Wreckless Eric
amERICa
(Fire Records)
You might not have credited Eric Goulden with the staying power he has demonstrated. This may be his first solo album in ten years, but there have been tours and records with wife Amy Rigby and a resurgent Len Bright Combo as well as fairly regular gigging. The itinerant couple have lived in France and England before settling in her homeland, where Eric has made his answer to Rod's Atlantic Crossing and ELO's New World Record in their house in upstate New York. The USA thematic and sonic direction is assiduously adhered to, in his shambolic way, with echoes of The Stooges and Jonathan Richman and namechecks for Chuck Berry, The Velvet Underground, The Beach Boys and, um, Bobbie Gentry, but this is as much an introspective and reflective record, opening with the line: "I was nearly someone back in the day."
White Bread looks at America with the cynical eye of a native, rather than an immigrant, but Boy Band is a hilarious scansion-defying romp through a familiar story that owes more to the UK, and Life Eternal is just suitably psychedelic. Welcome back, Eric - not that you were away.
Keith Bruce
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