King of Prussia - Blood Rains Down On My Hometown
(Best Friend)
This is a good, solid debut, very reminiscent of the Tobin Sprout sweetness of Guided by Voices, but with bits of Atom and his Package quirkiness. Sam Henderson, another one man band, but assisted here by friends, combines poppy songs with bizarre, almost juvenile lyrics. Of the fifteen tracks, there are two that rob Blood Rains Down of its sensibility. I find that I keep wondering, however, that if these are the best that rose to the top of the 400 songs he recorded, what must the next CD be like, the one "tentatively titled Gentlemen, This is Going to be Expensive"?
I also, recently, had a discussion with a fakejazz writer about lyrics. He blathered on about how no one should pay any attention to lyrics, at least since Jackson Browne, (or was it Jackson 5?) Regardless, if you don't want comments on the lyrics, my holding is that you shouldn't include them in the artwork, no? (It was the biggest disappointment with that Cat Power CD, because not all lyrics are good. Maybe it would be better to just include the words for the songs of which you are inordinately proud? Then the ones that make us cringe or laugh, probably taken out of context, would just become a part of the music?)
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