Until her new album, "Martinis and Bikinis," I never would have compared Sam Phillips to the late John Lennon. But listen a few times, and the similarities become striking.
Phillips' voice, like Lennon's, is capable of conveying everything from inspired beauty (Phillips' all-too-brief "Love and Kisses," Beatles' "Across the Universe"), blind contempt (Phillips in "Baby I Can't Please You," Lennon in "How Do You Sleep"), to a palpable sense of dread (Phillips' "Black Sky" vs. Lennon's "Working Class Hero").
Lyrically, Phillips seems as comfortable as Lennon was with painting in metaphors or firing point-blank. And Phillips' melodies boast the same combination of unerring pop instinct and canny experimentation that made Lennon's music so remarkable.
This all comes to mind because Phillips ends her sensational new record with a cover of Lennon's "Gimme Some Truth" that makes the comparison both inescapable and appropriate. That said, "Martinis and Bikinis," perfectly produced by Phillips' husband, T Bone Burnett, stands on its own as the finest work of her career.
From the heavenly, 56-second "Love and Kisses" that opens the album, Phillips works her way through the metaphysical charm of "Signposts," the intoxicating impressionism of "Same Rain," the stormy, surreal "Circle of Fire," the deliciously trippy "Strawberry Road," the quiet tension of "When I Fall," the driving catchiness of "Same Changes," the exposed nerve endings of "Fighting With Fire," the naked pleading of "I Need Love," and the galloping despair of "Wheel of the Broken Voice."
Each number would make a record worth buying all by itself. Taken together, they make "Martinis and Bikinis" a career album for Phillips, one you can't afford not to own.