John Fullbright - Songs

Rating: 3/5

Review: 
OK but nothing special

I tried this album because I like Amy Speace's work very much and she and John Fullbright have collaborated quite a lot.  Sadly, though, I'm not very impressed with this solo album from Fullbright.

John Fullbright has a nice, slightly mournful voice and he can sing well.  He plays a decent guitar and piano, and the overall sound is quite pleasing.  However, I find his material pretty ordinary, to say the least.  The songs are perfectly OK...but nothing more.  It all sounds pretty generic to me, with nothing that really stands out either musically or lyrically, and I'm afraid I got rather bored after half a dozen songs when I first listened to the album.  Repeated listenings haven't really improved matters, I'm afraid, and I don't think I'll be going back to this much.

I'm sorry to be critical, but there is an awful lot of alt country/Americana around at the moment and for me this just fades into the background.  Recent albums from Eliza Gylkison , Kris Delmhorst and Mary Gauthier for example, show what really good songwriting in this genre is all about, and this album, although perfectly pleasant and acceptable, really isn't in anything like their league.

(I would also highly recommend Amy Speace's album How To Sleep In A Stormy Boat, which features John Fullbright on one track. )