The German singer-songwriter's last album made it on last year's Top 10 Folk/ Country Albums list. This album feels more emotive and accessible than that one. It's very stripped down and basic with faint blue influence creeping into the opening song. From there the jazz inflections in "Cool Black Stars" feel more like Jeff Buckley. You do hear more from Ochs upper register on this album than I can recall hearing from him in the past. Sometimes his croon takes on a more plaintive tone, at others more expressive. His voice can carry the song, as the guitar on this one is mixed in the background. "Trouble Me" works well enough it rides a middle ground, though a little more upbear.
Four songs in I accept this album is not going to be as melancholy as I would have hoped. Sure Ochs might be more depressed than Billy Joel, but the bar for things like dark and depressing is pretty high year, this songs like Paul McCartney fooling around and demoing songs at home. Which is you are getting compared to a Beatle you are doing something right. There is a little more moodiness to "CrazyHorse", but unlike Jeff Buckley, there is little evidence in a song like this that he would ever feel inspired to drown himself in a river. Much less the bolder self-violence of say, Elliot Smith. Both artists whose deaths made them feel more legit. Not that suicide is a requirement plenty of artists convince me without taking such drastic measures.
"the Boxer" is not a Simon and Garfunkel cover. It is a breezy folk song that glides along with the same ease as the others. The more droning piano riff that drives"Wasp Trap" is a little more interesting as his vocal melodies have to work around it more creatively. :"Inside the Man" is one of the album's more compelling songs that finds the vocals enough to lure you in for repeat listens. "Crow Honey' is more soulful, but close enough to what Jeff Buckley used to do minute the angelic falsetto. "Run With the Devil" is another more blues-based song, that could have been done in a darker direction. The riff reminds me of "Stray Cat Strut". The last song does not do anything we have not heard earlier in the album. I will give this one an 8,5, not something I am going to give a great deal of repeat listens though enjoy what I heard from it and he continues to grow as an artist. If you are a fan you will enjoy this as long as you are in a better mood as well.
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