Editorial Reviews
Music Review:
Music Review
Journey to the Centre of the Eye
Norman Krieger Performs Piano Masterpieces
Stay Fresh/Chevrolets [CD-single]
Tales From the Acoustic Planet
Pierre Boulez: Domaines - Ensemble Musique Vivante
The Best of Peggy Lee and Benny Goodman
Amazon.com
With his sixth studio album, the peripatetic songwriter sweetens his sound and his signature evocations of loss, memory, and melancholy. "As a child once," he sings with a vulnerability he's rarely shown, "I almost marked it all; it isn't gone." What he has marked and preserved is a devotion to his forever doubting soul (the record, like 2002's Impasse, was born out of a failed second marriage), to the inexhaustible power of language and subtle sonic invention. With pedal steel, accordion, and mostly acoustic guitars, the mood recalls his most accessible album, Bloomed, but the song structures flash and dart like the whirling sparklers of youth. And behind the implacable acoustic drone, the plangent melodies, the taut drumming (by ex-Butthole Surfer King Coffey), the brimstone lyricism, and his murmured growl, Buckner seems to smile at the wonder of life, love, and imagination. --Roy Kasten
Album Description
Buckner is one of the most heartfelt and honest songwriters you'll ever hear, and his first release on Merge (and sixth full-length) is a departure of sorts for this modern day troubadour. "Dents And Shells" adds some powerful elements with a few full band tracks framing Buckner's muscular lyrics and powerful voice. Following the storytelling and folk traditions of artists as diverse as Townes Van Zandt, Leonard Cohen, Nick Drake, and Richard Thompson, Buckner's latest approach will have fans listening closely.