Thomas Anderson

• "Alright It Was Frank--And He's Risen From the Dead and Gone Off With His Truck" [Out There, 1990] A-
• Blues for the Flying Dutchman [Dutch East India, 1993] A-
• Moon Going Down [Marilyn, 1996]
• Bolide [Red River, 1998] ***
• Norman, Oklahoma [Red River, 2003]
• The Moon in Transit (Four-Track Demos, 1996-2009) [Out There, 2012] A-
• On Becoming Human [Out Here, 2013] **
• Heaven [Out There, 2016] ***
• My Songs Are the House I Live In [Out There, 2017] *
• Analog Summer [Out There, 2020] *
• Ladies and Germs [Out There, 2021] A-

Consumer Guide Reviews:

"Alright It Was Frank--And He's Risen From the Dead and Gone Off With His Truck" [Out There, 1990]
Just this frail-voiced songwriter in an Oklahoma college town, where Botticelli rubs souls with Belle Starr and Chaucer specialists give up tenure for love. His drummer can play, his bassist likes "Sweet Jane," the tunes his songs share are good ones, and though he's slightly word-drunk, he's too smart and funny and unassuming to waste many. You'd enjoy getting to know him. And feel proud you're American when the visit ended. A-

Blues for the Flying Dutchman [Dutch East India, 1993]
Like most iambic story-songs, Anderson's yarns, plaints, and fables improve when they rock out a little. The putdowns of classy ex-girlfriends get annoying, but his old lit prof Larissa would seem to deserve every word, and from petroleum to Nash the Slash his historical conundrums make sense or no sense as the case may be. Most important, he rocks out like somebody who expected more than he got from Nash the Slash--and remembered it when he founded Angry Young Grad Student Music and opted for singer-songwriting. A-

Moon Going Down [Marilyn, 1996]
"Jerry's Kids"

Bolide [Red River, 1998]
Weird tales from many badlands ("Come Back to America," "Theremin Cider"). ***

Norman, Oklahoma [Red River, 2003]
"Gypsy Magdalena"

The Moon in Transit (Four-Track Demos, 1996-2009) [Out There, 2012]
By electing to expend his Dutch East India advance on a fancy tape recorder instead of the Velvet Underground reunion, this Austin singer-songwriter acquired the means to preserve his songs in analog form, and here's the fruit. There were two good albums and then three marginal ones over two decades, so who'd expect a grab bag to be his best? Yet it is. With all four tracks laid down DIY, it's even squarer rhythmically than his norm, and his calm drawl verges on the spectral. But it also verges on the hypnotic, and the guy can write stories and work up tunes. After a brief fanfare, there's an opener about the Donner Party so gruesome and precise I sometimes skip to the merely spooky "Heckling Houdini." Also featured are a 33-year-old groupie-turned-granny, a cross-dressing uncle, Ubangi-stomping Warren Smith, a painfully slow lunch with Nefertiti a few years or millennia too late, driving till you're dizzy in a dumbshit town, and the one about lost love and "Antihistamines": "Chlorpheniramine, Diphenhydramine,/Doxylamine, Phenindamine,/Tripolidine and Pheniramine,/I can't cure my pain with antihistamines." A-

On Becoming Human [Out Here, 2013]
Subtitled "Four-Track Love Songs," and I wish I could tell you it's the love songs that connect--wish I could tell her, too ("Song for Walter Mondale," "Get Home, Sally") **

Heaven [Out There, 2016]
Thirteen songs about dead people and the strophic muse ("Arguing With the Dead," "Dolceola Glory," "Sheb Wooley Dies in Oklahoma") ***

My Songs Are the House I Live In [Out There, 2017]
Reports from an inquiring mind and the Texas plain that benefit from the judicious application of irony and drum machine ("Encyclopedia," "Johnny's Gone Driving") *

Analog Summer [Out There, 2020]
The story songs stroll along at their usual calm pace, with the album's most telling words uttered over the phone by a mealy-mouthed young promoter explaining why Anderson needs a gig he won't even get gas money for ("Great Exposure," "Sundays for Strippers," "Doris Mae") *

Ladies and Germs [Out There, 2021]
Not for nothing does this perpetually undefeated Austin singer-songwriter's BMI handle remain Angry Young Grad Student Music. On this 13-track item with a pandemic title no one will ever top, his mild voice and deft multitracking delivers his best set of songs since his 1990 debut "Alright It Was Frank--And He's Risen From the Dead and Gone Off With His Truck" and certainly his most varied subject-wise. Cinderella's stardom gets boring pretty quick. Hitler's sister takes his will to court. An oil worker stares down the tornado that's tearing him apart. A hapless meth dealer's head-case honey ODs on acid and disappears down an old zinc mine. A girl of the apocalypse sips some water and dies. And the news from Pompeii continues dire. A-