AM - Am (CD)

All Music Guide

Say this for AM: the man comes by his lazy rootsrock sound honestly. Born in Oklahamo and raised in and around New Orleans, AM sings with a laidback drawl and writes songs that rarely rise above a moderate level of emotional intensity or a cruising, middleoftheroad tempo. Interestingly, his most obvious vocal referent is Ian McCullough try spinning "Playing the Game" for anyone over the age of 35 and ask them to guess the band, and I'll bet you good money they'll ask you which Echo the Bunnymen Bside it is. The album's feature single is "Mainstay", which features the program's most aggressive drums along with some really pretty 12string guitar and the album's only truly indelible hook. "City Syndrome" is also noteworthy, though, with its WeezermeetstheBeach Boys backing vocals and summer evening vibe. The album closes with the lovely, minimalist "Losing You". A year after AM's release in 2004, the label released a remix EP featuring "Mainstay" along with four drastic (and often aggressively techno) rearrangements of that song, along with a CDROM video track. It's worth picking up, but good luck finding it as of this writing, very few online outlets were offering it. (Try going direct to http://www.amsounds.com.)

- Rick Anderson, All Music Guide