Latest CD releases reviewed
NEAL CASAL
Leaving Traces: Songs 1994 - 2004 Fargo
****
This valuable retrospective provides two main opportunities. First, it prompts reflection on a career spent quietly building a rich and varied, if unspectacular, body of work. Second, it provides a handy short-cut to the cream of this excellent American singer-songwriter's output to date. The 18 tracks (early buyers get a bonus DVD, a booklet and a couple of extra tracks) neatly provide a map to Casal's varied journeys on the Americana road. These stretch from Neil Young-style loping rhythms and punishing guitar to introspective ballads and sweet acoustic picking, with many places in between. It is curiously undated music - it could have come from any time in the last 30 years - and the tracks don't flow as they would on a studio album, but Casal's honesty, craftsmanship and softly persuasive melodies form a winning combination. www.nealcasal.com
Joe Breen
TIFT MERRITT
Tambourine Mercury Records
****
It's all change on the Merritt agenda. Anybody hoping for a reprise of Bramble Rose, her enchanting, country-infused début, is in for a surprise. The North Carolinan has dispensed with her worthy but limited band and drafted in some heavyweights, including one Neal Casal, a couple of Heartbreakers, and producer George Drakoulias (Black Crowes, Jayhawks, etc). The result is a sassy, rocking, soul-filled, countryfied collection that seems quite content to go off in all sorts of southern directions, assured that Drakoulias's sharp production and Merritt's impressive singing will keep it all together. This they do, climaxing in the full-tilt Gospel of Shadow in the Way, having flirted with sex and romance in the previous 11 tracks. http://tiftmerritt.com
Joe Breen
