"12 CRASS SONGS" WAS NAMED ONE OF TOP 10 ALBUMS OF 2008 BY TIME OUT NY
"Jeffrey Lewis 12 Crass Songs (Rough Trade). Alternately ignored and maligned by critics, Lewis’s covers album unravels and reconstructs a bunch of old punk songs left for dead." -Jay Ruttenberg
“What could be sacrilege is actually a small epiphany: the gorgeous instrumentation…proves a deft counterpoint to the lyrical rage. The Man probably said it would never work but The Man was wrong” - (4 of 5 stars) UNCUT
"4/5 stars" - Rolling Stone
“Folk maverick raids anarchist commune and finds catchy tunes… Works wonderfully” - Spin
"Jeffrey Lewis’ talents appear without end… (on 12 Crass Songs he) magically makes the anarcho-rockers’ anti-establishment savagery his own, by wrapping their barbed sentiments in his trademark mottled tea-towel warmth” - NME
"12 Crass Songs succeeds utterly... eerily beautiful and strangely affecting" - Plan B Magazine
"He’s taken hold of any number of my old stormy favorites and breathed fresh life and fire into them. . . Man, I’m in awe of Jeffrey right now. Who’d have thought he could have done that?" - Everett True/ Village Voice
"Quite brilliant" - (4 of 5 stars) MOJO
"4 of 5 stars" – The Sun
"9 of 10 stars" – Vice
“It's no mean feat to transform such abrasive harangues into lush, tuneful folk… without defusing their righteous anger… but Crass's intelligent and indignant screeds could not hope for a more sympathetic translator.” (4 of 5 stars) - THE GUARDIAN
"The record presents Crass’s lyrics calmly, often demonstrating how
sane and practical they are; it proves once again, and kind of
thrillingly this time, that no music is immune to interpretation" - The
New York Times
“His sung and songwritten folk stunts function on more than one level:
as neurotic story-telling, hearfelt rap, and footstomping song
craftsmanship… his latest album seems to be Mr. Lewis at his most
accessible.” (8 stars) LOWDOWN Magazine
“Remarkable” – (“Five Best” pick) Daily Standard
“Lewis
has a gift for making classics out of classics, and throughout this
smart, inspired album, there’s rarely a wrong note hit.” – Stylus
“It
shows that [Lewis] can turn his hand to almost anything, and if anyone
wanted to know how to re-adapt someone else's work in order to make it
entirely your own, they should listen to this record… Connoisseurs may
be aghast, but it's testament to Lewis' talents that, amid punk's sweat
and turmoil, he finds so much bruised beauty.” – (9 of 10 stars) –
INFOSHOP
“Does it really work, does it really achieve
its purpose? Am I enjoying this as a Jeffrey Lewis record? Well, sure I
am. His style is stamped all over it. But has the message sat well, has
my mind been opened, if only a little? Will I get myself some Crass
records? Of course I f**king will.” (4 of 5 stars) – Rock Feedback
“What
I saw of [Lewis] live ranked alongside the highlights of the [End of
the Road Festival] weekend, and on record the same combination of dry
wit and incredible musicianship is evident - even when turning his hand
to songs originally recorded by seminal 1980s anarcho-punk band Crass.
Lewis makes them his own, and rarely has a covers album been pulled off
with such aplomb.” – Thurrock Gazette
12 Crass Songs
made number 39 in NME's 50 best albums of 2007, in addition to year-end
best-of lists in Les Inrockuptibles and elsewhere. In December the
Jeffrey Lewis Band did a return tour to the UK, Paris and Switzerland,
including some radio performances for Marc Riley's Brain Damage on BBC6
and BBC1's Rob Da Bank show. US solo tourdates with Super Furry
Animals, US band tourdates with the Mountain Goats, SXSW appearances
and more, all coming in Feb and March '08!
"12 Crass Songs" featured in the
Sunday NY Times and
Time Out NY ____________________________________________________________________
HERE'S WHAT PITCHFORK SAYS:
____________________________________________________________________
FROM THE SEATTLE WEEKLY
Jeffrey Lewis and the Jitters
Saturday, February 23
By MA'CHELL DUMA LAVASSAR
February 20, 2008
Even though I'm a married baby-mama, I still get rockin' crushes. My love for music has always been primarily libidinous, and these crushes come in two varieties: one immediately packs a powerful punch to my naughty bits (like a Steve Turner guitar solo). The second offers the same POW, but first to my intellect, then slowly trickles down. I'd assumed that feeling was what I'd been experiencing for NYC's Jeffrey Lewis, as I'm currently smitten with his ridiculously sharp folk-rock. But then I realized that this man-boy, with his off-the-meter smarts, self-deprecating wit, feminist ideals, and seemingly endless vault of musical knowledge, possesses all the characteristics that I not only find hot, but are just the kind I'd want my son to grow up with. Now it seems I have a third, all-new kind of crush, this time on Jeffrey Lewis' mom.
____________________________________________________________________
From The Stranger:
Fucking in the Street : Antifolk Is Dead
by Eric Grandy
Punk is dead/Punk is dead/It's just another cheap product for the consumer's head. —Crass, Jeffrey Lewis
"Antifolk," the term that some critics have been bandying about to describe Jeffrey Lewis, is a terrible turn of phrase. Lewis isn't against folk music (or folks), and there's nothing self-negating about his music, which—acoustic guitars, rambling story songs—is pretty squarely rooted in a folk tradition.
So why the modifier? On some level, it all comes back to "Punk Is Dead," which Lewis covers, along with 11 other Crass songs, on the aptly titled and totally amazing 12 Crass Songs. Genres and subcultures start as organic movements, but they get co-opted by The System, and then they suck. So after punk starts punking itself on MTV, you get postpunk; after rave becomes an embarrassing marketing gimmick for candy necklaces, you get new rave; after folk has spent 40 years being your dad's music, you get freak folk and now antifolk. And really, antifolk is, if anything, a return to traditionalism after freak folk's fast and loose tripping. Nothing anti about it.
All of which is just a preamble to this: Jeffrey Lewis is fucking awesome. Doesn't matter how you shelve him. His songs are clever and funny and genuinely felt; his voice is ragged, flat, and pinched in all the right places; he and his band are confident and capable enough to ramble and improvise without missing a beat, simultaneously sloppy and sharp.
The full review____________________________________________________________________
The Portland Mercury:
