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Ben
Weaver
Stories Under Nails
Fugawee Bird Records
Rating: 61% |
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So the kid decides
that, hey, what can you learn at college that you
can’t learn on the
road, so he went all Kerouac and headed out to ‘discover’ himself.
Guess what he discovered? That the likes of Greg Brown,
Tony Glover, Alejandro Escovedo, and the late Dave
Van Ronk make excellent touring buddies!
2004 saw his third album, Stories Under Nails,
released, and he began sharing stages with bigger
names like the Waifs and Kristin Hersch. What’s most
surprising is that he’s yet to team with Steve Earle – his
singer-songwriter style has the same not-quite-singing,
not-quite-speaking feel to it.
Thoroughly depressing, Stories Under Nails never
relents its dark mood, save perhaps for the folkish “Broken
By 2”. “Handed Down” features organ and his world-weary
vocals, and it works really, really well. But then
the spoken word “John Martin” thoroughly drags its
feet, never going nowhere. That said, there’s no
doubting that Weaver is a talented songcraftsman,
but he’s not really doing anything new on Stories
Under Nails.
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