1 Shampoo
2 Hey
3 Hours Last Stand
4 Heard Your Voice in Dresden
5 Send My Fond Regards to Lonelyville
6 I'll Be Arriving
7 Chains Chains Chains
8 Doomsday
9 1 2 3 Goodbye
10 How's Forever Been Baby

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EP in Dearland

 Album Rating: (4 of 5 stars)

Review Comments: Chains, Chains, Chains, and Doomsday are especially good songs and in general no bad songs on this CD. I am definitely glad that I bought this one!

When bad lyrics happen to good songs

 Album Rating: (2 of 5 stars)

Review Comments: How I wish I could love this album. Elvis Perkins writes melodies that draw you in, and the band plays beautifully. The music is richly orchestrated and the songs have a beguiling pop Americana feel. One serious problem: The willful obscurity and tin-eared quality of the lyrics is a complete downer.

The musically marvelous opener starts, "Sweep up little sweeper boy, it's you who's got the wig on," and gets denser as it continues. I like an inscrutable lyric as much as the next listener, if it somehow is poetically evocative even when not literally comprehensible.

But where's the charm in such hamfisted puns and clumsy verse as: "This is how they come to leave their lonelinesses weeks will pass in a Tennis match before she for him undresses for so long with no point for the distant Mister the Near Misses twill be love," or "We were happy in the bathtub in the abacus of the rains once upon a time we take our laughter to the Blackboard with a calculus of pain and with good news from the weather vein."

For me, the cringe factor of the lyrics is too high to permit relistening, leaving frustration that Perkins mars his fine music with such undisciplined writing.

I will recommend this album only to non-English speakers.

Pouring like an avalanche coming down the mountain

 Album Rating: (5 of 5 stars)

Review Comments: Just bought the mp3 of "shampoo" after hearing it on WERS. My new favorite song.

4.5 stars - AMAZING!!!

 Album Rating: (4 of 5 stars)

Review Comments: I love Elvis Perkins' music. I became a fan as soon as Ash Wednesday came out. And where that album faultered just a little, this one does not. The songs are amazing. The first two songs are two of the best songs to come out this year, "Shampoo" and "Hey." The first is a dark, moody song with a great melody and a Tom Pettyesqu harmonica solo. The second is an upbeat little ditty that sounds like a song M. Ward wishes he could write, no offense to M. Ward. I don't know if there is another album out this year that can rival this one in terms of the two opening songs...even into the third song, "Hours Last Stand." All these songs are amazing. Even when he gets into a long ballad type song with "Send My Fond Regards to Lonelyville", which clocks in at over 6 minutes, it's just flows along and it's over before you realize it. The album ends with the very bittersweet piano ballad, "How's Forever Been Baby" which I like to think is a song about lovers reuniting in a sort of post apocalyptic world and it kind of makes sense that it might be about this considering one of the songs preceeding this one is "Doomsday."

One of the best albums of the year.

Key Track: Hey

Solid Album

 Album Rating: (4 of 5 stars)

Review Comments: Elvis Perkins has pulled off quite a sonic transformation on `Elvis Perkins in Dearland', his new eponymous sophomore album. Whereas his solo debut, `Ash Wednesday' was a spare and often times maudlin affair, `Elvis Perkins in Dearland' seems almost joyful in its moroseness. `Elvis Perkins In Dearland' is a full band effort and this change seems to have added some energy and looseness to Elvis Perkins style. Elvis Perkins is now joined by touring band mates, Brigham Brough (upright bass, saxophone, vocals), Wyndham Boylan-Garnett (pump organ, guitar, harmonium, trombone, vocals), and Nick Kinsey (drums, percussion, banjo, clarinet, vocals).

Elvis Perkins still sings like an old soul but the full band effort more closely matches his cabaret style of performance. With songs that are rooted in darker moods and tones, the band is able to provide a fuller atmosphere than a lone acoustic guitar. Opener "Shampoo" benefits from this style with its Dylanesque harmonica and swampy keyboards that lurk in the background. The droning "Hours Last Stand" has an accented piano and organ that wonderfully complement the vocals as a drum beats out a lonely cadence.

Stylistically, `Elvis Perkins In Dearland' is all over the map. Outside influences play heavily on this album as traces of Dylan, Waits, and George Harrison can be found in various songs. There are shades of the former style that Elvis Perkins incorporated on "Ash Wednesday" notably on "Send My Fond Regards To Lonelyville" and "How's Forever Been My Baby." "Doomsday" sounds like a New Orleans funeral dirge while "123 Goodbye" is a reflective lament.

`Elvis Perkins In Dearland' demonstrates that Elvis Perkins is willing to experiment with his sound and that those experiments are also successfully rewarded.