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Music CD - Alejandro Escovedo: The Boxing Mirror
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Music CD: The Boxing Mirror
Artist: Alejandro Escovedo
List Price: $17.98
Our Price: $10.77
Your Save: $ 7.21 ( 40% )
Availability: Usually ships in 8 to 14 days
Manufacturer: Back Porch
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Tracks:
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1. Arizona
2. Dear Head On The Wall
3. Notes On Air
4. Looking For Love
5. The Ladder
6. Break This Time
7. Evita's Lullaby
8. Sacramento & Polk
9. Died A Little Today
10. Take Your Place
11. The Boxing Mirror
12. One True Love
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Binding: Audio CD
EAN: 0094635096521
Label: Back Porch
Manufacturer: Back Porch
Number Of Discs: 1
Publisher: Back Porch
Release Date: 2006-05-02
Studio: Back Porch
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: THE MOST UNDER RATED MUSICIAN IN THE WORLD
Comment: The Boxing Mirror
Anything Alejandro Escovedo does is great, this dude should have a room full of grammy's and a vault full of cash, He is the biggest unknown in the world...check him out and GOOGLE his name, he is talent incarnate, the whole family is talent, if you are ever in Austin, Texas go see him live, if he's anywhere near you, GO SEE HIM LIVE.....
Customer Rating:
Summary: Music from the Bout
Comment: As if ample evidence were needed that extraordinary music can be made without benefit of chemistry, Escovedo, his co-writers, and Cale have produced a darkly jeweled kaleidoscope, a flowering of post-illness creativity that incorporates some of the most interesting instrumentation I've heard on record in some time. No longer satisfied with the usual, Escovedo stretches far beyond the punk or alt-country mold with a symphonist's virtuosity. These songs are punctuated by stunningly surrealistic lyrics and the twisted virtuosity of some of the most unusual ensemble players and soloists I've heard in years.
Customer Rating:
Summary: another excellent outting from mr escovedo
Comment: no such thing as a bad alejandro escovedo cd. this is one talented gentleman. mid-tempo songs, slow-tempo songs, and hard rockers make this a recording with a fine mix of moods. as usual, there is a wonderful variety of textures; with violin, cello, accordion, acoustic guitars, and electric guitars blending into a creative flow of sound. produced by the great john cale, the audio quality is excellent, the atmosphere fresh and beautiful. this cd was selected by "no depression" magazine as the 7th best album of 2006. i, too, highly recommend it, as i do all of this artist's recordings. fine stuff.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Cale'd
Comment: The other reviewers summed up many of my feelings about this CD. Why don't I love it? It is because I have come to expect a certain sound from AE. I am listening to a previous release called Gravity right now and can imagine listening to it 100's of more times.
The Boxing Mirror, produced by John Cale, has some excellent songs that rock as much as anything AE has ever done - Arizona and Sacramento & Polk come to mind immediately. The hooks are in you real fast and I listened to Sac & Polk many times at AE's website totally mesmerized by the big raunchy sound. But, will this disk survive in the heavy rotation of my CD changer staying for months like the Buick MacKane and True Believers CD's - probably not.
For fans of John Cale, I think they will love this disk and I heartily recommend it to them and also new fans of AE. For the older fans, you may be dissapointed.
All in all though, I did give this 4 stars because it is better than 99% of the stuff being released today as music! Go AE!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Vibrant Rock Hybrid
Comment: Alejandro Escovedo who is related to Sheila E & has been in rock bands Rank & File, the Nuns, & True Believers has produced an excellent CD. Escovedo's "Pyramid of Tears" from his "Gravity" CD remains one of my favorite classic album cuts of all time. On this CD we have a number of excellent tracks. "Break This Time" rocks with roaring electric guitar and strings to great a vibrant rock hybrid, "Whoever told you there'd be no danger, nothing to fear here in this house of pain; So speak to me softly & tell me you love me & we'll join together in the refrain." It's a breathtaking stew that climaxes with the closing bars. "Take Your Place" places a complicated lyric on a driving rock beat, "I'm going down, down, down, even deeper still, 'cause this world has gotten so f***ed up." "One True Love" written with Chris Stamey is a wild rocking track, "I'm all messed up; I got nothing to take your place." The opening cut "Arizona" is a haunting melody that snakes eerily through self-exploration, "I turned my back on me & I faced the face of who I thought I was." Mark Andes who was in the bands Spirit, Jo Jo Gunne & Firefall plays the bass on the set. This is a dark album. Escovedo explores themes of loss, regret and sorrow in an original blend of musical styles. Enjoy!
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Editorial Reviews:
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Alejandro Agonistes may yet have a happy ending, but you wouldn't guess it from this torrent of surrealism and gothic textures. Escovedo's first album since nearly succumbing to hepatitis C and crushing debt in 2003 is the darkest, most mysterious album of his career--a harrowing, poetic soundscape partly the result of producer John Cale's industrial-noir sensibilities, but also Escovedo's own avant-garde punk roots. The difficult trilogy which opens the album moves from arid Arizona (a wasteland where the soul finds nary a drop to drink) to a conversation with a "dear head on the wall" that becomes a negative Zen poem ("The sadness will come / When there is no one") to a cryptic vision of a buck trampling a wandering doe. Writing with his wife, poet Kim Christoff, as well as Chris Stamey and guitarist Jon Dee Graham, Escovedo isn't just confronting his own mortality and the mistakes which plunged him into a nightmare. He's courting a danse macabre for the sounds and poetry he finds there. On "Sacramento and Polk" he surveys a bohemian hell through a "Thorazine haze," while the Princely groove of "Take Your Place" only seems like a discordant funk party until the lyrics sink in: "I'm going down, down, down / There's nothing here." Escovedo's voice has weathered the physical ravages, caressing all the Mexican nuances out of the synth- and cello-sweetened "Evita's Lullaby" and breaking beautifully on the country ballad "Died a Little Today," which, like each of these emotionally concentrated tracks, is as literal as it is elusive. --Roy Kasten
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