It’s a simple, frustrating truth: Other artists have had better luck with David Olney’s songs than Olney has.
That’s not actually saying much. Linda Ronstadt recorded “Women Across The River” for her Feels Like Home album, and Emmylou Harris turned “Deeper Well” into an unsettling gem on Wrecking Ball. Those are just two of Olney’s songs, though, which leaves an awful lot of his material undiscovered by a wider audience.
He’s added to that catalogue with Migration, another album featuring vivid stories and intriguing characters. Olney sings from the perspective of a bird that lost its mate on “Lenora” and inhabits the psyche of a slightly cracked, love-obsessed magician on “My Lovely Assistant”, a low-key, calliope-style waltz that may involve carving up said helper with “razor-sharp daggers.”
In fact, ruminations about romance are everywhere on the record. “No One Knows What Love Is” intones the message of its title over a twangy, low-tuned guitar, while “All The Same To Me” is a gentle acoustic song that suggests just the opposite of its title is true.
Olney picks up an electric guitar on “Upside Down”, a rootsy stomp that wouldn’t sound out of place on a Tom Waits record. On Migration, though, it causes a departure from the kind of focus that has marked Olney’s finest records, such as Real Lies and Omar’s Blues. This one’s a migration, sure, but it’s not quite clear where Olney is going.
