Ashley and the Xs create a true masterpiece
For months now, Ashley and the Xs guitarist Matt Shigekawa has been teasing me with the band’s upcoming album, The Black Cat Sings. It’s far from unusual for a performer to hype their new project, there are some folks in town who will try to sell you on their flatulence being the next great symphony, but Matt isn’t one of those.
Hard-working, down-to-earth and irresistibly lovable, if Matt is excited about something, it’s worth being excited about.
This weekend I heard for the first time the final product. If I were to quote the filthiest, over-the-top exclamation of shock and awe Deadpool could muster, it still wouldn’t convey my reaction to this…masterpiece.
Universally loved since their inception, Ashley and the Xs has consistently created powerful, high energy music with driving rhythm and Ashley’s incomparable vocal prowess, but this album is not merely, “the next great Ashley and the Xs album.” It is, by several orders of magnitude, the greatest thing they have ever created.
The opening track, “Train Song,” wastes no time in getting down to business. A tsunami of wicked guitar washes over the listener, vanishing just long enough for the opening strains of Ashley’s smoldering voice to come in over the drums. That’s when all hell breaks loose as singer and band open up and let fly with some of the rawest, purest, most emotionally driven rock and roll you will ever hear, anywhere, period.
Pulse-pounding (no pun intended) and exhausting, the tune segues in to “Red,” a tasty dish of funk and blues that sinks it teeth in and will not let go.
A word here. Ashley has one of the sexiest, most dynamic voices of any singer and for years the band has provided the backing for that voice. That dynamic is…not quite the same. The band sounds less like a “backing” band, and more like a second, equally powerful voice.
The interplay between vocalists and band is more like the interplay between two powerful opera singers in duet. This isn’t meant to diminish anything they’ve done prior; the group has always been perfectly balanced. Rather, this is meant to illustrate that whatever they’ve been, they’ve transcended that, emerging as something newer, more powerful and refined than ever.
The album slides along easily in to “Hold Me Down,” a lighter tune that dances on the edge of “power pop,” but with a little too much soul to entirely fit that description and here again, the band’s dynamic progress is plainly evident, creating a very smooth and pleasing track out of a deceptively complex arrangement.
“Cascade” is a sweet, neo-classical piece that transitions nicely from the blues/funk/rock of the first half of the disc in to the hippier sound of “Mushrooms and Mazes.”
Finally, we arrive at the title track of the album, “The Black Cat Sings,” as beautifully raunchy but of roadhouse blues and soul playing to Ashley’s roots, at least to the earliest memories I have of hearing her sing (this will come up again shortly.)
From there, the album shifts direction in to a decidedly early nineties alt vibe with “Rope,” a song in which Ashley is clearly giving Natalie Merchant lessons on how to be Natalie Merchant. It is a lovely bit of music that, as the group has so often done in the past, showcases their ability to transition smoothly between styles.
There is nothing redundant about Ashley and the Xs, the music is a vehicle they seem to be able to take absolutely any place they choose to go without ever missing a beat. “Want You” is a continuation of that alt feel in the best way possible (keep in mind it stands as one of my favorite eras of modern music, the comparison is meant as high praise.)
The “final” track, “Calvary,” is a…well, imagine taking elements of every tune that precedes it on the album and subtlety crafting them in to a single tune. If tracks one through nine are a grand tour of what the band is capable of, track ten is the culmination of those styles in to one glorious signature piece.
Twice now I have ham-fistedly alluded to a bonus track, and there is one hidden on the album. It isn’t hard to find, if you know that it’s there and it’s a bit of a throwback, being the very first song I ever heard Ashley sing, years ago when my own group was fueled by whiskey and Guinness and not, as is the case today, multivitamins and blood pressure meds.
It’s a pretty piece of nostalgia for me, but more importantly I think it serves to bookend the progress of the band from then until now. The sheer raw talent was always there, but years of working, writing and performing have forged that talent in to a most unique and formidable weapon.
The album is The Black Cat Sings, and it is quite simply the most phenomenal thing one of Chattanooga’s favorite bands has ever done, a watershed album marking their transition from a great hometown band in to something much, much more.
The CD release party is set for Halloween, October 31st at Songbirds Guitar Musuem and we’ll publish more on that show in an upcoming issue. But for now, know that it promises to be one of the most unforgettable shows of the scene.