Time the Conqueror is Jackson Browne's first studio offering in six years. The last was 2002's Naked Ride Home for Elektra. Browne established his sound in the '70s and has made precious few adjustments, with the exception of a couple of records in the '80s where the keyboards and drum machines of the period were woven into his heady, West Coast pop, singer/songwriter mix. Whereas his '90s albums I'm Alive and Looking East, as well as Naked Ride Home, mirrored the personal concerns of his '70s records in more elegiac terms, Time the Conqueror returns in some ways to Browne's more overtly political statements from the '80s such as Lives in the Balance and World in Motion and weighs them against the personal, but he's all but forgotten how to write hooks. The title track is as personal as it gets; its breezy, cut-time beat and airy melody signals motion like the white lines clicking by on a highway. They underscore both time and life passing away, juxtaposed against the need to appreciate each moment. Browne accepts the blindness of the future as he does the helplessness of the past, though he doesn't accept aging. The next couple of tracks underscore this. There's the elegy to the '60s in "Off to Wonderland," a paean to the lost innocence of the heady years of idealism betrayed in both the Kennedys' and Martin Luther King's murders. The last line in this midtempo rock ballad is: "Didn't we believe that love would carry on/Wouldn't we receive enough/If we could just believe in one another/As much as we believed in John." It was wonderland, all right; these ideals were not hollow but they had no basis in American reality. The hardest rocking cut is "The Drums of War," which is Browne at his most didactic. It's as much a renewed call to arms as it is an indictment of the Bush years. It's a quickly passing moment, however, in that the very next track, "The Arms of Night," is a spiritual paean urging the listener to seek love in the right places. It's tender, confused, and authentic, but dull. "Where Were You?" has more teeth with its stuttering attempt at 21st century funk. Musically it serves more as a rock track with actual rhythm than it does funk. It's another socio-political indictment of alleged apathy in the post-millennial age. This album goes on, with no real aim other than telling us things that Browne's been thinking about these days (with the exception of the Latin-tinged "Goin' Down to Cuba," the best tune here; it's the only song with something resembling a hook). Browne seems to be speaking to his own generation; he's still trying to make sense of the world he wanted to live in and the one he actually does. Next time out, though, instead of worrying about his "enlightened" perspective, perhaps he should pay more attention to what made his earlier songs feel as if he actually owned one: craft. Most of these songs feel like quickly dashed off poems; it's all "tell" with no "show," because there isn't anything in the music to effectively offer them to the listener as conversation; instead they are on display as mixed-message sermons.
(by Thom Jurek, All Music Guide)
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... weitgehend vertraute Klänge auf dem ersten Studioalbum mit ausschließlich neuem Material der Westcoast Singer/Songwriter-Ikone seit 6 Jahren ('The Naked Ride Home'). Im Wissen, dass die Zeiten von 'For Everyman', 'Late For The Sky' und 'Running On Empty' auf ewig vorbei sind (Leute, verdammt, das ist wirklich 30-35 Jahre her!), darf man getrost von einer durchweg richtig guten, in den belangloseren Momenten immer noch soliden Scheibe sprechen, die in der internen Jackson Browne-Skala sogar etliche Ausreißer nach oben aufweist: 'Off Of Wonderland', 'The Arms Of Night', 'Giving That Heaven Away', 'Just Say Yeah', 'Far From The Arms Of Hunger' - hey, das ist ja schon die Hälfte der 10 Tracks... Ja, vertraut! Erstens weil der Meister so gut bei Stimme ist wie eh und je (diese Stimme!). Zweitens weil er nunmehr seit ca. 15 Jahren ('I'm Alive') mit Recording Engineer Paul Dieter arbeitet und stets derselben Kernband zusammenspielt: Mark Goldenberg, Jeff Young, Kevin McCormack, Mauricio Lewak (dazu neu hier: zwei klasse Gospelfrauenstimmen). Drittens weil bei ihm wieder diese Mischung aus persönlich-emotionalen Befindlichkeiten (kritisch-melancholische Rückblicke auf die 60er, eine Reise nach Kuba) und sozialem Engagement (Bush-Kritik, Anti War, Anti Hunger) so glaubwürdig und unpeinlich rüberkommt wie bei kaum einem anderen Kollegen dieser Preisklasse. Ein weiterer Pluspunkt diesmal ist die schlanke, fast "live-im-Studio" Produktion mit seiner Band in einem einheitlichen Sound ohne Special Guests oder aufwändige Arrangements.
Neues (erst 13.) Studioalbum nach 6 Jahren. Seine Langzeit-Band agiert ausgesprochen rund, organisch, flüssig, unauffällig wie apart; doch immer wieder sticht eine feine Gitarrenpassage heraus, subtil, filigran, slidend, mal sägend, unterstützt von schimmernder leichtfüßiger Orgel bzw. Piano. In warmer relaxter partiell intimer Atmosphäre. Sporadisch mehr Druck als gewohnt, leicht groovend/soulig oder unterschwelliger Kuba-Einfluß. Vor allem, (fast) durchweg, reifes gutes Songmaterial mit ebensolchen Texten, ausgearbeiteten Melodien, deren Qualität sich erst nach und nach offenbart, dafür mit anhaltender Wirkung. Incl. 2,3 Top-Stücke. Und die Stimme ist immer noch unnachahmlich! Gut!
(Glitterhouse)
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