''Long Gone Dead'' is the second album by the American band
Rank and File, released in 1984. Founding member
Alejandro Escovedo
Alejandro Escovedo (born January 10, 1951) is an American rock musician, songwriter, and singer, who has been recording and touring since the late 1970s. His primary instrument is the guitar. He has played in various rock genres, including punk ...
left the band prior to the recording sessions for the album.
The first single was "Sound of the Rain". The album was a commercial disappointment.
Production
Recorded in Austin, the album was produced by Jeff Eyrich.
[ Stan Lynch played drums on the album; Richard Greene played fiddle.][ The band made a point of engaging with any musical idea that came to them, rather than sticking to one style.][
" I'm an Old Old Man" is a cover of the ]Lefty Frizzell
William Orville "Lefty" Frizzell (March 31, 1928 – July 19, 1975) was an American country music singer-songwriter and honky-tonk singer.
He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1982. Frizzell released many songs that charted ...
song.
Critical reception
Robert Christgau
Robert Thomas Christgau ( ; born April 18, 1942) is an American music journalist and essayist. Among the most well-known and influential music critics, he began his career in the late 1960s as one of the earliest professional rock critics and ...
wrote that "in a disquietingly cerebral way the music is very moving, with the Kinman brothers' wide-spaced close harmonies adding a unique sweet-and-sour lift to their defiantly doomy tunes."Trouser Press
''Trouser Press'' was a rock and roll magazine started in New York in 1974 as a mimeographed fanzine by editor/publisher Ira Robbins, fellow fan of the Who Dave Schulps and Karen Rose under the name "Trans-Oceanic Trouser Press" (a reference to ...
'' opined that, "lacking the first LP's lost and lonesome prairie feel, ''Long Gone Dead'' is appealing but disappointing."The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' stated that the band "should stick to country-rock, at least for the time being; the closer they get to authentic country music, the more plastic they sound."[
'']The Washington Post
''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
'' concluded that "Rank and File is certainly pleasing enough as a pop band and sincere enough as a country act, but the band needs to rediscover the link between the two."The Philadelphia Inquirer
''The Philadelphia Inquirer'' is a daily newspaper headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The newspaper's circulation is the largest in both the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the Delaware Valley metropolitan region of Southeastern Pennsy ...
'' determined that the songs "too often sound like parodies of country songs rather than the homages they apparently intend, and the vocals are frequently dolorous drags."[
]AllMusic
AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...
wrote that "while a more ambitious and musically diverse album than ''Sundown'', ''Long Gone Dead'' just doesn't have the same tight focus and sharp impact of the debut."[
]
Track listing
References
{{reflist
1984 albums
Rank and File (band) albums
Slash Records albums