He remains a remarkably keen observer of a world gone mad, of the average guy in extraordinary circumstances. Surreal work from a rare, enigmatic talent. Both are typically goofy spun in Ridgway's epic-struggle vividness. This guy is the harry Dean Stanton of rock, weird and prophetic, seer of visions and teller of tales, and the quiet kid in the corner drawing funny pictures in the margins. Stan Ridgway is a storyteller.
Songwriters are easier to pin down.
Songs are generally considered to include a high level of autobiography. So, Stan's songs are traditionally stories presumably sparked from real thoughts or incidents but wandering off into a myriad of other characters. But there's something a bit different about this, Ridgway's fourth solo album. There are still plenty of absorbing tales and weird and wonderul persons to cherish, but the personal is invading the album in a way that it has rarely done in Ridgway's work, and thus what has always been wonderful music acquires more depth, a new dimension. Black Diamond is like discovering a whole new room in your house that you didn't know was there, and what's more, the new room has windows giving you fresh and unexpected angles onto the garden and road outside, forcing you to reconsider that which you thought you knew inside out.