Subtle as a Flying Mallet

AMG Review of Subtle as a Flying Mallet

Stephen Thomas Erlewine
All Music Guide

Taking the one-man band aesthetic to an extreme, Dave Edmunds recorded nearly all of his second album, Subtle as a Flying Mallet, on his own, hiring a bassist and a drummer for only a pair of tracks. Edmunds took several years to complete the record, probably because it took a considerable amount of effort to re-create these songs so thoroughly -- he spends so much attention on detail that he refuses to change the sex on "Da Doo Ron Ron." Alternating between Spector classics, the Everly Brothers, Chuck Berry, and a variety of R&B, country, and pop numbers, Edmunds hits on all the styles of the late '50s and early '60s. The results are best when he works with obscure material, like the Chordettes' "Born to Be with You," or with newer items like Nick Lowe's "She's My Baby," because the songs are less familiar, which makes his painstaking production exciting.