Smog Rain On Lens

In the early aughts, after a decade performing as Smog, Bill Callahan thought he might start recording under his own name. This made the record company nervous, so a compromise was struck: how about (Smog) instead? That gambit only worked for a year or so, and then we got some therapy for our nerves and he got the name change we all deserved: Bill Callahan, if you please, full stop, no parentheses needed, end of story. And since then, life just gets increasingly better. . .Rain On Lens was the first of three records to be released with the brackets - a chiaroscuro-draped passage between Dongs of Sevotion and Supper, if you will. Rife with the further adventures and evolution in the Callahanian tongue that continue to dazzle the world everytime he makes another new one. And always with at least one classic ballad (here it's "Live As If Someone Is Always Watching You"- but imagine "Keep Some Steady Friends Around" with just a guitar backing it! Total melter), the unblinking-yet-compassionate character study ("Lazy Rain"), a masterful comic vignette ("Short Drive"), and the through-the-looking-glass set closer ("Revanchism"). Check and double-check, Rain On Lens!It's quite the record. But it was out of print on vinyl since the end of 2016.