the easier option. It’s a sign of greatness and unparalleled self-belief. There are many examples of such profoundly gentle restraint on Mighty Joe Moon, including the pioneering title track itself, but it’s most brilliantly exemplified on the sombre ‘Happiness’ where Grant Lee Philips ghostly intones “Never mind me cause I’ve been dead/Out of my body/I’ve been out of my head/Never mind the songs I hum/If you don’t want to sing along/Did I say it?”

The truth of the matter is, however, that the songs of Grant Lee Philips are burning themselves indelibly into rock history. And whether one person or a million appreciate that fact doesn’t really make any difference. By any standards this is poetry. Deep, dark and mightily soulful. It will last long after you and I are gone and will resurface in different times and unknown places but why miss out now on one of America’s finest bands ever?

The funny thing is Grant Lee Buffalo will get even better. Mighty Joe Moon is as undeniable as life itself.

• Patrick Brennan