Robert Christgau: Dean of American Rock Critics

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Son Volt

  • Trace [Warner Bros., 1995] C+
  • Straightaways [Warner Bros., 1997] Dud

Consumer Guide Reviews:

Trace [Warner Bros., 1995]
Finally the answer to a question that's plagued me for years. I'd pound my pillow at night, drift into revery at convocations on fun, plumb forget how my dick got into my hand, wondering why, why, why I could never give two shits about Uncle Tupelo. But the answer, my friends, was blowing in . . . no, I mean hopes "the wind takes your troubles away." Name's Jay Farrar, never met a detail he couldn't fuzz over with his achy breaky drawl and, er, evocative country-rock--and needn't trouble with the concrete at all now that that smart-ass Jeff Tweedy is Wilco over-and-out. In the unfathomable Tupelo, Tweedy whiled away the hours writing actual songs, leaving Farrar the drudgery of mourning an American past too atmospheric to translate into mere words. As sentimental as Darius Rucker himself, Farrar is only a set of pipes and a big fat heart away from convincing millions of sensitive guys that he evokes for them. C+

Straightaways [Warner Bros., 1997] Dud