2006 was a tumultuous year in my life. We moved from Michigan, where I had spent my first 41 years on this planet, to Cleveland. I had to transfer to a new store. My wife was pregnant with our son. I had hernia surgery. I began using a CPAP machine. However, it was a good year for album releases from some of my favorite bands; like Kasabian, The Flaming Lips, Silversun Pickups and Sparklehorse. By far, the best release was Fort Recovery by Centro-matic. Over the past ten years, I have posted quite a bit about Centro-matic; especially singer-songwriter Will Johnson. In fact, I mentioned him in yesterday's post. I still have a fantasy about being asked to write Will Johnson's biography and I would call it "Patience For the Ride".
By 2006, Centro-matic had progressed light years from the ramshackle brilliance of 1996's Redo the Stacks to well produced alt-country. Fort Recovery saw them take another step into straight up indie rock. The band consisted of Johnson on vocals and lead guitar, Scott Danbom on keys, Mark Hedman on bass and the tastefully bombastic drumming and deft production of Matt Pence. Matt Pence was the secret weapon of Centro-matic. I refer to them in the past tense because they broke up about 7 or 8 years ago. However, they recently got together for a couple hometown shows, so keep hope alive.
The spirit of Fort Recovery is encapsulated in the soaring closing track "Take a Rake"; "Tell us tales through alcohol eyes. Count the refills until the sun starts to rise". The song rides out with Pence beating the shit out of the drums and Will playing a distorted guitar freakout. It's fitting because the album opens with distorted guitar on the otherwise beautiful track "Covered Up in Mines". This is followed by the chugging power of "Calling Thermatico". When I saw them live at the Beachland Tavern, Will started to introduce "Calling Thermatico" as a "awful" story of baseball and murder, then he stopped and said, "Well, it's not awful. You can be the judge"; or something to that effect. It was a long time ago.
My favorite song on Fort Recovery, and probably the one that sums up the Centro-matic sound best, is "Patience For the Ride". That is followed by one of Johnson's most poignant songs, "I See Through You". It contains the verse "Don't talk, just listen to all the voices Nature brung. Pray the light will keep you til your final song, because the more I learn about this world the less I find that I'm afraid to die". There's another great run of songs in the middle of the album, "For New Starts", "The Fugitives Have Won", "Monument Sails" and "Triggers and Trash Heaps". "The Fugitives Have Won" has a great piece of songwriting; "If I held you up to fire I would see a reddish frame of rust around your soul's transparency. And you, you with your beauty and I with my spleen. I'll hitchhike to your bonfire in my suit of gasoline".
Fort Recovery is a sonic back road through hope and desperation and loss and perserverance. The songwriting is masterful and the playing is inspired. There really isn't a bad song on this album. I actually just went on You Tube and found the video of Centro-matic playing "Calling Thermatico" at the Beachland. It's hard to make out exactly how Will introduced the song, but I will attach it to this post. Peace.
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