Eating Food At A Certain Time Of Day: The Hans Condor Review

I was really, really excited when I tried out my freshly magic-markered CD of the Hans Condor album that isn’t available on CD, Sweat, Piss, Jizz & Blood. Somethin’ Happenin’ Here, the opening track, strikes me as a cross between the Dolls, The Replacements and The Unband, as does the whole album. And that’s a good thing.

This first track is a bit more Stones-y than anything else included and I found myself unable to pull it out of player before it was complete. It’s rare these days that I can even get through most things I haven’t heard before. I’ve been through the album four times in its entirety now, so here goes:

The first four tracks absolutely smoke, climaxing with Conversations, my personal favorite. I wanted to include a youtube of that song but the only thing available is a barely-recognizable, horrible-audio live version from Philly in 2011. Believe me, it’s not worth finding, but the album version is.

Unfortunately, from there the album disintegrates into an early Replacements album, a great tune (Stitches), a good tune (Time, Rhyme, Reason) and an OK tune (Just Remember Have Fun) live among some jokesy-folksy stuff and, for me, a boring clunker (My Lyin’ Mind), which may be the consensus highlight of the album for reasons unknown to me.

Overall, I like the rawness, but certainly wouldn’t mind hearing the band with proper production either. Overall, I like the rawness, but I’d love a rhythm guitar in here too.

I’d rate the album somewhere between good and very good and it will give me something to listen to for a couple weeks. Those first four songs are mighty and I wish the rest of the album could keep up.

One thought on “Eating Food At A Certain Time Of Day: The Hans Condor Review

  1. Mostly agree. It would be a plus to have the great arrangements be a little, um, cleaner isn’t the right word, but sounding better.

    And I love My Lyin’ Mind, which is a pretty straight up slow blues, and brilliant. The jokesy folksy comes late enough that it doesn’t dissipate the raw energy of the album’s start, and reminds me of those early Cream records, which had some real lameness among the power.

    Not a great album, but many great moments, and great potential. Yeah to the rhythm guitar, too!

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