Devotion & Doubt
When he's on, Richard Buckner writes songs packed with little moments and giant emotions: the vow we couldn't keep, the look that says we're done, the snapshot that brings it crashing back. OnDevotion & Doubt, he's on about half the time, using his remarkably expressive voice (he sounds like an unselfconscious Dwight Yoakam) in great roots-rock story songs like the rollicking "A Goodbye Rye" or the bleary "4 A.M." Too much of the rest comes off as more poetry than lyric, however, as Buckner places his compelling but foggy images in atmospheric soundscapes that regularly disguise as much as they reveal.--David Cantwell