NICK LOWE
The Convincer (reissue, 2001)
YEP ROC
8/10
Basher’s country-soul peak, newly remastered on 20thanniversary blue vinyl
Having Johnny Cash as a father-in-law left its mark, as Lowe’s speed-laced Stiff years gave way to stately country craft. “You look like butter wouldn’t melt in your mouth”, he bitterly begins on “Homewrecker”, picking through the consonants like landmines. “But I know it will”. “Lately I’ve Let Things Slide” piles on the poetry of personal ruin, as the singer awakes with a cut face, and responds with honky-tonk haiku: “Smoking I once quit/Now I’ve got one lit/I fell back into it”. Geraint Watkins adds simmering Wurlitzer to slide-guitar twangs. “Indian Queens”, with its stark folk verses and Glen Campbell choruses – even before mention of “the rigs of Galveston” – shows the wider world of ’60s countrypop classicism being mined.