Prepare Me Well
This potent Australian singer-songwriter and acoustic six-string virtuoso's North American debut isn't a typical blues, folk, or country album. Instead, Lang flits between styles, sometimes within the same number, employing pop-song melodies and unusual flourishes like backwards guitar, musical saw, and distorted bass. But any place Lang takes these 15 tunes, usually with his elegant and shivery fingerpicked slide playing at the fore, is rewarding. At times, as in the bluegrass-flavored "The Road is Not Your Only Friend," he evinces a beat-poetic sensibility similar to Chris Whitley's. There is also darkness in his work. In the folkloric "Ravenswood" Lang sings from the viewpoint of the Grim Reaper--an interesting contrast to his boyish voice. And when Lang grabs an electric guitar for the ode to lost love "Gina," he wails with the passion and the dirty sugar tone ofRust Never Sleeps-era Neil Young. With 10 years of recordings already under his belt, this estimable artist's arrival on these shores is both welcome and overdue.--Ted Drozdowski