ABER DAS LEBEN LEBT

a grave for Elvis

CD(R), no info

A nice little treat this is, of which I am not at all certain that it was meant as a proper release, but it had been sitting on my shelf for some weeks now and since I kept listening to it (and I also kept reading about ADLL here and there) I thought I’d give it a mention in my holy pages. Which it truly deserves for being specially unique. ADLL is unique among Austrian bands for having the fashionable pop-spirit that helps them to know a good idea when they see it, the adventerousness of little experiments that gives their songs that little extra edge and the remains of homecooking that makes these recordings a little more personal than others. Where’s the use in a band, when the people involved are unable to grab an acoustic guitar, a little keyboard and maybe some percussions and play some songs. Though ADLL have the bombast of late Roxy Music as well as the tenderness and melancholy of The Tindersticks, they haven’t gone awry in self-deception.

I realize now that Roxy Music and The Tinderstick have one thing in common: the english Gentleman turned popsinger, which could be defined as the personification of a special sensibility for pop-songs. A gentleness in arranging these songs anew and then a reluctance for extremism and excess, in favor of refined manners and introverted feelings that convinces by the trueness of their emotionality rather than by shouting pure volume in the listeners face. Thereby Brian Ferry and The Tindesticks are closer to the young Elvis, than all those fucked up morons who graze the land as impersonators. Moreover the singer does a pretty good Brian Ferry-rip during “Blue Moon”, who has a long history of great cover-versions, so there we go.

In medias res, “A grave for Elvis” is five coverversions of songs made famous by no one less than the King himself: Elivs Presley. The choice is almost obvious, though with the vast list of tracks to chose from that is easy to say afterwards. There are three slow, sad and melancholic songs: “Always on my mind” (Though I’d prefer the versions of Willie Nelson and The Pet Shop Boys, I’ll admit), “Blue Moon” (the not-so obvious one), “Can’t help falling in Love” (no, no, I’d not vote for Klaus Nomi here) and “Suspicious minds”. And all three are done in special, late night, lonesome, urban atmospheres, with e-pianos, synthies, simple bass lines, all arrangements directed towards highest efficiency for effectively supporting the singer with the least possible amount of energy. Invariably, the picture of seedy, half-empty bars arises and the singer doing his duty in the wee after-hours. These songs are floor killers that only those really really miserable or too deeply in love can fall for, because they have simply forgotten how to get home.

A few hours before the bands ripped through a classy version of “Hound Dog”, with double vocals – one hoarse and more on the screaming side of things, the other one Brian Ferry – and hand claps, that surely wrougth some applause from the declining crowd. The fifth and final track is somewhere inbetween: “Suspicious minds” of course has a pounding bass line and the undestroyable groove of the original recording by Elvis, that not even howling, highpitched, off-tune background vocals, a somehow broken reagge-bridge in the middle and distorted guitars will get rid off. The contrast between the crooning singer and the almost punkrock music (as punkrock as ADLL can get, I guess) is definitely an interesting one.

Last remark: that cover deserves extra kudos.