6 keepers
keeper avg .400
"Son of Walter" starts with the stately, atmospheric "Plastic Elvis" before opening up the throttle with the Beatle-esque "Beautiful Sister"****, followed-up a distinctive guitar melody on the Neil Young / Crazy Horse-sounding "Red Hair"****. Uncle Neil is just the closest base of comparison for Nick Saloman's type of garage-y melodic folk, including the stately, elegiac "Dead Man Sitting On A Train"****, the melancholy "Raining On TV," and the dirge-y "Southern Man"-like "Requiem." The power-pop ditty "It's Not Like You" (doused with gleefully out-of-tune harmonica) and the Byrds 12-string-accented "Driven Away" are the album's more energetic tracks.
But interestingly, some of the album's high points are slower, heavier tracks. The Seattle-grunge-y "Barking Or False Point Blues"**** seems pretty gloomy at first, but the chorus is driven by stirring harmonies. "All Hope Is Gone With You Away"**** is a study in Nine Inch Nails despair but via a Sonic Youth or Eleventh Dream Day noise rock drone. And a blistering E-drone guitar melody leads off the penultimate Nuggets-garage-rock "Winner's Way"****. A Bevis Frond album wouldn't be complete without an interminable psychedelic freak-out, so we get the 12-minute "Garden Aeroplane Trap," and the remaining acoustic tracks are mostly forgettable. But with several outstanding tracks I can see why the album is considered on of the best ones.
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