FFWD Weekly
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CD Review by Mary-Lynn McEwen THE JAYHAWKS Smile Columbia · Bob Ezerin (The Wall) produces the Minnesota group’s sixth album. All the classic Jayhawks elements are here: carefully marinated songs, musical passages that reflect a lifetime of craftsmanship, vocals that you could wear on your sleeve, but still, somehow, parts of this album don’t work, don’t get under your skin the way 1997’s Sound of Lies did. At their best, when they leave the songs to breathe like newly opened wine, The Jayhawks too often let Ezerin’s wall of sound become a wash, a wash that crashes over the subtle and the serene with the same indifference that it tries to polish up a song that should never have made it onto tape. In good moments, this uneven effort has all the grace of The Jayhawks highest soaring peaks; in the bad ones, it sounds like time to call it quits. 3/5

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