This is incredibly the 30th full-length album from Jeff Kelly’s largely anonymous gang of psychedelia-loving alt-country veterans; ‘Death By Misadventure’ is not so much an anniversary celebration as yet another reminder of the group’s true claim to fame. GREEN PAJAMAS’ unlikely place at the head of Seattle music history as the city’s oldest and most prolific band of all time is completely at odds with a strictly underground and largely accidental existence that can be traced right back back to the early Eighties.
The group’s bizarre longevity owes much to fate, and the relative success of early 7” single ‘Kim The Waitress’ (still by far their most widespread success), as the release of subsequent cover versions by two other Seattle groups prompted the five-piece to reform four years after splitting in 1990.
Nevertheless, their solid reputation for churning out consistently strong melodic and inventive pop has long since established Kelly and co-founder Joe Ross as cult heroes amongst those in the know, thanks largely to their highly inventive ‘country-is-a-state-of-mind’ approach to song-writing.
This landmark release, featuring 16-tracks split equally into two subtitled groups, was obviously structured for 12” vinyl. What’s more, any pops and crackles would have no problem blending in as the album kicks off with the absorbing, fuzzy-edged flourish of ‘You Can’t Look’. Tremelo-arm distortion is aligned with frequent high-key music-box dropouts, it certainly reaps the benefits of an unfathomable and atmospheric mix.
A children’s choir chorus magnifies the ethereal charm of brief Ring Around The Sun’ just seconds before its seamless merger with the horn-honking cacophony of ‘The Universe Is Full Of Noise’
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There’s an element of pantomime suspense about ‘Queen’s Last Tango’ thanks to the accordion that also dominates the showpiece offering ‘The Queen Bee Is Dead’, cited by Kelly and Ross as the record’s creative starting point.
Underneath all this conceptual chaos, the key features of country remain more or less in place. Multiple narrators populate the songs with a myriad cast of characters and plenty of pastoral imagery, as sporadic drunkenness enhances the wistful and reflective mood with a compulsory dash of self-pity and confusion.
The latter half of the record is studded with heavy guitar riffs. Prog-rock ethics illuminate Hammond-driven tracks like ‘Piece Of A Dream’ and ‘2nd To The Reward’ athough Kelly’s trademark penchant for the psychedelic only reaches it’s zenith during the penultimate polka-influenced poignancy of ‘In The Moonlit Dim’.
Like all good storytellers, THE GREEN PAJAMAS save the best until last: as the album title strongly suggests there’s no happy-ever-after to halt the fast-intensifying sadness and eventual tragedy as the record finally self-destructs in nightmare slow motion.
Apathetic rather than ambient, the incidental loungecore finale of ‘The Spell’ is a powerful lesson in futility. Appropriately suicidal, it spells out the sense of helplessness that’s always a parting shot for real tragedy.
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