"Does anybody need another self-righteous rock singer?" asked an acutely frustrated LOU REED on the epoch-defining "New York" album.
Well, that's a fair point, Lou. But then an acutely frustrated public drowning in a sea of compilations and re-issues could equally ask: "Does anybody need another Lou Reed live album?" - especially after the seismic "Rock'n'Roll Animal" and the deluge of vitriol that is "Take No Prisoners": arguably Lou Reed's very own "Metallic K.O". There again, after the nuclear disaster area that was "Live In Italy" perhaps the balance does need readressing somewhat.
And certainly "Animal Serenade" is a worthwhile effort for several reasons. Recorded at Los Angeles' cavernous Wiltern Theatre on 2003's World Tour with tried and tested sidekicks Fernando Saunders and Mike Rathke in tow, it's a snapshot of a Reed we don't often see.
For starters, you don't often hear the usually terse, taciturn Lou engaging with so much audience banter. OK, an atmosphere of cynicism prevails (this is Lou Reed after all) and you can do without him vamping it up and ruining "Small Town" (from the under-rated "Songs For Drella") by continually insisting "we don't use backing tapes, every fucking note you hear is us, right?". However, there's some genuinely funny stuff here - not least when Lou introduces his 're-write' of Edgar Allen Poe's "The Raven" with "he didn't ask me to re-write it, he's been dead."
Once you've got over the shock of Lou the raconteur, the other tantalising aspect is the wealth of unlikely material from Reed's awesome catalogue on display. Over 2 lengthy CDS and 20 tracks in all, he dips into albums such as "The Blue Mask," "Set The Twilight Reeling", "Street Hassle" and there's three tracks from the morose masterpiece "Berlin" to cap it all off.
All of which sounds tempting and it does ensure there are some wonderful moments here, though funnily enough it's when Lou and co strip it back that "Animal Serenade" really comes off. To this end we get subtle beauties like "Tell It To Your Heart", the gorgeous string-drenched piano ballad "Vanishing Act"; a still affecting "Day John Kennedy Died" and an elegiac "Men Of Good Fortune": still one of "Berlin"s finest moments and treated with due respect here.
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Inevitably, Lou also dips into the Velvets' none-more influential back catalogue. This hasn't always worked in his favour in recent years and here the results are a mixed blessing. "All Tomorrow's Parties", for example, is re-invented with an efficient new groove and misses out on the otherworldly atmosphere altogether, while the mournful "Venus In Furs" gets spoilt by some avant-garde John Cale-esque viola from Jane Scarpantoni, although it's still better than Lou giving it the "whoo yeah!s" he ruined it with on The Velvets reunion tour, so small mercies and all that. Funnily enough, probably the best Velvets-related moment is the opiated grace of "Candy Says", accentuated by violin and a delicious vocal from Fernando Saunders.
The thought of several of the tracks gives you the fear, but funnily enough both "The Bed" (from "Berlin") and the Poe 're-write' "The Raven" are actually pretty good. The former is as heartbreaking as ever, while the 10-minute latter may be as high-brow and po-faced as you'd imagine, but it falls into place via an enigmatic intro recalling "Dime Store Mystery" and becomes a phantasmagorical success. By comparison, you imagine both "Dirty BLVD" and "How Do You Think It Feels" will be great, but they're chaotic, sloppy and fall way short. Oh well.
"Animal Serenade", then, is too uneven, sprawling and sometimes cheaply executed to scale the heights of another "Rock'n'Roll Animal". However, if you have the patience to trawl (and hell, this is Lou Reed, he still bears indulging) then you'll be rewarded with geat moments to eclipse the perfunctory versions of "Walk On The Wild Side" and "Perfect Day" we're usually palmed off with. That, in itself, suggests we have room for this particular Lou Reed live album.
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