Consumer Guide Album

Thomas Anderson: Blues for the Flying Dutchman [Dutch East India, 1993]
Like most iambic story-songs, Anderson's yarns, plaints, and fables improve when they rock out a little. The putdowns of classy ex-girlfriends get annoying, but his old lit prof Larissa would seem to deserve every word, and from petroleum to Nash the Slash his historical conundrums make sense or no sense as the case may be. Most important, he rocks out like somebody who expected more than he got from Nash the Slash--and remembered it when he founded Angry Young Grad Student Music and opted for singer-songwriting. A−