Think back to 2001 and try to remember Max Hecker's first album.Remember how it teetered dangerously on the borderline of campybrilliance and revolting sappiness? Unfortunately, for his secondfull-length album, Hecker has fallen over the line, completely onto theside of sappiness. Gone are the edgy guitar distortions, swirlingcalliope-esque melodies and brilliant acoustic guitar fingerpicking.What we're left with is a weak collection of soft-rock rejects withwimpy guitar solos, not even edgy enough to earn rotation in hotelelevators. Sure, Hecker's crybaby falsetto voice was never rugged tobegin with, but the music now is unchallenging and the words areoverrepetitious and almost completely brainless. On Infinite Love Songs,words like "Hide your cheeks with dirt / come and wear my shirt," werejust an example off the top of my head of the somewhat attractivelybizarre word choices, while hearing "Hold me now / heal my wounds," inthe song "I am Falling Now" here is a perfect example of a pitiful messof a man of whom I have absolutely no sympathy for. The closest thealbum gets to the glorious marriage of chaos and order is probably theblurry noise in "My Friends," but the noisy section is haphazardlysandwiched by a MOR film theme-ish piano and synth melody. "My Love ForYou Is Insane," however, is a completely new direction in garbage witha revolting generic drum 'n bass loop and more whiny lyrics. PerhapsI'm just a snotty, jaded critic, but hints, subtlety, and abstractsurrealism gain far more ground with me in a pop framework thanunchallenging, overtly simplistic narrative prose. I guess what itboils down to is that I'm more keen on Tim Buckley than ChristopherCross.Read More
