Album Review: CJ Wildheart - "Lives"
It's weird to think that it's now 28 years since CJ first split from the Wildhearts to form Honeycrack with Willie Dowling. Of course, he's reunited and split again with Ginger on a few occasions since but it's probably fair to say that the guy's definitely earned the right to release a greatest hits album, freshly re-recorded in the aftermath of the Wildhearts' recent decision to go on hiatus.
Kicking in with the brutal riff-fest of State Of Us from last year's Siege album, Lives is a good summary of the last three decades of CJ's solo work taking in new versions of his Wildhearts songs (Little Flower, Hit It On The Head, Allein), Honeycrack (Go Away and the evergreen Sitting At Home), the Jellys (Lemonade Girl, your correspondent's old favourite Milk 'n' Honey), the Satellites (Girl's On Fire) and his four solo albums to date. The latter selection definitely remind you that CJ's come up with some pretty good stuff in the last decade from the lurching Down The Drain through the anger of Kentucky Fried, Tea Leaf and 50% Indian to the epic Sleep Deprivation and the brickbat heaviness of Peking Duck and Shit Brick.
Although he's maybe never quite got the plaudits that his bandmate Ginger has, Lives shows that CJ is a good songwriter in his own right and there's more than a few bands I could mention who'd probably give their collective left arms to have a back catalogue of this quality to pick and choose from. Well worth a listen for those who are unfamiliar with his work away from the Wildhearts and even those who've got most of the stuff on here already might find a few surprises (certainly the extended seven minute version of closer Mid-Life Crisis sees CJ building on the original in style) to make it worth a look.
NITE SONGS RATING: 🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌑🌑 (8/10)
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