Having established a winning musical combination on Silvertone, Chris Isaak and his band essentially continue it with little variation on his second album, 11 songs of smoky, wounded romance and dark menace given great all-around performances. Isaak's gift for capturing a perfect blend of early rock & roll twang and making it sound perfectly of the now is his greatest strength, and if later albums showed him finding new ways to twist and develop his approach, the relatively straight-up work here   [ read more ]

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Chris Isaak's debut album, Silvertone, named after his three-piece backup group, sets the pattern for his subsequent albums in its meticulously constructed retro sound. Isaak enters a time machine and emerges around 1960, when Roy Orbison is ruling the charts with his melodramatic ballads and Elvis Presley has just returned from the Army. Of course, what passed for a style 25 years before is in Isaak's hands stylization, and when he wails in an Orbison falsetto of romantic desperatio   [ read more ]

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When filmmaker David Lynch backed a disquieting scene in {#Blue Velvet} with Roy Orbison's "In Dreams," he demonstrated the eerie atmosphere behind its pre-'60s innocence. Orbison disciple Chris Isaak played those qualities to the hilt in his shimmering, spare "Wicked Game," so it was no surprise when Lynch included the ballad in {#Wild at Heart}. What was surprising, given the fact that it sounded like nothing else on pop radio in 1990, was that "Wicked Game" became a breakout Top T   [ read more ]

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Having found himself with a fluke hit single thanks to "Wicked Game," Isaak's next move was interesting enough -- namely, for a long while, nothing. Heart Shaped World's follow-up came four years later, after Nirvana and Dr. Dre rewrote the musical rules for what turned out to be the rest of the '90s. As a result, San Francisco Days more than any of Isaak's earlier albums seemed more timeless, more enjoyably out of place, than before, an effect heightened by the intentionally '60s-style   [ read more ]

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Without identifying who it was, Isaak made his mood clear with Forever Blue by including a farewell letter in the liner notes to the lover who had dumped him. Kicking things off with the snaky, almost guttural "Baby Did a Bad Bad Thing," later made a theme song for Stanley Kubrick's {#Eyes Wide Shut}, Isaak lives up to the confused, fractured message in that letter, turning Forever Blue into his own exorcism. On the one hand, he doesn't sound any less impassioned than before, but on the ot   [ read more ]

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Isaak's well-known surfing fixation had been referenced here and there on past album art before, but Baja Sessions gives him a chance not only to bring that out in the open but to consciously aim for a much more relaxed, gentle follow-up to the harrowing Forever Blue. Returning to the calmer but still potent romantic angst and celebration familiar from his earlier records, Isaak and his core band, with new recruit Hershel Yatovitz on lead guitar, tackle a slew of cover songs, some re-recordin   [ read more ]

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Released in 1998, Wicked Ways: Anthology is not a greatest-hits collection, nor is it a rarities collection. It concentrates on a brief period of Chris Isaak's career (the late '80s -- early '90s), overlooks a lot of hits, and contains oddities like a cover of "Heart Full of Soul" and an instrumental of "Wicked Game." ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide

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Speak of the Devil explores the same moody terrain as Chris Isaak's previous records, though the songs are fleshed out with more contemporary touches. The leadoff track, "Please," is unusually hard-hitting, with its acoustic/electric/soft/crash structure, Mellotron, and soundbite lyrics. "I'm Not Sleepy" is a roots rock rave-up (wherein Isaak lyrically quotes Lennon's "Oh Yoko": "In the middle of the night I cry your name"); the title cut is an eerie celebration of love lost and foun   [ read more ]

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You have to admire Chris Isaak -- the guy's been making records for close to 20 years, and he's still the very model of effortless cool with pipes to match, not the easiest accomplishment for a guy who's pushing fifty. At the same time, while Isaak's gifts haven't faded a bit with time, he hasn't displayed a stunning degree of versatility, either -- he's still the same lovelorn lover man with the retro-hipster style he introduced on Silvertone in 1985. But Isaak's eighth album, {^Always Got Toni   [ read more ]

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If you're going to invite a hipster recording artist into your home for Christmas, it may as well be Chris Isaak -- he's cool but he's also well-mannered, and can act sly enough for your thinks-she's-bohemian sister without scaring your Grandmother in the process. Like no small number of veteran recording artists, Isaak has cut an album of holiday tunes, cleverly called Chris Isaak Christmas, and while like most similar projects you get the sense that Chris didn't put quite the same amount of   [ read more ]

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In many ways, Chris Isaak is a perfect candidate for a "best-of" compilation: he has been consistent over the years, not only in the quality of his output but in his music, which hasn't strayed much from the sweetly moody retro-pop -- part Elvis, a large part Roy Orbison, a small part early Neil Diamond -- he essayed on his 1985 debut, Silvertone. As such, his records can be a little interchangeable, but even the bad ones are enjoyable, and when they're mixed and matched as they are here o   [ read more ]

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Speak of the Devil explores the same moody terrain as Chris Isaak's previous records, though the songs are fleshed out with more contemporary touches. The leadoff track, "Please," is unusually hard-hitting, with its acoustic/electric/soft/loud structure, Mellotron, and soundbite lyrics. "I'm Not Sleepy" is a roots rock rave-up (wherein Isaak lyrically quotes John Lennon's "Oh Yoko": "In the middle of the night I cry your name"); the title cut is an eerie celebration of love lost and    [ read more ]

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