Bobby Fuller Died for Your Sins

Along with having one of the best titles of recent memory, Bobby Fuller Died for Your Sins confirms that more than 25 years after making his solo debut, Chuck Prophet remains one of America's strongest songwriters and recording artists, and he's in great form here.

Bobby Fuller Died For Your Sins is yet another example of not just his love of rock and roll, but an ability to create it with the spirit and intensity of the best of those that influenced him.

Chuck Prophet is the kind of rock star we need more of: not so much unpretentious as a master of his pretentions; a sonic chameleon; curious, amused, angry, seductive, and sincere; a novelist in a Nudie suit.

Everywhere ageless rock'n'roll brio comes freighted with careworn sagacity. [Mar 2017, p.93]

Alex Nieto, the story of a police shooting of an innocent man in San Francisco in 2014 closes the album with a fire that recalls an on-form Neil Young. Described by Prophet as his first protest song, it concludes an often exhilarating album.

Powerful and personal, it’s a persuasive protest tribute straight from the heart.

Prophet mines Fuller’s energy in the pounding title track, which features the refrain, “I hear the record crackle/ The needle skips and jumps/ Bobby Fuller died for your sins.” Prophet described “Bad Year for Rock and Roll,” another album highlight, in an essay for Talkhouse as “an anthem for anyone who’s ever had a bad year and battles late-night bouts of loss of faith.”

Ultimately, every track on this masterfully sculpted set courses with life-affirming pop-rock passion.

He calls this collection of tunes "California noir," and the album delivers on that promise with songs that explore the deteriorating American dream in all its faded glory. [No. 139, p.59]