The Living End (Jandek album)

Infobox Album
Name = The Living End
Type = Album
Artist = Jandek


Released = 1989
Recorded = Unknown
Genre = Blues/ Lounge/ Rock n Roll
Length = 43:38
Label = Corwood Industries
Producer = Corwood Industries
Reviews = *"LowLife" #16 (favorable) [http://tisue.net/jandek/discog.html#0756 link]
*CMJ #211 (favorable) [http://tisue.net/jandek/discog.html#0756 link]
Last album = "On The Way"
(1988)
This album = "The Living End"
(1989)
Next album = "Somebody in the Snow"
(1990)

"The Living End" is the eighteenth album by Jandek and the only release of (1989). Corwood Industries #0756 continues the bluesy band sound of the prior two albums, but adds a new, thinner-voiced female vocalist to the mix.

Overview

The band from "You Walk Alone" and "On the Way" is back, and they've got something new! In addition to more tracks in the tighter, more "straight" blues styles of the past few albums, they have also added a new female singer.

She's not on the first side, though, which opens with a sequence of "walking blues," starting with "Niagra Blues," which wraps oblique lyrics ("Sometimes go to Niagra (sic)/sometimes go to the grave") around what seems to be the same song as the second track, "Janitor's Dead." That song seems to be a sequel to "The Janitor," from all the way back on "Later On", though it's possible that it's unrelated. It has lyrics even MORE out there ("stabbed a tumor through your heart...window's broken overhead/they told me janitor's dead.") so it may just be 'one of those songs.' Things get even stranger on "Slinky Parade," which starts out, "Jesus Christ, Randolph Scott/Bob Dylan and his mother, Dusty Springfield/came on the road one day/marched a slinky parade into my eye" before begging "let me be a Christian ram." It could almost BE a Bob Dylan song, but rarely was Dylan as far out as this. That leads through three more similar tracks ("License to Kill" says "I got a license/to kill myself/wanna die die die" before changing to "wanna live live live" right at the end). Then there's a brief instrumental and THEN...

It's a new female vocalist. This is obviously not "Nancy" (voice is too thin, missing the bluesy timbre Nancy had) and the girl seems a bit uncomfortable. She struggles through all the same, and does fit the music at many times. The songs, in manner of the albums before them, continue to include the "standard" lead and rhythm guitar (with occasional bass) fronting a slightly off-rhythm drums.Though often difficult to decipher, her vocals provide an interesting twist and the band adds many lounge elements to the music, making "Girl From America" sound like "The Girl From Ipanema" twisted inside out. This "loungey" style would continue into the next two albums.

Track listing

#Niagra Blues – 3:46
#Janitor's Dead – 3:11
#Slinky Parade – 4:31
#The Living End – 2:25
#License to Kill – 2:38
#Talk That Talk – 6:28
#Start the Band – 1:41
#Girl From America – 1:56
#Embrace the World Outside – 2:08
#In a Hush – 2:50
#Take Me Away With You – 7:05
#Crazy – 4:23

External links

* [http://tisue.net/jandek/discog.html#0756 Seth Tisue's "The Living End" review]