As the story goes (or at least as it has been passed down to us in sacred texts of press releases and such), the always precocious boys of Summer Hymns couldn't stand the down period spanning those eager months between the finish and release of 2003's Clemency and decided to pour their restless energy into some off-the-cuff home studio recording. So, what do you do when those stray bits and studio exercises accumulate into 22 ready-for-release tracks? Why you ready two volumes of semi-official, near-LP length recordings, that's what. Fool's Gold is the first such volume.
No doubt, releases like this tend to be fans-only type affairs, and this generally holds to that pattern, with a gorgeously pedal steel-drenched cover of George Harrison's "Behind That Closed Door" and a fun rendition of Johnny "Guitar" Watson's "It Takes Two" ranking among the album's strongest cuts. And while the lack of focus here is understandable, if frustrating, it does yield surprises like the bubbly electro-pop of "Fear the Law" and the slightly off balance, quasi-orchestral rock of "What They Really Do." Unfortunately, the whole album doesn't fare as well.
To be sure, lead Hymn Zachary Gresham has always sounded more than a little like bucolic hippie axe-god Neil Young, and here he takes a step toward approximating Mr. Young's always wandering muse, landing somewhere near his uncomfortably drunken (yet inarguably brilliant) mid-70s output. As such, every ostensibly great song is balanced by one almost throwaway, with the tip-toeing piano lines and multi-layered vocals of "It's Just Not Right" balanced by the goofy, apparently written-while-singing "Crazy Baby," where Gresham chides his lover for being a monkey who won't evolve and who (for reasons not immediately apparent) should shave her head.
In the end, this album sounds pretty much like what it is: a set of rather rough-around-edges tracks that allow the artists behind the music to be seen in a more natural, less managed environment. Certainly, in its best moments, everything that makes their perfect haze-pop formula work so well is in evidence, but those moments are relatively few. Ultimately, while it's not quite an apocryphal book in the Summer Hymns' canon, Fool's Gold doesn't exactly carry the same sense of divine inspiration that positioned them on the most dreamily pastoral piece of real estate on the Elephant 6 continuum.
1. Fear the Law
2. What They Really Do
3. Behind That Locked Door
4. Butterflies
5. It Takes Two
6. It's Just Not Right
7. Pharmon
8. Crazy Baby
9. Capsized
10. No Butlers
More about: Summer Hymns
