John Cale

Cherry Red's Esoteric arm has revisited a key chapter in the Velvet Underground-related discography with a new box set containing John Cale's three Island Records albums, originally released in 1974-1975: Fear, Slow Dazzle, and Helen of Troy.  Following his tenures at Columbia and Reprise, Cale was ready to embrace pure rock-and-roll, though he tempered any melodic accessibility with typically offbeat and often dark lyrics.  Stylistically, these albums were all over the place with detours to country, reggae, pop, the avant-garde, and stately classicism.  Cale's love of The Beach Boys shines crops up more than once in the Island years, though the subject of Slow Dazzle's "Mr. Wilson" reportedly wasn't happy with it.  (Truth to tell, the track is a bit eerie...)  Slow Dazzle took some of its lyrics to the extreme - "The Jeweller" isn't for the faint of heart - and the darkness extends to a thoroughly different take on "Heartbreak Hotel" that's removed from Elvis' relative restraint. Helen of Troy is the mixed bag of the three albums, though "I Keep a Close Watch" has become a Cale favorite.  This compact set, housed in a clamshell case, contains a 20-page booklet with liner notes by Mike Barnes.  Ben Wiseman has remastered the audio for this set.