True Love Cast Out All Evil

Folk-country-rock numbers by Erickson (13th Floor Elevators), selected and produced by Will Sheff and backed by Okkervil River (Sheff's excellent indie-folk-rock band). Liner notes include a lengthy Roky bio and backstory for the project, written quite movingly by Sheff. He casts Roky as a musical genius kept from well-deserved fame by decades of misfortune and abuse from all directions. True as this may be, the project is uncomfortably patronizing on Sheff's part, and it's tough to see the band take a break at the height of their career to attempt to revive another one. I'm not sure whether Erickson delivers on Sheff's build-up, and much of the framework won't make much sense without the extensive backstory, but hey, these are good songs with good arrangements, and I'm glad Erickson got to release them. Start with 3, 5, 8. FCC clean. –Andy

1 - Intro track: low-fidelity, sweet folk-pop recording from Roky's institution days (ends up sounding like GBV in several ways), studio organ creeps in, ends in chaos
2 - Quick, simple folk; voice over acoustic guitar and organ
*3 - Cathartic, dark, noisy country rock
4 - Gentle folky waltz-ballad, spotlights Roky's fantastic gruff drawl
*5 - Good old rock and roll, nicely arranged and pretty catchy
6 - Real sad and slow, autobiographical; with the backstory it's quite moving
7 - Loud, angry rock with grabbingly spastic vocals, ends with 30 seconds of speech and some kind of performance recording
*8 - Bare, plodding folk-rock hymnal
9 - Mellow soft rock with some nice soul to the vocals, sentimental strings
10 - Tediously long sentimental pop spiced up with questionable instrumental choices… starting to sound like Christian rock
11 - Contemplative country with ambient ending stretch
12 - Another lo-fi back-catalog recording (very similar to 1), prefaced with bird sounds held over from 1;, studio strings complement the sweet folk-pop nicely and continue past the original recording