Giant Sand – Chore Of Enchantment

The cd item is just perfect. It is what one may expect from Japanese products, pure excellence.
About the music on the record...it completes the life span of the band exactly at the point in time where and when it should have all ended and it does so in a masterful way...Gelb, Convertino, Burns and Jim Dickinson deliver what might as well have been/be their magnum opus...a perfect closure to a decade that opened with Ramp; a contrast to the wild desert guitars of the valley of rain...alas, the monicker, the band kept going in various incarnations throughout the 00s and 10s, seemingly with no particular purpose or direction and whereas the latter strategy or fashion was mind blowing and so exciting back in the 80s and the early 90s when inspiration and guitars were in abundance, it wasn't equally pleasing, or at all, when recording outputs started pouring out one after another with no memorable tunes or lyrics that your life could depend upon, or even those amazing sleeves and artwork. Still, along the way and during those 15 years that followed "Chores", a couple or few great records surfaced i.e. 'Sno Angel Like You, Alegrias (I regard Hisser and Confluence to be part of the "Chore" final era and very good records as well) though these were all Gelb solo records.
But I digressed! Bottom line, this is a perfect record!

Footnote: This review wouldn't have been the same had I put my thoughts together 15 years back. I was still hoping back then for the next great Giant Sand record, with "those" guitars, the howling voice, the rant and the female backing vocals...it never came. By the time Gelb called it a day, I had already started revisiting their back catalogue and understood how significantly things changed over the course of a few years back in the mid to late 90s. All good though...I still carry the torch

Gatefold sleeve