Review: Ray Davies

Review: Ray Davies

Ray Davies "Other Peoples' Lives": Aidin Vaziri | Ray Davies sat out most of the past decade, spending time traveling the Mississippi and starting a new life in New Orleans, where he was promptly mugged and shot. Then came the floods. On his first proper solo album, the former Kinks front man sings songs like "After the Fall" (about bouncing back from a breakdown) and "The Tourist" (about rich white people slumming it in his adoptive U.S. city), both of which he claims were written years before the aforementioned tragedies but now seem somewhat prescient. Then again, Davies has always been ahead of his time. It was only a few years ago that the Kinks started getting mentioned in the same breath as their old rivals the Beatles and the Who. And it might take a few more for people to actually appreciate the slightly over-produced seasick blues, warped country and drunken sing-alongs of this release.