Stephen Bruton | From the Five
New West Records, 2005
At first glance, I'm not the best man to review From the Five. As a writer for Unrestrained! and other, more obscure webzines, metal is the genre I've become most familiar with. I'll review punk, irritating experimental music and awful joke bands, but I usually never traipse into the folk or country genres as they're simply not in my sphere of interests. Stephen Bruton isn't exactly the sort of thing that someone like me would normally be interested in, but I have some interest in the sort of country music that Bruton plays. At worst, From the Five would make for a fairly entertaining rubbish review. I'd look like an utter tool reviewing the album, and the review would make me look more like an idiot than I already am. I couldn't look worse than some of the people already writing for Blogcritics, though, so I bit like Harry the Tuna and hit up Cary at conqueroo for the promo.
Fans of negative reviews (you know who you are) are going to have to look elsewhere for that rubbishing of From the Five. Try the Austin Chronicle.
From the Five is reminiscent of Randy Newman's musical and lyrical styles, considering both Bruton and Newman take prodigiously from the same field of Americana. Even for a "real country" virgin like me, From the Five has that introspective feel to it. Bruton sometimes steps into clichés on From the Five - "Walk By Faith" is a good example of a strung-together series of 'darkness into light'/'you must find strength' aphorisms. Bruton also has an uncanny ability to be an expert storyteller on songs like "Fading Man" and "Treasured Wounds." It's uncanny. It's maddening. Bruton can be at times expressive and vague. That's not an easy thing to accomplish in music.
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