Home Read Classic Album Review: Shivaree | Who’s Got Trouble?

Classic Album Review: Shivaree | Who’s Got Trouble?

This came out in 2005 – or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):

 


When your name is Ambrosia Parsley, there are only so many career paths open to you. You can be a celebrity chef. You can be an actress. You can be a romance novelist. Or you can be a pop singer.

Clearly, Shivaree’s leader — who was supposedly born with her unique handle — made a good decision. If you’d like to make one, seek out Parsley and co.’s third CD Who’s Got Trouble? Although it doesn’t pack the titular punch of their ’99 debut I Oughtta Give You a Shot in the Head for Making Me Live in This Dump, you’ll have no trouble loving it. That is, if you can love a woman whose girlish, breathy voice brings to mind Billie Holiday or Rickie Lee Jones, even when she’s covering Brian Eno’s Fat Lady of Limbourg or tossing out political metaphors on her own New Casablanca. It’s also cool if you dig a boho jazzbo band who serve a hearty musical banquet of lumpy grooves a la mid-period Tom Waits. If you can’t love that, well, maybe you’re the one who’s got trouble.