Parasol Records
2007
The Radiant Monkey
About This Album
As a guitarist, Richard Lloyd is every bit as gifted as Tom Verlaine, his former partner in the band Television, but his history as a songwriter is a good bit more problematic (for every good song in his catalog there's another that clearly needs work), and the fact Lloyd released a mere three studio albums between 1979 and 2001 suggests he's had some issues with the notion of fronting his own band. Thankfully, Lloyd's 2007 album The Radiant Monkey suggests that after all these years he's coming to terms with the demands of a solo career. The Radiant Monkey appeared a relatively swift six years after 2001's The Cover Doesn't Matter, and is largely devoted to tough, chunky rockers that give him plenty of room to show off his skills on the Stratocaster without descending into cheesy showboating. Lloyd demonstrates some soulful, Keith Richards-style picking on "Swipe It" and "Only Friend," "Monkey" opens with some admirably freaked-out patterns that will please fans of Lloyd's work with Rocket from the Tombs, and the fractured pop of "Amnesia" will do the same for folks who remember Lloyd's incendiary live shows with Matthew Sweet.
Track List (try tracks 1,2,3,4,5,6 and 7)

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