David Lindley y Wally Ingram
Live in Europe!

(Independent)

First Appeared in The Music Box, December 2004, Volume 11, #12

Written by John Metzger

Culled from a pair of concerts performed in 2003, the unassumingly titled Live in Europe! features nothing that is new to David Lindley’s repertoire, and in fact, all of its songs have appeared on other outings from the supremely talented multi-instrumentalist. Many of the renditions, however, are dramatically updated, allowing the set to serve as both a terrific overview of his collaborations with percussionist Wally Ingram as well as a superb extension of the duo’s exquisite indie canon. Granted, Lindley’s twisted sense of humor may be, for some, a take-it-or-leave-it proposition — "We got the catfood sandwiches waiting for me backstage/And the woman who made them looked just like Jimmy Page," he sings with a blues inflection over a reggae beat on Catfood Sandwiches — but his dexterous style and alchemical interactions with Ingram are simply not to be missed by roots music enthusiasts. His steely slide guitar brings a cover of Professor Longhair’s Her Mind Is Gone to a heated boil, and when Ingram’s galloping rhythm locks onto Lindley’s fluid lead, Meti’s Reel is propelled along at a furious pace. Elsewhere, Jerry Lee Lewis’ The Meatman is transformed into a guitar-driven, blues-based stomp, and the traditional folk tune Lazy Farmer Boy, otherwise known as Young Man Who Wouldn’t Hoe Corn, is utterly reinvented as the duo encircles the track with a mesmerizing Middle Eastern-tinged groove. Indeed, for only two men, Lindley and Ingram concoct amazingly dense layers of sound that dodge and swirl in an abundantly energetic fashion, and the organic world-beat stew that they deliver is as unique as the rarest critter on the planet.

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Ratings

1 Star:   Pitiful
2 Stars: Listenable
3 Stars: Respectable
4 Stars: Excellent
5 Stars: Can't Live Without It!!

Copyright © 2004 The Music Box