It’s been 12 years It’s been years since Nick Lowe released a new album, but the revered 75-year-old rock & roller sophisticate is back on his game with Indoor SafariIt’s an album of clever, carefully crafted tracks steeped in ’50s rockabilly and early ’60s British Invasion greats, sounds he’s been channelling and reinventing since he was a leader of the British pub-rock and punk scene in the mid-’70s. He sets the tone with “Went to a Party,” an image of a middle-aged man donning his suit and boldly leaving his house for a night out that could have been A little bit of Kinks In 1965, he was having a great time, dancing until a quarter to four and chatting with his party mates “over a glass of Campari.” He was even recognized by a fan, which was great, although the music expert confused Nick with another beloved white-haired punk musician, Robyn Hitchcock. Oh, well, life goes on. It was Lowe’s signature: affectionate retro rock delivered with joy, wit and good-natured irony.
He’s always been one of the best musicians on the scene. Lowe got his start in the late ’60s with Brinsley Schwarz, who were like The Band of power pop. By the mid-’70s, he’d become a British star with lively, warm, wickedly catchy hits like “Cruel to Be Kind” and “So It Goes,” and produced early albums by Elvis Costello and Graham Parker, who shared his music’s blend of punk spirit and traditional singer-songwriter craftsmanship. But where Parker and Costello were angry young men reviving Dylanian nastiness, Lowe always seemed more bewildered than angry, even when singing “I Love the Sound of Breaking Glass,” from his great 1978 album, Jesus of Cool. It’s telling that Costello’s most beloved song is a version of Lowe’s generously questioning protest call “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace Love and Understanding.” His output over the years has been intermittent. He was part of the tasteful supergroups Rockpile and Little Village, and reached his peak in the 1990s Party of onewhere he uttered the perfectly rhymed line “Do you remember Rick Astley?/He had a big fat hit, it was gastly.” His most recent records, such as 2007s At my age and 2011 The old magichad a lived intimacy and a discreet, sometimes dejected tone.
A few years ago, he teamed up with Los Straitjackets, a Nashville surf-rock band that performs in Mexican wrestling masks. They’re backing him here, too, and Lowe seems spirited and playful. Indoor Safari comes with the following warning: “This record should be played at 33 1/3 rpm on equipment specially designed for stereophonic records, incorporating a stereophonic pickup and a two-channel amplifier driving two loudspeakers.” But it’s not at all cringe-worthy; its deliberately kitschy cover is a better representation of the record’s playful, self-aware spirit.
Lowe takes the exuberant, edgy sounds of Sun Records, Buddy Holly, Gene Vincent, Ricky Nelson and the early British Invasion and twists them to fit his own story. Songs like “Jet Pac Boomerang” and “Tokyo Baby” are novelty hits that rock too hard to sound like jokes. On “Raincoat in the River,” his raw vocals add a touch of resilience to the song’s raw rockabilly and carefree lyrics.
Lowe gives all his retro gestures a personal touch. “Love Starvation” is a lovelorn teenage desolation told from the perspective of a guy who looks in the mirror and wonders, “If only I could turn back time.” The wonderfully luminous “Crying Inside” is even deeper; the song is so good you wonder if it’s a ’50s hit you didn’t know about, until you catch him dropping hints of mortality like “Pretty soon I’m gonna slip away.” The sense that there’s something real and human going on beneath what could be just playful nostalgia gives the album its soul, adding more emotional weight to the grinding sadness of “Blue on Blue” or “Different Kind of Blue.”
It makes the album’s happier moments even more fun. On “Lay It on Me Baby,” he skips down the street with his hat to one side, savoring a sunny day as the guitars thump and swell around him, carrying him to the next party or the next heartbreak or whatever. Let’s just hope he keeps going and makes a few more records like this. Indoor Safari he looks like he’s having the time of his life.
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