Inside the Thunder

The pervading mood on , 's first album in several years, is sadness. The title comes from a tribute to the late , who was once replaced by in the band . "It seems we never learned to play it slow," sings, "We just danced inside the thunder." But on the album, he seems to have learned finally to play it slow. These are deliberately paced songs with attractive arrangements, many of the instruments played by 's son , who also produced, engineered, mixed, and even mastered the record. sings them wistfully and with occasional touches of anger. His imagery has a traditional turn; the language often refers to nature (as often in a mystical as a realistic sense), monarchy, and rural work. In fact, the only really positive song on the album is a worker's reminiscence about bringing in the harvest on a farm. The rest of the time, things are not nearly so happy, although it often isn't exactly clear what's wrong. Now and then, a particular object of scorn is identified. In condemns "the media saints with their journalist jibe [whose] broadcasting taints almost the whole of their lives," and in he identifies some leader -- a king, a knight, a chosen one -- who has "a clever word to calm our fear," but is "laughing when we cannot hear." Even these are somewhat generalized villains, however, and elsewhere the source of the songs' sense of despair is even vaguer. Clearly, is aiming for a heightened, poetic impression, and he sometimes achieves it. At the same time, the music is never less than engaging. But by the end, although a mood has been established clearly, one wishes the reasons for it were equally transparent. ~ William Ruhlmann