Human Highway - Moody Motorcycle (CD)

All Music Guide

This is an eerily spacedout body of acousticbased music, by turns languid, lyrical, rootsy, and bracing, often in unexpected places. The actual singing is resplendant in Everly Brothersstyle harmonies, all transposed to a postpsychedelic setting that Don and Phil never embraced. Nick Thoburn and Jim Guthrie mix their voices in eerily lyrical fashion backed by lowwattage (or nowattage) instrumentation, doing songs of seem to speak to variant statesofmind and consciousness think of the Everlys tredding into the spacier Graham Nash/David Crosby territory circa 1970, but with a peculiar pop edge. The album opener "The Sound" recalls the tone of the Traveling Wilburys' "Handle With Care", in its goodnatured, gentle introductory vibe. They claim a strong debt to rb and doowop but that's a little hard to hear for the first third of the CD what is plainer throughout is that someone has finally delivered a followup to the Beach Boys' Friends album, dwelling on moments and sensibilities that s...lip past most of us in the normal course of a day. And in the course of plunging into those moments, Guthrie and Thoburn become funny as often as they are profound "What World" could almost pass for a sliceoflife vignette song by Lisa Kudrow's Phoebe Buffay on Friends. "Sleep Talking" finally gets us to a doowoplaced sound that's totally beguiling in this acoustic setting it leads us into the relatively highwattage titletrack, a rootsy rocker with a beat, a high hauntcount and a great break. And then, for the second half, it's back to what CSNY used to call "wooden music," on "My Beach", "Ode To Abner", "Pretty Hair" etc. The folkiest piece here is "Duties of a Lighthouse Keeper", the music of which makes this reviewer think of something that should have been written by thr late Stan Rogers. It all ends with "I Wish I Knew", on a serious note about communication and perceptions, which sums up the entire record. - Bruce Eder, All Music Guide Read more Less