Joe Walsh – Analog Man (2012)

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We all know the Joe Walsh from 1978’s “Life’s Been Good,” his biggest-ever solo hit. The guy with the mansion he’s never seen. The guy at parties sometimes until four, with gold records on the wall. Leave a message, right? Maybe he’ll call.

Lodged inside that No. 12 hit was plenty of humor, a series of keen observations, but also a chilling warning for those nose-deep in the coke-fueled hedonism of the era.

And that Joe Walsh, bless him, is all over Analog Man. Due June 5, 2012 from Fantasy Records, this is Walsh’s first solo album since 1992’s Songs for a Dying Planet — and, in that way, it’s like he never left: From the ass-kicking groove of the lead single, a deliriously funny gripe about muddling through the digital age, to “Band Played On” — which evolves from an undulating, Eastern polyrhythm into this up-shit-creek rumination on the broader issues surrounding our existence: “Everybody’s got their head up their asses!,” Walsh finally wails, exasperated.

[SOMETHING ELSE! REWIND: Even the Eagles had times when they didn’t fly so high. Here are some notable stumbles, from “I Wish You Peace,” to “Frail Grasp of the Big Picture,” to (what the?) “Disco Strangler.”]

Cleaned up and focused, Walsh deftly recalls his hell-raising days of youth, too — tearing into a series of nasty-ass riffs on tracks like “India” and “Funk No. 50,” the last a scalding update of a key moment from his pre-Eagles stint with the James Gang. (Walsh once described his time with that rowdy group thusly: “Somebody counts off, and when everything’s broken, we’re done.”) You’re reminded, all of a sudden, that Joe didn’t just play guitar with a chainsaw menace; he actually (actually!) carried a chainsaw around.

But there was always more to Walsh than that. After leaving the James Gang, he also put out a solo album called So What with this devastating song dedicated to his daughter Emma, not long after losing the two-year-old in a car accident. Look closer at the goggle-eyed cover image from that 1974 project. It comes off at first as another goofball move, but Walsh’s eyes tell a different story.

Moments later, it seemed, he had all but disappeared into the biggest band in the world. The dark ruminations of “Pretty Maids in a Row” weren’t far off on the horizon. He’d manage the deftly nuanced 1978 solo effort But Seriously, Folks …, featuring Don Felder, Glenn Frey, Don Henley and Don Felder, before falling end over end into substance abuse. Looking back, it was a better follow up to Hotel California than their tepid The Long Run — which couldn’t even be saved by swiping Walsh’s solo track “In the City.”

Analog Man doesn’t rise to the level of But Seriously, Folks. Still, it has those kind of aspirations — and that’s saying a lot, at this late date. Over the course of these 10 new songs, Walsh also faces down the excesses of his youth when, as a stringy-haired former Kent State student who literally (literally!) studied music theory, electronics and welding, he almost drowned in an ocean of liquor. (“I like to say,” Walsh would quip, “I only got drunk once — for 30 years.”) “Lucky That Way” and “One Day at a Time” are the beat-to-hell reflections of the “Life’s Been Good” guy, now sobered up and settled down. “Family,” as you might expect, celebrates the small, good things that replace the nightlife. Then, just when you think he’s turned into the very cliche of a kitchen-pass house husband, Walsh slips in a winking play for a girl in the lilting “Hi-Roller Baby,” a track with enough yard-dog charm that it’s nearly the equal of the Eagles’ mythical come on from that legendary corner in Winslow, Arizona.

Now, there are times when Analog Man sounds very much like the Jeff Lynne production that it is — the thwacking Wilbury beat on “Wrecking Ball,” the outsized sonic template of “Spanish Dancer” — but, more often than not, Joe is allowed to be Joe … with all of the contradictions. Full of raw emotion, frank admissions, fun pop asides and memorable guitar gumption, Analog Man illustrates all over again just how complicated this guy always was.

Nick DeRiso