The Jayhawks - Sound Of Lies (1997)

When I ran into this album like an old schoolfriend the other week, it instantly took me back 22 years, to a teenage subscription to MOJO magazine.  Their August 1997 issue I only remember as it carried Volume 2 of their new mix CD series, The MOJO Machine Turns You On - apparently a reference to a CBS loss-leader from the late 60s.  Ending the CD was a six-minute track based around an insistent, pulsing bassline, portentious fuzz guitars and a desperate air that culminated in the refrain "Babe, I'm scared of you".  Fascinated by the track, Dying On The Vine, I sought out its parent album.

Sound Of Lies was reviewed in the magazine as being something of a departure from The Jayhawks' established alt-country sound.  In the aftermath of guitarist-vocalist-key songwriter Mark Olson, and other guitarist Gary Louris' assumption of most writing duties, the review painted a picture of unsettled band chemistry and a much rawer-edged album, typified by the track on the mix CD.  I'm quoting this from memory, so it may not be the reviewer's exact words: "If [predecessor album] Tomorrow The Green Grass was Harvest, this [Sound Of Lies] is Tonight's The Night."  That was enough for this teenage Neil Young obsessive - I was sold.

So nearly 22 years on, and having picked up a cheap copy of Sound Of Lies to replace my long-lost original purchase, how does it sound?  Still pretty damn impressive.  Like almost every album of the mid-late 90s I remember buying, it could maybe have shaved off a couple of tracks for a more concise running time.  The highlights, though (and they are many) still do it for me, despite this kind of thing now being several towns' drive from my usual musical area codes.  The opening Man Who Loved Life establishes the paranoid, hounded atmosphere with some nifty turns of phrase and grungy guitars as the song eventually builds up.  There's fuzzy melodic powerpop in the Big Star vein on the track that nicks their name, and more layers of unsettling threat in the second-half trio of Sixteen Down, Haywire and of course Dying On The Vine.  And the MOJO subscription?  Cancelled circa 2001, when it no longer reflected my musical obsessions.  Maybe I should pick up the occasional copy, if it helps unearth little gems like this album.

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