Release Date: Apr 29, 2008
Genre(s): Alternative, Folk
Record label: Kemado
Music Critic Score
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With his high, nasally voice and predilection for warm country-inspired chords, it's easy to compare Langhorne Slim to Neil Young, but his tendency to sing long, run-on, and often non-rhyming sentences in fact puts him nearer to the Bob Dylan school of performance. Both comparisons, however, are a little too flattering for the Brooklyn-by-way-of-Pennsylvania folksinger, who, while he and his band do occasionally offer a rousing chorus or inspired line, more often falls a little short, trying to do too much with too little, overemphasizing when he should tone down, pulling back when he should push forward. Musically, the album draws from country, folk, and pop, with plenty of major chords and strummed acoustic guitar.
Sean Scolnick has one hell of a band behind him. Anybody who’s felt its force in a live setting can attest to that. But for as long as Scolnick (a.k.a. Langhorne Slim) has made the downtown-NYC rounds, his stage presence has been more impressive than his songcraft. The guitar-toting folk ….