Albums by this artist

Supper (2003)

Dongs Of Sevotion (2000)

Knock Knock (1999)

Smog

Dongs Of Sevotion

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» SHANE STRAIGHT | STAFF WRITER

Smog Dongs Of Sevotion Drag City, 2000 RiYL: Bonnie Prince Billy, Johnny Cash and Leonard Cohen if Drag City Records got a hold of them

I don't think Bill Callahan ever watched "Sesame Street" as a kid. Before emerging 13 years ago as the mastermind behind Smog, I think he lived naked in a dark and sinister, thickly wooded forest. The foliage was so dense overhead that just a few rays of sun could trickle through the sweeping trees and vines. The sun illuminated random patches of ground, but nothing else was visible. Bill would sit in the lotus position watching the darkness skitter around him, his eyes sometimes catching spots where light shone. But the sun showed him only the bones of dead animals, dried up streams, rotten logs covered with termites, and the decomposing corpses of young virgins killed in strict accordance with ancient Mayan sacrifical rites by mysterious cloaked men with oversized right hands whose feet never seemed to touch the ground.

As that weren't enough, Bill only had two things with him during those dark years -- a portable compendium of Eugene O'Neill's plays and a candle to read them by. Most of the pages were ripped out of the book and the only stories left were the ones where the characters drank themselves to death or murdered their brothers for having sex with their mothers or fathers. Well, maybe that's not exactly how it happened, but it's the only explanation I can come up with as to what would cause Callahan to write and record Dongs of Sevotion (or any of Smog's eight LPs for that matter.) It's an album by a man who's spent too long thinking about bones and time and death and all the beautiful things that have slipped through his fingers. Immediately, it sweeps the listener into a saga of neurosis and fractured love and the dark underbelly of sex.

Callahan's voice hits you first. He sings like Hemingway writes. His delivery is abrupt and terse, but every note is perfectly placed, and not a bit of breath is wasted. Bill doesn't have a faultless, ethereal voice that calls from the heavens, but rather a voice that is distinctly human, barren and honest, deep and wobbly, a voice that asks for nowhere to hide.

The album opens with the upbeat, but haunting, "Justice Aversion." A steady drum machine provides the backbone while wisplike guitars that sound as thin as aluminum foil slice through the song like ghosts. Callahan's tortured voice meanwhile tells of his "animal nature." Within minutes it becomes apparent that he's not just another faceless singer or musician, but a poet of striking gift and clarity.

The album's most remarkable, (and likewise most disturbing) song, "Cold Discovery," renders the listener absolutely immobile with awe and trepidation. Delicate but driving guitars and pianos frame Callahan's unforgettable lyrics, ("I can hold a woman / down on a hardwood floor / her teeth can gnash right through me / looking for a soft place / and of this you won't soon forget / I had no soft place for you to rest / and this was your cold discovery.")

Other songs like "Devotion" are windswept and barren, and feature only sparse instrumentation backing Callahan's powerful voice and unparalleled lyrics. It is clear that Smog doesn't need lavish effects or technical virtuosity to show us the forest in which Callahan must have spent so much time as a kid. Dongs of Sevotion is an album of stark beauty and utter honesty. And with each listen Callahan reminds us that we'll not only find beauty in the light, but in the dark, and in all the secrets that lurk in the shadowy forests in each of our minds.

SHANE STRAIGHT |