Little Feat
Time Loves A Hero
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To enjoy Time Loves a Hero—in fact to enjoy Little Feat at all these days—involves a trick of perspective. One has to forget the band's first three albums, the ones that Lowell George dominated, and think of this newest LP as the culmination of an identity that's been evolving through the group's second set of three LPs. For die-hards, that suggestion may not go down easy. But Time Loves a Hero is unequivocally not Lowell George's LP. He wrote one song, coauthored another, sings only occasionally and contributes little of his dramatic, instantly identifiable slide guitar. Gone are the hesitation rhythms, the arcane, colorful lyrics, the slightly anarchic
Read More sonorities. Which is not to say that the new LP is any sort of failure. The songs and singing are now guitarist Paul Barrere and keyboardist Bill Payne's bailiwick, and are designed to take advantage of Little Feat's funk-rock proficiency. The two crucial points here are that Little Feat combines funk and rock better, and certainly more naturally, than other similarly inclined groups; and that the new material not only takes advantage of a strong, flexible rhythm section but also provides better melodies than did the previous two albums. And Little Feat is now a more instrumentally inclined, and jazz-influenced, aggregation. That's immediately obvious from the long instrumental, "Day at the Dog Races," which wants to take the best from Weather Report, the original Mahavishnu Orchestra and the current Jeff Beck, and partly succeeds. But the jazz influence is even more effectively incorporated in the album's brooding standout, Bill Payne's "Red Streamliner," which creates a Little Feat jazz-rock sound as identifiable as that of Steely Dan. And if that tack is pursued, the fact that Lowell George has gone his own way will begin to seem more and more unimportant. (RS 242) PETER HERBST |
