Ladies and gentlemen, Elvis has arrived in the building (complete with a list of several hundred music lovers who made this appearance possible).

Earlier this year Phil Odgers, a.k.a. Swill, released a seven-song CD, a preview of his new Elvis Lives Here disc. The idea was to help raise funds for the new album through this online collection of unfinished takes and additional tracks. Folks who anted up and bought the limited edition EP would get their names included in the thank-you notes on the finished album.

Now we have the finished product, and the final versions of the songs that show up on both releases are sufficiently different that diehard fans of Swill & the Swaggerband will want to own both. Four of the earlier tracks resurface on the Elvis Lives Here release, and while "Drag You Down" and "Just a Dial Tone Away" benefit from the additional studio production that has been added, I prefer the earlier, barer-bones versions of "Shed Fire" and the title track.

As for the completely new material, "World of Discontent" -- "who cares for you when the world goes wrong?" -- is a bouncy, upbeat melody married to downbeat lyrics. The mix is perfectly Swill, smiling in the face of adversity, and it captures the essence of this release -- and its central problem. Swill often deals with serious subjects in his lyrics but can't seem to bring himself to construct similarly weighty melody lines and arrangements. Unfortunately, this sometimes results in songs that feel fluffier than they ought.

The one place where Swill manages to overcome this tendency is "In the Breeze," a collaboration with Paul Simmonds (The Men They Couldn't Hang). Simmonds' lyrics to "In the Breeze" deal with one family's personal fallout from the Iraq war. The arrangement -- acoustic guitar, accordion, fiddle and, briefly, banjo and mandolin -- is appropriately stark and melancholy. Even here Swill's smooth vocal delivery softens the edges of the story and one wonders what the song might have sounded like in the hands of a Joe Strummer or Billy Bragg.

"The Drinkers" is pure pub-fodder -- "We're the drinkers baby and you'd better face it, if there is a party, we're bound to disgrace it."-- and we're back in familiar Swill territory. "Deep Blue Sea" and "Missing" are pleasant, if unexceptional, tracks, though the addition of Marsha Swanson's vocals on "Missing" helps differentiate the track from the rest of Elvis Lives Here. "Give 'Em Enough Hope" is a bit of a silly inclusion, one that feels as though it's been lifted from a Clint Eastwood spaghetti-western soundtrack by way of Roger Whittaker.

The album closes with the a cappella number, "Marjory & Johnny." It's an ideal finish, highlighting Swill's unadorned vocal talents, and this approach lends the track the gravitas needed to make it stand apart.

Elvis Lives Here is a solid album and Swill fans ought to be pleased, especially those who helped make this disc a reality. But I don't think it has the punch, the distinctiveness, to reach out to a significant new audience. For that Swill may have to rely on his live show and this new material seems perfectly suited to the task of winning over a live audience.

by Gregg Thurlbeck
Rambles.NET
4 November 2006