Search - Son Volt :: American Central Dust

Steven B. (stevenmbell) from ONEKAMA, MI
Reviewed on 7/11/2009...

Finally Jay Farrar is on track and ready to battle it out with Wilco! Yes this album is that good!I was amazed listening to this disc.It's like Trace and Uncle tupleo in one disc.The writting is as good as Jay Farrar is capable of and he is a very capable artist.I knwe he had it in him,But I think he never knew he did.This is a definite Album of the Year contender.Thankyou for living up to My expepectations of yourself.I knew you were this good.

Jay, back in overalls

Garbageman | the other side of California | 07/09/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"First, I'd pay Jay Farrar a dollar if he quit hanging out with Mark Spencer, a guy who oversaturates every song with unnecessarily bombastic guitar or steel and who pretty much ruined the entire "Live in Seattle" album with freight-train-volume theatrics. Despite having the chops, he flat-out doesn't understand the "less is more" concept when it comes to accompaniment in stark, fragile songs like these. I'd venture to say that this album would have sounded even more Nebraskan (in a good way) if not for his presence, which is pretty obvious if you've ever seen Spencer jam with Farrar onstage. By contrast though is the underrated drumming of Dave Bryson, a guy who makes songs out of skeletons and doesn't need to overplay a thing (but when he does, as in the super fills in "When the Wheels Don't Move", it makes the entire song shake with a forlorn funkiness).



Nonetheless, this here's the "Son Volt" you remember back in the Sigma Kappa days, jamming to "Drown" at the beer bust, thinking you stumbled on the best band in America at midnight at Rocky's Pub somewhere in a beer-soaked room with everyone talking and five people playing music that sounded like a history lesson set to scratchy library Folkways records. Listen to the depth in "Down to the Wire", "No Turning Back", and "Pushed Too Far", three of the best songs to come out of Jay in years, and you're certain you had a nightmare that he tried to "go global" with a bad horn section and doctrinaire lyrics like "war is profit and profit is war". Fact is, this music is the relaxed, direct urgency we'd expect from a guy who has always been comfortable in this landscape, whose desire to "see the world" in other forms would always land him right back here anyway. Jay in a spacesuit didn't mean much to me; Jay in overalls does it every time.



Bonus points for the vibey song "Jukebox of Steel", with bold imagery to boot. It's his best sounding song since "Gather"."

They Still Have It

Vinson Smith | Mississippi | 07/12/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"After several listens, I am placing this record just after Straightaways in my "favorite Son Volt" list. Jay's songwriting is in top form, and they've stripped down the production a bit, which is not a bad thing in my book. My only wish is that they had one more growling rocker; however, the record is still excellent. All the comparisons with Wilco are pointless. Son Volt and Wilco are so far removed from each other now, if we didn't know Jay and Jeff were once in a band together, we wouldn't compare them at all. If you are a SV fan, or just like good rootsy music, don't hesitate and buy this one."