Health and Sport

Description

Health and Sport is the fourth full-length album by the American alternative rock band Luxury, released on Northern Records in May 2005.

Luxury’s affinity for the apocalyptic continues with their latest, and possibly last, album. It puts these gentlemen into a class of their own. Most bands only dream of recording an album with the texture, the layering, and the poetic insight of Radiohead’s OK Computer – Luxury’s newest album meets this challenge head on and surpasses it. Where Radiohead only has questions, Luxury has some of the answers, and maybe even more questions which are even harder to answer.

Lyrically, Lee Bozeman takes on the anomie and materialism of pop culture while musing on eternity. As such, there is hope, there is despair, there is joy, there is sadness – an album for all of life. This album is simply beyond description for this reviewer. The first track, a wandering ten minute opus somewhat reminiscent of the Prayer Chain’s Mercury album, leads into some harder-edged guitar rock which, for the first time in Luxury’s albums, has both Lee and brother Jamey featured on lead vocals (that is, not counting the bonus track «Rock Star» on some copies of Amazing and Thank You).

Musically, you wouldn’t know that the band doesn’t play much anymore. The musicianship is tight as ever, with excellent drumming by Glenn Black, solid bass work by Chris Foley (who, as the album was being recorded, was attending St. Vladimir’s Seminary in the aims of becoming an Orthodox priest), auxiliary guitar work by long-time band sideman Matt Hinton, lead guitar work by Jamey Bozeman, and Lee doing the bulk of vocals and playing piano throughout.

The only shame is that Lee has claimed on his own website that he is sure that Luxury’s days are mostly behind now. This album is purportedly the last for Luxury as a band. The final track, with Lee wishing God’s blessings to the members of his band, is a suitable closing track in that way. It just doesn’t seem fair that Luxury has released their best album yet – and yet that band is talking of Luxury primarily in the past tense. Oh well. At least Northern is a lot more stable than Grey Dot/Bulletproof and this album shouldn’t disappear from the landscape the way their underappreciated 1999 self-titled album did. If you liked Lee’s All Things Bright and Beautiful project or Jamey’s band They Sang As They Slew, consider that this album fuses the best of both their styles, and that the sum of the whole is much greater than the parts! This album is simply the best rock album I’ve heard this year. [Alex Klages, The Phantom Tollbooth, 11/6/2005]

It took five years to make but finally the public can experience Luxury’s magnum opus Health & Sport. This album has a little bit of everything for everybody. It has straight-ahead rock moments («I Have Been Everywhere the Grass Is Green, I Have Seen All There Is To See» for example). These blazing gems tickle the ear and get the heart pumping from beginning to end. The softer, gentler moments though cut right to the heart. «He Watches Over Thee» the album’s closer is such a tender ballad, it laments the distance friends often experience when they live apart from one another. This is a problem most of us have faced it’s good to here encouragement from someone who has been through that as well. Herein lies the attraction Luxury has with their audience, namely their open honesty in the lyrics they write. Lee Bozeman’s words simply put are literature for the working class. They are artful and spiritual yet unashamedly human. They are the backbone to the impressive body of work the band has put out thus far.

These finely crafted songs are mature beyond measure they intelligently discuss many topics such as: sex, suicide, work, and love all in the context of God’s grace which He extends to us all. These are songs that ten years from now will still sound fresh and new. The standout track has to be the ominous, industrial-drenched «Shake More Hands, Give More Hugs». This could easily be the song of the year. The slow dark grinding drum loop sets the tone for this epic eleven-minute masterpiece. Two minutes into the song you are not sure whether Trent Renzor or Lee Bozeman is going to start singing. Throughout
Health & Sport you get the feeling that Luxury has made the album they always wanted to make, because everything sounds so natural; nothing is forced. On top of that there is a thread of contentment which underlines each song. If T.S. Elliot were alive today he would have this CD on heavy rotation because of the depth and beauty that it contains. Health & Sport requires multiple listens to fully appreciate all the sounds and themes that are being presented. The drumming in non-predictable and inspired, the guitars drip with emotion, the bass thunders forcefully throughout; allowing the listener to glimpse the glory of heaven with these ten compositions. [Aaron C. Anderson, The Phantom Tollbooth, 12/12/2005]

> Apple Music (https://music.apple.com/us/album/health-sport/1726241216)

CD tracklist:

01. Shake More Hands, Give More Hugs – 10:49
02. I Have Been Everywhere the Grass Is Green, I Have Seen All There Is to See – 4:31
03. Health and Sport – 1:40
04. The Four Quartets – 3:47
05. The Needs of the Many, The Needs of the Few – 4:34
06. Black Books – 4:31
07. Biography, Autobiography – 3:52
08. Diary Standard (I See the Signs!) – 5:48
09. Strange Flowers – 5:47
10. He Watches over Thee – 6:40

Note: Originally released on CD only. Re-issued on 12-inch vinyl LP by Northern Records in 2021. (Limited edition of 500 pressed on black vinyl. Includes footnoted insert. Sleeve features red background, not black as on the CD cover.) Available at Bandcamp: https://northernrecords.bandcamp.com/album/health-and-sport