Nearly 30 years after
the Flatlanders recorded their beautiful but ill-fated debut album, the trio of
Joe Ely,
Jimmie Dale Gilmore, and
Butch Hancock got together to give the fabled group another try on their second long-player, 2002's excellent
Now Again. A mere two years later,
the Flatlanders return with their third disc,
Wheels of Fortune, but there's a difference between getting the members of a band together in the studio and having a genuine reunion, and this album suggests the downside of this phenomenon. While a dozen of the 14 songs on
Now Again were collaborations between the three celebrated Texas songwriters, nearly all of the tunes on
Wheels of Fortune are credited to individual members of the group, with
Hancock offering the most and best new compositions, while
Gilmore's three offerings have all been recorded before. The performances on
Wheels of Fortune are solid throughout but sometimes a few notches short of inspired, and while
Hancock truly shines on this set (especially on "Baby Do You Love Me Still?" and "Eggs of Your Chickens"), both
Ely and
Gilmore have frankly been in better form on recent releases (though
Ely's sympathetic production earns him a few extra points). There isn't anything outwardly wrong with
Wheels of Fortune, which boasts solid craftsmanship from front to back, but while
Now Again sounded like a spirited collaboration between three unique but complementary talents, this album feels more like the work of three talented friends sharing some studio time -- the results are pleasing, but they fall noticeably short of what these guys are capable of.