★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Some say that John Cale has an uninspiring singing voice. But I love his deadpan Welsh rasp. And those gorgeous melodies and enigmatic, poetic, unsettling lyrics! Cale played a lot of the instruments, but Brian Eno's synths are not to be ignored. I knew "Fear is a Man's Best Friend" as a Billy Bragg song long before I discovered the Cale original; but this is the better version. Even if Cale hadn't been in the Velvet Underground, he'd still be one of the great artists of the 1970s based solely on this album. Favorite tracks: "Fear Is a Man's Best Friend," "Buffalo Ballet," "Barracuda."
