Indoor Safari by Nick Lowe
For more than 50 years, Nick Lowe has made rock and roll—plus folk, plus punk, plus pop, plus country, plus lounge—look and sound easy. Perhaps that ease comes from how his voice has aged as well as any fromage the French have nestled into a cave, with results as mellow and crumbly.
Perhaps it comes from Lowe’s willingness to wait until he feels like making an album: Indoor Safari is his first new LP since 2013’s Holiday Street, which was primarily a Christmas cracker. Or perhaps it comes from the energy implied by the phrase emblazoned across the current release’s cover—“Powered by Los Straitjackets.”
Those Nashville-based would-be luchadores and true guitar-treble heroes have toured with Lowe for years, and recorded sporadically with him too, so it’s no special surprise that Indoor Safari is tight ‘n’ right from the first: “Went to a Party” not only revives rockabilly but also simulates those rare soirees that glaze the hours between midnight and dawn with a romantic shine.
That opener splits co-writing credit among Lowe and the four Straitjackets, which suggests that that they should go to, or throw, many more parties together. Writing most of the album solo, however, Lowe stays romantic with the simple sophistication that’s defined his discography since 1994’s The Impossible Bird.
Hinting at tropicália with the groove of “Love Starvation,” musically and lyrically quoting the Beatles’ “Please Please Me” late in the Space Age rock of “Jet Pac [sic] Boomerang,” or surfing toward “Tokyo Bay,” Lowe casts no longing glances toward ultramodern styles or production. He saves his adoration for “retro,” a.k.a. classic.
With Los Straitjackets abetting his classicist gaze, and with that gaze sonically embodied by the utter warmth of his voice, Lowe makes Indoor Safari a (heavy) petting zoo. At 75, he’s more old-school than old.
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