(Dickweed Records, digital, vinyl)
It’s a dicey prospect for an artist to revisit their back catalog. For all the stories of perfectionists who couldn’t quit on their work, such as Leonardo da Vinci and his unfinished painting “Saint Jerome in the Wilderness,” there are far more tales of going back to early projects as a sign of creative capitulation — or, as an old professor of mine called it, “the dog returning to its own vomit.”
It’s an especially precarious proposition for modern musicians, whose audiences expect fresh material. So Chicky Stoltz’s fifth LP, Polecat, carries some inherent risk: The new album is a collection of 10 songs that the Warren singer-songwriter handpicked from his four-album Camp Recording series to rerecord.
Stoltz self-produced his previous records from his home studio, and those DIY efforts were about what one would expect of the songwriter’s mix of late-night bar-band Americana and power pop: charming but raw. For Polecat, the Mad River Valley fixture headed back to his old stomping grounds of Camden, Maine, and reconnected with his former bandmates, the Charlie Nobles, as a backing crew in a proper studio.
Several of Stoltz’s old songs benefit from the glossy treatment of a professional recording studio. “Baldur’s Gate,” from 2013’s Camp Recording #2: The Roebuck, gets a pop sheen, a funky bass line and some tasty Velvet Underground tones that elevate the track from the original bare-bones demo.
“No Comprende” enjoys a similar glow-up from its original 2012 version on Camp Recording #1: Bobcat, blossoming from an undercooked folk jam into a sinister-sounding rocker. “I’m not afraid / to send the ambulance home / I’m not afraid to go it alone,” Stoltz sings in a chorus churning with a swaggering rhythm.
But the extra polish sometimes buffs away the charm of Stoltz’s early recordings. The dark, close confines of Camp Recording #2‘s “Girl Trouble” gives it an edge over its Polecat counterpart. The same is true of “King Kong” from the same album. The newer, slicker renditions don’t sound bad. But there are moments when the less-is-more approach of the Camp Recording series works in a way the stronger, more fully realized sound of Polecat doesn’t.
One dubious trend from those earlier albums makes an unfortunate return on Polecat: Tanya. A moniker given to an imaginary female backup vocalist — actually just Stoltz digitally manipulating his own voice — Tanya makes a few appearances on the new record. While Stoltz has gotten better at using the effect so that it sounds slightly less abrasive, it still possesses an uncanny-valley vibe. The mirage around the vocals never stops shimmering, and not necessarily in a good way.
Polecat finds a clever songwriter cleaning up his CV. Despite a few cuts that might have been better left alone, it’s a treat to hear Stoltz breathe new life into his old tunes.
The album is available on major streaming services, as well as on vinyl at Pure Pop Records in Burlington and Buch Spieler Records in Montpelier.
This article appears in Feb 26 – Mar 4, 2025.
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