Raining Down Diamonds

AMG Review of Raining Down Diamonds

Richie Unterberger
All Music Guide

Raining Down Diamonds -- it's a nice title, and a phrase that's quite a bit more uplifting than the music and words contained on this disc. Jandek does indeed sing about "raining down diamonds" on the first track, titled, oddly, not "Raining Down Diamonds" but "What Things Are." The way he enunciates the words, though, is not in wonder at a jewel-encrusted skyline, but with the lugubrious, elongated resignation of a Texan awaiting the hurricane of doom. Lumbering, super-low guitar notes -- so low it's difficult for the unschooled to tell whether they're produced by bass or standard guitar (and there are certainly no CD credits to clarify the matter) -- anchor this and other songs, as Jandek delivers his more or less typically passive-aggressive moanings. With just a few quizzical upward curling riffs thrown in, the effect is akin to watching a beached whale try to drag itself back to sea, the proceedings stretched out interminably with no real conclusion to the struggle. It's a 45-minute disc with seven tracks, but it could as well be one long song with arbitrary pauses of silence, so constant is the crawling-through-the-tarpits mood.