(The first in what may or may not be a series...)

While cleaning house recently, I came across my copy of Mexican Moon, the 1993 release by Concrete Blond. So I slotted it into the player and gave it a spin. Wow.

I had forgotton just how really good this album is. And I started wondering why it didn't run the charts like Bloodletting had. I suppose (and this is purely conjecture) that the legions of tortured goths who felt that CB really "felt their pain" with songs like "Bloodletting" and "Joey". And maybe they felt left behind when Walking in London wasn't another paen to children of the night. Of course, if you read the reviews at Amazon, they're all written by people who feel, as I do, that this album has always been unfairly dismissed.

Who knows, I guess. But this one strayed even further from BL than WiL had. Not that I don't like those albums; "Tomorrow, Wendy" remains one of my favorite songs by any band. But this album just meshes really well. From the opening "Jenny I Read", into the title track, you just know that you're going to enjoy every track on the disc.

Money, art, a broken heart, where do you want to go?
     —Mexican Moon

I think it was the track, "Heal It Up," that got the radio air-play. I know that I'm not a tour-following devoted fan. I had BL, but hadn't gotten around to getting WiL. When I heard "Heal", though, I had to get this one. It's a powerful track, with great lyrics and poetry. And in a disturbingly smooth blend, it goes right in to the sampled excerpts of Jim Jones that open up the track, "Jonestown". And we're only up to the fourth track.

I can go one about pretty much every track. The whole album is very listen-able, from start to end, on auto-repeat even. The last track is titled, "Bajo La Lune Mexicana," and as you might guess even without speaking any Spanish, it's the title track again, only with the lyrics in Spanish (though alternating lines of the chorus are still in English). In a way, this is the most relaxing, almost ambient track of the disc. I don't focus on the exact words as much, and instead on the timbre of the singer's voice and the music that accompanies her.

Very happy that I dug this up.