Last of the Old Time
With a scraggy,Dylanesque voice, a predilection for unadorned lyrics and circular melodies, and a wit that is as artless as it is earnest, Chuck Brodsky's class of countrified folk-rock seems based entirely upon its ability to inspire nostalgia in its listeners.The Last of the Old Time, Brodsky's fourth outing, includes two of his trademark baseball yarns ("Gone to Heaven" and "Bonehead Merkle"), two charmingly frank political complaints ("Boys in the Back Room" and "He Came to Our Town"), and a slew of lively, Dobro-tinged anecdotes depicting only the most appealing aspects of rural American culture. The album's standout is its first track, "Take It Out Back," a rollicking swamp-rock rant that is at once a quirky portrait of hickdom and a stab at consumer culture.The Last of the Old Timeis an earful of good, old-fashioned baseball-and-apple-pie Americana.--Sally Weinbach