From the End of Your Leash
I finally reached one of my goals for this website and got my first batch of free CDs for review, thanks to the good people at Bloodshot Records. Don’t think any less of my journalistic integrity if I wind up only writing positive reviews. I’ve long been a fan of the record label and its stable of clever and nervy alt.country artists. Perhaps the best record that I missed in 2004, “From the End of Your Leash” features the outsized sounds and ambitions of Bobby Bare Jr.’s Young Criminals’ Starvation League. A smart-ass songwriter in the finest Nashville tradition (his pop has dozens of Top 40 country hits to his credit), Bare Jr. is not afraid to let his masterful arrangements – complete with Stax horns and lovely harmony from Carey Kotsionis – compete with his frequently witty lyrics. “Hey, brother, could I borrow your girlfriend?” he asks in the […]