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CD Review: Lyle Lovett, “Natural Forces”
Lyle Lovett
‘Natural Forces’
(Lost Highway)
B-
For an artist whose career has been marked by class, consistency and control, “Natural Forces” is refreshingly haphazard, a scrapbook of sounds that have given up the search for a binding theme. The followup to 2007’s “It’s Not Big, It’s Large” is part “Step Inside This House,” with reverent covers of tunes by fellow Texas folkies Eric Taylor, Vince Bell, Tommy Elkses and, of course, Townes Van Zandt.
It’s got vintage poignant Lyle (“Empty Blue Shoes”), splashed on by naughty double entendres (“Pantry,” “Farmer Brown/ Chicken Reel”) and a co-write with Robert Earl Keen called “It’s Rock and Roll” that’s as trite as that sounds. The opening title track, meanwhile, sounds inspired by Bon Jovi’s “Wanted Dead or Alive.”
It’s as if Lovett, who went seven prime years (1996- 2003) without releasing an album of new material, still has writer’s block, but he’s making albums anyway. It doesn’t help that the singer’s once-pristine vocals sound thin and nasally at spots. And yet a late CD coupling of David Ball’s “Don’t You Think I Feel It Too” and Bell’s “Sun and Moon and Stars,” stirred by exquisite piano and violin, save the album and make the subsequent cover of Van Zandt’s “Loretta” sound more like the third part of a trilogy than a lazy remake.
Wrapping up this unfocussed package is an acoustic version of “Pantry” (co-written by Mrs. Lyle Lovett April Kimble) that’s sure to be a crowd-pleaser when it’s played at Bass Concert Hall Nov. 23. Putting out an album to have something to promote on tour seems low and away from Lovett’s wheelhouse, but “Natural Forces” definitely has its moments.
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By Graham
October 19, 2009 3:57 PM | Link to this
What I heard today was another great record from a true American master. Thank God for Lyle Lovett.