Dead Rekoning
Kieran Kane'sDead Reckoningis rooted in the acoustic simplicity and dark, knotty storytelling of pre-1960 country music. Kane wrote nine of the songs all by himself (no well-connected Music Row cowriters), and they seem cut from the same cloth as the two songs penned by Hank Williams Sr. and Buck Owens. All 11 arrangements leave lots of space around the world-weary vocals and the starkly sketched guitar lines as if the lyrics' open-ended possibilities needed room to develop. On the bouncy, Steve Earle-ish opening tune, for example, Kane sings of escaping the crime and pollution of "This Dirty Little Town," but his vocal bears a hint of fatalism, as if he knows he's not leaving any time soon. Kane gets help throughout the album from Emmylou Harris, Mike Henderson, and Lucinda Williams, but the focus is where it should be--on Kane's songs, which are strong enough to captivate the listener without a lot of fuss and clutter.--Geoffrey Himes