Search - Melodrome :: The Sidewalk Ends

"The Sidewalk Ends" is packed with interesting and engaging work, from the spareness of the love song "Higher Ground" to the rap and tight syncopation of "Genepool." Melodrome remembers that even though the machines can cook up a lot of magic, the human voice, left to its own, as in the natural and lovely "Two Into One," can't be matched. In song after song Baier and company tease out appealing new sounds, rhythms and feelings. The retro "Sex, Cash & Fuel" has the spunk of an old James Gang song. "Love Replaces Love" is wonderfully spooky and strange. Overall, the disc is rich on atmospherics and invention, but not to excess. At its heart, "The Sidewalk Ends" is a round peg for the round hole of rock, even if it needs a bit of body English to slide it in. Like Beck, Baier shows an ability to masquerade as someone else, but do so with dead-on accuracy and credibility. It's a disguise, you know, but oh my, how well it fits.