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Posthumous albums are often dicey, made up unfinished business left in the vaults for good reason. So far that hasn’t been the case for the unreleased work of the late NIKKI SUDDEN. The Truth Doesn’t Matter, the album the English rock & roller had completed just before his untimely death, turned out to be the pinnacle of his long career.
Which brings us to Golden Vanity, Sudden’s collaboration with fellow expat Brit singer/songwriter PHIL SHOENFELT. Recorded in 1998, the album was shelved due to…well, as with so many of Sudden’s “career moves,” it’s not particularly clear why. It’s certainly not due to a lack of quality – the songs here, mostly collaborations between the two men, are among the strongest of Sudden’s career. Shoenfelt, a fine tunesmith in his own right, brings a certain discipline to Sudden’s FACES-like instinctual style, giving the songs a craft that Sudden hadn’t enjoyed before (but would revisit on his final albums). The arrangements, too, are tighter than is Sudden’s norm, with the whole record shining with a kind of psychedelic, mildly gothic folk rock glow. Even Sudden’s singing has improved, still casual and cavalier in regards to key, but never sloppy – again, a trend that continued in his last works.
That’s not to say there’s anything you’d call slick – tight professionalism is the antithesis of what made Sudden great. Indeed, “Bang a Gong,” an affectionate tribute to T. REX that retains Sudden’s trademark looseness, and the psychedelic jam-out “Jamboree Bag” are as far from slick as you can get. But the strength of collaborations “Teenage Sheets,” “Cloak of Virtue” and “Hangman’s Daughter” and solo compositions like Sudden’s “Golden Door” and “Hanoi Jane” and Shoenfelt’s “Love Makes Her Shine” and “Waiting For You” is as much in their craftsmanship as their passion and spirit. Simply put, a great record.
http://www.myspace.com/nikkisudden
http://www.myspace.com/philshoenfeltsoutherncross
