Brady Seals - Thompson Street (CD)

All Music Guide

The scenario is familiar: Country singer/songwriter, after bowing to the dictates of Nashville and scoring major-label hits for a while, gives up the grind and records an independent-label album on which he discovers that, left to himself, he isn't a country singer/songwriter at all, but rather a roots rocker. Brady Seals was a country hitmaker as part of Little Texas in the early '90s and released two modestly selling country solo albums on Warner Bros. Records in 1997-1998. But Thompson Street, appearing four and a half years later on Image Entertainment, has no connection to country music at all. Rather, it is a collection of tracks on which electric guitars and 4/4 beats rule in arrangements suggesting that the artist has spent a lot of time listening to pop/rock music of the mid-'60s. Often, Seals seems to be at one remove from his influences, as, for example, "Things Have Gotta Change" (co-written with Rodney Crowell) sounds like Tom Petty trying to sound like the Byrds and "That...'s How It Goes" (co-written with former Jellyfish leader Andy Sturmer) sounds like Nilsson trying to sound like the Beatles. But "Soon" (another Crowell co-composition) and "Let Me Be Your Man" are direct knockoffs of the Beatles circa 1967. Over the derivative arrangements, Seals sings in a gruff voice of love gone wrong and love gone right, occasionally veering off into vaguely political ("Soon") or allegorical ("10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1") territory. The result is an engaging album of mainstream rock, but anyone looking for the old Brady Seals of Little Texas is advised to pass. - William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide Read more Less