Highlights: As I Love My Own, Marvelous Clouds, The World I Used
To Know
In the absence of a new
Ween album (not even on the horizon, as far as I can see), Aaron Freeman’s solo
album will do nicely. Or will it? Hard to say: Marvelous Clouds is actually a lovely, humble collection of
country-esque (think “Chocolate Town”) songs written by a renowned American
poet/songwriter Rod McKuen. It’s all very hummable, and there’s absolutely
nothing to dislike about these songs, but I guess few will leave here
satisfied: however lovely and hummable this is, we all wanted those glowing,
creative originals.
Aaron Freeman (better
known as Gene Ween) is a man of enormous talent and numerous voices. The
primary vocalist of Ween, he has always seemed to me the quieter of the two
(Moistboyz, “It’s Gonna Be A Long Night” – that’s all Dean’s work). So that the
gentle, largely acoustic world of Marvelous
Clouds makes perfect sense.
The songs? By turns
cheerful and downbeat (loneliness is a popular theme here), they are simple,
catchy, instantly likeable, toe-tapping delights. It’s all about tunes, of
course, though you obviously can’t go wrong with the warm, lush instrumentation:
there’s that banjo on “One By One”, harpsichord on “The Beautiful Strangers” –
all wonderful touches. To give you some specific names, “Jean” is a gorgeous
ballad, and both “As I Love My Own” and “The World I Used To Know” are
perfectly singalongable pop-rockers. In fact, only the banal, spoken-word “Pushing
The Clouds” sounds like a totally unnecessary throwaway. The rest is gold of
valuable, if decidedly unpretentious sort.
You absolutely gotta be
a cynic not to be charmed by Marvelous
Clouds (perfect title, by the way). However, you gotta be a complete idiot
to let Aaron get away with this. I don’t know; I’m still waiting.
7/10
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