A Wasteland Companion

as reviewed by Mister Esquire.

neo-folky indie pop.
m. ward is the him half of she&him (which I love!), 1/4 of monsters of
folk (don't know).
but there's just something missing here.
zooey's here on a few tracks, but they are the weakest of the bunch.
there's a buncha cameos: howie gelb, steve shelly, dr. dog, blah blah
blah.
m. ward kinda reminds me of leonard cohen in the most poppy sense, but
he needs to smoke more cigarettes! initially,I wasn't gonna review
this.kinda boring. but it grew on me:the good tracks are great.
FCC CLEAN.
RIYL: leonard, big star, singy songwrity, et al.
MR. ESQ. SEZ: MEOW MEOW MEOW MEC-
(that's half an 'O')
PLAY THESE TRACKS: 1,2,3,8.

1. pretty acoustic ode to alex chilton. countryish
folk. could be flying burrito bros.
2. uptempo, britty poppy. zooey coos in bkgnd.
kinda reminds me of the members.
3. BEST TRACK II: starts slow and saddy, gets into rocking lil' pop
number. (feel the angst!)
4. cover of the daniel johnston tune. zooey alert.
5. cover of tune popularized by louis armstrong. lame, but...likable
enough. it's something they'd play in a teen sex comedy. (it's the prom,
and those kooky kids -m.&zooey- just wanna dance!)
6. boring acoustic bit. tries for big starism.
7. also boring. countryish.
(t.s. eliot is sneering in his grave.)
8. BEST TRACK: awesome! leonard lives!
ominous pop. countryish, gothic.
9. okay, time to go back to sleep.
10. piano! i like piano! (don't know if I like the song though. even
though I avoid descriptions of lyrics...'I was raised by a tribe of
vegas cowboys'...I am rolling around on the ground, laughing snot out of
my eyes right now!)
11. kinda nice, ethereal countryish shuffle.
12. boring boring boring
-the end-