Album Reviews

Note: This review appeared on the musicangle.com website in April of 2011. An analogplanet.com reader looked for it here and couldn't find it. Neither could I. I am having the webmaster look into this because I worry that other reviews got lost in the move. In the meantime, I'm re-posting the review now. There may still be copies available at your favorite online LP seller. It's also available in high resolution on HDTracks—ed..

Singer/songwriter Thom Chacon delivers hardscrapple tales in a voice well-suited to the task that will immediately remind you of what's his name? Maybe John Prine, or John Mellencamp, or Steve Earle or Bruce or Guy Clark or?

David Bowie fans who lost the thread around his Tin Machine days or who meandered mystified or perhaps less than fully satisfied through his end of century output and beyond need to return for The Next Day his first album in a decade, following his 2004 heart attack and major surgery. Not that Heathens wasn’t a good outing

Well before Aaron Neville's gorgeous warble turned to wobble and he began using it as vocal ground cover—so much so that Saturday Night Live easily satirized it—his was a gorgeous instrument capable of both technical excellence and exquisite emotional communication as this impeccably produced and recorded 1991 release demonstrates.

Dylan claims Blood on the Tracks' pained, heartbreaking and often very angry and vicious songs weren't personal confessionals, though he was in the midst of a painful divorce. His son Jakob says they were. Does it really matter if they were about or inspired by his life? He delivers them as if they were very personal as does any great actor, but they are just as satisfying or disturbing thought of as having been inspired by his personal circumstances at the time.

This loving tribute to Les Paul featuring longtime trio cohort Lou Pallo and others with whom Les played at Fat Tuesdays and the Iridium is musically fabulous assuming you like the timeless "old school" style. And if not, why not? If it's good enough for Keith Richards, Steve Miller, Billy F. Gibbons and Slash, among others who perform here in that style, well hell, then it's good enough for you!

No doubt Les's playing and his technological innovations with guitar and multi-tracked overdubbing affected all of them. But surely his playing hit them more squarely in their young guitarist wheelhouse.