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Chuck revels in his musical bipolar disorder on No Other Love. What Can I Tell You... Chuck Prophet's sixth album, No Other Love, finds him relaxed, confident and mixing it up By Jeff Palfini Girlfriend-stealing male strippers, Pancho and Leftyesque burglars on the run, acid trips at Disneyland - the eleven tracks on Chuck Prophet's new album have a little something for everyone. Prophet's sixth release, No Other Love (New West Records), which becomes available in stores on June 18th, is a patchwork of musical storytelling, inventive instrumentation, and rock 'n' roll swagger that comes together in a balanced, assured and truly original album. No Other Love picks up where Prophet's last release, The Hurting Business (HighTone Records, 2000), left off. Again Prophet and his backing band march in an army of rare and obscure instruments and found sounds, infusing each song with a style all its own. Where The Hurting Business toyed with hiphop sampling and needle drops, No Other Love has a Southern bluesy/gospel vein running through it, thick with organs, piano, saxophones, and even a Casio making an appearance on the eighth track, "That's How Much I Need Your Love." As can always be expected from Prophet, No Other Love thrives on his guitar handiwork and deep, throaty voice - a voice which prompted altcountry singer Kelly Willis to remark, "If I could sing like anyone, I'd like to sing like Chuck Prophet." On No Other Love, Prophet moves with ease from achingly beautiful ballads like "After the Rain" and "No Other Love" to organpounding screamers like "Elouise" and "Run Primo Run." That's a good thing, because he tends to change gears quite a bit on the album. Prophet's musical mood swings, particularly on No Other Love, were a topic of conversation in an interview I had with him in April. "I just think that the rock 'n' roll stuff is a little more of the inner child, a little freakier," Prophet said. "And I think the prettier stuff is even prettier because instead of using samples, or string samples, we actually got it together to the right charts and with symphony players. So there's kind of a little Beauty and the Beast, bipolar kind of thing to this record, I guess." No Other Love starts out strong with the rollicking "What Can You Tell Me," a song about a man whose girlfriend gets a little too friendly with a male stripper: "She threw our future away/ that night he jumped out of that cake/ What can you tell me/ What can you tell me." The song drags the listener into the jilted boyfriend's funk with a heavy baseline made even heavier by the presence of a baritone sax, but manages to stay funky and a little bit raunchy with bottleneck bass riffs and the use of a merengue percussion instrument called the tambora. The second track, "After The Rain," is a rousing duet, featuring Prophet's wife and keyboard player Stephanie Finch, who also plays accordion on this song. "After The Rain" hearkens Prophet fans back to his early albums like Brother Aldo ( Fire Records, 1990) when Prophet and Finch shared the microphone quite a bit more. Prophet's light, breezy guitar almost becomes a third voice in the song, while the keyboard, drums, bass, and accordion provide the rhythm for these melodies to dance around. If these first two songs confirm Prophet's musical bipolar disorder, the rest of the album does nothing to disprove that diagnosis. "I Bow Down and Pray to Every Woman I See" finds Jason Borger laying down the mood with a synth string sound and an insistent Rhodes piano while Prophet growls through his artful ode to the instability of women: "Chloe was a neighbor girl who walked round in a trance/ A lot like Sissy Spacek at that homecoming dance/ Her father was religious/ Mother was too/ She yearned to be a model/ Had issues with food." Next, Prophet and his band dive headfirst into "Run Primo Run" a classic burglarygonebad tale with a zesty blend of energizing drumming, playful Farfisa organ, and wailing guitar riffs. If there's a weak spot on the album, I would say that the fifth and sixth tracks, "Storm Across The Sea" (another wildeyed woman acting all crazy) and the understated "No Other Love," don't reach the musical heights that were set by the earlier tracks. But all that is forgotten when the organ kicks in on the first few notes of "Elouise," the rambunctious barnburner that carries the alternative title "Self-Help Boogaloo" and even manages to get a dig in at Congressman Gary Condit: "I got a condo in Modesto with a heated swimming pool/ Talkin' condo in Modesto with a heated swmming pool." Other standouts on the album include the border music-tinged "That's How Much I Need Your Love" and "Summertime Thing," this year's version of the backyard barbecue anthem, which is already finding some airplay on local radio stations like KFOG. One can only hope that radio stations delve a little deeper into this album, and from there, why not even its predecessors? But you don't have to wait for that sadly improbable day to come, Prophet and his band The Mission Express will serve up a taste of most of their albums at their next appearance at Slim's in San Francisco on June 14th. Prophet can also be found opening for Lucinda Williams on her American Tour this year. Jeff Palfini is a freelance writer living in San Francisco who can relate all too well to Chuck Prophet's crazy women tunes. [ East Bay | Metroactive | Archives ]