Giant Sand, Provisions
Indie-rock's grand old man of post-psychedelic letters provides more food for the faithful.
All Mark Lanegan really needed to know, he learned from Giant Sand mainman Howe Gelb. (Except for that self-destructive drinking and drugging thing — that was more of an independent-study, Ellensburg High School achievement.) And this goes for more than just the former Screaming Trees frontman, whose solo output bears more than a passing debt to the Sand's influential brand of sun-damaged, tumbleweed-scented, tumbledown spoken-word roots-rock jive. One look at the Sand's roster of “just-passing-through players” — from fellow Tucson travelers John Convertino and Joey Burns, a.k.a. Calexico, and Green on Red's Chris Cacavas to a host of sidemen/women that have included Victoria Williams, Neko Case, Juliana Hatfield, PJ Harvey, Steve Wynn, M. Ward, Isobel Campbell and pretty much the entirety of Poi Dog Pondering, among others — is enough to populate some alt-exurb out on the interstate, somewhere. (And I haven't even mentioned Gelb's copious spinoffs yet — Band of Blacky Ranchette, Friends of Dean Martinez, OP8, etc.)
As the grand old man of post-psychedelic letters for the indie-rock nation, Gelb has faithfully churned out his loopy spaghetti-western rock for the last 25-plus years. Provisions represents Gelb's 16th album as Giant Sand, more or less, and the “group's” debut release for Yep Roc. But despite a backing band that includes three brand-new Danish hands as well as noteworthy contributions from Ward and Campbell (whose opening duet with Gelb, “Stranded Pearl,” may rank as one of his finest contributions to the rock canon), this release — like all Giant Sand albums, when it comes right down to it — is pretty much all Gelb, all the time. Which is to say, both highly idiosyncratic (the garage-skronk instrumental “World's End State Park,” the singing-out-the-side-of-his-mouth classic “Without a Word,” which includes yet another Gelb genius lesson: “They talk like a filibuster; their words surround me like I was Custer”) as well as appealing in a narrowly-niched sort of way (“Pitch & Sway,” “The Desperate Kingdom of Love,” both of which come across like a Pelecanos novel sprung with plug nickels from a desperation-hour jukebox in some greasy-spoon café). Giant Sand will never be for everyone — Gelb has long since seen to that — but for the faithful, Provisions is yet more evidence that the breakaway republic of Southwestica remains alive and well, even if only in Giant Sand's feverish collective imagination.
