Guitarist Ivan Julian’s colorful career speaks for itself, with stints in the Outsets, Osaka Popstar’s and Matthew Sweet’s touring bands, the Fauntleroys, and, oh yeah, being an original member of Richard Hell’s Voidoids. Amazingly, despite being in business since the mid-seventies, the ax flash has made only one other solo album to date, 2009’s The Naked Flame. Swing Your Lanterns channels several spirits from seventies and eighties New York, reflecting his own versatile experiences: the slashing funk rock of “Cut Me Loose,” the soul-frosted ballad “Love is Good,” the twangy noir of “VooDoo Christmas,” the gnarled punkabilly of “Wild,” the brooding groove pop of “I Am Not a Drone (Alone).” Much like his late peer Tom Verlaine, Julian has an untrained voice that would never pass muster on American Idol, but has character and confidence to spare, and his guitar work sounds as singular now as it did on Blank Generation. Julian has long been relegated to the category of interesting, meant as both a compliment and a dismissal, but Swing Your Lanterns has enough of the goods to make a smart listener re-evaluate that opinion.
