DAVID WELSH :: Blue Lightning Accent ~ 9.2
Blue Ash | BAR 1850
Blue Lightning Accent is chock full of ear-grabbing fragments and passages; it's up to the listener to piece it all together. Of course, this effect was unintentional by the artist. Like the Shaggs, David Welsh transmits a singular artistic vision. Musical ideas are introduced rather spastically. He has his own sense of time: the flow of much of the album is determined by how quickly Welsh forms the chords on the fretboard. The meter isn't conventional, but it always feels natural, and that's where the record's allure lies. For the truly observant, the title track and "Rock Drummer" are reversed on the back cover, but the two songs' credits and durations are not. Although there are no producer or technical credits on the sleeve, the album is beautifully recorded, a heavy metal Philosophy of the World in hi-fi. The record is a split between slower voice/guitar compositions and energetic, full band rockers (Tom Harriman handles the drums while Welsh covers the rest). The lyrics are a challenge throughout: many lines are simply unintelligible. I'd love to know what the opener "6's, 9's, Tens & Towers" is about. Repeated listens can only offer new clues. The track whips erratically from weird riff to weird riff, and when the guitar and drums actually align halfway through, the song “rocks” for precisely 3 seconds before resuming on the unmarked path. "Rock Drummer" likens pounding the skins to the journey of a climber scaling a mountain. With its rich acoustic chords and woozy scat vocal providing a perfect bridge from chorus to verse, "The Climb Into Heaven" is the highlight among the slower songs. "Water Fall" includes an impressively technical guitar figure in the verse, and when Welsh backs off the vocal mic, presumably to check his playing, it's a charmingly genuine moment. A tornado of Greg Ginn-style guitar and chaotic drumming, "Blue Lightning Accent" could have easily been lifted from The Process of Weeding Out. Welsh turns semi-normal on the album's closer, "Keeping Pace," a recollection of summertime love set to the sounds of a '60s garage rock single run over by a bulldozer. Blue Lightning Accent is offbeat greatness: endless enjoyment will come to the brave consumer just trying to make sense of the thing.
February 27, 2019