Nick Lowe Indoor Safari 2024

Nick Lowe made four excellent "crooning" records between 1998 and 2011. They were fine outings each one, and established a distinguished late career revival. Lowe toured these records mostly solo and those shows were killer, and of course he did a few of his earlier hits as well. In 2013 he made the unusually good holiday record Quality Street: A Seasonal Selection for All the Family. When he toured the record he began his association with Los Straightjackets, and a live album from the tour was released in 2015. There was also a hot live record (download only) Live at the Haw River Ballroom in 2020, again with Los Straightjackets. It is super good. Check it out.

Los Straightjackets have returned Lowe to some of the rockabilly of his early outfit Rockpile, and they can play just about any style. Eddie Angel is a wonderful guitar player and Chris Sprague stands out behind the drum kit. They have brought back the rocking to Lowe's performances. It's not the basher of old, but there's energy that those 1998-2011 records lacked. 

Between 2018-2020, most of the songs on Indoor Safari were released as singles and EPs. There's only two songs here that haven't been previously released in some form, but most have been newly rerecorded for this record. And what a swell record it is. Lowe is still in laid back mode, but with Los Straightjackets things are going to rock, and that they do. Lowe has written a bunch of great songs, as usual, with good melodies and hooky chorusses, and his singing is his not-so-secret weapon. There's only one slow ballad, the lovely Different Kind of Blue, and the rest swings and pops and rocks.

Standouts include Raincoat In The River, an old Ricky Nelson song, and Bert Bacharach and Hal David's Blue On Blue, first recorded by Bobby Vinton in 1963. Lowe's humorous Went To A Party, sad Love Starvation, the bad girl can't be resisted Jet Pack Boomerang, and rockabilly Toyko Bay are highlights. An unusually happy Lay It On Me, the lyrical twist of Don't Be Nice To Me, and especially the play that sad song one more time of Trombone show Lowe working his talented pen, and Los Straightjackets keeping the backbeat coming. There isn't a clunker in the set. Every Eddie Hazel lead guitar break is perfect. 

Lowe has never made any bad records, and since the career standout The Impossible Bird in 1994, he's been on a thirty-year hot streak. 

I did a career overview here.