Soul Coughing were one of the best bands I have ever seen live and I have had the pleasure of seeing Mike a few times during his solo tours. Always a passionate performer and well worth your time to listen to.
"Haughty Melodic is everything you'd expect from Mike Doughty and more: it fuses his post-Soul Coughing singer-songwriter compositional style with the tapestry of brightly colored sounds and snarled grooves of his now-defunct, aesthetically pleasing -- in other words, fly -- band. In fact, Haughty Melodic is even more ritually adorned than anything Doughty's been involved in previously, quite the opposite from the stark tones of Skittish and Rockity Roll (his two self-released solo EPs re-released by ATO last year). Through the dozen tracks, he's joined by saxophone, trombone, congas, banjo, pedal steel, cello, and various keyboard babbles, all of which really flesh out the record into a densely ornamented merry-go-round. And although Haughty Melodic is a reinforcement of Mike Doughty the Songwriter (as opposed to M. Doughty the Beat-Jivin' Jazz-Funk-Psych Band Leader), it is still a reminder of his idiosyncratic stature in contemporary American music. Doughty makes music that is impossibly unique. He repeats phrases with brain-numbing syntax and a deadpan cadence ("Lonely / And the only way to beat it is to bat it down"), peppers the peripheral vision of introspective songs with pop culture references as if they were intrinsically unavoidable ("Busting Up a Starbucks" cites James Van Der Beek and Sister Sister, not to mention the titular coffee conglomerate), and proves that he can still navigate about all his wits without the safety net of a category-defying band ("I'm done with elephants and clowns / I want to run away and join the office" he sings in "American Car")."
the rest of the review can be read here. its a real good review for a freakin sweet album
Band Site: http://www.mikedoughty.com/
Mike Doughty - Haughty Melodic: http://lix.in/-455e5b
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