Alastair Moock never disappoints. His latest CD is a treasure trove of folk tunes that please like Sinead O'Connor's voice on ice. Except Alastair's voice is still as gruff as a billy goat. His recipe is equal parts art and wart. His dead-on blues delivery has swooned Somerville fans for the last decade. Imagine if Guster grew up listening to Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan. It's those two very songwriters who Alastair covers on his latest effort, "Bad Moock Rising."
The title, incidentally, is the worst thing about the disc. "Rising'"s songs add maturity to the 1997 release, "Walking Sounds," one of the top 10 discs of that year. At times, "Bad Moock Rising" lacks the songsmanship that is "Walking Sounds," but that's like saying, "Highway 61 Revisited" isn't as good as "Blood on the Tracks." Who cares? They're both amazing albums. What works on "Bad Moock Rising" is what works on all of Alastair's discs. His voice is sheer beauty in all of its non-traditionally aesthetic forms. His lyrics are a poet laureate's dream. "Walking Sounds" contains one of the best lines since Dylan's "People tell me it's a sin / To know and feel too much within" off "Simple Twist of Fate" -- and that is the following line from Moock's "What If Love Came Too Soon": "It's better to have loved, than to have loved and lost / 'cause it isn't worth the pain, and it isn't worth the cost." "Bad Moock Rising" goes one step further from creating the magical line to crafting the timeless song. "Latte and My Middle Finger" isn't only a good song -- it's a necessary song. It jabs relentlessly at the Ph.D. coffeehouse crowd, but it does so in a way that even über-academics can appreciate and sing along with. Alastair opens wounds but never pours salt in them. Although he occasionally does pour some sugar on melody.
"You're Good (For A Man Like Me)" comes across as a Lyle Lovett B-side that should've made the A-side. For Alastair to fall flat on his face, he almost has to try to shoot himself in the foot first. With this disc, "Pretty Boy Floyd" easily could have been a podiatrist's nightmare. But Alastair's voice -- like Lyle Lovett and even David Lee Roth -- is so intriguing that he can talk for eight-and-a-half minutes and still be interesting, which is precisely what happens with the Pink Floyd length that comes from "Pretty Boy Floyd." The song's ironic opening line, "Well, I don't want to take up a lot of your time," is a joke from a musician who does want to take up a lot of your time, but it's well worth every second.
Alastair Moock is one of those undiscovered great artists -- like the Howling Diablos and Branded from Michigan -- who may never see MTV's TRL, but that's okay -- neither has Fugazi.
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