Damien Jurado
(Secretly Canadian)
As a songwriter, Damien Jurado can be a bit touch and go: When he's good, he's very, very good, but often there are cuts on Jurado's albums that just don't have the same vigor and beauty as his best material.
Jurado's new album opens with one of those vigor and beauty cuts, the simply fantastic "Gillian Was a Horse." The hook here is infectious and the song charges through the chords like Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere-era Crazy Horse. The Neil Young reference here is important because if there's one artist that Jurado might be compared to here it's Young. Jurado's not quite at the same level when it comes to Young's best material (but really who the hell is?) but the melodies and arrangements remind often of Young's mixture of fuzz and acoustic strum.
The best tracks on Caught In the Trees maintain Crazy Horse's emotional force. Where this album missteps a bit is in the sequencing. The center of the album consists of six slow tracks that stall the flow of the album considerably, to the extent that I found myself wanting to hit forward to skip onto the next track several times. Mixing those cuts up with the louder material might have made for a more balanced listening experience, or, perhaps even better, leaving a few of those slow cuts off to emphasize the better tracks, particularly since in this case those better tracks are really superb pieces of songwriting.
Standout Tracks: "Gillian Was a Horse," "Go First" CHRISTIAN KIEFER
