Reviews
ALBUMS
TEEA GOANS
BRYAN COLLINS
All Over the Map
Life Is Great
MOVIE BY JAY SPIGHT
PIG DIRECTOR Michael Sarnoski
Teea Goans’ first four albums established the singer as a traditional, country-leaning song stylist, quietly winning her an international fan base without the intrusions of household-name status. Goans built a sincere and sturdy (though essentially hitless) indie career with expert guidance and production from former Capitol Records exec Terry Choate. The artist’s fifth outing plays more like a debut, being her first effort as a songwriter rather than an interpreter of outside (and often older) compositions. This reinvention was spearheaded by longtime Nashville session musician and songwriter Jim “Moose” Brown, who served as producer and co-writer on the album’s 10 songs, the diversity of which informs the album’s title, All Over the Map. The collection could have been summed up just as fittingly with the rollicking honky-tonker “There’s More to Me,” the album’s sole clue to the singer’s old-school country roots as well as a sly declaration of independence from them. The track wraps up an opening three-song sequence that reveals Goans’ authentic inner landscape before All Over the Map takes a left turn into uncharted territory. The warm intimacy of marital contentment whispers beneath “Easy,” the antithesis of stormy relationship songs like the lounge-blues ballad “What’s a Girl to Do” and “Untangled,” on which Goans’ muscular vocal attains a previously unheard intensity. This combination of easygoing personal expressions and dramatic, faux-first-person story songs creates a sometimes uneasy bipolarity. Goans is still finding the balance between her new voice and her true voice. Those two streams converge comfortably enough on “The Detour” and “The Beat of a Backroad.” Still, neither possesses the perspective of “That’s What I Know,” featuring vocals from Vince Gill. A spiritually informed manifesto, it strikes a near-universal chord, save for a few references that sweetly tie it to Southern American sentimentality. — STEVE MORLEY
Middle Tennessee progressive-rock guitarist, vocalist and music lover Bryan Collins has released his debut, full-length album Life Is Great, the vinyl version of the release reinvigorating the process of thumbing through a record collection to find a curiosity-listen based on the album cover. Collins, a veteran Marine, describes finding a life love in Life Is Great, one, seemingly, in front of him the whole album’s time. The track listing, filled with Collins’ Les Paul riffs, travels from the percussive dinner bell in “Live for the Moment” to church bells in “Think About It” leading to “Smiling,” a tongue-in-cheek insinuation that it’s not a smile of happiness, but a choice to holster a love unrequited instead of risking an “I love you” to a friend. There’s an unsettling vagueness instead of closure by the end of the 10 tracks, dropping the notion of love completely at the end. (Bryan, who is the “girl” in “Worst Side of Hell?” Is that a Marine song or the unrequited sufferer’s song? Or both? Did the girl stay with an abusive boyfriend?) A Marine’s independent, trained-to-be-okay mentality may also be in play in “Fire It Up” and the well-composed “All About the Band.” Life Is Great blends some Alan Parsons progressive rock with Boston’s arena might (on the title track, for sure), along with some apparent influence of Moody Blues, on the intro of “Think About It” and the “Nights in White Satin” groove of “All About the Band.” The latter bears some Roger Waters somberness, as does “Worst Side of Hell.” The production throughout the release is noticeably focused on Collins’ guitar. He’s an axe-man, understand, but the high-register guitar riffs can sometimes distract from the vocals, the keyboard work and all of the other instrumentation. Life Is Great is a darkly private, sardonic take on being in a crush from the heart of a trained-to-belone man seeing happiness within his reach. — BRYCE HARMON
STARRING Nicolas Cage, Alex Wolff, Adam Arkin RATED R
With the string of gonzo choices actor Nicolas Cage has been making lately, it’s a fair bet that Pig could easily be miscategorized as a hyperviolent revenge fever dream à la Mandy, or a hyperviolent kitsch-fest à la Willy’s Wonderland. While Cage’s near-mute character Rob shares similar monosyllabic tendencies with his characters in those films (hell, he doesn’t have even a single line in the later example), writer/director Michael Sarnoski’s debut feature imbues Cage’s quiet character with so much more than one might initially expect from a movie that can accurately be summed up as: someone steals Nicolas Cage’s pig. Cage plays Rob, a grizzled hermit living in the Oregon wilderness with his pig, Pig. Together they hunt for truffles, a fancy restaurant staple, and Rob sells them to Amir (Alex Wolff, Hereditary) who picks them up at Rob’s hovel every Thursday in his swanky suit and gaudy yellow Camaro. One night, a masked couple breaks in and steals Pig, knocking out Rob in the process, leaving a streak of blood down the side of his face that he never washes off. This sends Rob on an epic journey to Portland to find his pig, with Amir and his yellow Camaro as Rob’s ride and only connection.
This seemingly silly concept is never treated as such, and instead is the foundation for a noir-ish meditation on love and loss. Rob’s search for Pig brings him back into a world he all but disappeared from 15 years ago, a world of high cuisine and cutthroat competition that most of us are only familiar with via the Food Network. But Sarnoski’s wide lens slowly uncovers Rob’s past and the life he left behind, the seediness and corruption between suppliers, and the phony pretension in the bubbles of scallop foam, while also savoring the brilliance of a simple salted baguette. All the while, Wolff ’s buttoned-up Amir begins to find that it is not just his family name and expensive tastes that are opening doors, but the unwashed, bloody-faced Rob’s reputation that garners the most respect. Of course, all of this plot pontificating wouldn’t be possible without the sparse but elegant script from Sarnoski and Vanessa Block, and the excellent performances from Cage and Wolff, along with the entire cast. Shot in and around Portland, the sometimes stunning, sometimes subtle cinematography provides a beautiful backdrop for Rob’s odyssey. Pig is the film Cage does once every five to 10 years, between all the wacky fun ones, that reminds those of us who might’ve forgotten what a renaissance man he truly is. Broken into three parts, this tight 90-minute movie might not be what you’d normally expect from Cage, but it should also come as no surprise. Available to rent on Amazon. — JAY SPIGHT
BOROPULSE.COM
* OCTOBER 2021 * 17
