TIM O'REAGAN
Tim O'Reagan
Lost Highway/Universal
· Jayhawks man comes from behind the kit.
If you subscribe to the idea that The Beatles are a reference point for any musical movement (you probably subscribe to Mojo, too), George Harrison's 1970 triple All Things Must Pass has become shorthand for breathtaking potential outside the confines of a band. It is enough of an albatross that Scott Kannberg titled his first post-Pavement album All This Sounds Gas. After a beloved band's break up, wishful thinking supposes at least one splinter might fulfil lost possibilities. When the drummer does so, it's rare.
Jayhawks drummer Tim O'Reagan has anchored the Minneapolis alt-country mainstays since 1997. He has the comfort of having most of the Jayhawks joining him – not to mention his mom and dad – on his debut, but with O'Reagan tackling drums, guitars, bass, harmonica and vocals, Tim O'Reagan is largely his own affair.
In the album's best moments – like "Black & Blue" – it resembles the Jayhawks' greatest ’70s AM radio hits that never were, or the late Billy Cowsill's Blue Shadows, the Everly Brothers and the aforementioned Liverpudlians. O'Reagan is no distinctive lyricist, as song title "Girl/World" demonstrates, but "Ivy" uses simplicity evocatively and chiming instrumental "Ocaso Rosa" could soundtrack a long-lost documentary.
If The Beatles are a reference point for any musical movement, aspiring to the Rubber Soul folk-rock hybrid is still a worthwhile objective. O'Reagan offers his slight but enjoyable attempt here.
|
Copyright ©2006 FFWD. All rights reserved.