Singer/songwriter Alex Lukashevsky has a decent gravelly voice and his tongue-in-cheek lyrics are frequently entertaining, which makes it all the more disappointing that these hints of potential go unfulfilled on this album.
Many of the tracks betray stilted songwriting, with changes that feel arbitrary. In addition, much of his guitar playing seems hesitant, and the vocal melodies frequently don’t go well with the music. He has a husky voice that’s often easy on the ears, but he sings in the same way so often on these tracks that even that asset becomes an irritation. Sometimes Lukashevsky adds other instruments to the mix, like a xylophone or a keyboard, yet these usually don’t contribute very much.
One of the better tracks is the odd cover of Verdi’s "La Donna È Mobile" with a fuller arrangement compared to Lukashevsky’s own material, but this song is out of place on a somewhat folky, guitar-based album. The other songs are slow in comparison, if not stagnant. About half-way through the disc, I started getting annoyed with his voice and couldn’t help but feel that a lot of these tracks are incomplete or rushed. "Terror of Compassion" is a decent acoustic white boy blues until Lukashevsky rhymes "compassion" with "passion," leaving the song little credibility. One of the more palatable tracks is "Butterknife Night" with its delicate windchimes adding a nice texture, but the effect is too undifferentiated and at almost nine minutes long loses its appeal. On "I Gotta Right," Lukashevsky sings, "I got a right/To sing the blues," but that doesn’t mean anyone needs to hear him do so.
He does have talent, but here it’s too unfocused to have much value.
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