Search - Kat Eggleston :: Only Word

Fine, strong return

E. C Goodstein | Northern CA United States | 09/03/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Wish there were '4.5" stars, as I love the album, though I find the 'messagy' one "Impact" not quite as strong, if catchy and heartfelt. Otherwise it's a very solid return for a fine songwriter after a bout with breast cancer. Just as on her other albums, what you have here are a group of literate, articulate & thoughtful songs very well-constructed and presented. True, they are folk & acoustic-- & maybe reference Celtic/British tradition more than American folk too. So not 'flashy' with pop hooks. But it doesn't matter. KE is a very fine guitarist too-- & the music flows beautifully-- with some understated help at times from a few other Chicago musicians. I think my favorite might be "Hansel and Gretel": here she somehow weaves wondering "how many years older they were when they came out of the forest" with her own reminiscence of being 'lost' in love & the confrontation of being together, apart, familiar and strange simultaneously: "When light strikes nothing familiar/There is no darkness so deep/no silence so heavy/As one broken only when strange voices speak./. . . Losing each other/There's no distance greater than a step or a breath away." "Careless" has a slightly more pop & country aspect, a rueful confession about how words can wound & change love so easily: "I'm an arrow it's true/With a gift for words/And I try to watch my every move/Still I've been careless, careless in every way." "Rain" is based on a true story of her father's childhood trying to tell other kids about rain who had never seen or felt it in Dust Bowl Oklahoma. There's a lot here-- one of those albums IMO beyond style or fad, just a troubadour with a guitar (& some fine accompanists at times) telling things as she sees it. That's enough IMO."