Christian Kiefer - Dogs & Donkeys (CD)

All Music Guide

Following his albumlength collaboration with the more tradminded British folk singer Sharron Kraus, on which Christian Kiefer's characteristic hushed bedroomfolk material seemed slightly out of place, Dogs and Donkeys is a far more solid and assured set. Indeed, second track "Pretty White Clouds" may well be Kiefer's best song yet, a pianoled ballad with close harmony vocals that sounds like a dream cross between the Jayhawks and Neutral Milk Hotel. Guest spots by Low's Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker, Wilco's Nels Cline (whose startling entrance about three minutes into the centerpiece track "Economic Theory" is the album's musical high point) and, most impressively, the Band's Garth Hudson make plain Kiefer's expanded musical palette: this is his most musically rich and finely detailed effort yet. Five records into his career, Christian Kiefer has finally hit a musical stride that befits his always sharp lyrical focus; the trio of collaborations with Sparhawk and Parker ("Afterglow," "...Coronation Day" and "Stay") twothirds of the way into the album sound not like a Low record with a guest singer, but like an amalgam of all of the principals, showing that Kiefer has reached the point where he has a sound that transcends his influences. - Stewart Mason, All Music Guide Read more Less