Birmingham Road, Jeff Black’s 1998 solo debut, was a sprawling, ambitious affair with moments of glory, some stuff better left on the cutting room floor, and a feeling that the artist still casting about for a focus. This time out, Black has stripped away excess lyrical and instrumental baggage (even his thundering piano) and steered clear of the stridency that occasionally hobbled him before.
The result is a honed collection of ten acoustic/electric tracks, mostly recorded and mixed by Billy Sherrill, that find Black facing the big guns of love, life and death. He emerges, if not the victor, at least a wiser soul who’s learned to pick his battles.
Less inclined here to cast his reflections as narratives, Black relies instead on atmosphere and image to make his points. That’s too bad, because he’s a fine writer and teller of stories. His unhurried, conversational tone propels “Gold Heart Locket”, a tale of a drowning guy and the one true narrative on B-Sides And Confessions, to its inevitably tragic conclusion, even as Black’s banjo plinks jauntily along and we kid ourselves that a Hollywood ending is possible.
