Ray Davies, Americana (2017) A Review

Ray Davies, Americana (2017) A Review

Ghost Writer

Rock N Roll Animal

It’s kind of a strange experience to listen to the same man who sang years ago, a so inspired "Victoria", an obvious ode to his British homeland, now talking about "making a home where the buffalo roamed..." on Americana, somehow Kinks´ legend Ray Davies has made the big transatlantic jump and arrived to the “land of the free” right in the middle of Donald Trump´s  “Bad Hombres” era, America reminds me of too many things, Neil Young and Brian Wilson first of all, its lyrically close to what Neil Young has brought us before, and musically as a suite is as good and as bad as some of the Brian Wilson´s latest “experiments”, and although the title track is a beautiful piece, is the closest you will get to hear an idyllic jam between Young, Wilson and Lou Reed, yes, Davies has managed to capture that American spirit, but hey! Don’t worry, as one of the greatest British rock n roll songwriters is not exactly betraying himself, as in The Deal (Art of the Deal?) Davies returns to his grandiose song craft abilities on a song that’s both nostalgic, beautiful and uplifting, and above all, universal, just like when he wrote the enormous Picture Book, on one of his best Kinks´ albums.

What is so remarkable about Americana, and that perhaps explains why has Davies distanced himself from his homeland and embraced the USA, is perhaps that desire to do something less British, not totally American, but more personal, to evolve, a need to cut from his past, go to an extreme to find himself, and that’s precisely where Americana succeeds, becoming one of Ray Davies greatest recordings in decades, with a song like Poetry becoming definite highlight of his late career, linking directly to the new generations, like Oasis, Supergrass and of course Damon Albarn who have made careers out of pure admiration for Davies and the Kinks work.

But Davies is a smart man and he loves to take some chances, as seen on The Mystery Room, a powerful sing along in which Davies can create an almost magnetic slow burner singalong, an impressive whirlwind of sound with Davies placing himself right in the middle, and in a strange U turn, Davies goes almost minimalistic on the emotive Rock N Rock Cowboys featuring beautiful acoustic guitars and soulful choruses for a song that slowly grows and rises up to the cosmic Americana skies, then again throwing another surprise with the distorted Change for Change that kind of reminds me of Dire Straits.

Davies´ love for vaudeville and drama gets quickly noticed on I´ve heard that Beat Before, a beautiful almost Broadway like tune, while on A Long Drive to Tarzana, Davies again manages to channel those two pillars of truly American rock, Lou Reed and its love for distortion and Young love for country tinged gospel tunes, and is precisely Young´s influence which mostly resounds here, and then, for a great closing, Davies brought us two awesome tunes, the rocking The Great Highway, a great piece that wouldn’t sound out of place on a Kinks album, it’s funny that such songs sounds a lot like Mott The Hopple to me, because I´ve never noted what seems to be a big influence of Davies on Ian Hunter´s songs, strange because I thought Hunter was closer to Lou Reed, and then  comes the las song named called Wings of Fantasy, a perfectly fit ending for a an ambitious album that bring us the best set of songs Davies has wrote in years, we might have lost Lou Reed and Leonard Cohen recently, Wilson is a little bit lost, Dylan is still mesmerized by the American Songbook, but Davies has come to America to sing about the sheer beauty of it.